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.
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
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
