24 Declassified: Storm Force 2d-7

by David S. Jacobs

  Beltran's business was finding out secret things and he went to work, putting his network of informants and contacts on the case. They first fastened on the new player's associates.

  Most of them were outsiders, real outsiders. Not gringos but Europeans, or at least of European origin, although their resumes reflected extensive acquaintance with the battlefields of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

  Beltran had had excellent contacts with the old Soviet spy system, contacts that were largely carried through into the new era of the Russian Federation as the KGB morphed into the new FSB. Different initials, similar functions. From these contacts, he was able to identity the new gang in town.

  They were a band of professional mercenaries, Dogs of War, whose leader was Major Marc Vollard.

  The laws of physics hold true for the spy world as elsewhere; every action produces an opposite and equal reaction. Beltran's probe of Vollard's operation had triggered a counterprobe by Vollard. Contact.

  A prickly mating dance followed, operating first through emissaries, ultimately resulting in Beltran and Vollard holding an exploratory meeting in search of common ground.

  Already each of them had enough on the other to put them in bad with the U.S. government. They also shared this in common, that both of their respective operations were hostile to Washington: all its interests and all it represented.

  Here was the basis for a frank and full exchange of ideas. Both men were professionals with an eye on the main chance: what's in it for them?

  The answer: a great deal of money.

  * * *

  Vollard was a man with a plan. Not a man alone. His sponsors were very highly placed in Saudi Arabia, with every possibility of rising even higher, should their master plan work out.

  Beltran was in position to foil that plan or facilitate it. If he foiled it, Vollard would hit back hard, initiating the destruction of Beltran's Gulf Coast network, if not Beltran himself.

  Beltran liked the plan. Despite his own acquisitive instincts, he retained enough of the old revolutionary snobbery to despise Washington and the current Administration.

  A side benefit was that it would also put a hurting on Caracas and the Chavez regime.

  Venezuela's oil wealth had put communist Cuba in the position of being a poor relation. This would knock some of the cockiness out of them.

  The newfound Cuba/Venezuela alliance had forced Beltran to work closely with Colonel Paz here in New Orleans for the last six months. He'd had a bellyful of Paz, of his thuggish ways, massive conceit, vulgarity, and rudeness. That alone would have convinced Beltran to seal his deal with Vollard.

  The huge payday that awaited successful completion of the mission didn't hurt, either.

  The plan required a fall guy. A patsy. Its Saudi backers had tagged Caracas for the role. Venezuela was closely allied with Iran, the Saudis' arch-nemesis. Caracas and Tehran dominated OPEC, throwing their weight around, trying to take over the world oil market.

  Vollard's strike would be engineered to make it look like Venezuela's handiwork.

  That would push Washington's buttons. The Administration was already sore at the socialist regime, the Hearthstone Initiative's free-oil-for-the-U.S.-poor being only the latest Chavez finger stuck in Washington's eye. It would jump at the chance to hang one on Venezuela.

  The frameup required the planting of the dead body of Colonel Paz at the scene of destruction, in a place where even the bumbling Yanquis couldn't fail to find it.

  That was Beltran's bit. It made sense. He was close to Paz, professionally speaking, and therefore in the best possible position to betray him. He knew Paz's comings and goings, friends and associates, watering holes and hideaways. Knew his routine, his pattern.

  Beltran had set up the hit. The plan was to liquidate Paz when he emerged from his girlfriend's apartment in the early morning hours and eliminate his bodyguards at the same time. Quietly. The bodies would be loaded into the utility truck and taken away.

  His limo would be stolen for future disposal at some optimally incriminating spot, preferably linking it to a few more major crimes.

  The corpses of Paz and the bodyguards would be delivered to Vollard's riverfront base at Pelican Pier, where they'd be put on ice — literally packed in ice coolers to retard the signs of dissolution, decay, and rigor and throw off the timetable of any medical examiner seeking to establish the time of death.

  At zero hour, they'd be taken to the scene of destruction and planted there for the Americans to find, clinching the case for Venezuelan involvement in a massive terror strike.

  * * *

  Such was the plan, anyway, as devised by Beltran.

  He'd supplied some of the personnel, including two Cuban shooters illegally in the United States, and one of his most valuable players, Beatriz Ortiz. Her revolutionary fervor was impeccable. All Beltran had had to do was feed her a line about Havana's wanting Paz hit for counterrevolutionary activities, and she was ready to go. The Generalissimo planned to have her killed upon completion of the Paz job; she was a dangerous fanatic who knew too much about his operation and had to go.

  Vollard liked to keep an eye on things and his hand in all mission-related activities, and had put his top noncom, Hermann Ost, in on the job to make sure it was carried out properly. That hadn't worked out so well.

  Vollard and Beltran had both agreed on including Dixie Lee in the hit. A hometown boy, he knew the turf and could do the talking if the team ran into any interference from citizens or the law. He, too, was slated for demolition post-Paz; Vollard and Beltran would both feel easier when the volatile gunrunner with the long prison record was permanently silenced.

  All Beltran's intricately laid schemes went out the window, however, when the hit went sour. Not having been there, he was unable to conceive of how the team had made such a botch of things. He'd underestimated Paz, a quick and cunning killer. And he was unaware that CTU had become involved, in the persons of Jack Bauer and Pete Malo, who'd helped polish off the hitters and by so doing allowed Paz to escape.

  He knew this, though: now he was in danger of being made the patsy, the fall guy.

  No less than his masters in Havana, his new partner, Vollard, demanded results. Never mind that his top kick Ost had been present; it was Beltran who'd failed to deliver on his promises.

  That was how Vollard would see it, and how he'd tell it to his Saudi backers.

  Beltran knew that, because that's the way he would have handled it himself.

  Paz knew nothing of Vollard and his master plan; he knew Beltran, and the presence of Beatriz and the Cubans would set him on Beltran's trail. Not to mention alerting Havana to the spymaster's double dealing. Once his bosses started scrutinizing Beltran's doings, he'd zoom straight to the top of their priority kill list. Assuming Paz didn't get him first.

  It was then that Beltran demonstrated a flexibility of mind rarely possessed by men half his age, the ability to make a 180-degree turn and reverse field to salvage what he could of a situation that had gone sour.

  He'd routinely surveilled not only Paz but other key members of the Venezuelan infrastructure, overt and covert, in New Orleans. One target of opportunity now immediately stood out: Raoul Garros.

  Scion of an oligarchic clan closely tied to Chavez, Garros had proved a particularly useful tool for the new regime. He was young, handsome, charming, educated, spoke several languages fluently, and had a first-class education and grounding in business.

  He was also an opportunist of the first rank, with a talent for backstabbing and a total lack of scruples when it came to betraying former friends and associates of questionable loyalty to the new President and his much-touted brand of "twenty-first-century socialism."

  Garros was the urbane face of the new regime, seemingly embodying the best of the old and new orders. He was a key executive in LAGO's corporate hierarchy in New Orleans. It was no accident that his post at the state oil company had thrown him in close contact with Susan Keehan by way of t
he Hearthstone Initiative.

  That was the brainchild of the strategists of Chavez's military-intelligence clique back in Caracas. A simple plan: put lady-killer Raoul in close proximity with rich, available Susan Keehan and let nature take its course.

  Now they were engaged to be married. An enviable alliance for both families: clan Garros would be plugged into one of America's richest families, one whose wealth was matched by its political clout; while the Keehans would have a son-in-law who was a pillar of the new establishment in Venezuela, giving them entree into that country's oil wealth.

  Which provided Beltran with a chance for a quick score. Grab Garros and hold him for ransom.

  The Keehan woman was besotted. She would pay. Thanks to her family connections, she had the ability to get hold of a good deal of money fast. That was vital, because with Vollard and Paz coming after him, Beltran would have to move fast to get out of this with a whole skin.

  Beltran had the organization to pull it off — for a limited time only, because the botched Paz hit and its repercussions would soon be heard in Havana. His bosses would move quickly to curtail his extraordinary powers and freedom of movement. He had to complete the kidnapping and ransoming fast.

  Beltran had mobilized the Supremo cell for the operation. Political kidnappings were nothing new in their line of work. His Havana-decreed authority and autonomy served him well; Monatero assumed as a matter of course that he was carrying out the directives of Cuba's Maximum Leader.

  Beltran's network routinely kept tabs on Garros as well as other leading members of the consulate and LAGO, so it was easy to locate him at the Mega Mart building. Raoul's lifestyle also facilitated the snatch. He relied on his solid-gold cover and credentials, rarely if ever traveling with bodyguards, complaining that they cramped his style. Knowing that they all reported back on his doings to Paz.

  Involving Supremo was a further cutout, covering Beltran's tracks and further muddying the waters. At this point, nothing would serve his purposes better than a good, hot shooting war between Paz's death squad and the Cuban spy cell. Chaos was his friend and would aid him in making his getaway.

  By the time the gun smoke had cleared and the body count had been toted up, he'd be long gone with a cool million in untraceable cash. Operating cash. A nice fund to keep him going until he'd reached a safe place from which to access those other millions he'd salted away in offshore and Swiss banking accounts.

  * * *

  He'd picked Supremo's ace action squad for the job, the team of Rubio, Torres, and Moreno. He'd used them in the past to great effect, always operating as a shadowy presence who communicated with them solely by phone.

  This was a business of compartmentalization. All they knew or needed to know was what their boss, Monatero, had told them: that they'd been chosen for an important job by a top secret operative and to follow his orders to the letter.

  Beltran had been careful to make sure that the trio maintained silence and isolation once they'd come under his sway, ordering them not to contact Supremo until told otherwise. They figured it was just good tradecraft, insulating and securing their home base against possible repercussions if something went wrong.

  They made the snatch, abducting Garros from the Mega Mart underground parking garage.

  Rubio and Torres handled the strong-arm chores while Moreno drove the getaway car. The abduction had required more than muscle; it needed wet work. The presence of the two CTU agents in the parking garage presented a complicating factor. The American agents' focus was on Garros and the elevator door from which he'd emerge, diverting their attention from the killers until it was too late.

  Rubio had used a knife on one; Torres, light-footed for a big man, had dispatched the other by hand, sneaking up behind him and breaking his neck.

  They'd braced Garros when he emerged from the elevator, Torres putting a sleeper hold on him while Rubio relieved him of his gun, billfold, and cell phone. The sleeper hold had caused Garros to black out from lack of oxygen. They'd covered his head with a black hood, tied his hands behind his back, and tossed him into the trunk of their car.

  The car had rolled up to the exit ramp gate, where the attendant manned a booth. Rubio had shot him; Moreno had crashed through the gate and driven away. From then on, they'd been on the move, receiving updated instructions from Beltran.

  * * *

  Beltran had contacted Susan Keehan to deliver his demands. He'd used an oral appliance, a portable electronic voice box that fit over his mouth, reproducing his words in digitized tones and also altering his distinctive voiceprint so it could not be used to identify him.

  The Keehan wealth and power had worked in Beltran's favor to facilitate the plot. She had the ability to get the money fast, even on a Saturday when the banks were closed and the city was bracing for a storm.

  Her EXECPROTEK staffers had also done their bit for Beltran, however inadvertently or unwillingly; their mission was to carry out the wishes of their employer and get the captive back alive and unharmed, not to make arrests and crack the case. They'd no more contact the police or FBI than he would.

  As for CTU, they were the odd man out, the last in the game and the last to know what was going on, Beltran told himself. Keehan political clout could keep them at arm's length and out of the loop. Let them get on the trail of Paz and the Supremo cell, for all he cared; it would buy him precious time to complete his task and make his getaway.

  Years of living and operating in New Orleans had worked to his advantage; he knew the terrain. The Long Canal footbridge was a site he'd marked down long ago as useful for a future operation; there would never be a better time than now to use it.

  Rubio, Torres, and Moreno, and their captive, had transferred to a panel van for the final phase of the ransom exchange. The van had three motorcycles, dirt bikes, in the rear.

  Moreno had driven up on the power trail; along it was a dirt road used by the utility company for their roving repair trucks. The captive, hooded and with his hands tied, was hauled out of the van and hustled downhill by Rubio and Torres, into the graveyard. Torres remained behind to keep watch over the captive while Rubio slogged back up the hill.

  A ramp was lowered from the rear of the van and the first dirt bike rolled down to the ground. Rubio rode it downhill to the cemetery, then walked back up the hill and repeated the process with a second bike. He and Torres stayed in the cemetery with Garros.

  Moreno drove the van along the power trail to a crossroads, where another dirt road took him down the east side of the embankment. He drove to the Kwik-Up, parked the van in the lot, and rode the third bike up the dirt path behind the convenience store, up to the power trail and down again to the cemetery.

  The power trail was a popular site for dirt bikers, and the activity going on around it attracted no attention from random passersby in the parking lot or along the highway.

  Rubio was the demolitions man. He'd fastened explosive charges to the underside of the footbridge and rigged the smoke bombs in and around the cemetery.

  All the munitions were rigged with remote-controlled detonators.

  With everything ready for the exchange, and the trio safely emplaced in the cemetery, Beltran had arrived, parking his vehicle in the Kwik-Up lot. He located the getaway van, knelt down beside it as if examining the undercarriage, busied himself there for several minutes, rose, and returned to his own vehicle.

  He took out the rifle in its carrying sheath, toting it casually under an arm; the power trail was also popular with target shooters and varmint hunters, and in a state where guns were a way of life, he was unlikely to attract undue attention. All the same, he'd waited until the lot was empty of any pedestrians or shoppers who might notice him before getting out of his machine and crossing to the back of the Kwik-Up.

  Going around to the rear of the building, he'd climbed the dirt path most of the way up, stopping when he saw a likely spot for his sniper's nest. He'd squirmed through the bushes, finding a spot that afforded him a
clear firing line on the back of the building and the getaway van parked in the lot.

  Leaving the sheathed rifle hidden under some bushes, he'd emerged on the dirt path, sticking an empty Kwik-Up white plastic bag on a branch to serve as a marker so he'd easily find the site.

  He'd climbed to the top of the power trail, crossing to the other, west side, where he'd found himself a hollow in the bushes with a good vantage point on the cemetery and canal area. Settling into the nest, he'd run a routine comm check with Rubio, giving him a last-minute briefing and instructions.

  After that, there was nothing to do but wait for the Keehan crowd to arrive with the money.

  * * *

  Now the ransom had been collected and the plan was moving into its final, terminal phase.

  The dirt bikes were almost upon him, causing Beltran to involuntarily tense up. In the short time since arriving at his sniper's nest, he'd managed to recover his breath, and his heart rate had slowed to something like normal. The sputtering blat of the nearing motorcycles caused his heartbeat to speed up again.

  They were here; they had arrived. The drone of their engines was offset by the sound of breaking branches as the first bike entered the gap and started down the dirt path on the east slope of the embankment.

  Beltran turned his head toward the path, which was mostly hidden behind a screen of brush. The first bike flashed downhill past him, a blur of motion barely ten feet away.

  Beltran could even hear the jouncing of the suspension springs over the motor noise.

  The second bike followed, only a length or two behind. Turning his head away from the trail, Beltran looked down through the gap in the brush.

  The first bike reached the bottom of the hill and pulled over to the side, idling.

  Rubio was the rider, the knapsack slung across his back. He was barefaced, the bandana pulled down around his neck.

  Beltran raised the rifle, shouldering it, pointing it downhill.

  The second bike reached the bottom of the slope; its rider, Moreno. He, too, had uncovered his face.