smoke one over Beltran's dead body. Soon.
'There will be blood.'
6. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 A.M. AND 11 A.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
Jack Bauer and Pete Malo prowled around in their SUV, trying to pick up Colonel Paz's trail. Pete drove, Jack riding shotgun in the passenger seat.
Valuable time was eaten up pursuing false leads. A complicating factor was that, as in any other major U.S. city, carjackings and auto thefts in New Orleans were a routine, round-the-clock daily occurrence. The number of incidents was spiking dramatically higher due to the approach of Hurricane Everette, which caused an already understaffed police force to be spread ever thinner, creating a climate of rising anarchy that encouraged the criminal element to take advantage of the opportunities it offered.
Jack and Pete crisscrossed the New Orleans area, receiving a steady stream of information and updates via their secure comm link with CTU Center across the river in Algiers.
No sooner had one new lead developed than it was quickly shot down. There were plenty of carjackings taking place, but they all turned out to be common, garden-variety auto thefts, none of which could be laid to Colonel Paz.
NOPD traffic cameras monitoring key intersections, squares, and thoroughfares for moving violations registered a blank when it came to sightings of the tan coupe stolen by Paz. The same went for cameras covering bridge approaches and entrance ramps to the major highways out of town.
Results: negative.
Jack said, 'I see a pattern here. Paz grabbed his first car within a few blocks of the Golden Pole in the heart of the city. His second car was stolen out in the boondocks. He knows what he's doing. He's moving away from the urban hub where surveillance is heaviest and out into the outlying districts where coverage is lightest.'
Pete nodded, his face glum. 'He may have switched cars again and the reports haven't reached us. Or he's in the same car but cruising along the outskirts where the cameras and the cops are few and far between. Or he's gone to ground and is laying low.'
Jack said, 'Looks like the trail's gone cold for now.'
The Garden District is one of the oldest and wealthiest neighborhoods in New Orleans, an opulent domain of palatial mansions and parklike estates. Located on high ground, it had escaped most of the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, and what damage could not be avoided had been quickly repaired and made right.
One of the most imposing and storied old homes in this historic area was Venable House, a majestic Neo- Georgian structure with a white-columned front and extensive, exquisitely landscaped gardens. Its grounds were bordered by an eight-foot-high, black iron spear fence.
Venable House now served as the site of the Venezuelan Consulate.
Because of its current owners' antagonistic stance in regard to the host country, the locale remained under constant surveillance by U.S. intelligence, most prominently by CTU and the FBI, who maintained a joint operation that used both human agents and electronic eavesdropping devices to keep a close watch on the consulate.
Observers now reported that the consulate had gone into maximum security lockdown. Word must have finally reached its occupants of the attack on Colonel Paz and the massacre at the Golden Pole. With Paz missing in action, command of the security sector devolved to his second-in-command, Major Delaparra.
Now the massive, motorized front gates accessing the long, curving driveway through a broad expanse of front lawn were closed and locked. A heavy-duty SUV was parked broadside just behind the gates, to serve as a further obstacle to deter and resist the onslaught of any car or truck bombs. The machine had to be moved to allow the passage of vehicles containing security teams, the only vehicles that were allowed to enter or exit the compound.
Normally there were two guards armed with sidearms on duty at the entrance.
That had been upped to a squad of six men, helmeted and flak-jacketed, armed with assault rifles.
Similarly equipped teams of guards had been posted at strategic points around the grounds, stationed so they commanded a 360-degree field of fire to engage intruders from any direction in which they might try to launch an assault.
The main building's ground-floor windows — already made of bulletproof glass — were sealed behind bombproof shutters. Except for security forces, all other consular personnel remained inside the building and out of sight.
That included the consul himself, Professor Gabriel Vargas Obregon, his wife, and daughters, all of them occupants of the mansion's luxurious living quarters, and all of whom had been at home at the time of the lockdown.
A plan was already in place to meet the threat of Hurricane Everette by concentrating diplomatic personnel and their families at the consulate and riding out the storm there, rather than evacuating them from the city. The building had its own generator and stocks of food and water. Since the consulate had weathered Katrina with minimal damage and disruption, it was felt that the precautions were adequate to survive whatever onslaught Everette could muster.
A more militarized, action-oriented version of that plan was now set in motion, as members of the consular staff who resided off-site in houses and apartments around the city were notified to lock themselves in and remain at home, where they would be picked up by security squads and delivered to the Garden District mansion.
A half-dozen armored limos similar to the one driven by Colonel Paz now conducted a ferry system, going abroad into the city to pick up staffers and their families and bring them back to the hardened strongpoint of the consulate.
Despite the home regime's official line of a socialist system without the preferments of caste and class, it was noticeable that off-premises staffers were secured and delivered to the mansion according to their rank in the diplomatic hierarchy. Those highest in the chain of command, assistants and deputies to the consul and such, were picked up first, then middle-level bureaucrats, and lastly clerks and secretaries.
Not only the consulate's physical but also its electronic security had been hardened. No phone messages, e- mails, cables, or faxes were allowed to go out or come in without being screened to protect against further, updated instructions being passed in either direction to potential traitors or double agents in on the conspiracy.
U.S. electronic intelligence — ELINT — devices detected a major increase in signal traffic going into and out of the consulate's core, shielded, top secret communications center. The communiques were scrambled and encoded. They were intercepted by National Security Agency 'big ear' devices and downloaded to NSA supercomputers for decrypting. Results would be transmitted to CTU as soon as available.
U.S. government agents posted throughout the surrounding neighborhood at all critical avenues of approach continued to file updated reports stating that no potential physical threat elements to the consulate had yet been detected.
The twin-chambered heart of the Venezuelan government's presence in New Orleans consisted of the consulate and the LAGO offices. LAGO was an overseas subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, the state oil company. Its offices were located in a skyscraper in the urban cluster of the downtown business district.
Like the consulate, the office building was itself a strongpoint, protected by LAGO's on-site security force, all of whose members had been personally selected and trained, and were under the command of Colonel Paz. Their leader's unexplained absence failed to affect the efficiency of the unit, which moved swiftly to defend the locale with a phalanx of cold-eyed, combat-ready troopers.
LAGO maintained a sizable staff of high-ranking executives, mid-level managers, and rank-and-file administrators. An operation similar to that which concentrated the diplomatic staff at the consulate site was conducted by the LAGO contingent.
It would have been impossible to succor the oil company personnel at the consulate; their numbers would have swamped the site's resources. Instead, LAGO staffers and their families were secured and delivered to the
