Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

I’d said as much when she’d met me in the lobby of our hotel, and she’d promptly kicked my leg. And not in a teasing way, either. She’d done it hard enough to bruise the hell out of my shin.

No way was I going there again, although I really wanted to jerk her chain about it one more time. She was a little too sensitive about such things, and an easy target.

We had a little walk to get from terminal C to terminal A, and I was growing concerned about the timeline. Hussein coming in early threw things off a bit, but not by much. We took the Skylink train, then hoofed it to gate A6, the end of the line. Terminal A was next to corporate aviation, which had allowed access to the airfield using our Gulfstream as a prop.

This far down the terminal there were no restaurants or newsstands, so there weren’t a whole lot of people hanging around. The closest was a bar at A10, and only one flight was preparing to leave at gate A8, so we could work in relative safety. All we had to worry about were the cameras, which, luckily, didn’t focus on our door.

We found the access door leading to the freight elevator in a little cubby and Jennifer opened her bag, with me shielding what she was doing. She handed me a key-card attached to a USB device that looked like a big-brain scientific calculator, then took her bag into the restroom.

My Bluetooth chirped, and Knuckles came on. “I have him. He doesn’t look much like his passport photo on the visa application, but it’s him. He’s in line to exit customs with his bag.”

“How long?”

“Line’s about ten minutes. From there, he’s got to walk to D6. Maybe twenty or twenty-five minutes tops.”

I said, “Roger, we’re at Alpha six. Jennifer’s changing and I’m about to bring in Blood.”

I turned on the calculator thing, then dialed the computer geeks at the Taskforce. “I’m set. What’s the sequence?”

The key-card was a blank designed to duplicate the RFID code used by the door reader. The code was randomized daily and synchronized with the official cards through an encrypted handshake. Mine was a bit more manual, so I had to input today’s code courtesy of the hacking cell.

The man on the other end tapped his keys for a second, then read off a sequence to me, which I tapped on the calculator pad. It was too bad we couldn’t do more operations inside the United States. Being a member of a US counterterrorism team really gave us an edge cracking security at official US facilities, but the Taskforce charter restricted us from operating on US soil. Since this target wasn’t a citizen, we’d been given special permission.

I held the card up to the pad and hit “send.” Voilà, the door magically opened. On the other side was Blood, wearing a janitor’s uniform for the Dallas airport and standing behind a large Rubbermaid trash receptacle.

We only had a fifteen-second gap before the open door started to bleat an alarm, so I didn’t waste time with small talk. I held it open and waved him through. Once he was inside, I said, “Any issues?”

“None. Van is downstairs and it’s only a thirty-second ride to the corporate side and our aircraft.”

I cracked the lid on the Rubbermaid and found the Ghost staring back at me, scrunched down at the bottom and looking lost. I winked and closed it back up just as Jennifer returned, now wearing her own janitor’s outfit, which didn’t look near as sexy.

Probably why you don’t see movies with janitors getting it on.

She’d applied some disguise makeup, which gave her a broken, downtrodden appearance. It was more than likely the first time she’d ever made herself look intentionally unattractive, but it allowed her to blend in better as an airport janitor.

I said, “You’ve got about twenty minutes and a long way to go, so you need to get moving.”

Blood said, “Maybe we should take the train.”

“No. These Rubbermaid bins stay in the terminal with the people assigned to that terminal. Nobody takes them to another terminal on the train, and I can’t have some TSA agent start asking any questions.”

I, of course, as an intrepid pilot, wouldn’t be walking from terminal A to terminal D.

I confirmed, “What’s the gate?”

Jennifer said, “Delta six. Far end.”

“Roger that. See you there.”

54

Ten minutes later I exited the Skylink at gate D12 and began to walk toward the end, to gate D6, where Hussein’s flight to Mexico City was berthed. I called Knuckles. “Status?”

“He’s next up. Coming out now.”

“Koko, Blood, you copy that?”

“This is Blood. Roger. We’ve entered the far side of terminal D, but we’ve got to walk the entire way to the gate.”

The D terminal joined the access walkway to the other terminals at gate D40, which was hell and gone from D6. “Roger all. Pick it up a bit.”

I stopped at D7 and took a seat, just another weary pilot hanging around. I got eyes on the bathroom at D6 to orient myself and hoped the timing worked out to use it. I really didn’t want to flex to another bathroom, but that wasn’t my call. It was Knuckles’s, and the digestive system of Hussein.

Knuckles came on. “He’s out of customs and walking back upstairs to the terminal. Ten minutes.”

I said, “Roger,” and felt the anticipation start to build.

Blood came on. “We’re ahead of him. We’ll be good. Want us to let him pass?”

“No. Keep coming, but you can slow it down.”

A minute later, and Knuckles was cursing. “ABS in place, I say again, ABS in place, but I got some of it on me. I knew that was going to happen.”

Oh boy, that’s not going to be fun.

“What did you do?”

“I went to swipe his arm, and right as I did, he turned my way to look at a monitor. He knocked the ChapStick into my hand. I’m moving out, away from him.”

“What gate?”

“Gate eighteen, I say again, gate eighteen.”

“Pike, this is Koko, we’re at sixteen. I can see Knuckles. Target’s got to be close. We’ll pick him up. We have the eye.”

“Roger all. Track him and execute as planned. Trigger when the ABS takes effect.”

Knuckles said, “I’ll bet I can do that for you.”

“You’d better hope not.”

I waited a bit, looking calm but fired up with a fight-or-flight response. I saw Knuckles first. He passed by me, no acknowledgment at all, and took a seat at D6, milling around with the people waiting to go to Mexico. A minute later, I saw the garbage bin come into view. I scanned the crowd and found Hussein. I tracked him with my eyes, watching him take a seat. He didn’t appear to be in any distress.

Hope that damn ABS stuff functions as advertised.

No more than thirty seconds later, Knuckles shot up and scurried to the bathroom. Well, I guess it works. Right behind him was Hussein.

Jennifer and Blood let them both get inside, then pulled the bin in front of the door, placing out little cones that said “Closed for Cleaning.” Blood went inside, then returned to the door, waiting.

A third party inside going to the bathroom.

Eventually, a Hispanic man and small boy exited, returning to gate D6. Blood disappeared again, then called. “Execute, execute. Come on, make it quick. This place smells like something died in here.”

I stood up and walked to the bathroom, dragging the two carry-ons. Blood pushed in the Rubbermaid and Jennifer stayed outside, holding a cleaning bucket and a mop, pulling security.

The stench hit me immediately, a green fog of unbearable odor. Then I heard the bowels being forcibly evacuated. It was so bad I didn’t think I could continue. Blood was on the other side of one of the stalls, his face scrunched up and pointing toward a door. I opened my carry-on and pulled out a Taser, locking zip ties, a screwdriver, and a syringe.