Page 96 of Into the Gray Zone

I looked at my watch, saw it was almost 1700, which meant it was almost 0730 in DC. This was the third time the meeting had been delayed. Luckily, the first one had been canceled because Kerry wasn’t available due to him getting us out of RAW custody after the bodyguard had been murdered, but the rescheduled meeting had been delayed twice. Earlier, it was just supposed to be the principals of the Oversight Council, but I guess POTUS figured he wanted in.

I said, “I’ll bet they delayed the other ones because the Council didn’t want to get out of bed. They keep this up and we’ll never get authority to do anything.”

I expected concurrence from Knuckles, and was a little surprised he wasn’t losing his temper over the delays, given Nadia’s predicament. Instead, he said, “Might be better to wait a little bit.”

“Why?”

Brett turned around and said, “I’m on with Creed. He got something out of that phone Jennifer took.”

Now interested, I said, “What? Something we can execute?”

“Not yet. He’s downloaded all the phone data and cross-checked it, creating a data constellation of every phone that handset has contacted in the last week.”

“What good will that do? We don’t know the terrorist numbers, so we have no idea which one to focus on.”

“Yeah, that’s true, and all of the numbers were Indian, but there was an anomaly: one handset was Chinese.”

“Wait, are you saying it called a Chinese phone number?”

“I wish. No. The IMSI was Indian, but the IMEI was from a Chinese phone.”

He sounded like he was speaking Greek, but it was actually pretty simple. The international mobile subscriber identity—the IMSI—was basically the phone number of the handset and was used by the telecoms to know how to route calls. That number could be changed simply by swapping out SIM cards, like one could do to save roaming charges when traveling to a foreign country. The international mobile equipment identity—or IMEI—was the number permanently assigned to the handset, and it detailed the make, model, and origin of the equipment. What he was saying was the phone number was Indian—because of an Indian SIM card—but the handset was Chinese.

That still didn’t give me any great confidence of a breakthrough, since India was right next to China.

I said, “Why does that matter? There are probably millions of Chinese-made phones in this country. Hell, I’ll bet the majority of phones here are Chinese.”

“Creed’s one step ahead of you. He’s already done the research and he agrees with you, but most of the Chinese phones here are affordable, bottom-basement knockoffs of iPhones or Galaxy handsets. This one is an expensive handset only sold in China, and it’s touched the Chinese telecom system. Whoever has that cell phone has talked to China.”

Nowthatwas interesting. I said, “Do we know who he contacted in China?”

“Not specifically, but Creed says that the IMEI serial number of that handset is registered to a Chinese conglomerate that ostensibly invests in mining interests here in India.”

Jennifer said, “So it could just be a businessman here in India. He’d naturally call China, and he’d naturally be involved with Riva Thakkar.”

Knuckles said, “Yeah, okay, we’re trying to get Riva Thakkar to invest in a rare earth element mine here in India, and this Chinese mining guy is talking to Thakkar’s security? The one who tried to kill Thakkar? Not likely.”

I said, “I agree. More likely that company is an MSS front, and this guy is trying to take out Thakkar to prevent the mine.”

Veep, staring at his screen, held up his left hand, the right one still in a sling, and said, “We have a geolocation.”

He turned around and said, “It’s here, in Jaipur.”

That’s it.

I said, “Where?”

“Hang on. Trying to get fidelity. Creed’s building the map.”

We all gathered around the laptop and saw a blue icon on a blank screen, then the map began to draw itself. First a satellite image from high in space, then zooming in to an overlay of what appeared to be terrain features of streams and hills. Streets began sprouting like vines, the blue dot remaining steady, until finally shaded squares of buildings appeared, the blue dot centered over one.

I said, “Where is that?”

Veep moved the cursor over the building, and it said, “Hilton Jaipur.”

I turned to Jennifer and said, “Map that from here.” I went back to Veep, saying, “Is this real time, or historical?”

“It’s historical, but it’s from this morning.”

---