Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

Jennifer went by me without slowing down, leaping from cinder block to tin roof, closing the gap. I jumped up as well, falling in behind her. She cleared the next building, falling onto the same roof as the men, the drop causing her to roll on the tar-covered concrete. As the gunman raised his pistol, I took a knee and fired a double tap that went wide. He squeezed the trigger at the same time and the man to his left slammed into his arms, throwing the shot into space.

The gunman screamed and turned the pistol onto Jennifer’s savior. The man backed up with his hands out, shouting something I couldn’t understand. He reached the edge of the building and fell backward just as the pistol went off.

Jennifer screamed, racing to the edge while firing at the gunman with an off-hand hold. He ducked, kicking the final man in the ass as Jennifer’s rounds pinged the cinder block around him, and they jumped to the next roof. Jennifer looked down to the street, holstered her pistol, and flung herself over the parapet. The last thing I saw was her hands on the ledge, then they disappeared.

I leapt across, saw the gunman fleeing with the final man, and let him go. I raced to the edge and leaned over. Seven feet below me was a balcony, with Jennifer holding Jack in her arms, putting pressure on a shoulder wound that had already coated his shirt with blood.

I dropped to the balcony, seeing a horrified family inside, all cowering on the couch. I showed my pistol and shook my head at them, then went to Jennifer.

She said, “He’s hit bad. He’s hit bad. He’s bleeding out.”

I moved her hand and smiled for the first time. Yeah, he was hit, but it wasn’t bad. Well, not bad as far as gunshots go. He’d have more danger from infection at the hospital than the wound itself.

I said, “Keep up pressure,” then keyed my radio, vectoring in everyone to my position. “Jackpot. I say again, jackpot. Need exfil and I don’t know my exact position. Somewhere north of the market right next to Trabajo Avenue. Need medical ASAP. Precious cargo is wounded.”

Decoy came on. “I got your position on the phone. I’m north, headed your way.”

“Who do you have with you?”

“Me and Knuckles.”

“Need more room. Blood, status?”

“Coming in hot right now. BMW seems to get everyone out of the way. Be there in thirty seconds.”

Five minutes later we were on the street with a crowd of people starting to circle. I shouted at Blood, “How much money you got?”

He said, “Not enough to get these guys to quit, but we have a couple of garbage bags in the back we need to dump for space anyway. They’re full of watches and shit.”

I pulled them out, surveying the crowd. One man was in front of the others, holding a rusty crowbar and looking like a badass. I walked up to him and said, “Let it go.”

Of course, he didn’t speak a lick of English. He raised the crowbar and I dumped the bag in front of him. When the watches, rings, and other bling spilled around his feet, he lowered his weapon, looking confused.

I swept my hand above the loot and said, “All yours.”

Once I tossed the other bag on the ground, they started jostling with one another, and we were on the way to a hospital with Jack bleeding all over the red leather seats and Jennifer hyperventilating over his wounds.

His eyes fluttered open for a moment, and he gained consciousness and tried to sit up. Jennifer stopped him, cooing. When he recognized her voice, he slurred, “Jennifer? Are you dead too?”

She laughed for the first time and said, “No. And neither are you.”

He leaned back and said, “What are you doing here? Did Mom send you?”

She smiled. “Yes. Mom sent me. Along with some friends.”

He chuckled, then grimaced from the pain it caused. “Friends, huh? Who on earth did you convince to come down here to this hellhole?”

“Some people who don’t mind a little trouble.” She caught my eye and smiled. “Someone who does what’s right.”

He closed his eyes and said, “Does what’s right … I knew that would make a difference.”

She said, “What’s that mean?”

He didn’t answer and she let it go.

She held his hand and leaned forward, saying, “Thank you, guys. Thank you for doing this. I owe you big-time.”

Blood said, “You don’t owe me shit. I get a paycheck.”

Now that we were relatively safe, I let my anger spill out over her activities in the last hour. I said, “Blood may not care, but you sure as hell owe me. Jesus, you ignore every single order I give, running into a Korean Mafia house and slinging lead with no backup whatsoever. What the hell were you thinking?”

Blood said, “Hey, cut her some slack. She was rescuing the PC. You’d do the same in her shoes.”

“I would not. No way would I do something that stupid.”

His face split into the same smile he always used when he knew he was right, a disarming bit of trickery he’d learned at the agency. “You do that all the damn time. The only difference is the person you’re ignoring is a continent away.”

I harrumphed, then saw Jennifer returning Blood’s smile with one of her own. So damn proud she’d ignored me. I tried to maintain my anger, but it was a lost cause. Her actions had saved her brother, after all. He’d have been gone for good if she hadn’t raced off on her own, and being mad about her actions was a little selfish. I certainly couldn’t argue with success, and whenever I’d done something like she had, I didn’t smile because I was proud of ignoring the command. I smiled because I’d succeeded in the mission, which was something I was always throwing in Kurt Hale’s face.

Now it was being thrown into mine.

I poked one more time, because I didn’t like being treated like the damn command I always flouted. “Well, I’m glad we got your brother, but let’s hope he can do something against the threat. You were sure he was the Holy Grail, and apparently so was the Oversight Council.”

Jennifer got a little truculent at that. “I am sure he can, but this mission isn’t a failure if he can’t. Is it? Do you think that?”

She was staring daggers at me, and I heard the unspoken end of her words: Do you think that, or does the asshole team leader? I saw Blood catch the look in the rearview, a question on his face, wondering. Someone else reading the tea leaves like Knuckles. Seeing things beyond a simple team member–team leader relationship. I honestly hated how smart these bastards were. Nothing got past them for long.

I backtracked and said, “No, of course not. I just meant I hope he’s got some useful information. That’s all.”

Blood said, “Check in your foot well. I gave the car a cursory once-over for bad shit, found the goody bags in back and something else.”

“What?” I started rooting underneath my seat. “What did you find?”

“A digital video recorder and a directional microphone. No idea what’s on it.”

I pulled it out, put the headphones on my ears, and started listening. Jennifer saw my eyes squint and said, “What is it?”

I held a finger in the air and said, “Shhh.” I listened a little bit more, then turned around, seeing Jack unconscious in the back, Jennifer keeping pressure on his wound. She waited. I continued listening until she couldn’t take it. She said, “Damn it, what are you hearing?”

I pulled the headset off and said, “I take back everything I just said about your jackass maneuver.”

“What?”

“Your brother just bought us a ticket to the dance.”

46

The sicario finished taping Booth’s ankles to the metal rod he’d broken from the towel rack, pinning them to the bar. He pulled the feet until they hung over the bathtub, then taped the bar to the ceramic edge. Now stretched out like a calf for slaughter, his hands chained to a cast-iron pipe that jutted out from under the sink, Booth began to writhe up and down, but he’d waited too long. His eyes wild, he grunted through the gag in his mouth, only growing still when the sicario turned to face him, a demonic vision that caused instant compliance.