Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

He went into the other room for a drink of water and felt his phone vibrate. He looked at the number and answered immediately.

“Yes, El Comandante.”

“Pelón, I have a task for you. It needs to be done immediately.”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Sinaloa has something big in motion. I don’t know what it is, but there is a man who does. He’s an American, and I’ve just found out they mean to bring him here to Juárez.”

“You want me to kill him?”

“No, no. That’s what they’re trying to do. He’s apparently a reporter who knows of their plans. I want you to snatch him from them. Find out what he knows. Find out how he can help us.”

That was a tall order. Ciudad Juárez was huge, as big as El Paso, and absolutely flooded with drug cartel safe houses much like the one he was in. Getting to the man and getting out alive would mean a fight, and with the balance of power between Sinaloa and Los Zetas, it would more than likely mean a running gun battle. He wouldn’t get to pick the time and place of capture, like he ordinarily did. Sinaloa would be waiting, and Los Zetas no longer had the monopoly on violence they’d once possessed.

Initially formed in the late nineties as an enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, the core of Los Zetas was defectors from the GAFE—Mexican Special Forces—who took their name from the code letter Z given to them when they were working with the federal police trying to halt the flow of drugs. The government couldn’t offer nearly as much money as the Gulf cartel, and the men had simply switched allegiances. Before they defected, the GAFE had done many cross-training events with the Kaibiles in Guatemala, and the connection still lingered, pulling in defectors from that Special Forces element as well, including the sicario.

By 2007, Los Zetas were doing much, much more than simply enforcing for the Gulf cartel. Their tendrils extended all the way into Central America, and their brutality became legendary. They split from their Gulf masters, forming their own cartel, and the blood began to flow, with Los Zetas proving to be more ferocious than any other cartel. The guard dog had turned on the master.

In recent years almost all of the original Special Forces leaders had been killed, leading to infighting for control and less restraint as the violence spiraled upward. Los Zetas had turned feral, killing each other as much as anyone else. Like a bonfire, they were consuming themselves in a spectacular spasm of destruction and running out of fuel. Now, with the Gulf cartel in alliance with the Sinaloa cartel, the Juárez plaza was in danger of being lost forever, and Los Zetas would do anything to prevent it.

The sicario knew that refusal of the mission would simply mean his death. There was no form of loyalty anymore. It wasn’t like the early days, when accomplishment counted and the Special Forces bond meant something. Now it was a day-to-day fight for existence.

He said, “You know where he will be taken? What area of the city?”

“No. Not here. But I know where in El Paso. It’s why you have been chosen.”

“I don’t work in America. I can’t work in America. If I’m caught there, I won’t be deported.”

“So don’t get caught, Pelón. It’s just across the border, in an area nobody controls. It will be easy.”

Despite his fearsome reputation, the sicario still worked for a boss, was still subservient to the Zetas chain of command, and he knew exactly why he was being given the task. Someone would need to penetrate the border into El Paso, capture the guy, then return. Someone who had the ability to avoid a majority of the scrutiny at the bridge. Someone who knew how to get around in America.

The sicario didn’t fit the last requirement. He hadn’t been across to El Paso in over thirty-five years and had no idea what the city was like. But he did have the ability to get back and forth, since he had an American passport.

Because he’d been born there.

8

The sicario puttered in the northbound traffic on the Paso del Norte Bridge, seeing the line of cars snaking out before him. He’d done his research and knew it would be at least a two-hour wait. While the bridge operated twenty-four hours a day, he’d decided to cross when traffic was heaviest, giving the men working border control less of an incentive to focus on him.

Inching forward every few minutes, surrounded by all manner of cars, some seemingly held together by duct tape, he reflected on his future. Or more precisely, his lack of one.

From the beginning, the cartels had led a Darwinian existence of dog-eat-dog, with only the strong surviving. Even Osiel Cárdenas, the man who had created the original Zetas enforcement arm, had the nickname El Mata Amigos—the Friend Killer—because he had executed his partner to seize control of the Gulf cartel. Back then, though, there were lines. Reasons for the violence, with a degree of logic, because random killing was counterproductive for business. The sicario had seen that change.

The leadership of Los Zetas had become paranoid. Or maybe they were simply crazy, with the calculated thinking of the original members lost to the savagery of the animals who took over from below. It really didn’t matter why. In the past the sicario had killed for a purpose. Sending a signal to the authorities, getting revenge for transgressions, or simply showing the consequences should someone interfere with cartel business—it had all been designed to retain control. The killings were thought out before they were ordered, with potential repercussions discussed at least as much as the operation itself. Now Los Zetas butchered anyone suspected of working against them based on rumor alone, with no thought given to the fallout.

The man the sicario had boiled was one such target. Two days ago, he’d been a valued member of Los Zetas. Yesterday, he had become a target, simply because his boss, El Comandante, had heard he might be turning informant.

The sicario was sure El Comandante was crazy. He was like a dog that had been whipped, beaten, and thrown into fights to the death for so long he had lost all sense of what constituted reality. Sooner or later, it would be the sicario’s turn. Of that he was absolutely positive. The only reason it hadn’t happened yet was because he had never once shown anything but loyalty and had never indicated an interest in greater riches or power.

That, and because the sicario had been Los Zetas far longer than anyone else. Longer even than El Comandante. He was one of the few members of Los Zetas still alive from when they were the pipe swingers for the Gulf cartel. One of the original sicarios—and that fact, along with his reputation for brutality, held some importance.

He wondered if he himself was crazy. He thought he could discern it in others but wasn’t sure about himself. He didn’t believe he was, but in his heart he couldn’t see how anyone who executed such heinous deeds couldn’t be. He should have been eaten up with remorse or fearful of the afterlife. But he wasn’t. The acts, like the one earlier today, never bothered him. Didn’t that make him loco?

There was only one action that haunted him. Made him worry about where he would spend eternity. During the latter stages of the Guatemalan civil war, his Kaibil unit had been sent to “pacify” a village. They had slaughtered every man, woman, and child. After everything he had done since in the name of Los Zetas, this was the one event that haunted his dreams. Made him sweat when the memories surfaced. The campesinos running left and right like rabbits. The machetes falling. The blood. The stench of spilled intestines and chopped meat. It all returned at night while he slept.

The aftereffects of that operation had driven him into the arms of Los Zetas. He told himself it was because they paid infinitely more than the Guatemalan army, but in reality, he had decided that if he was going to kill, he wanted to kill someone who wasn’t innocent. As if Los Zetas knew the difference.