Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

I heard nothing for a moment, then, “Pike, you sure about this? He’s a Mexican federal agent. We take him down and we’re wrong, this will be a world of hurt. We have no cover for action here whatsoever.”

Jennifer rolled her hand into the grip above the SUV window and looked at me, knowing what he said was true, but also knowing that her brother’s fate hung in the balance. I had the Oversight Council’s authority to continue, but that was predicated on my judgment. And I wasn’t sure that my judgment here was correct.

Every bit of evidence said this guy was doing exactly what he was supposed to do: finding the textile tycoon’s son as a kidnapping investigator. He was a uniformed member of the Mexican Federal Police and had a reason for having the son’s name and face in his house. If I captured him and was wrong, there would be no way to control the repercussions. Everything pointed to his being what he said.

Except for a single phone call from a member of the Sinaloa cartel. And if he was crooked, he was now informing them of our only edge. Informing them of the technological link that would lead to Jennifer’s brother.

I glanced at Jennifer for support, wanting something more than my instinct to make the call, and got nothing. She knew the same things I did, and I could tell she didn’t want the decision. She wanted her brother.

I said, “Yeah. Get me a grid. Box him in. We’re taking him down.”

33

Booth’s hand hovered over the “complete transaction” button, reluctant to push it and confirm his reservation. Wondering if taking POLARIS to Mexico City was such a hot idea after all, especially after his last conversation with Carlos.

The man had thrown away all pretenses of being a Mexican version of Anonymous, going so far as to pay for the trip down, as if he didn’t care what Booth thought about him. He appeared to only want the protocol. Or maybe Booth himself.

It had been over two years since he’d dug up the corrupt officials working with Los Zetas on behalf of Anonymous, but he knew their memories were long, and their taste for vengeance was legendary. It was nearly impossible to determine the playing field at any given time in Mexico, and Booth now wondered if he was putting too much faith in the hatred Sinaloa had for Los Zetas. Maybe they were allied now. Or maybe, like the hacktivist groups Booth worked with, they were so fragmented that Carlos was working both sides of the fence, taking POLARIS for Sinaloa and selling Booth to Los Zetas.

The investigative work he’d done on behalf of Carlos hadn’t helped his attitude any. Grolier Recovery Services had smoke all around it. On the one hand, it had found a temple in Guatemala that had actually made some press, meaning the discovery had been real. On the other, it had done little since. A trip to Syria on behalf of a university that went nowhere because the country was in a state of turmoil, a trip to Egypt that looked more like a tourist agenda than anything a professional archeological company would conduct, and most recently, a trip to Turkmenistan where the employees did little, if anything.

Digging in deeper, exploring the linkages any company has in the digital age, he’d found a hefty amount of obfuscation and security. The company ISPs redirected off mirrors, making it hard to determine exactly where the host was, and they employed encryption protocols that were something he would expect out of Apple protecting the next-generation iPhone, not a firm doing routine business. Especially a firm of this size. Some of the ISPs crossed paths with other, interesting ones coming out of Washington, DC.

On top of all of that, the company supposedly had over ten employees, but he could find tax records for only two: a Nephilim Logan and Jennifer Cahill. The rest were ghosts, on the books officially but with little else to show for the trouble. A token payment here, an issued credit card there, but nowhere near what should have existed.

The final kicker was a Gulfstream IV aircraft leased to the company. He worked for Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, and outside of a handful in the upper echelons, nobody flew around on private jets. How on earth did this company manage to pay for the thing? And why would they?

On the whole, the company stank, and Carlos had brought them into the equation. He didn’t care if it was some DEA front out to destroy whatever Carlos was into, but he wondered greatly if he would be pulled into the net. Wondered how much of Carlos’s blood would splatter on him if an action occurred while he was down in Mexico. No way did he want to end up like Bradley Manning, chained to a bunk at Quantico on suicide watch, or Edward Snowden, running from country to country. And what he was doing would be considered exponentially worse than giving diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks or a top secret slide show to the press.

But at least Manning and Snowden had done something. Created some good in the world at the risk of their well-being. Created transparency in a government that was cloaked in darkness, the worst being the so-called drone program working to keep the fat cats on Wall Street in business. There was no telling how many people were being targeted right this minute, all enriching the oil barons. If he could, he would crack open that vault of information and let it fly free, much like Manning and Snowden had done, and cause the light of day to expose the rot hidden in the darkness. But he couldn’t. Unlike them, he had no access to official databases. No means to expose the destruction being wrought at the hands of his own government. All he had was the ability to stop it, and that was worth the risk.

He punched the transaction button, getting an immediate e-mail back with his flight itinerary. He checked to make sure it was correct, seeing the American Airlines flight would leave in two days, with one stop in Dallas before going on to Mexico City. Two days to figure out what Grolier Recovery Services is really all about. Not enough time to figure it out alone.

He logged on to a message board and began recruiting.

34

Waiting on a miracle from our aircraft, I had Jennifer vector me in on the unmarked police car. Luckily for us, the cop hadn’t taken a high-speed avenue of approach from the Gomez residence, but had traveled east up a street called Presidente Masaryk, which appeared to be rich man’s land, with high-end car dealers and jewelry stores lacing the boulevard. It was a four-lane road separated in the middle by a little island of foliage and trees, which meant you weren’t going to assault coming from the wrong way. Not unless you were driving a bulldozer.

Blood, in my only singleton vehicle, was to the north, staged and waiting on instructions. Knuckles and Decoy had circled around and were driving west, coming the wrong way, unfortunately, but that was okay. I didn’t think an assault on this road was terribly smart anyway, given the high-end stores and outward security. I’d already seen two separate black Suburban convoys, traveling security for some rich guy or gal, so my preference would have been for our target to leave this section of the city.

Two things worked against that, though. One, if he kept going east, he would run into the area around Zona Rosa, which I knew contained multiple embassies—along with the Mexican version of the FBI—making the security impossible for an assault, and two, the longer I let him drive around, the longer he had to give his GPS locator information to the cartel.

I didn’t know if he’d phone it in or if he’d just wait, figuring if it hadn’t worked yet it was no threat, but I didn’t like his having the information and running free.

Jennifer said, “He’s one block up. Right in front of the traffic circle.”

I relayed to Knuckles, having him hold up short with eyes on the circle to see which way he went. My traffic began to flow, and I asked for lock-on.