Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

Colonel Kurt Hale was the commander of the Taskforce, and while we’d known each other for close to fifteen years, he was in command. Make no mistake, he was a close friend, but he was still my boss. He cut me more slack than most, but this was asking for a poke in the eye.

Jennifer was quiet. I almost saw the smoke coming off of her brain as she tried to come up with something that would persuade me to call Kurt. Finally, she whispered, “But Jack’s going to get killed.”

I softened my tone, seeing the hell she was going through. “Jennifer, I know he’s in real danger. I believe you. It’s just that we’re not a hostage-rescue force. That’s not what we do. We don’t even have any authority to operate in Mexico. You want Omega for a hit, and we don’t even have a target.”

The Taskforce called every stage of an operation a letter from the Greek alphabet, starting with Alpha for the introduction of forces. Omega meant we had authority from the Oversight Council—our own extralegal body of wise men hand-picked by the president—to execute operations on foreign soil. Operations that often had repercussions extending way beyond the action itself, possibly with second-and third-order effects that were worse than the problem we were trying to prevent. Which is why we answered to the council instead of ourselves. Why we couldn’t go hot-rodding after her brother.

I moved to the window and cracked the curtain, wishing we’d spent some time searching the Internet instead of pulling over at the first hotel we could find, in this case a La Quinta Inn. Best described as “clean and serviceable,” it didn’t have a whole lot of ambience.

Out in the parking lot I saw two black and white police cars pull up, both older models looking like they’d been borrowed from the set of CHiPs. Something about them seemed odd, but I didn’t focus like I should have. Instead I turned back to Jennifer.

She was standing in the same place, her eyes slightly unfocused as she went through probabilities in her head. Torturing herself.

I went to her and said, “Look, we can’t assault the place, but we aren’t helpless. Kurt has the ear of the most powerful people in the world. We can get him to move on this. Get some official help.”

She drew some hope from that and nodded, wiping her eyes. I had just started to say something else when I heard footsteps on the concrete balcony outside our room. A lot of footsteps. My instinct went into the red zone, but it was too little, too late.

The door splintered inward from the force of a metal police battering ram. Five uniformed men piled into the room, guns drawn. I pushed Jennifer to the floor and shot my hands in the air, shouting, “Don’t fire! Don’t fire!”

Two of the men covered down on Jennifer while three moved to me. The man with the battering ram turned around and covered the exit to the room. All were Hispanic, and as with the police cars outside, something seemed odd. By the time they’d closed on me, it clicked what it was: Their uniforms were mismatched. Some had name tags, some didn’t. Some had patches on their shoulders, others didn’t.

I shouted, “Jennifer, they’re fake!” and exploded, trapping the pistol of the first man and rotating his arm in a vicious circle, forcing him to fling himself over the torque or have his wrist shatter. He thumped the floor and I hammered him in the temple, ripping the gun out of his hand. I launched up from the floor and drove my fist under the chin of the next man like a piston, hearing his jaw crack as his head popped backward. I whirled to the third man.

He pointed a pistol at my chest and shouted, “Stop! Stop right now.”

One of the men who had gone to Jennifer was on the floor, rubbing his face. The other had her hair in his hand and a knife to her throat.

Keeping his own weapon on me, in accented English, the third man continued. “Drop the gun. You cannot beat us both. You shoot me, she dies. You shoot him, you die. Neither has to happen. If we wanted you dead, we could have just started shooting.”

I did as he asked, kicking myself for not paying more attention. For letting Jennifer’s pain supersede my survival instincts.

He said, “We are going to handcuff you both and leave here one at a time. Act like you are being arrested. She goes first. If she says anything outside the door to anyone who has come to watch, you die. You go second. If you say anything outside the door, she dies. Understood?”

I nodded my head. He turned to Jennifer, and she did the same. My hands were cuffed behind my back and our Taskforce phones, Jennifer’s tablet, and the digital recorder were shoved into Jennifer’s bag. I watched her being led out of the room, a man on each side. Shortly, it was my turn. The leader picked up Jennifer’s purse and nodded.

We went down the stairs and I hung my head like I’d seen on numerous episodes of Cops. Sure enough, there was a small crowd, all pointing and whispering. None moved near us. My heart sank when I saw only one police car. I’d expected them to transport us together, but Jennifer was already gone.

We pulled out of the parking lot without lights, ignoring the crowds. We drove for two blocks, then circled behind a grocery store, the police car stopping adjacent to another sedan, both screened by the loading docks used for large trucks. A gun was placed to my head and I was jerked out, a man on each arm. As if I could do something with my hands cuffed behind me.

They opened the trunk of the sedan, and in the dim glow of the exterior lighting I saw it was already occupied, feeling a small measure of relief. I was unceremoniously crammed into it and knew instantly the body wasn’t Jennifer’s. It was a man who stank as if he hadn’t bathed in a week.

And he was weeping uncontrollably.

21

Eduardo looked out the window across his estate, surveying the lights twinkling in the ghetto of Juárez. He hated it here. Hated having to live in this dump and longed to get back to Mexico City. Back to the land of the rich. But earning plaza boss came with a price, and he’d been entrusted with the fight for Juárez by Sinaloa, so here he would stay. At least until he could clean up the mess.

Behind him, Carlos said, “This will work. Things are coming together very well.”

“Well? You let a woman escape from your grasp. Here, in the heart of Juárez. It’s absolutely shameful. I look incompetent, and we still don’t know who took the reporter.”

Carlos began to fawn. “You don’t look incompetent. She had help. We couldn’t predict that. Nobody even knows she was here. Nobody knows of her escape, and I’m working to rectify the situation. I was able to set up a screen on the north side of the border after she fled our net.” He gave a shallow smile. “The Americans spend so much time checking vehicles that it worked in our favor. She didn’t cross with any speed. We followed them to where they’re staying, and it’s still close enough to the border to be useful. I hope to hear some news soon, and we will learn who they are. Of greater concern is the traitor in the ranks. My plan will work.”

“You really think he is part of my circle? I cannot believe that.”

“There’s one way to find out. You already have a meeting planned. Let it be known that we’re moving forward with Mr. Fawkes. Tell them he’s flying down tomorrow or the next day. Give out a flight number. Then we simply check all outgoing calls before anyone is allowed to leave.”

“Is he flying down?”

“No. Not yet, but that’s not the point. We need to set a trap with false information. You don’t want Los Zetas to know anything real.”

“What makes you think the traitor will call from here?”

“Tell them they are to remain here overnight. Give them some excuse. He’ll call. I guarantee he’ll call if he thinks he’ll miss getting the information out.”