The Polaris Protocol (12 page)

M
ark Oglethorpe, the secretary of defense said, “Individual interruption? Yeah, that’s possible. The GPS signal is pretty weak and it doesn’t take much to cause interference, but it’s still a lot harder than people think, especially to affect a UAV flying at altitude.”

Colonel Kurt Hale saw the rest of the council relax a little in their chairs and was glad at the change in conversation.

In accordance with the charter for Project Prometheus, he’d sent a flash message to all thirteen members of the Oversight Council about the Prairie Fire alert. He had the authority to launch without council approval, but by no means could he do so without informing them. It had taken about forty seconds for his phone to ring, with the president requesting his presence at an Oversight Council meeting the following morning.

Bright and early, Kurt had driven straight to the Old Executive Office Building, adjacent to the West Wing of the White House, and was met by George Wolffe, the deputy commander of the Taskforce.

A career CIA case officer, Wolffe had been sent early to bend the ear of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency for any information coming out of Mexico. Kurt had Pike’s situation report on the specifics of the operation but needed the broader scope of the impact.

George smiled, and Kurt knew it was good news. “So far, it’s being laid out as a gangland hit between rival cartels. The biggest story is who was killed. Apparently it was the number one guy in Juárez for the Sinaloa cartel.”

Taking the stairs at a fast walk, looking at his watch, Kurt said, “No mention of Americans?”

“None. The prime suspect right now is Los Zetas. That’s what’s on the street and what’ll become solidified over the next few hours.”

They both exited at the second floor and saw the Secret Service agents already positioned outside the conference room. Which meant the president was inside, and they were late.

In truth, Kurt felt some trepidation about the meeting, now made worse by his late entrance. Project Prometheus itself had almost imploded six months ago based on a crisis engineered from Iran, and Kurt had resigned because of decisions being made that were, in his mind, ridiculous. Now he was back in charge because President Warren had said so, and he was about to brief something that was unpalatable. Something his enemies might want to use to harm him, regardless of the good or bad for national security.

Entering, Kurt nodded at the group while George took a seat in the back, out of the line of fire. Kurt moved to the head of the table, right next to President Peyton Warren. He raised an eyebrow and Kurt said, “Sorry, sir, I was getting some last-minute updates.”

Before the president could respond, he began the briefing, laying out everything he knew, including the fact that the Taskforce’s cover was secure—so far. He spent the next thirty minutes getting peppered with questions, but none were what he would have considered irrelevant. It seemed the Taskforce had turned a corner, which was unexpected. The organization, he knew, had prevented more than one catastrophic event since its inception, but always after fighting the council for authority to execute.

Maybe preventing a worldwide pandemic by disobeying council orders has convinced them of the Taskforce’s worth. Or maybe the council is just getting used to breaking the law of the land.

In the past, he’d seen these same men spend most of the time asking questions related to how close they were to getting exposed. How close to wearing handcuffs instead of how best to prevent a calamity.

Today, the queries were a relief, but they made him a little wary as well. A tinge of paranoia was a good thing, as it brought healthy debate. Treating Taskforce missions as routine was dangerous, because complacency bred mistakes, and he didn’t like the mantle of failure resting on his shoulders alone. Surprised, he realized he
wanted
the skepticism of the past.

After the initial blow-by-blow of the operation, Kurt began explaining why the mission had been executed, and the briefing finally became contentious because of Jennifer’s actions in Mexico. In effect, she’d forced a Prairie Fire alert because of personal reasons, not through an official Taskforce operation. Before it could turn into a feeding frenzy, Kurt had diverted attention by describing what her brother had possibly stumbled upon, which had led to the ongoing conversation about UAVs.

The SECDEF repeated, “Jamming GPS isn’t rocket science. Basically, all you need to do is pump out a stronger signal, but that’s very localized and really only works within a small footprint. In other words, airplanes, tanks, and other things might lose signal, but only for as long as they were in the jamming zone. Seconds in most cases. It’s not catastrophic. Spoofing the signal itself and tricking the UAV to fly somewhere else is much more sophisticated, and not something we’ve seen yet, at least on DOD drones.”

President Warren said, “Just because we haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it isn’t a threat. If the Mexican cartels have managed to find a way to affect GPS—even locally—it could have repercussions worldwide. Especially if it gets in the hands of a peer competitor during wartime, or in the hands of some group looking to harm us in peacetime.”

The SECDEF nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s true, but only if they’ve actually got something. I just don’t see it. Iran has been trying to develop a capability like that for years, and they haven’t gotten anywhere.”

Secretary of State Jonathan Billings said, “But they
did
get one of our drones.”

“No, they didn’t. We lost that RQ-1 through a glitch. As soon as it lost link with the satellite, it landed like it was supposed to do. As I said, they’ve been trying almost as hard to develop cyber capability as they have to develop a nuke, and they still can’t do anything like that, no matter what their propaganda machine puts out. How could a bunch of drug runners create such a device without any scientific capability whatsoever?”

Kurt said, “The expertise is on our side. They’d do it just like they have in all of the Mexican law enforcement organizations. They’d extort it from the inside. We’re not sure if it’s just UAVs they’re interested in. The man on the tape was talking about the entire GPS constellation.”

The SECDEF bristled. “Well, they’d have an easier time building this magic device from the ground up in Mexico. The constellation is run by the Air Force’s Second Space Operations Squadron, and all of them have ironclad security clearances. It’s not like we let a janitor into the control floor and have him keep an eye on things for a smoke break.”

Kurt held up his hands. “Hey, sir, I’m just saying it’s a method. We had Hansen in the FBI and Ames in the CIA, both with ironclad security clearances. These cartels can bring a hell of a lot more money to bear than the USSR ever could.”

The president said, “It’s worth a look. Check everyone in the squadron. See if anyone has taken leave in the last week, and if so, find out if they were in El Paso.” The SECDEF nodded, and he continued. “I’m more concerned with cyber. Could they get through from the outside?”

“No, sir. The GPS constellation isn’t connected to the Internet. They’d have to be on Schriever itself. Affecting a single UAV is one thing, but the backbone architecture of the entire constellation is a different story altogether. I don’t see that as a realistic threat.”

President Warren ran down the rabbit hole, saying, “If it did happen, what’s the impact?”

The SECDEF paused. “Really, that’s hard to assess. If they hit the civilian signals alone, we’d have little impact. Theoretically, if they somehow could take out the military signals, we’d lose all precision weapons. We’d be back to dropping dumb bombs. It would also play hell with all of our mounted and dismounted movement, mainly in our logistics. Truthfully, it’s sort of like asking the impact of losing our radios. We take GPS for granted now, like talking on a radio. We could still fight, but it would be much more inefficient.”

Kurt saw Billings’s brow scrunch. He said, “Military signals? You mean they’re different?”

The SECDEF said, “Yes. The military has its own architecture, and it’s encrypted and hardened against jamming. Losing the civilian bands wouldn’t affect our ability to react to contingencies.”

Bill Crosswell, a former four-term congressman with a penchant for political survival, spoke up. Having spent most of his adult life in the trucking business before turning to politics, he’d been tapped by the administration for secretary of transportation. “Mr. President, that’s not exactly accurate. The military is tied to the civilian signal much, much more than they know. It’s true they can drop the bombs, but they might not get the bombs because the civilian industrial base that makes and delivers them is tied into the GPS. Transportation has a hand in the constellation, and I see it every day.”

The president slapped the table with an open hand. “So what’s the damn impact? Can someone give me a straight answer?”

All the men at the table jerked upright at the action, not uttering a word. Eventually, Alexander Palmer, the national security advisor, said, “Sir, bluntly, we honestly don’t know. Because the signal is not licensed or anything like that—because using it only means buying a receiver—we just don’t know how far into our national grid it has gone. For the government, I can tell you that the telecommunications, power, and transportation infrastructure rely on it a great deal. The loss of the precision timing alone would cause significant damage if it went out. As for the private sector—banking and all that—we just don’t know. Big-ticket things like the New York Stock Exchange claim to have atomic-clock backups for the timing signal, but there are a multitude of smaller elements tied into the exchange that don’t.”

President Warren began to scowl and Palmer backpedaled. “Hey, it’s not something we’ve studied. It’s become so ubiquitous it’s like asking how far the Internet has penetrated. We think of the Internet as watching YouTube, but it has become a backbone for everything from remotely starting your car to turning out the lights in your house. GPS is the same way. We can guess, but we really just don’t know. GPS is just too good to not use, especially since it’s free.” He pointed at the secretary of defense. “In the end, Mark’s right. It
is
a bunch of drug runners, something I don’t feel is a realistic threat.”

“Unless the assholes actually
do
have something and sell whatever it is to someone else.” President Warren saw the D/CIA snap up his eyes at the comment and said, “What?”

The D/CIA spoke up. “Sir . . . we’ve got movement of a Hezbollah cell from the tri-border region of South America to Mexico City. Coming in two days. It’s probably nothing, and I’m not trying to be an alarmist. We’ve been eyeing them for a while because of the cartel’s penetration of our border, and NSA picked up the intercept last night. I thought it was strictly CIA business, but maybe it’s connected.”

President Warren turned back to Kurt. “What’s the next step? Do you have one?”

“We’ve got the phone trace of the informant in the Sinaloa cartel. That could lead us to Jack, Jennifer’s brother. I have no idea what he knows, but apparently everyone down there thinks it’s critical. We could at least get some intelligence to flesh out the threat. If there is one.”

“Really? That’s it?”

Kurt paused for a moment, the statement aggravating him. “Yes, sir. That’s it. I have the ability to rescue an American being held by the drug cartels because they think he has knowledge of a threat against American interests. That’s
all
I have.”

Kurt saw George Wolffe roll his eyes at the back of the room, then rub his forehead. Kurt kept his face neutral but didn’t back down from the president’s glare.

President Warren pressed his lips together, then nodded. “I suppose I had that coming. Pike wants to hit a rival cartel now? Make it a clean sweep down there?”

Kurt smiled and said, “We can only follow the bread crumbs as they fall, but I can’t predict where it leads.”

President Warren said, “Where? We don’t even know
what
it’s leading to.”

Kurt said, “That’s true, but Jack Cahill might.”

J
ack’s days and nights had blurred, dreading the stairwell light and the next visit. After his initial conversation about the Sinaloa cartel he had been ignored, and he wondered if he’d been forgotten. He’d seen enough butchering that he certainly wasn’t going to ask about his status. Being ignored was better than the alternative.

He had grown accustomed to the entrance and exit of what he called the “enforcers” and had learned how to keep them happy. The bald
sicario
was another matter. This morning, he’d been pulled out of the basement by the strange, slight man with the scar on his forehead, and he’d felt mind-numbing fear. The
sicario
’s actions instilled it. He seemed to float about the room like a frail hummingbird, but his eyes were hypnotic, exposing the lie of frailty. Jack knew he was crazy, but in a different way. A stronger way.

If he’d been in a coffee shop in Dallas, going about his life, Jack would have seen the
sicario
and laughed, saying, “He’s not all there,” before sipping his four-dollar grande latte. Now, living in this man’s world, he knew that was incorrect. He was
beyond
all there, like an elemental thing, sensing the very pulse in Jack’s neck. And yet, Jack knew he wasn’t all there.

Put into a car, he’d been told the person he’d seen on the video was coming to Mexico City, and he was to point him out. They’d driven close to an hour, then parked outside the Benito Juárez International Airport. Going into the waiting area of terminal one, the
sicario
had said nothing at all, treating the entire trip as if they were meeting family. No threats, nothing about what would happen if he tried to escape. He’d simply parked and locked the car, resting his dark eyes on Jack for a second, then had turned his back and entered the airport.

Jack had scurried to keep up, the eyes searing his brain with unquestioned obedience, any thoughts about escaping sinking like a coin tossed in the water, flashing more faintly the farther he walked.

They’d entered the throng of people all waiting outside the exit to customs, the
sicario
pushing aside illegal taxi vendors and family members waiting on loved ones returning home, all turning in initial anger, then melting back at his stare. They reached the front, separated from the exit by a metal railing, and he spoke for the first time.

“The contact’s plane has landed. He will be coming out soon. Point him out to me.”

Jack nodded and began scanning the flow of people exiting, praying he would recognize the man, bringing forth the memory from the digital recorder. The tension in his body increased with each passing minute, the people exiting in little bursts. They stood for over an hour, Jack beginning to see the contact in everyone who appeared, imagining what he would look like with a haircut and clean-shaven or in a suit. Maybe wearing a sombrero. Perhaps camouflaged in a dress with a wig. Anything to please his crazy captor.

Eventually, the
sicario
tapped him on the shoulder, causing Jack to jump. He flicked his weird eyes toward the exit and turned without a word. For a brief moment, Jack considered running. Racing through the crowds and shouting his predicament, causing a commotion that would set him free. As if his thoughts were floating on the air between them, the
sicario
turned back and Jack felt his eyes penetrate. He rushed to catch up.

They’d returned to the mansion and Jack had been led to the same study as before, the mustached leader who had originally questioned Jack waiting behind his desk. The
sicario
set a directional microphone and digital recorder on the table. When the leader went to pick it up, he said, “El Comandante, I didn’t get a chance to use it. He didn’t show up.”

The leader scowled like a child and said, “Didn’t show, or didn’t get pointed out?”

Jack felt his survival time shrinking to seconds. He said, “I swear, he wasn’t at the airport. Maybe he came earlier or he’s coming later, but he didn’t leave while we were there.”

Indifferent, the
sicario
said, “I think he’s telling the truth. Your information was ‘within the next couple of days,’ correct? It’s the same flight number each day. He might show tomorrow.”

The leader said, “I might need you back in Juárez. It’s on fire right now and we may have an opportunity.”

“What has happened?”

“I’m not sure. There’s another player on the board, and he’s hitting Sinaloa. I have to think about it. Get more information. I’ll talk to you later with a decision.”

Thrown back into the basement, the first thing Jack noticed was that he had a new neighbor. A boy of about eighteen was sitting in the corner in stylish jeans and an expensive shirt. Looking at Jack with the catatonic stare of someone not yet understanding what had happened to him.

Or maybe understanding completely.