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.
Jack used the SUV's dashboard monitor screen to call up images of the utility truck's driver, the man called Herm. No identification of him had been made yet.
The screen pictured the only photos available of him, ones taken at death. He was a potato-headed individual with a lumpish face, meatball nose, and protuberant eyes that stared fixedly at some point on the other side of here.
Jack's eyes narrowed as he studied the dead man long and hard. When he finally looked up, his gaze was inward and faraway, his mouth a tight line with the corners turned down.
Pete said, 'Got something?'
'I thought I might — but no,' Jack said, shaking his head. Still, he couldn't let it go. 'I know I've seen that face before. Not a photo, either, but the man. I can't remember where or when, but I think it was several years back. But it just won't come together for me.
'I'll tell you this, though,' he went on, 'it wasn't in the States. I'm pretty sure about that. I'm thinking Europe… '
Not much to go on, but it was something, maybe a starting point. The more he thought about it, the more he thought there was something to it, that he had seen the other man in Europe sometime, somewhere, though the rest of it eluded him.
He contacted Center and passed along his thoughts on Herm. 'Sorry I can't come up with more than that, but maybe it'll come back to me.'
The Center operator replied, 'The photo's been distributed to Interpol and our West European allies.'
Jack said, 'Okay,' and signed off.
Center came back five minutes later. Jack and Pete were keyed up, waiting for the go-ahead, and the start of the incoming message caused them to involuntarily lunge forward in their seats, like a pair of racehorses eager to be off at the starting gate.
But the communique was related to a different matter. The operator said, 'Cal thought you'd want to see this.'
Streaming video filled the monitor screen with light and movement.
Center said, 'This was taken at a few minutes after seven this morning by a surveillance camera at the Shelton Street arcade, about an eighth of a mile from the Golden Pole club.'
Pete nodded, said, 'Sure, I know where that is.'
The footage was taken by a black-and-white camera, which meant that it was in shades of gray. The camera must have been wall-mounted about ten feet off the ground and was aimed downward at a forty-five-degree angle, depicting what appeared to be a tunnel enclosing a walkway. The tunnel was lit with a row of overhead electric lights, wan bulbs enclosed in wire-mesh screens whose light cast a web of spidery shadows along the arcade.
The trunnel's long sides were lined with storefront-type shops: a botanical selling herbal potions and remedies; a souvenir stand; a lingerie shop whose armless, limbless female mannequin torsos were adorned with sleazy lingerie; a surgical supply shop; and a palm-reading and fortunetelling parlor. The storefronts were closed, dark; some had metal security grilles in place.
At the far end, an archway opened on the bleak emptiness of early morning light.
The archway was filled by a figure stepping into view. The figure advanced, moving along the arcade toward the camera.
The scene was imaged not in real time but compressed, with one frame every few seconds, giving it a flickering, herky-jerky quality, like a sequence from an old-time silent movie.
The figure neared, resolving into a female figure. Outrageously female. Pete cracked, 'I can't place the face, but the body is familiar.'
The woman wore sunglasses and a light-colored scarf wrapped around her head, covering her hair. Her sharp-pointed face was worried, intent. She wore a sleeveless, one-piece dark dress whose hem reached to mid- thigh; her feet were shod in low-heeled sandals. She carried a handbag whose strap was slung across one
