10
A SCOUTING MISSION
Saint Tammany Parish, just north of New Orleans, Louisiana
The administration building of the Saint Tammany Parish Sheriff was larger than Rafael had pictured. The modern, two-story complex sported a tall, glass-lined lobby entrance with an adjoining jail. The outer walls of the jail itself were smooth cement which melded into the glass structure with ease. The property sat nestled among residential neighborhoods and was bordered by Louisiana Interstate 12, a six-laner that ran the northern border of Lake Pontchartrain, just north of New Orleans.
In the morning darkness, Rafael strapped a sharpened pair of tree-climbing spikes onto each foot. He then ascended the seventy-foot-tall pine tree by jamming the spike on one foot into the tree, then the other, the effect
