Teeth of the Tiger

'Not our department. We provide information to others. What they do with it out of our sight is not for us to speculate upon.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' The remainder of the day looked as though it would be pretty dull after such a fast beginning.

* * *

Mohammed got the news over his computer — rather, he was told in code to call a cutout named Ayman Ghailani whose cell phone number he had committed to memory. For that purpose, he took a walk outside. You had to be careful using hotel phones. Once on the street, he walked to a park and sat down on a bench, with a pad and pen in his hand.

'Ayman, this is Mohammed. What is new?'

'Uda is dead,' the cutout reported somewhat breathlessly.

'What happened?' Mohammed asked.

'We're not sure. He fell near his office and was taken to the nearest hospital. He died there,' was the reply.

'He was not arrested, not killed by the Jews?'

'No, there is no report of that.'

'So, it was a natural death?'

'So it appears at this time.'

I wonder if he did the funds transfer before he left this life? Mohammed thought. 'I see…' He didn't, of course, but he had to fill the silence with some words. 'So, there is no reason to suspect foul play?'

'Not at this time, no. But when one of our people dies, one always—'

'Yes, I know, Ayman. One always suspects. Does his father know?'

'That is how I found out.'

His father will probably be glad to be rid of the wastrel, Mohammed thought. 'Who do we have to make sure of the cause of death?'

'Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali lives in London. Perhaps through a solicitor…?'

'Good idea. See that it is done.' A pause. 'Has anyone told the Emir?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'See to it.' It was a minor matter, but, even so, he was supposed to know everything.

'I shall,' Ayman promised.

'Very well. That is all, then.' And Mohammed thumbed the kill button on his cell phone.

He was back in Vienna. He liked the city. For one thing, they'd handled the Jews here once, and many Viennese managed to control their regrets over it. For another, it was a good place to be a man with money. Fine restaurants staffed by people who knew the value of skilled service to their betters. The former imperial city had a lot of cultural history to appreciate when he was of a mind to be a tourist, which happened more often than one might imagine. Mohammed found that he often did his best thinking when looking at something of no importance to his work. Today, an art museum, perhaps. He'd let Ayman do the scut work for now. A London solicitor would root about for information surrounding Uda's death, and, being a good mercenary, he'd let them know of anything untoward. But sometimes people simply died. It was the hand of Allah, which was not something easily understood, and never predicted.

* * *

Or maybe not so dull. NSA cross-decked some new message traffic after lunch. Jack did some mental arithmetic and decided it was evening on the other side of the pond. The electronic weenies of the Italian Carabinieri — their federal police, who walked about in rather spiffy uniforms — had made some intercepts, which they'd forwarded to the U.S. Embassy in Rome, and which had gone right up on the satellite to Fort Belvoir — the main East Coast downlink. Somebody named Mohammed had called somebody named Ayman — they knew this from the recorded conversation, which had also mentioned the death of Uda bin Sali, which had caused an electronic 'Bingo' on various computers, flagging it for a signals-intelligence analyst, and causing the embassy puke to squirt the bird.

''Has anyone told the Emir?' Who the hell is the Emir?' Jack asked.

'That's a nobleman's title, like a duke or something,' Wills answered. 'What's the context?'

'Here.' Jack handed a printed sheet across.

'That looks interesting.' Wills turned and queried his computer for EMIR, and got only one reference. 'According to this, it's a name or title that cropped up about a year ago in a tapped conversation, context uncertain, and nothing significant since. The Agency thinks it's probably shorthand for a medium-sized hitter in their organization.'

'In this context, looks bigger than that to me,' Jack thought aloud.

'Maybe,' Tony conceded. 'There's a lot about these guys that we don't know yet. Langley will probably write it off to somebody in a supervisory position. That's what I would do,' he concluded, but not confidently.

'We have anybody on staff who knows Arabic?'

'Two guys who speak the language — from the Monterey school — but no experts on the culture, no.'

'I think it's worth a look.'

'Then write it up and we'll see what they think. Langley has a bunch of mind readers, and some of them are pretty good.'

'Mohammed is the most senior guy we know in this outfit. Here, he's referring to somebody senior to himself. That is something we need to check out,' the younger Ryan pronounced with all the power he possessed.

For his part, Wills knew that his roomie was right. He'd also just implicitly identified the biggest problem in the intelligence business. Too much data, too little analytical time. The best play would be to fake an inquiry to CIA from NSA and to NSA from CIA, asking for some thoughts on this particular issue. But they had to be careful with that. Requests for data happened a million times a day, and, due to the volume, they were never, ever checked — the comm link was secure, after all, wasn't it? But asking for time from analysts could too easily result in a telephone call, which required both a number and a person to pick up the phone. That could lead to a leak, and leaks were the single thing The Campus could not afford. And so, inquiries of this kind went to the top floor. Maybe twice a year. The Campus was a parasite on the body of the intelligence community. Such creatures were not supposed to have a mouth for speaking, but only for sucking blood.

'Write your ideas up for Rick Bell, and he'll discuss it with the Senator,' Wills advised.

'Great,' Jack grumbled. He hadn't learned patience yet. More to the point, he hadn't learned much about bureaucracies. Even The Campus had one. The funny thing was that if he'd been a midlevel analyst at Langley, he could have picked up a phone, dialed a number, and talked to the right person for an expert opinion, or something close to it. But this wasn't Langley. CIA was actually pretty good about obtaining and processing information. It was doing something effective with it that constantly befuddled the government agency. Jack wrote up his request and the reasons for it, wondering what would result.

* * *

The Emir took the news calmly. Uda had been a useful underling, but not an important one. He had many sources of money for his operations. He was tall for his ethnicity, not particularly handsome, with a Semitic nose and olive skin. His family was distinguished and very wealthy, though his brothers — he had nine — controlled most of the family money. His home in Riyadh was large and comfortable, but not a palace. Those he left to the Royal Family, whose numerous princelings paraded about as though each of them were the king of this land and protector of the Holy Places. The Royal Family, whose members he knew well, were objects of silent contempt for him, but his emotions were something buried within his soul.

In his youth, he'd been more demonstrative. He'd come to Islam in his early teens, inspired by a very conservative imam whose preachings had eventually gotten him into trouble, but who had inspired a raft of followers and spiritual children. The Emir was merely the cleverest of the lot. He, too, had spoken his mind, and as a result been sent off to England for his education — really to get him out of the country — but in England, in addition to learning the ways of the world, he'd been exposed to something entirely alien. Freedom of speech and expression. In London, it is mostly celebrated at Hyde Park Corner, a tradition of spleen venting that dates back hundred of years, sort of a safety valve for the British population, and which, like a safety value, merely vents troublesome thoughts into the air without letting them take much hold anywhere. Had he gone to America, it would