Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

She stared at it for a good five seconds, afraid to hit the “play” button. Afraid it would display a disgusting amateur sex video. Or worse, a snuff film of her brother. She worked up her courage, opened the lid, and turned it on. What played was neither raunchy nor ghastly. A Caucasian man talking about information sharing with someone off the screen. She let it continue, confused as to why her brother would have made the recording—if he did. The men weren’t discussing drugs or anything about the cartels. It wasn’t until the end, when a new man’s voice came on, begging for his life, that she was sure. Whatever had happened here, it hadn’t been innocent. The man’s pleas testified to that. The screen went blank, and she considered her options.

Pike had admonished her about going to Mexico alone—in fact, had forbidden it—but the phone trace was all she had left. She’d talked to the police, aggravated to receive the same answer as her mother. No amount of pleading did any good. The police would do nothing for forty-eight hours, until Jack was considered truly missing. Forty-eight hours she could not afford to let slip. She found the answer idiotic.

There’s a damn TV show called The First 48, done by murder investigators who know that if they don’t solve a crime in forty-eight hours, they never will.

And now, with the hotel a dead end, she’d have to wait forty-eight hours to even begin.

She’d researched Ciudad Juárez, and all indications were that current conditions belied its nickname of Murder City. Drug violence was a third of what it had been only a year ago, and investors were returning. Surely she could drive over there in the daytime. Pinpoint the location of the phone. Just for atmospherics. Something she could use when the police were engaged.

At least that’s what she told herself.

13

Carlos waited for Eduardo to turn back from the window, wishing he had more information to provide. As the plaza boss for the Sinaloa cartel in Juárez, Eduardo had a very low tolerance for failure. It wasn’t that he was overtly sadistic, looking for something or someone to lash out at. In fact, he was more intellectual than most. It was simply a function of the job. Failure implied weakness, and weakness bred insurrection. To prevent any moves on his position or his terrain, he would show strength. Carlos knew it didn’t matter if the reaction had any bearing on the failure. It was the show that was important. The perception that the boss hadn’t grown weak, but that instead the men below him had, and thus were dealt with.

Luckily, Carlos had shown his own strength on numerous occasions and had rarely failed. He couldn’t easily be replaced, and he knew it. He also knew that Eduardo wasn’t prone to outbursts of violence, unlike the crazies who had preceded him. Eduardo preferred to analyze before striking, but that only went so far, and Carlos knew that his head was possibly on the block.

Eduardo said, “So do you think it was American Federales or someone else?”

“It’s too early to tell. All I know for sure is that he was taken. I don’t know if he’s even alive.”

“But who would have taken him in El Paso if not the Americans?”

“You could be right.” Carlos held up a smartphone. “He placed one call on this right before we got to him. The number is some random American company, but it could be a cover for an American agency. I have our contact checking it out, but the evidence from the hit doesn’t feel like American authorities. Everyone was killed, including the two watchers outside. If it was the Americans, they would have simply rolled up and surrounded the place. Instead, everyone was slaughtered. No lights, no badges, nothing like that.”

Eduardo turned from the window. “Was he a reporter?”

“He had the credentials.”

Eduardo scoffed. “I can make those in my basement. You don’t think the American Drug Enforcement Agency can do the same?”

Carlos said, “Yes, but he also had no weapon of any sort and was working alone. If you were an agent, would you get so close to the flame without a weapon? Would you do it alone?”

Eduardo shook his head. “You know this looks bad. Not only were we penetrated, but the very man who did it was snatched from our grasp before we could figure out why. It is bad. Very, very bad. Something needs to be done.”

Carlos tensed, knowing they had reached the decision point. Knowing what “something” meant.

Eduardo continued. “I want the motel clerk to pay, and I want it done in El Paso. A lesson across the border. He let the man place the cameras and microphones in the room. If he hadn’t given out Mr. Fawkes’s room number, none of this would be happening.”

Carlos visibly relaxed and said, “I agree, but I think we should wait on that a little bit. He’s our only alarm if anyone comes sniffing around the motel. There’s too much loose right now that we don’t know. Too many holes we cannot fill. He can help.”

Eduardo leaned onto the table, his face inches from Carlos. He raised his voice for the first time, the anger underneath spilling out into the room. “Then who should I punish right now? I look like a fucking fool. Perhaps I should punish the man who set up the meeting in the first place.”

Carlos leaned back, his hands in the air, saying, “Jefe, please. We need to find the informant. Yes, I set up the meeting, but someone told the reporter about it. Someone let him know it was happening.”

Carlos saw a vein begin to throb on Eduardo’s temple. He knew that in Eduardo’s eyes nothing was worse than disloyalty and he wanted to use that to deflect blame. The results were not as he hoped.

In a quiet voice, Eduardo said, “Why waste time trying to root out an informant? Maybe I should just kill everyone who had knowledge of the meeting. Starting with you.”

His face growing pale, realizing he was losing control of the meeting, Carlos played his last card. “Don’t make a bad situation worse. The greater issue here is accomplishing what I intended to do when I set up the meeting in the first place. I’m the one who found the contact. I’m the only one he will call when he’s ready. The only one he trusts.”

The tinge of a mirthless smile crept onto Eduardo’s face. “Yes, you are the one, but why should I even care? You keep driving forward like Don Quixote on something I’m not sure will even work. You think that makes you indispensable? I have a greater problem with this, beyond what I will gain a month from now. People who will smell the blood in the water. Will see weakness where there is none. I need to prevent that, whether your plan works or not.” The smile turned sour and he said, “As you know.”

Carlos felt his stomach dropping as if he’d misread his cards, turning over a deuce instead of an ace. And he’d placed his life in the pot as a bet. “Jefe, it will work. We can keep the American drones away from us. The Americans are using them completely to cover the border. They trust technology over men, and this is the way to defeat them. We can be the undisputed controller of the Juárez plaza. This isn’t something that is worth a bloodletting show of strength. I know what is needed. I’ve been here. Someone has to be sacrificed, but don’t give up the goal.”

“You had better hope it works. For your sake.” He turned back to the window, thinking. Carlos waited on the verdict. When it came, he let out his pent-up breath.

“Deal with the motel clerk. Make it public. Do it in such a manner that everyone knows why he was killed. Everyone knows our reach.”

Carlos felt his cell vibrate and glanced at it. Seeing who it was, he answered, holding his finger in the air to Eduardo, begging him to let the call go through. He talked for a minute, then hung up.