Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

I handed Blood the screwdriver, and he placed it into the slot to unlock the bathroom stall. He nodded and I kicked it in, seeing Hussein doubled over on the toilet, farting and shitting his guts out.

I didn’t even need the Taser. He was so destroyed by the ABS he couldn’t have resisted if he wanted to, which made me wonder if Knuckles could still get on the plane.

He looked up in agony, and I said, “Wipe what you have.”

He doubled over and began another round. Damn it.

We couldn’t sit here for an hour while he shit his brains out. We needed to go. Note to self: Take into account the time for ABS to subside.

Blood said, “What are we going to do? We pull him now and he’s going to spray all over the place like a damn baby.”

I said, “Go through his bags. Get the boarding passes and get the Ghost ready to go. Knuckles, you alive?”

I heard a weak, “Yeah.”

“You going to make the flight?”

“I’ll make it. Just give me a minute.”

“Koko, how are we looking?”

“Okay from this end. Nobody’s approached.”

Blood had the Ghost out of the bin, and he looked green from the smell. I couldn’t imagine what he must have been thinking about this clown fest. Probably wondering how on earth we had managed to capture him.

I heard Knuckles flush, and he came out, sweating profusely and walking unsteadily. I said, “You okay?”

“No. Hell no.”

I couldn’t help it. A grin slipped out. He scowled and said, “You think this is fucking funny?”

I scrunched my lips together in a terse line, then said, “Well, yeah. Might be worthy of a new call sign. Perhaps ‘Ass Wipe.’”

He looked like he wanted to hit me and I held up my hands, saying, “Jennifer’s got the antidote. Get it from her bag before you go.”

He nodded and moved to the Ghost. He checked his ankles, seeing a green light on both GPS trackers. He said, “I’m your babysitter. You can call me Mr. Black. Don’t do anything stupid because I’m really not in the mood.”

The Ghost nodded. Blood said, “Found the boarding passes.”

He handed them to the Ghost, who checked to make sure the name was the same on his newly forged passport.

I said, “You guys go. We’ll give you a data dump when you land. Go to a restaurant inside the airport, before you leave the secure area, and call. We’ll feed you the next steps.”

The flight time was about two and a half hours, which was cutting it really close, but we had an entire Taskforce team in a safe house nearby who would complete the initial interrogation and exploitation of everything Hussein had with him. We would know before they landed what Hussein was supposed to do.

I turned back to Hussein, who was now sweating like Knuckles but ambulatory, realizing we weren’t there to help him. He made a half-assed attempt at escaping, trying to pull up his pants at the same time. I punched him in the head, knocking him to the floor of the stall, his pants falling back down to his ankles. I hit him with the syringe in his thigh and he went limp. We flex-tied his arms and legs, then dumped him into the Rubbermaid container, the stench wafting out as if it contained a dead animal.

55

The trunk of the car jerked open, and Booth squinted his eyes at the glare coming from the sun. When he could focus, he saw the crazy bald man standing above him, wearing a wig and holding a knife. He began to panic and the man said, “Stop. I’m cutting your bonds. It’s time to show the people that your protocol works.”

He relaxed, letting the man cut through the tape around his ankles and wrists. After it was complete, he was jerked out of the trunk. The man put his weird eyes on him and said, “Do exactly as I say, and you will live another day. Try to run, and I will make your death infinitely slow. There is nowhere I won’t find you. Understand?”

Booth nodded, afraid to speak.

“Bring your computer and whatever else you need. You are going to show a man how your system works.”

He gathered his things, including the two GPS devices, and followed behind his captor. He knew his last test would have caused a massive reaction at Schriever Air Force Base and was worried about doing another such test. He’d end up causing another blackout in the Northern Hemisphere, and that might potentially create an all-out push to find his protocol. It would still take some time, but he didn’t like the odds of discovery, especially since he was sure he would have to do it a third time, if only to instruct whoever was purchasing the protocol.

By the time they had left the walking promenade of Motolinía, he had the beginnings of an idea. His GPS would lock on to four different satellites to obtain a location, showing the man it functioned. All he needed to do at that point was demonstrate a discrepancy. What if he affected only the specific satellites the GPS was using? Then he wouldn’t harm the entire constellation. It would cause some disruption, as undoubtedly someone else was also using those four satellites, but there were thirty-five in the air, and other devices could switch seamlessly to another satellite. It wouldn’t cause a wholesale blackout. In fact, if he attacked only two of the four, he’d still get a shift in signal. The 2nd SOPS would see it, but it would be looked at as a signal anomaly instead of a catastrophe.

He spent the rest of the walk working out the specifics in his mind, figuring out how to attack only two satellites. He hadn’t designed the protocol that way, but he could use the data from the GPS to isolate them.

Still running the mechanics through his head, he didn’t notice his captor had stopped and bumped into his back. The man scowled, then opened the door to a restaurant called La Opera, waving him through. The room was covered in burnished wood that had the look of age, the ceiling ornately sculpted and the bar to the right fairly crowded with businesspeople. He was led to a table in the middle and presented to another man who could have been Mexican. Booth heard the name Farooq, and when the man spoke, Booth realized he was not from Mexico. Realized his POLARIS protocol was about to be turned over to America’s enemies.

The thought did not alter his calculations one bit, as his sole concern was survival. It was like passing a billboard right before slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident, something that registered and then was immediately forgotten.

He gave up the deception of using “Guy Fawkes” and stated his real name.

“A pleasure, Mr. Booth. Pelón here says that you can cause American drones to stop flying. I’d like to see that.”

Booth looked from his captor to Farooq, slightly confused. He said, “Yes, the POLARIS protocol will do that, but it’s not designed to affect drones. It affects the GPS constellation, which is what the drones use to operate. You know about GPS?”

Farooq said he did, and Booth gave a quick class on POLARIS, describing how it functioned. Farooq said, “So this works with all GPS devices? Bombs, ships, cruise missiles?”

“Yes. If it uses a GPS, it will become ineffective.”

Booth saw the gleam in Farooq’s eyes and knew he was doing something very, very wrong. But it was too late to worry about the repercussions. Way too late to wonder about making any money. Not if he wanted to continue living with the soles of his feet attached.

Farooq said, “Show me.”

“We need to be near a window. Can we change tables?”

They called a waiter and moved deeper into the restaurant, getting a high-backed wooden booth next to a window. The waiter pointed at the ceiling above them, where a hole was circled in paint. He said, “That’s Pancho Villa’s bullet hole. He ate here and shot the ceiling.”

Booth found the comment surreal. Twenty minutes ago he had been taped up in the trunk of a car, put there by a man he was convinced was insane. Now he was about to show another man who was undoubtedly a terrorist how to thwart one of the United States’ greatest technological advantages. And he was getting tourist tidbits from the waitstaff. The situation caused a nervous giggle to escape. The snigger died instantly when Pelón looked at him.