Valentin Paniagua

Vladimiro Montesinos is hiding on a military base here protected by renegade officers. Or he's holed up on a ranch in Bolivia. Or he's in Moscow hanging out with the Russian mob. Or he's dead. In descending order of probability, those are some of the theories circulating among well-informed Peruvians. Mystery and myth envelop Montesinos, the fugitive former spy chief whose defiant return from exile a month ago brought about the downfall this week of President Alberto Fujimori.

Imagine the ideal fugitive. He has millions of dollars stashed around the globe. He honed his spy skills as chief of one of Latin America's best espionage services. His international contacts include gunrunners, drug lords, bankers, lawyers, guerrillas, politicians and military officers in the United States, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. That sketch of Vladimiro Montesinos, Peru's former spy chief, helps explain how he has eluded capture for four months.

Former President Alberto Fujimori sits in custody in neighboring Chile, his improbable political comeback apparently stalled for the foreseeable future. But the looming presence of Peru's former leader has intensified a sense of national uncertainty here in his homeland as lame-duck President Alejandro Toledo stumbles to the finish line of a widely discredited five-year term and the campaign season opens for the upcoming election with no clear front-runner.

The raiders struck before dawn, 10 well-armed agents of the Peruvian intelligence service descending on a house here. The target was not a terrorists' hide-out. It was a secret "intelligence house" operated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration with approval of the Peruvian government. The military judge leading the raid threatened to arrest the U.S.-trained Peruvian police officers inside who were using high-tech equipment to intercept communications by drug traffickers.