might have misplaced the cell and fled without it, or she might have met with foul play and, like the phone itself, been switched off — perhaps permanently.
Until it was turned on, the cell was no more than a blind alley.
A copy of her phone records had been acquired by CTU; her incoming and outgoing calls were being analyzed to build up a profile of her contacts and associates, all of whom would be investigated as part of the ongoing search.
The Golden Pole and wider Bourbon Street area were monitored by a variety of private and official surveillance devices, including police traffic cameras mounted at key intersections, monitors posted at high-crime areas to discourage street prostitution and drug dealing, and security cameras serving as anti-theft devices at stores, shops, and parking lots.
Center was in the process of accessing the videotaped records of such cameras that were in operation at prime locations during the relevant time periods.
After being interviewed by Jack and Pete at the Golden Pole, Drake Shelburne, Dorinda, Francine, and Troy the bartender were escorted by CTU agents to the Center facility across the river in Algiers, for further and more extensive debriefing.
This was an application of the well-known fact that detaining in custody reluctant or hostile witnesses and persons of interest tended to wonderfully improve their memories and powers of recall.
The mill wheels were turning.
Thurlow J. Meade, forty-five, stood a few inches short of six feet and a few pounds short of the two hundred mark. He had a big gut but was still hard and strong. Even the gut, a kettle belly, was taut and solid.
He was a native of New Orleans, a lifelong denizen. He could take care of himself; he'd worked on the docks for all his adult life, and you didn't last on the waterfront if you couldn't stand the gaff. By some (including himself), he was regarded as a pretty tough character.
He was currently employed as a forklift operator in a riverside warehouse.
Normally the warehouse was open on Saturday, for a half day, from six A.M. till noon. Not today. Today it was closed, because of the threat from Hurricane Everette.
Meade was of two minds as to how to respond to the oncoming storm.
Several years back, at the last possible moment, he'd heeded his wife's urgings that they get out of New Orleans before Katrina hit. They'd been safely north on high ground, staying with relatives, when eighty percent of New Orleans had been submerged.
That was one narrowly escaped nightmare not to be soon forgotten, and went into the plus side of the scale weighing the benefits this time of staying or going.
On the staying side was the fact that since then, there had been no catastrophic storm. This season, the city had already escaped being struck by two imminent hurricanes that at the last minute veered off to make landfall somewhere else.
Both times Meade, his wife, and the family dog had piled into his pickup truck (the bed of which was laden with their belongings, wrapped in waterproof tarps) and taken it north, along with thousands of other evacuees fleeing the city. It had been no picnic, enduring endless traffic jams that took hours to travel miles, not to mention the hardship and discomfort of having to take refuge with their kinfolk. Who no matter how they tried to extend the welcome wagon, couldn't help but make Meade and family feel like poor relations.
Two false alarms in a row had Meade deciding this time on staying put and sticking it out. As Everette neared, his resolve began wavering.
The window of opportunity was closing; today, Saturday, was the last day on which to make good an escape from New Orleans. The last two trips, the worst he'd had to suffer was another 'damned, time-wasting, backbreaking inconvenience' of the type he'd swear was sending him to an early grave. But if he stuck, and Everette proved to be the real deal, well, then he'd be taking his and his family's lives into his hands.
Because New Orleans was in worse shape now than it had been before Katrina. The resources were less, and so were the reinforcements. The gangs were bigger, bolder, and more arrogant; violent crime and killings were way up; and one could only imagine the orgy of lawlessness and sadistic brutality that another major storm would evoke.
Early this Saturday morning, then, Meade had gotten into his car, a late model gray sedan, his pickup truck being in the process of being loaded yet again with the family possessions, such as they were.
His goal was a greasy spoon diner where he'd pick up some fried egg sandwiches and a couple of thermoses of coffee to fortify himself for the exodus. The diner was located on a little-traveled byway riverward of Bourbon Street. Meade left his wife still stowing some gear in the pickup while he headed downtown.
It was a little past six A.M. Meade had the air conditioner in his car on and the windows down. The air conditioner lacked the muscle to make a dent in this oily, seething, suffocating air. Sweat started from his every pore.
Driving along an approach to Bourbon, he halted for a red light. His car was second in line, sandwiched between a tan minivan ahead and a compact car behind.
He was muttering to himself about the heat and humidity and not paying attention when suddenly a figure loomed alongside him in the driver's side.
A glimmer of movement on his left came simultaneously with the driver's side door being yanked open. A hand reached in, grabbed Meade by the back of the neck, and hauled him bodily out of the car.
His car was idling in drive. With his foot now off the brake pedal, the machine rolled forward several feet before bumping hard into the bumper of the minivan in front of it, which was also halted for the red light. Metal and plastic crunched, glass broke, and Meade's car bumped to a stop.
Meade lay on the asphalt, dazed, winded, his elbows and knees scraped and his side and hip bruised. Shaking his head to clear it, he started to raise himself up on his elbows.
Before he could do more, a gun loomed in front of his face. And not just any gun. A monster gun, a mini- machine gun whose big-bore muzzle was staring him straight in the face.
The gun was in the hand of a medium-sized, stocky man whose head looked like a pineapple. A pineapple with red eyes. They were the only live, moving things in his rough-textured visage.
Most likely, he'd decided on the sedan because it looked faster than the minivan.
The minivan's driver started to get out to inspect the damage to his vehicle from the fender-bender, until he saw the man with the gun. He froze.
The gunman hopped into the driver's seat of the gray sedan. He threw the car into reverse, backing up hard into the car behind him, smashing the headlights and front grille of the latter and crumpling the rear of the sedan.
He was making room for his exit, pushing the car behind him backward. He executed a rubber-burning U-turn, wheeling across the yellow line into the opposite lane.
Meade got his feet under him, scrambling to get out of the way of his own stolen car coming at him.
The carjacker whipped the machine around 180 degrees. Tires yelped like a dog with a stepped-on tail as the gray sedan whipped around and headed away down the opposite side of the street.
It turned right at the next intersection, scooting around the corner and out of sight.
Such was the tale told by Meade himself, while he was being treated in the emergency room of a nearby hospital.
He'd been there for several hours already, in crowded corridors filled with screaming kids, groaning pain sufferers, and scared-looking loved ones, relatives, and friends. Doctors, nurses, and orderlies moved with purpose along the halls, flanking wheeled patient-laden stretchers along linoleum-floored corridors.
Hospital security guards (unarmed) grouped in clusters at strategic points along the halls; there were also uniformed NOPD cops stationed there to help enforce the peace in this time of prestorm jitters.
Several hundred miles from landfall, Everette was already racking up a casualty count. There were those who'd been injured during hurried preparations to escape, falling victim to stress or strain: cardiacs, panic attacks, even hernias induced by trying to tote too much away. Crimes of violence had spiked dramatically: shootings,
