Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

But it wasn’t to be. The girl would die at his hand, whether she was good or evil. Then Booth would die. Then he would die, years from now, probably in a bathroom, much like Peter, after slipping on a bar of soap.

There was no such thing as justice. It was all random events.

He slid between the cars, staying out of the rearview mirrors of his target. He approached at a crouch, slinking along the ground. Moving forward one step at a time, he kept his eyes on the driver’s-side door. He reached the rear quarter panel of the car and paused. He slowly rose up and saw the girl leaning forward, as if she were listening to the radio. Focusing on something else besides her immediate surroundings.

He pulled his knife and scooted forward. He took one breath and flung the door open. She turned in surprise. He grabbed her shoulder and jerked her out of the car, intent on stabbing her in the heart. From the ground, she kicked his leg, breaking his balance, then began to scramble away on her back like a crab.

He fell on top of her, surprised at her reaction. He grabbed her hair and twisted her head. She screamed and brought her knee up, hammering his inner thigh. He grunted and brought the knife down. She parried the blow with her forearm, the blade slicing her flesh.

Fighting like a banshee, she hammered his face with the same forearm, causing his vision to explode in stars. Still holding her hair, he slammed her head into the pavement, then felt a blinding pain in his right arm. He tried to raise it and couldn’t. He felt another searing pain in his lower back, burrowing into his kidney, and rolled over, seeking the source.

He saw the Arab from the museum above him. The killer now taking his payment. He rose to his knees, the Arab crouching over him with a blade dripping blood. He felt the warmth of his body leaking around his waist, spreading on the ground. And he was finally at peace. Finally understood.

He said, “Of course. It’s you. So there is no bar of soap.”

The killer stared at him through his thick glasses, slight of build but breathtaking in his destruction. The sicario staggered backward, slapping a bloody hand against the car for support.

He looked up and said, “Tell me, please, do you fear what you have done? Do you believe in judgment?”

The Arab remained still and said, “I fear what I have done now. I fear that I have prevented my freedom. Because of you.”

The sicario smiled. “Destiny. Not random. The fist of God.”

His hand slipped in his own blood, causing him to slide against the car. He struggled for purchase, sagging forward. He looked his killer in the eye and said, “Thank you.”

He began to fade, the vision of the killer replaced by one of his mother, cooking in the kitchen of their little hovel in Guatemala. The smells as vivid as the day they’d happened.

He fell onto his face, his body hitting the pavement and splashing the blood rupturing out of his vital organs.

He heard his sister outside, calling him. Telling him it wasn’t his fault. Beckoning. His body left the hut and he found her, sitting in a yard full of chickens, petting a fox on the head.

77

With Decoy, Knuckles, and Blood surrounding us, I dragged Booth back up the stairs and into the light. The clock was at one minute and counting. I threw him into a chair and shoved the computer in his face.

“Turn that shit off. Right now.”

He made another comment about a lawyer, and I slammed his hand onto the table, running my knife against the back of his knuckle. The people in the bar went crazy at that scene, but my little protective security detail kept everyone at bay, and Booth saw the light. With sweat dripping from his greasy, traitorous head, he decided that admitting he could stop the attack would be better than losing his thumb.

He accessed the computer.

With forty seconds left, he made one dumb comment about not being responsible for what “we” had put on his computer, since it had been outside of his control. I placed the knife against his neck. Not sure whether I was serious, he looked at me with dishpan eyes and began typing, disabling all the little software booby traps. Which was a good call, because I was way, way serious.

The clock kept ticking. I said, “What the hell are you doing? Shut it down.”

He said, “I’m trying to. I have to get through my security.”

At five seconds I said, “Just so you know, your life is tied to this. It doesn’t go down, and you do. Permanently. Right here and right now.”

His fingers trembling, he tapped a few more keys, and the clock stopped.

I sagged against the bench, drawing deep breaths. Booth said, “Can I go now?” I popped him in the face hard enough to bounce his head into the wall.

*

Seven thousand miles away, Bricktop hit his release point. His headset chattering incessantly now, he talked to both his wingman and his copilot in a robotic monotone, maintaining the myth of calm over a military net, like every pilot before him. He opened the bay doors. The two MOABs sat silently, dumb pieces of metal holding more destructive power than anything on earth outside of a nuclear bomb.

He hit the release, and they fell to earth, now alive and seeking information to guide them to their target. They locked on to the GPS signal and began to glide, shifting left and right, furiously attempting to please their master by destroying themselves precisely where they had been ordered.

*

Abdul Hakim cracked the door to his house, peeking out at the cloistered confines of Palmyra. To the east he saw the glow of the infamous Tadmor prison, where President Assad’s father had imprisoned many, many members of the Muslim Brotherhood for daring to defy him in a fight before Abdul had been born. Farther out he saw the lights of the Palmyra airfield, a military enclave that the regime apparently would do anything to protect.

Seeing nothing outside the door, Abdul touched his brother’s arm and began walking down the alley, the houses so close together there was nowhere to hide should trouble appear.

A flash over toward the airfield caught his eye. He held up, pushing his brother into a wall, straining to see what had caused the light. A second later the earth split apart as if the Devil himself was escaping, the violent action muted solely by the distance.

Two seconds later the shock wave hit, and he and his brother were flattened on the sidewalk, buffeted with debris from a strike nearly a mile away. Abdul sat up and stared uncomprehendingly, watching a mushroom cloud rise exactly like in an old TV show, wondering if Israel had struck with nuclear weapons.

Unaware of how close he had come to dying because of a fragile radio signal.

*

Bricktop looked out the window of his B-2 and saw the impact, feeling immense pride. A round-trip mission of national importance, from the heart of the United States. Just like the doctrine that had led to the creation of his aircraft during the Cold War. There was a reason for his weapon system. For the money spent on his capability.

After all, no snake eater had done a damn thing for this operation.

*

Jennifer felt like her head had been smothered in cotton. She fought the fog, some internal instinct telling her it was vital but not consciously knowing why. Her brain began to clear, and she saw the man who had attacked her slip against the car, then slam face-first into the pavement, his body across her legs.

She began to rise and heard, “Don’t! Don’t move.”

She turned and saw the Ghost. Standing above her with a knife.

She pulled her legs out from underneath the body and he shouted again, “No, no, no. Stay down. Please.”

She stopped her movement and looked into his eyes. She knew what he had done. Knew he had saved her life. She rose into a crouch, saying, “I can’t.”