Brad Taylor - The Polaris Protocol

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Taylor, Brad, 1965–

The Polaris Protocol : a Pike Logan thriller / Brad Taylor.

To Skeeter and Allan, my biggest cheerleaders

CONTENTS

Also by Brad Taylor

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Civil GPS receivers are built deeply into our national infrastructure: from our smartphones to our cars to the Internet to the power grid to our banking and finance institutions. Some call GPS the invisible utility: it works silently, and for the most part perfectly reliably, in devices all around us—devices of which we are scarcely aware.

Dr. Todd Humphreys, statement to the House Committee on Homeland Security

His story is about power, but he is never really in control… . His world is not as imagined in novels and films. He is always the man who comes and takes you and tortures you and kills you. But still, he is always worried, because his work stands on a floor of uncertainty. Alliances shift, colleagues vanish—sometimes because he murders them—and he seldom knows what is really going on. He catches only glimpses from the battlefield.

Molly Molloy and Charles Bowden, El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin

1

December 2011

Sergeant Ronald Blackmar never heard the round before it hit, but registered the whine of a ricochet right next to his head and felt the sliver of rock slice into his cheek. He slammed lower behind the outcropping and felt his face, seeing blood on his assault gloves. His platoon leader, First Lieutenant Blake Alberty, threw himself into the prone and said with black humor, “You get our asses out of here, and I’ll get you another Purple Heart.”

Blackmar said, “I’ve got nothing else to work with. The eighty-ones won’t reach and the Apaches are dry.”

Another stream of incoming machine-gun rounds raked their position, and Alberty returned fire, saying, “We’re in trouble. And I’m not going to be the next COP Keating.”

Both from the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division, they were part of a string of combat outposts in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. Ostensibly designed to prevent the infiltration of Taliban fighters from the nearby border of Pakistan, in reality they were a giant bull’s-eye for anyone wanting a scalp. Attacked at the COP on a daily basis, they still followed orders, continuing their patrols to the nearby villages in an effort to get the locals on the government’s side.

The mountains of the Kunar province were extreme and afforded the Taliban an edge simply by putting the Americans on equal terms. Everything was done on foot, and the mountains negated artillery, leaving the troops reliant on helicopter gunship support. The same thing COP Keating had relied on when it was overrun two years before.

The incoming fire grew in strength, and Alberty began receiving reports of casualties. They were on their own and about to be overrun. A trophy for the Taliban. Blackmar heard the platoon’s designated marksmen firing, their rifles’ individual cracks distinctive among the rattle of automatic fire, and felt impotent.

As the forward observer, he knew the purpose of his entire career had been to provide steel on target for the infantry he supported. He was the man they turned to when they wanted American firepower, and now he had nothing to provide, his radio silent.

Alberty shouted, “They’re flanking, they’re flanking! We need the gunships.”

Blackmar was about to reply when his radio squawked. “Kilo Seven-Nine, this is Texas Thirteen. You have targets?”

He said, “Yes, yes. What’s your ordnance?”

“Five-hundred-pound GBU.”

GBU? A fast mover with JDAMs?

He said, “What’s your heading?”

The pilot said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m a BUFF. Way above you.”

Blackmar heard the words and couldn’t believe it. He’d called in everything from eighty-one-millimeter mortars to F-15 strike aircraft, but he’d never called fire from a B-52 Stratofortress. Not that it mattered, as the five-hundred-pound JDAM was guided by GPS.

He lased the Taliban position for range, shacked up his coordinates, and sent the fire request. The pilot reported bombs out, asking for a splash. He kept his eyes on the enemy, waiting. Nothing happened.

Alberty screamed, “You hit the village, you hit the village! Shift, shift!”

The village? That damn thing is seven hundred meters away.

He checked his location and lased again, now plotting the impact danger close as the enemy advanced. He repeated the call with the new coordinates and waited for the splash.

Alberty shouted again, “You’re pounding the fucking village! Get the rounds on target, damn it!”

Blackmar frantically checked his map and his range, shouting back, “I’m right! I’m on target. The bombs aren’t tracking.”

The volume of enemy fire increased, and Alberty began maneuvering his forces, forgetting about the firepower circling at thirty thousand feet. Blackmar called for another salvo, recalculating yet again. No ordnance impacted the enemy. Thirty minutes later, the Americans’ superior firepower meant nothing, as the fight went hand-to-hand.