Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

“Stand by.”

Knuckles talked into his phone for about a minute, then nodded at me.

I said, “You got a grid on your phone now? From the Taskforce?”

The pilot fiddled around a little bit, then said, “Yeah, I got it.”

“Vector on that, right now.”

“Pike, I can’t do loops in the sky. Air-traffic control is already bugging me about loitering.”

“Come back to the airport on that grid. Tell them you have a maintenance issue and are returning. Fly low and slow. We need that ping.”

“How am I going to explain that after I land? When I don’t have an issue?”

“Figure something out.”

“I’m not sure I should jeopardize the cover for this. We don’t do this sort of thing, ripping around by the seat of our pants. I’ll fly out to El Paso first, like my flight plan says.”

After what we’d just been through, and the stakes, I was sick of his posturing behind some bullshit security classification, in no mood to hear some damn pilot at twenty grand second-guess what I was ordering when I was dealing with the blood.

“Screw the cover. You’re jeopardizing someone’s life right now.” I took a breath before continuing. When I did, it was cold rage coming through. “You turn that fucking plane around or I can promise you you’re jeopardizing your own life. Do you understand that, or do you need to call the Taskforce for confirmation?”

I heard nothing for a moment, then, “Roger. Turning back now.”

About damn time that guy realized who I am.

35

Felix Gomez had grown somewhat used to his situation. The violence of his abduction, the loss of control, and the feeling of impending doom all competed for his attention, but he’d managed to adjust. The first night had been the worst, when he’d been literally catatonic in fear, but that had steadily eroded as he realized that they meant to keep him for his worth and had no inclination to torture him for amusement. The night before he’d even managed to fall asleep. He’d had nightmares, but all in all he was holding up better than the others who were with him.

A man of about fifty and a boy not much older than him, both seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown, their faces reflecting a hollow shell devoid of hope.

Perhaps it was because of their respective timelines. The old man had told him he’d been here for over a week, and the younger one was running up against a week and a half. Felix knew the average time for successful negotiation and repatriation was five to seven days. After that, the kidnappers either felt they were being jerked around, or that the families simply couldn’t come up with the money, with the victim usually found dead alongside a dusty road, bound and blindfolded with packing tape. Another encintado to add to the statistics. Both of the men with him were running out of time and knew it.

Or perhaps it was the fact that he hadn’t been abused like the two other captives. The older one’s face was swollen, with a bloodshot, purple black eye, and he was missing his index finger on one hand, the stump covered in dirty cloth. A “proof of life” sent to someone to communicate that Los Zetas meant business. The younger one had a bandage on his upper arm that was mottled red, fresh blood seeping from the wound over the crust of the old. Felix had no idea what that represented, but nothing of the sort had happened to him. Maybe if he’d been treated to constant abuse, he’d be as mentally crushed as they were.

It might also have been his faith in his father. He knew Arturo Gomez would move heaven and earth to free him, and had the power and money to do so. He was sure they were tracking him right now, because he had an ace up his sleeve. Well, underneath his sleeve, that is. He unconsciously rubbed his left triceps, where his ace was buried.

Initially he was petrified the men would undress him when he was placed in the basement, but all they’d done was take anything that could have been of value for escape, such as his shoes and cell phone, leaving everything else as he wore it. Leaving his belt, which was much, much more valuable for escape than his cell phone. Had he been able to call, he had no idea what he would have said to get them to his location, but his belt was sending that out constantly.

He wondered if his father was even now planning his rescue.

The lights flashed on and his two roommates scurried to their designated eyebolts, the older one silently weeping.

Felix did the same, as the enforcer Felix had taken to calling El Barbudo, or the bearded one, came down the stairs. In one hand he held a fillet knife. In the other was a machete. He ignored the other two blubbering captives and came straight to Felix, throwing a pair of handcuffs at his feet. Felix manacled himself to the eyebolt.

His arms drawn out before him, his hands locked, El Barbudo gave him a choice. Tell which arm held the antikidnapping chip or have them both cut off with the machete. Felix felt his world collapse, the reason for the other boy’s upper-arm wound becoming crystal clear.

How did they know? How did they know?

He feigned innocence, and El Barbudo raised the machete, lightly touching the upper bicep of his right arm. Manacled to the eyebolt, his arm in perfect position for getting hacked off at the shoulder, Felix whispered the answer. Ten seconds later, he was screaming. A minute passed, and the man was holding the little device in his hand, covered in a coating of bodily fluid. He dropped it on the floor and stomped. The glass shattered with a small pop, the sound a tiny punctuation of Felix’s dwindling chances for survival.

El Barbudo unlocked his arms and tossed a bandage on the floor. He left, dropping the room into darkness yet again. Felix sat in the gloom, weeping, his face now reflecting the same hollow shell of the other two captives’.

Devoid of hope.

36

The pilot put me on hold, and I was sure it was just to aggravate me. Jennifer saw my face and pulled one hand off the wheel, slapping my shoulder. I glanced her way and she said, “Give him a break. He’s working the problem.”

From the back, looking at a tablet, Knuckles said, “Keep going straight. Right up ahead at the school. That’s the location. The last place his GPS pinged. The phone trace is about four miles away.”

I motioned for Jennifer to stop the car. There was no sense in driving around in circles, and if the target ended up being near the trace, I didn’t want to burn it by rolling aimlessly. We were far south of the city center, on the edges of Mexico City proper, located in a cul-de-sac with a primary school at the end. Why it pinged here at a dead end was beyond me, but there were a ton of parked cars, so maybe it was a transfer point to a different vehicle.

I stared at the phone, willing it to speak, and was startled when it did.

“Pike, this is Jim. We flew right over the plot and got nothing. We’re headed back to the airport.”

Damn it.

“Listen, that plot was general. All we know is it’s tied in some way. If I remember, you collect in a cone off the left side of the aircraft. Is that correct?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the capability.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. I want you to do a slow left turn with that grid at the center. One loop, with like a two-mile radius.”

I heard nothing for a moment, then, “All right, all right. We’re looping now.”

We waited, knowing it would take only a minute or two, me putting the phone on speaker and setting it in the seat. It looked like Jennifer was actually holding her breath. Knuckles said, “What do you want to do if this fails? Hit the phone trace?”

Jennifer scowled as if he was putting out bad vibes. I said, “I don’t know. This will probably be it, unless the Taskforce can give us a lead to the threat from the other end. We can’t hit a phone just because the cop called it. We have no idea what it’s tied to.”