Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

Eduardo turned from the window and said, “Okay. That’s easy enough. What of this Mr. Fawkes? Surely you know who he is by now.”

Carlos said, “Yes. He checked out. He’s Arthur Booth, a midlevel computer technician working for Boeing. I believe he can do what he says. He was almost giddy on the phone today. He’s completed the task and wants to pass what he calls the POLARIS protocol. All we need to do is meet him now.”

“What is this protocol?”

“I’m not really sure. He said he’d explain it when we met, but what I do know is that it will affect the navigation systems of the surveillance drones on the border.”

“So you don’t even know what it does? How it works?”

“My meeting with Booth in El Paso was just to establish the connection. We didn’t discuss the specifics of the protocol. The point was to get him on our side, and it apparently worked.”

Eduardo’s lips split into a sinister grin. “Okay, Carlos. I’ll let you hold the keys for now. Call the men.”

Two hours later, sitting in the conference room with Eduardo and the other men of the inner circle, Carlos felt his phone vibrate. He spoke briefly, then held up a hand. When Eduardo nodded, he said, “Things are looking up.”

22

I bumped along in the blackness of the trunk, having given up trying to find out who the man with me was. All he did was beg me not to talk, then began weeping again. Clearly, he was convinced we were going to die. I wasn’t so sure he was wrong, so I spent the time trying to prevent that outcome.

I had been to a multitude of defeating-restraints courses during my time in the military, and after all the instruction one thing stood out: Prior planning beats MacGyver shit every day. Almost all handcuffs operate with a universal key in order to allow any officer to free a suspect, be it for health and safety reasons or just for convenience, and I, like many operators I worked with, had taken to carrying one in my wallet.

In over twenty years I had never, ever used it, and Jennifer had made fun of the habit on more than one occasion. Now I was wishing I’d forced her to do the same.

I wormed around, digging my wallet out of my pants pocket and then losing it for an instant in the bouncing. I scooted my ass backward, sweeping my hands until it connected with the leather. Working by feel, I opened it and dug my fingers in until I hit the pocket for business cards. This was where it became critical, and my lack of planning was causing issues.

I’d simply buried the key at the base of the pocket, surrounded by a bunch of business cards I always carried that supported my job as an intrepid archeological explorer. If I dumped all the cards and shook the wallet to get the key, I’d give away that I was up to no good. When they opened the trunk they’d see a confetti playground and know something was awry.

Why didn’t you go the distance? Tape the damn thing to the license or a single card? It was like buying a fire extinguisher for your house, then storing it in the attic.

I cradled the wallet and squeezed its sides, then began shaking, using one hand to keep the cards in. If the key was set right, I knew it would fall, because it had done so numerous embarrassing times in the past, usually at the airport with a twentysomething TSA agent grinning lasciviously at Jennifer over the implications. But that would be pure luck, and with mine, it was probably trapped at the base underneath the cards.

The car went over a speed bump hard enough to bounce both of us into the roof of the trunk, causing me to lose the wallet again. I slapped the metal, sweeping aside detritus that had accumulated in the trunk. The car stopped just as I closed my left hand over it. I began shaking it and heard the doors open. When they slammed shut, the key fell into my hand. I rolled over onto my back and shoved the wallet into my pocket just as the lid opened.

I was jerked out, seeing a sign for a sleazy roadside motel called the Traveler’s Inn.

Uh-oh. Jack’s motel. Not good.

The man was pulled out behind me, and for the first time I saw he was Hispanic and about sixty, wearing cheap rubber sandals and a stained white T-shirt. When he saw the location, he began to wail until he was cuffed in the head.

We were led straight to room number twelve, with one of the men opening the door using a key from his pocket. We got inside and the men pushed me into a corner, sitting me on my haunches with one of the guys standing over me. The door was shut, and the captors began speaking in Spanish. The older man began to wail again as he was shoved to his knees.

The leader of the group began a lengthy soliloquy in Spanish, none of which I understood, but I could tell the man on his knees did. He became catatonic, not even flinching when a large bowie knife was produced, the blade about twelve inches long.

I felt the sweat break out on my neck and began working the key into the lock, an almost impossible task without being able to see the cuffs. Like everyone else, the guard in front of me had his eyes focused on the older man, watching the snot roll down his face as he blubbered.

The bowie knife came down, and as much as I had seen in the world, it still didn’t register as real until both carotid arteries had been slit and the blood began to spray from the damage. I involuntarily flinched, trying to sink into the corner of the room. I heard the gurgles as the knife bit deeper; attempting to sever the head from the body. The knife was stopped momentarily by the spine, and I closed my eyes, focusing on the task of staying alive. I felt the key sink into the hole and gently worked it left and right, trying to seat the pins correctly. Trying to calm the raging adrenaline flowing through me from the fear. I would only get one shot.

I heard the leader shout in Spanish and opened my eyes to see the bowie knife begin cutting the hands off the corpse. One flopped free, held only by a tendon. The man chopped at the floor like he was slicing garlic, and the hand separated. He worked on the other one, sawing through tendon and bone. They placed both hands on the chest of the corpse, then faced me. My turn.

In English, the leader said, “This man was an informant and met a traitor’s fate. You are involved in his actions, and we wanted you to see what happens to those who oppose us.”

Feeling bile in my throat at my helplessness, I simply nodded.

The leader flicked his eyes at the person guarding me, and he placed his hands on my head, pushing it into the wall, exposing my neck. The leader said, “We want to know why you were in Mexico. We want to know what you were doing.”

I saw the man holding my head pull out a blade. Much smaller than the bowie but lethal nonetheless. He leaned in, showing me the knife, his eyes locked on mine. I rolled to the left, a prehistoric instinct to get away from the danger, a low grunt escaping as I strained to get out of his grasp. I twisted my wrist, and I felt the lock click free.

A small snick that opened up a world of hurt.

I whipped both hands to my front and lashed out with the wrist still clamped, slashing the guard’s face with the teeth of the open handcuff. He screamed and started to roll back, but I trapped him against the wall, grabbed his wrist with the knife, and drove it deep into his eye socket.

The man with the bowie knife shouted and drew his gun. I jerked the dead guard in front of me and used him as primitive body armor, rushing forward, barely registering the weight, the rage of survival adrenaline making me feel superhuman. He fired multiple times in my direction and I felt the rounds impact the corpse. He tried to back up and I threw the body on top of him, then turned to the leader.

He had a look of shock on his face, still with his weapon in its holster. He scrambled to get it free but I was already on him, wrapping one arm around his neck and trapping the weapon with the other. I bent him backward, batted his hand away, and drew his pistol. I jammed it into his chest and pumped two rounds, letting him fall.