He unlocked the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk. In it were a gun and some boxes of ammo. The weapon was a short, snouty .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol, graphite-colored steel with dark inset walnut grips. It held a full clip, but the chamber was empty.
It was legal; he had a permit for it. Also a permit to carry a concealed weapon, obtained on the basis of his being the manager of a company that frequently required him to carry large sums of money. Ordinarily he rarely went about armed.
"Ah, well, there's no end for it but to follow orders," he told himself. Sighing, he slipped the weapon into the right side pocket of his sport jacket, then winced; the weighty pistol tended to ruin the linings of his pockets.
He closed the laptop, toted it back to the filing cabinet, and placed it in the top drawer. He closed the drawer, the lock clicking into place, and gave the combination dial a spin for further security.
Now to notify the rest of the cell of the change in status...
* * *
Something nagged at him, irritating him for no discernible reason and setting his teeth on edge, even more than they already were from the devastating new developments.
Whatever was bothering him was somewhere below the threshold of consciousness, and he couldn't put a finger on what it was, irking him all the more.
Suddenly awareness came and he realized what it was. The source of his annoyance was external, it was in the air all around him, and must have been so for several moments.
It was a tune, a mindlessly simple, catchy little tune that was being played repeatedly on some kind of electronically amplified, computerized music maker.
It came from outside, from the front of the building. His window was closed, the air conditioner was on, but the music still came through, loud and clear, maddening in its infantile simplicity and mind-numbing repetition.
It was that old folk song "La Cucaracha," rendered in the idiotically simplest, piping electronic tones.
Crossing to the window, he fingered open two slats of the Venetian blinds and peered between them, looking out through the glass.
The music came from a loudspeaker mounted on a lunch wagon parked at the curb in front of the building. An old, beat-up vehicle with a cab up front and quilted metal box behind. The box's side panels were hinged to open up and outward, revealing shelves stocked with plastic-wrapped sandwiches, coffee, soft drinks, buttered rolls, bags of potato chips and pretzels, and other quick snack foods.
It was what some of the men working in the back of the building jokingly called a "roach coach," although they patronized it religiously as it made its daily stops at the hat company.
A familiar sight, an icon, operated by Tio Rico, an oldster and well-known neighborhood character. He'd been doing business in the neighborhood for years, as far back as Monatero could remember. Supremo Hat was one of his regular stops, twice a day, six days a week. Regular as clockwork — had he ever missed a day?
The music was his way of announcing his arrival, just as ice cream vendors play similar ditties to advertise their presence and attract the kiddies to their truck.
Monatero had never before realized how annoying such music could be. It worked on his nerves like a dentist's drill. The mechanical, moronic repetition of the tune, reduced to its simplest elements, was maddening.
Or maybe it was the same as always, and it was he, Monatero, who was different, twitchy with a skinful of adrenaline and a skein of tautly strung nerves.
Letting the blinds fall shut, he turned and crossed to the outer office of his door. Beyond it, he heard the sound of voices, laughter.
He opened the door, stepping into the showroom. His nostrils tasted the mixed scents of hot coffee and fresh-baked goods. They arose from a thin cardboard box on Mrs. Ybarra's desktop, her workstation and reception area being placed just outside Monatero's inner office. She sat behind her desk, chatting with Tio Rico, the aged deliveryman and vendor who'd brought the snacks.
Tio Rico — "Uncle Rico" — was a little old man, balding, clean-shaven, deeply tanned, with white eyebrows and bright brown eyes. He wore a stingy-brim straw hat, button-down short-sleeved shirt over baggy khaki trousers, and a pair of blue-canvas, rubber-soled deck shoes.
Joaquin stood nearby. A veteran protector, competent, dangerous, he was the showroom's doorkeeper and security guard. A big man with a big gun worn beneath his white-on-white guayabera short-sleeved shirt, worn loose outside his pants and not tucked in. A professional, good at what he did, but as yet unaware that the cell had moved into the danger zone. He was focused on the good eats that Tio Rico had brought into the showroom.
Tio's face lit up when he laid eyes on Monatero. His head bobbed, nodding respectfully. "Good morning, senor."
"Good morning to you, Uncle," Monatero said. No kinship existed between the two. Everybody called old Rico uncle. Monatero said, "Is it snack time already? I must have lost track of the hour."
Tio executed more head bobbing and smiling. "That is because you work so hard, senor."
The coffee and baked goods did smell good, Monatero realized. He was aware of a hollowness in his belly as appetite began supplanting angst.
Joaquin unconsciously smacked his lips. He held back, as did Mrs. Ybarra; protocol dictated that Monatero make his selection first, then the others could follow.
Tio indicated the box of goodies. "Fresh-baked crullers for you, as always, senor." Monatero thanked the old man.
Inhaling deeply, Mrs. Ybarra said, "That coffee smells heavenly, Tio."
"Just the way you like it, senora. Con leche and sweet, sweet like you."
Monatero had other things on his mind than passing the time of day with the oldster. Tio Rico was the type to stand around and gab for five or ten minutes, if given the least sign of encouragement.
Monatero suppressed the urge to be curt and peremptory, maintaining his smooth front. "You'll have to forgive me, Uncle; I'm in a bit of a hurry today. A special order that must be filled immediately... "
Mrs. Ybarra glanced at Monatero, her facial expression blandly composed but her dark-eyed gaze alert, intent.
One thing about Tio, he could take a hint. "Yes, of course, senor, you are a very busy man; I won't take up an instant more of your valuable time."
Monatero pulled out his billfold and paid the man. Tio made a show of reaching into his pocket to make change, only to have the other wave off the effort. "For you, Uncle."
Tio protested, "No, I can't, senor, it's too much... "
"Please." Monatero held up a hand, indicating the matter was at an end.
"You're too generous, senor! And very kind. I thank you," Tio said. He thanked Mrs. Ybarra and Joaquin, too. He all but bowed his way out of the showroom backward, like a courtier making his withdrawal from the royal presence.
He exited, crossing the pavement to his truck, scuttling along bent forward, but surprisingly nimble for a man of his years. Scooting around the front, he got behind the wheel and started up the engine, rounding the corner and making for the parking lot behind the building, to vend his wares to the workroom crew.
Joaquin was gobbling a donut, while his other hand held in reserve a fistful of sandwiches. He could finish one off in a couple of bites, and needed several to satisfy his snack time appetite.
Monatero's face was frozen in the blandly beneficent smile he'd plastered on it for his dealings with the old man, but behind it, he was now all business. He told Joaquin, "When you finish stuffing your face, you can start doing your job. We're on a red alert — maximum security."
Joaquin went on chewing, but without savor. Mechanically. His mouth full, he said, "Who is it? The gringos? Is it the gringos? I always knew it would be them, in the end... "
Monatero said, "It's not the gringos, it's the Cousins." The Cousins was Havana-speak for the Venezuelans.
"The Cousins!" Joaquin echoed. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised. I always knew it would come to a falling-out. That Paz is a thug, a crook. He serves the revolution only as it
serves himself. When the two conflict, the revolution goes out the window."
He gestured toward the rear of the building. "What of the others? Have they been told?"
"Not yet. Let them get their bellies full of Tio's snacks. It may be the last regular meal they get for some time," Monatero said. "Besides, we don't want to tip our hand. The Cousins may or may not know we're aware of their intentions. In either case, we must act as if we're not. That means carrying on as we ordinarily do, business as usual. No break from the pattern. To get the wind up now, when Tio is here to see them, would be a mistake. When the men are back inside, where no outsiders can see them, we'll tell them. Not before."
Joaquin frowned, his low forehead corrugating. "What if the Cousins strike now, before we're ready?"
"We'll just have to count on you holding them off," Monatero said, clapping the other on his broad back. He felt better now, in command. Almost merry. Joaquin's worry had helped restore some of his own confidence.
"I'll feel secure, knowing that you're here to take a bullet for us, Joaquin, to make the supreme sacrifice. I should say, the Supremo sacrifice, eh? Ha-ha."
Monatero smiled, the grin failing to reach his eyes.
7
THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 11 A.M. AND 12 P.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
De Lesseps Plaza, New Orleans
There was movement above, high over New Orleans. Earlier, the sky bowl had been roofed by a smooth, unbroken cloud covering, a solid gray dome stretching from horizon to horizon.
Now the dead calm of that milky cataract was giving way, replaced by streaming masses of low, dark, ominous storm clouds. Heavy, moisture-laden, they rushed north in advance of Hurricane Everette, churning its way across the Gulf, landward bound. With them came rising winds, intermittently at first, beginning to sweep across the river and through the cityscape.
The sky ceiling lowered, the bottoms of charcoal-gray clouds grazing the tips of spires of skyscrapers in the central business district where Jack Bauer and Pete Malo kept vigil of the LAGO stronghold.
The agents were in their SUV, which stood parked facing the southeast corner of De Lesseps Plaza, where the Venezuelan oil company had its headquarters.
When New Orleans boosters issued promotional material designed to attract out-of-state investors, they focused on the midtown business district to convey the impression that the city was a state-of-the-art hub of industry and commerce, a world-class economic powerhouse.
Here was a citadel reared by the region's fiscal titans, a concentration of banking, shipping, and energy interests, embodied in a breathtaking cluster of sparkling, modernistic steel and glass towers. A showcase of the complex was De Lesseps Plaza, a sprawling site taking up several city blocks, a lofty mass of office buildings housing rich and powerful corporations, cartels, and global conglomerates.
Among the mighty was LAGO Corporation, an offshoot of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Awash in petro-wealth, it had bought outright the office tower that housed its corporate facilities.
It was in the vicinity of that building where Jack Bauer and Pete Malo now kept vigil, waiting for some inside word regarding the whereabouts of one of LAGO's key players, Raoul Garros.
Garros was a person of interest for many reasons, such as his key role as company emissary to the New Orleans business community in particular and U.S. financial interests in general; his close personal and professional association with Colonel Paz; his engagement to Susan Keehan of the powerful and potent Keehan political dynasty; and, most pointedly, his recent liaison with exotic dancer and Paz paramour Vikki Valence.
LAGO Tower was a prime target of U.S. intelligence, which ran heavy surveillance on it inside and out, but it was a tough nut to crack. Its security system had been overseen by Colonel Paz, whose paranoid suspiciousness and instinct for treachery had caused the installation of a variety of internal security mechanisms, human and electronic, designed to thwart U.S. spy probes.
Now, in the aftermath of the botched hit on Paz and his having dropped off the radar, the defensive system he had masterminded had gone into hyper drive, causing the Venezuelan Consulate and LAGO Tower to go into their maximum security mode.
CTU had a special source, an insider planted deep in the heart of LAGO's labyrinthine corporate maze. Jack and Pete were waiting for an update from that source before making their next move. They weren't just posted there in the SUV killing time, hoping that something would come in. It wasn't a case of sitting by the fishing hole, hoping that maybe they'd get a bite. This wasn't fishing; it was hunting.
Just as LAGO Tower had its ultrahardened, maximum security mode to fall back on in a crisis like this, CTU had a plan in place to defeat that system. Jack and Pete were waiting for it to kick in.
As top field man of the local CTU Center, Pete had the inside information on the LAGO leak and was explaining it to Jack. He said, "We've got a confidential informant placed high in the corporate hierarchy, basically right up there in the executive suite with Garros.
"It's a CTU asset, nobody else knows about it, not the FBI or NSA or any of the other agencies keeping an eye on that spies' den. No need to go into the identity of that source here. Let's just say that it's a good one, ideally placed to know Garros's comings and goings."
Jack nodded, taking for granted Pete's lack of disclosure of the source's identity. Compartmentalization was the ultimate safeguard of any intelligence service. You can't betray a secret you don't know. At this point in the investigation, Jack had no need to know the name of the LAGO source. Later on, if for some reason Jack thought it necessary for him to have that information to facilitate the hunt, CTU Center Director Cal Randolph would rule on whether to put him in the loop. It was Cal's asset and his call. Cal might decide to continue withholding the information. If Jack really wanted to push it, there was an appeals mechanism in place, but it would be an extraordinary step for him to take, and he would really have to make a case to justify the request, the final ruling on which would be made by the Director at CTU Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Who knew? It was quite possible that Pete Malo was unaware of the source's identity, too, and that his knowledge extended only to the fact that such a source did exist.
Pete went on, "The current lockdown compounds the difficulty of our source getting the intelligence to us. Because of the attack on Paz, the Venezuelans are bringing their people in. The consular staff is being collected at the Garden District site, while the LAGO crowd is being brought into the Tower.
"Those folks already inside are prohibited from leaving, so that quashes any chance of our source making physical contact with a CTU agent to deliver an oral or written message. As for electronic messaging, forget it. All telephones, fax machines, and computers, all landline communications devices in the LAGO offices are centralized, channeled to go through one tightly controlled exit port which is constantly monitored by Paz's security staff."
Jack said, "What about wireless — cell phones and text messages?"
Pete's expression was half grin, half grimace. "That's covered, too. Installed in the office areas are jamming machines, hardware designed to make such wireless devices inoperable. The technology's similar to the kind used in some live theaters and concert halls, to prevent audience members' cell phones from going off in the middle of a performance.
"As a final stopgap, the Tower's windows are sealed shut and can't be opened by anything short of a crowbar, preventing our source from writing a note on a paper plane and sailing it out the window down to the ground level where one of our people could pick it up."
Jack said, "So what's the gimmick? There must be one, or we wouldn't be sitting here right now, waiting for the go-ahead. Or is that a state secret, too?"
"Sure, there's an angle," Pete said, "an old gag, and one about as low-tech as you can get. We've got an observation post in a building on the opposite side of the plaza, in an upper floor facing LAGO Tower. The room's about the same height as LAGO's
executive offices, give or take a floor. Inside, there's a spotter with a camera with a telescopic lens focused on the Tower.
"When the information comes through, our source inside LAGO goes to the window and looks out, facing the building where our OP is. Nothing suspicious there, what could be more natural than looking out the window, especially now, with a storm coming?
"Our source silently mouths the information, saying it without speaking aloud. It's picked up and filmed by our spotter's long-lens camera. The footage is transmitted to Center, where it's examined by an expert lip-reader. The lip-reader interprets the message and Center passes it along to us."
Jack was suitably impressed. "A lip-reader! That's quite an angle, all right."
"Sneaky as hell, that's us," Pete said, trying not to sound smug and failing.
Jack said, "Now all we need is the info."
"Well, yes, there's that," Pete conceded.
* * *
Several minutes passed, then the comm system came alive with a message from Center. Not the go-ahead that the two agents were waiting for, but rather an update on the utility truck that had been used in the try on Paz.
An operator at Center reported, "The truck was stolen sometime last night from a power company motor pool. It wasn't missed until this morning — in fact, they didn't know it was gone until we called to check on it."
Jack said, "Any leads there? Any surveillance cameras that might have caught something?"
"Negative," came the reply. "It's not that kind of setup. It's a big lot with a hundred or more trucks parked there at any one time, with vehicles driving in and out at all hours of the night and day. Whoever took it must have had the paperwork to drive it off the lot without attracting suspicion, but security's none too tight there to begin with. The only records are logs kept of the vehicles coming in and going out. We've got somebody down there examining the files. Maybe something will turn up."
"Or maybe not," Pete said, after Center had signed off.
24 Declassified: 07 - Storm Force Page 12
