24 Declassified: Storm Force 2d-7

by David S. Jacobs

  "Yes, you've made that abundantly clear," Molineux said, sniffing. He was the president of the bank; nothing less would do when it came to dealing with Susan Keehan.

  He said, "However, there are certain procedures for accessing the funds which can only be carried out by Ms. Keehan herself. She has to go through the retinal and fingerprint identification scan and fill out the magna-screen card for the on-file signature comparison."

  Jasper said, "Why all the red tape? You know who she is. Everybody does. I mean, what the hell, this is a Keehan bank."

  Molineux said, "The safeguards are built into the system. They're mechanized. I know Ms. Keehan, of course, but the machines don't. It's impossible to circumvent them, even for her."

  Susan said, "We're wasting time now talking about it. If it has to be done that way then that's how we'll do it. Let's go, Mr. Molineux."

  Mylon Sears spoke up. "You'd better let me hold your cell, Susan. Being underground might affect the phone reception, in case the kidnapper should call while you're down there."

  Susan said, "You think he will? He said he'd contact us on the hour."

  Sears said, "Who knows what he might get it in his head to do? I wouldn't necessarily trust the timetable of a kidnapper and killer. He might call at any time just to be unpredictable, to break up our timing and keep us off-balance. Or something could come up that could require him to contact us sooner."

  Susan said, "You're right. Here's the phone, take it."

  "Thank you. I'll take good care of it; don't worry."

  "Don't worry!"

  "You know what I mean," Sears said. "You'd better go with her, Gene. A million dollars in small bills packs a considerable weight. You carry it."

  "Will do," Jasper said. "I think I can handle it." He sounded eager and made no attempt to disguise it. To stay close to Susan Keehan and make himself useful to her, especially at this time of crisis, was something he greatly desired.

  Molineux said, "Shall we go?"

  There was the sound of footsteps, three sets of them, as he, Susan, and Gene Jasper crossed a long marble floor. It was a big bank, a big building, with a lot of floor to be crossed.

  Molineux said, "We'll ride the elevator down.

  * * *

  The signal had been affected by the masses of stone and metal making up the bulk of the bank's aboveground structure.

  Now, as Susan, Jasper, and Molineux descended to the sub-surface vaults, with even more steel and concrete to block against the transmission, the signal began breaking up. The reception got mushy, muddy; gaps opened in the dialogue.

  Noise fought with signal. There was more static than voice. Finally the voices gave way entirely to a hissing stream of white noise.

  Jack Bauer said, "There goes the signal. Only temporarily — I hope."

  He and Pete Malo sat in their SUV, which was parked around the corner from the Planters and Traders Mercantile Exchange building in the city's staid, old-line financial district. The area lay cross-town from where the Mega Mart building was sited.

  The SUV was parked on a side street around the corner from the front of the bank building. Its windows were rolled up and the air conditioner was on. Pete sat behind the wheel, Jack in the passenger seat.

  Their faces were intent, a study in concentration. Both men were hunched over a portable transceiver unit fitted into a dashboard housing and plugged into a power outlet. The idling SUV's engine supplied the power for the comm unit.

  The console was roughly the size and shape of an attache case, its face crowded with dials, switches, and screens. Beaded telltale lights glowed green: on.

  A digitized readout screen displayed real-time data measuring the strength and frequency of the signal from a bugging device that the agents were monitoring.

  Earlier, back at the Mega Mart building in the KHF offices, Garros's absence and the failure of agents Topham and Beauclerk to respond to communications had alerted Jack that a crisis was at hand. He reached a quick decision to bug Susan Keehan, on the grounds that she was likeliest to receive a message from Raoul. As the group was riding down the elevator to the parking garage, Jack had accidentally-on-purpose bumped into Susan. He had done so for the purpose of planting a Flea on her, slipping the stick-on, button-sized electronic eavesdropper under the lapel of her blazer in the guise of steadying her after the collision.

  That was why he and Pete had departed the underground garage as soon as possible, to activate the Flea and begin listening in. It proved to be in good working order, and once switched on, began fransmitting the voices of Susan Keehan and those of her associates who were in close proximity to her.

  The signal was beamed to the transceiver in the SUV, whose amplifiers boosted the feed and sent it along to the board operators of CTU Center across the river.

  It was a bold thrust, potentially risky, for CTU to bug a prominent Keehan dynast. Done without a warrant, too.

  Mylon Sears orchestrated regularly scheduled electronic debugging sweeps and physical searches of the Mart's KHF offices, phone lines, computers, and faxes, as well as the private, personal vehicles of Susan and her management cadre and their places of residence.

  It was his business to thwart CTU and all civilian and military government agencies and any other private parties that wanted to listen into the intimate details and secret dealings of the Keehan/Chavez alliance.

  One thing he hadn't been prepared for, though, was a bug being planted on Susan herself.

  The Flea model was proactive, capable of evading and eluding electronic anti-bugging devices. It came with a feedback sensor that responded to beamed or wave-pulse signal probes by closing down communication while continuing to passively store up information on its microchip; later, when the detector probes had ceased, the Flea sent the stored data to home base in compressed burst transmissions.

  Today's killings and abduction had left Sears with tasks more pressing and immediate than to go bug hunting. When circumstances permitted, he would order a sweep of the KHF offices where Jack and Pete had been earlier today, on the chance that they might have planted some electronic eavesdropping devices there; but the idea that anyone had the lowdown gall to stick a bug on Susan Keehan was the furthest thing from his mind.

  Jack Bauer had taken the initiative of bugging Susan Keehan. He'd taken the responsibility, too. The act was audacious, pushing the envelope, but the deaths of CTU agents Topham and Beauclerk had left him in no mood for half measures and pulled punches. He'd informed Cal Randolph of his act, one that the Center Director had heartily endorsed.

  When the Flea was eventually found, it would close down for good. Inside it was a micro-fuse that could either be remotely tripped by CTU board operators monitoring the feed, or that would activate itself in response to any attempts to open or tamper with it, leaving its sophisticated electronic innards a chunk of fused plastic and metal.

  It had deniability, too; no one in the Keehan camp could prove it had been planted by CTU.

  Having a big ear planted squarely in the midst of the KHF ruling cadre's secret conferences and strategy sessions would have been a coup enough, but the Flea really started paying off dividends when it picked up the communication between the kidnapper and Susan Keehan.

  Too bad it wasn't sensitive enough to pick up the kidnapper's voice on the cell phone, but it did pick up Susan's responses and the words of those around her. Here was the hottest of hot leads toward Garros's abductors, the slayers of agents Topham and Beauclerk.

  The Flea broadcast two sets of signals. One came from a transponder, beaming its location on a wavelength that could be correlated to a map grid to plot its whereabouts at any given moment. Another frequency carried the audio component, the voices and sounds within the listening device's radius of activity/receptivity.

  * * *

  The speaker grid of the SUV's transceiver board was switched on, allowing Jack and Pete to follow the transmission without having to don earphones. Now, though, it gave out white noise: static.
Chattering voices had been replaced by pips, pops, bleeps, and hisses.

  Frustration showed on the agents' faces. Jack said, "We've lost the audio, at least for now."

  Pete said, "Center's operating on our feed, so if we're not getting anything, they're not, either."

  Jack scanned the transceiver board. "The bug's still working, but the transmission's not getting through. I don't think it's been detected; it's probably being canceled out by interference. Which makes sense if Susan's gone underground, into the vaults beneath the bank. All that stone and steel is blocking the signal. With any luck, it'll come back when she's topside again."

  He raised his gaze from the box, looking up and around. Stiffness ached in his neck and shoulders from having sat hunched forward for so long, focused on the feed from inside the bank.

  * * *

  The Planters and Traders Mercantile Exchange was located in the old-line financial district.

  No glittering sky towers of more recently developed commercial areas were to be found here; this was a citadel of old money. Broad boulevards were lined with rows of buildings built in the first decades of the previous century, and before. It was a place of banks, brokerages, and investment firms.

  Much of the architecture dated back to the Neo-Greek Revival of the 1920s, gray-brown stone temples of money featuring domed roofs, triangular pediments, and columned porticoes. The atmosphere was reserved, serious, solemn, foursquare with respectability. Properly reverential. A district where money was taken seriously and an air of solemnity prevailed.

  Structures were relatively modest in height, most of them no more than a few stories tall. Boxy and bunkerlike, they hunkered down as if to protect their considerable assets.

  Staid and traditional, the area ordinarily would have been quiet and closed on a Saturday afternoon. Closed for business after twelve noon on Saturday.

  Today, though, the Planters and Traders Mercantile Exchange was the site of unusual energy and activity.

  That was because Susan Keehan needed to get a million dollars in a hurry.

  Ransom money.

  The kidnapper's nonnegotiable demands: one million dollars in cash; old, unmarked bills, nonconsecutive serial numbers. The highest denomination allowed was hundred-dollar bills; none of which could have been printed during the last twenty years, when the U.S. Treasury had begun installing monitoring strips in its currency to allow for the tracking of money-laundering and currency-smuggling schemes.

  A tough assignment in any case, made still more difficult on a Saturday afternoon when the banks were closed and the city squirmed and seethed under the threat of an oncoming hurricane. A labor virtually impossible to be carried out on such short notice by anyone not a Keehan.

  The dynasty, however, was in the banking business in a big way. Among its New Orleans assets was the Planters and Traders Mercantile Exchange, one of the oldest financial institutions in continuous operation on the North American continent. The name might have been old-fashioned, but the reality was that of an up-to-date, modern banking concern.

  Its doors opened this day on command of Susan Keehan, and its officers from the bank president on down were in place and on point to carry out her wishes.

  Thanks to the bugging device, Jack and Pete — and CTU Center — were aware of the KHF clique's strategy and tactics as soon as they were voiced.

  Mylon Sears wanted to maximize Susan's safety by minimizing her personal involvement, but she was having none of it. She intended to spearhead the effort to ransom Raoul Garros and refused to be diverted from her course.

  In any case, it was necessary for her to take a leading role, for there were certain key financial instruments and procedures that could only be activated by her personal participation.

  Sears was forced to strike a balance between surrounding her with as much protection as possible, while at the same time keeping the security shield light, mobile, and fast-responsive.

  The near-deserted streets of the financial district were energized by an EXECPROTEK convoy consisting of several SUVs, a scout car, a tail car, and several outriders on motorcycles.

  The caravan was now lined up at curbside in front of the bank building. Security guards in plainclothes were posted on the sidewalk, on the wide brownstone stairs leading up to the bank, and under its columned portico. Sears would have liked to have armed them with machine guns, but instead settled for equipping them with big-bore, semi-automatic pistols worn in shoulder holsters concealed under suit jackets.

  Machine guns and shotguns were in the possession of some of the guards remaining inside the parked vehicles, however.

  The heavy security presence had caused Jack and Pete to take up their listening post a good distance away, around the corner and down the street from the bank.

  They were additionally handicapped by having to operate in a city depopulated by the Everette threat. Made even trickier here in the financial district, whose closed buildings and near-deserted streets hampered their ability to follow the convoy too closely. Stealth was required, demanded.

  That disadvantage was counterbalanced by the bug on Susan Keehan, which kept them apprised of their quarry's plans as soon as they were conceived.

  Jack and Pete were not alone; they had Center's resources to call on. For now, though, it was necessary to minimize CTU's footprint to avoid provoking Sears's suspicions.

  Center provided valuable backup in the form of its ability to tap into the city's network of traffic and surveillance cameras — both private and public. Its technicians were able to hack into them and use them without permission, without their owners being any the wiser.

  Minutes dragged by, while they waited for the audio signal to return. Pete said, "Here's a wild one: what if Garros faked his own kidnapping?"

  Jack considered it for a while. "I'm not ruling anything out, but what would he stand to gain by it?"

  "A cool million. Not bad for a day's work. He lets Susan 'ransom' him and resumes his normal life, richer by a million bucks he's got stashed away for a rainy day. Minus whatever he cuts his accomplices in for," Pete said.

  Jack was doubtful. "When he marries Susan Keehan, he'll be in line for a couple of hundred million dollars. Would he risk all that for a quick score? One that leaves him with three kills hanging over his head?"

  "Maybe he needs some ready cash," Pete said, shrugging. "I don't know, the kidnapping seems out of pattern somehow. The move against Paz was a hit, a murder attempt. No plan to take him alive, just to take him out. Execution stuff. But kidnapping's a money crime. The two don't jell."

  Jack said, "The kills at the Mart fit with the assault on Paz. They're both cut from the same cloth. Professional. Ruthless. They look like they came from the same gang, one that plays rough.

  "Maybe Paz's escape caused them to change their plans. Paz alive and gunning for you is enough to give even a hardened murder crew the shakes. So they move to Plan B, a money crime. Crime of opportunity with an element of spur-of-the-moment planning.

  "As bad as Susan's got it for Raoul, I'd say they could have shaken the Keehan money free for a lot bigger ransom: five, ten million. One million seems a little light by comparison, as if they carefully calculated just what the market would bear for a quick, short-term fix. I'd say they were in a hurry. Could be they need the money to put some distance between them and the Colonel," Jack said.

  * * *

  The static hissing out of the speaker grid took on a new rhythm now, an intermittent choppiness. White noise began to blat and squawk in irregular patterns, with snatches of words starting to break through. Gibberish so far, but even that was heartening, because it meant that the audio was coming back.

  Words, phrases began to emerge, several different voices: "…not doing too badly now, we're back on schedule — make the exchange — no guarantees, can't trust — I'll carry the briefcase — Raoul's got to be all right, he's got to!"

  That last voice was unmistakably Susan's.

  Pete gave a thumbs-up sig
n. Jack said, "We're back in business."

  Pete contacted Center. "We've got them, they're coming in again."

  A Center operator said, "Affirmative, we read them, too. We're picking them up off your carrier signal."

  There was a flurry of activity at the bank. Gene Jasper exited through the front entrance, carrying a suitcase, presumably with a million dollars inside it. He was flanked by several sidemen who escorted him down the stairs and into a waiting SUV.

  At the same time, at a side door, a circle of bodyguards emerged, Susan Keehan at its center. They maneuvered her across the sidewalk and into another SUV.

  The convoy moved off, arrowing down the boulevard and out of the deserted financial district.

  Jack and Pete followed, from a long way off. They could afford to give them a long leash. The Keehan crowd was Flea-bitten.

  12. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 4 P.M. AND 5 P.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME

  Supremo Hat Company, New Orleans

  Felix Monatero was a worried man. This alone illustrated the seriousness of the situation he now found himself in. His state of anxiety was uncharacteristic. He was a lifelong, committed revolutionary and Fidelista with the iron self-discipline demanded of the commandante of the Supremo spy cell. Espionage is no game for those with weak nerves.

  Monatero had been a deep-cover agent for many years. He had not been home to Cuba for more than fifteen years, not since first establishing his assumed identity here in the Gulf Coast. He was no comfortable resident spy attached to the Cuban diplomatic corps, with the priceless immunity to arrest and prosecution it conferred.

  He was an illegal, subject if caught by the U.S. counterintelligence to spending many years, if not the rest of his life, in a Federal super-max prison.

  He'd devoted his life to the cause. He was a bachelor, living alone. A wife and family could only be an encumbrance at best and a vulnerability at worst for one in his profession. Being a man with natural physical urges, he satisfied them in the company of prostitutes. He rarely patronized the same one more than a few times.