BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 CARACAS, Venezuela -- Peruvian spy master Vladimiro Montesinos' days on the lam may be running short, with the election of a new president in Lima who wants him jailed, the recent arrests of several aides, and private investigators trying to earn the $5 million reward for his capture.

 FBI officials in Miami have subpoenaed the telephone records of two Montesinos allies arrested June 8 in Miami Beach to trace the calls they made and received, one U.S. government official following the case said.

 And a shake-up in Venezuela's DISIP intelligence agency may put some punch behind this country's ineffective search for the man known as former President Alberto Fujimori's Rasputin.

 Montesinos has been variously reported to be hiding in Panama, with the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and perhaps even in Cuba, where his past ties with the CIA -- and his knowledge of the agency's operations -- would earn him a warm welcome.

 But most Montesinos-hunters believe he is still in Venezuela, where he was last sighted Dec. 13 undergoing minor plastic surgery on his eyes and nose, apparently out of vanity rather than an attempt to disguise himself.

 "I have informants in Venezuela who assure me he remains there,'' Peru's vice president-elect, David Waissman, said last week. He added that Montesinos was being protected by "senior Venezuelan officials.''

 Peruvian investigators believe that his Venezuelan protectors include rich businessmen, senior National Guard officers and military friends of President Hugo Chávez, a former paratrooper who supported Fujimori's iron-fisted rule.

 Peruvian officials have filed 28 charges against Montesinos, from corruption to arms dealing and money laundering, and have frozen $250 million in bank accounts in five countries, including the United States.

 A former Peruvian army captain cashiered in 1976 for leaking state secrets to the CIA, Montesinos, now 56, rose in the 1990s to become the power behind Fujimori as his intelligence chief.

 When the Fujimori government began to wobble, Montesinos sought refuge in Panama last September, but he was forced to return to Peru after apparently losing a bid for political asylum.

 Finally, a bribery scandal last year forced Fujimori to flee to Japan and sent Montesinos on a Hollywood-style escape -- first by boat to Ecuador's Galapagos Islands and to Costa Rica, then by plane to the Caribbean island of Aruba and, 41 days later, to Caracas.

 His trail went cold after his Dec. 13 plastic surgery, but Montesinos' chasers say his days of freedom may soon be over.

 NEW LEADER'S GOAL

 Peruvian President-elect Alejandro Toledo, a longtime Fujimori foe who was elected June 3, has made it clear he wants the former spy chief behind bars, said one U.S. private investigator in touch with the government in Lima.

 The recent arrests of five key Montesinos allies have also yielded new clues about his possible location and the bank accounts he is using to pay his daily bills.

 The FBI has subpoenaed the telephone records of the two people arrested in a Miami Beach apartment -- Manuel Aybar Marca, a former Peruvian police colonel, and Liliana Pizarro de la Cruz, owner of a private security firm in Peru -- to trace their calls, the private investigator said.

 The $5 million reward offered by the Peruvian government for information leading to Montesinos' arrest has stirred the chase, eliciting many tips from former allies of the fugitive spy master.

 "We're working with Peruvian authorities to see if we can help,'' said the U.S. private investigator, a retired law enforcement official who asked that he remain anonymous.

 Fueling the rising hopes of trapping Montesinos was a recent shake-up at the DISIP, Venezuela's top intelligence and political police agency, formally known as the
 Directorate of Intelligence and Preventive Services.

 Retired army Capt. Carlos Aguilera was named to replace Eliézer Otaiza, under whose command the DISIP acted in a suspiciously odd manner during and after a Dec. 15 raid to arrest Montesinos in Caracas.

 ``With the changes at DISIP, the noose could be tightening around Montesinos,'' said Patricia Poleo, a journalist with the newspaper Nuevo País, who has broken several stories on the Peruvian's presence here.

 Montesinos' chasers say they hope the next attempt to grab him is successful because he may decide to flee Venezuela after two near misses.

 The first came Dec. 15, when a Peruvian woman who accompanied Montesinos in his escape, Emma Aurora Mejia, told Peru's embassy in Caracas that he was at the Caracas clinic of plastic surgeon Lorenzo DiCecilia.

 RAID UNPRODUCTIVE

 Embassy officials notified Venezuelan police and were told to stand by for a joint raid. But the Venezuelans never called back, and when the Peruvians went to the clinic on their own, the raid was over. Montesinos had left the previous day, according to Lima media reports.

 The second near miss came in April, when Poleo tipped Venezuelan police that Montesinos was holed up in the Hato Piñero, a huge ecological preserve 60 miles
 southeast of Caracas with several luxury guest cottages.

 A Venezuelan police helicopter carrying a raiding party landed in the wrong place. Then the raiders' car ran out of gasoline. And by the time they got to Hato Piñero,
 Montesinos was nowhere to be found.

 "I think he was there, and the police allowed him to get away,'' Poleo said.

 Some U.S. government officials informed about the chase speculate that Montesinos may already be in Cuba, where his contacts with the CIA would make him a valuable guest.

 "He would be totally safe in Cuba, and his money would guarantee him a nice life,'' one U.S. official said. "But Cuba would be his last resort. He goes there, I doubt they would let him leave again.''

                                    © 2001