The Polaris Protocol (19 page)

B
ooth walked through customs, shocked at the lack of English-speaking people. It was a boiling mass of humanity, but everyone he attempted to engage simply smiled and shrugged. It was disconcerting, to say the least. He’d been to Europe and the Far East, and in both those locations, while he definitely felt like an outsider, most everyone spoke at least some English. Here, nobody did.

And they live just across our damn border.

He exited with a throng of people, then stood, looking around in a daze. A man came up and said, “Taxi?”

He said, “You speak English?”

The man repeated, “Taxi?”

Booth said, “Yes, yes. I need a taxi.” And began following him out the door. He walked five feet before a policeman intervened, shouting at the man. Bewildered, Booth simply stood, watching the exchange. The unlicensed cabby took off at a fast walk, and the policeman handed Booth an envelope.

He opened it, seeing instructions from Carlos to take the metro to a stop called Insurgentes. Taken aback, he said, “Where’s Carlos? Why did he pass me this?”

The policeman simply stared at him. Seeing he was getting nowhere, Booth said, “I don’t know where the metro is.”

The policeman scowled and walked away. Booth saw a line at the end of the hall, ending at a glass window with a woman behind it. Most of the people were Hispanic, but a few were foreign. He joined them, and when he reached the front, he found to his relief the woman behind the glass spoke English. She asked where he was going, and he said he wanted the metro.

She said, “This is the taxi line. The metro is at the other end of the hall.” She gave him instructions, then turned to the next person in line before he could assimilate them. Brushed aside, he left the counter.

He fumbled about, following the directions to the best of his ability while dragging his little carry-on suitcase, and eventually found the stairs leading to the Terminal Aérea metro stop.

Reaching the bottom, he was once again confused as to what to do. The place was a dirty, swirling mass of humanity. He watched people go to a counter behind glass, not noticing that several men were now studying him as well. A plump, lost gringo wading into a school of piranhas.

As instructed, he bought a ticket to the Insurgentes metro stop, then moved to the train platform. When it arrived, he was swept on board with everyone else, all Mexican and all rattling in Spanish. He took a seat at the end of the car, crammed in by the people continuing to board. Three men were hovering over him, two looking out and one staring at Booth.

The Mexican above him said, “Gringo. Where you go?”

Booth stared at the floor. The man poked him with a shoe. “Gringo. I talking to you.”

Booth said, “I’m meeting a friend. Please, leave me alone.”

The man pulled out a knife and said, “Pay tax. Gringo tax.”

At the sight of the knife, Booth recoiled, blubbering. The man leaned in, his stench flushing what little fresh air there was on the train. He said again, “Pay tax.”

Booth stabbed his hand into his pants, pulling out his wallet. He looked about, waiting on someone to stop the mugging, but nobody seemed to notice. He withdrew all of his cash and handed it over, his hands shaking.

The Mexican said, “Computer.”

Booth hugged his laptop to his chest and shook his head. The man lowered the knife until it was level with his eyes and repeated, “Computer.”

Booth looked left and right, hoping someone would help but seeing that nobody was paying them the least bit of attention. In fact, all were studiously looking away. The train pulled into the next station, and the mass began to ebb and flow. The two men closed off their corner, preventing anyone from interfering with the mugging.

People packed into the car, the brief emptiness filled with soiled shirts and dirty feet as the riders crammed together. The man traced Booth’s ear with the knife, and that was enough.

Booth flung the laptop at him, shouting, “Take it, and leave me alone!”

The man grinned, showing a jack-o’-lantern mouth with the front teeth missing. He turned, saying something in Spanish to his compadres, then grunted. Magically, a knife had grown out of his stomach, the area around the hilt growing black with liquid. He sat down heavily, and Booth saw the laptop jerked from his hands. He followed the arm and recognized Carlos standing above the downed mugger.

Carlos hissed at the mugger’s two friends and they disappeared through the open door. He grabbed Booth’s arm, jerked him to his feet, and followed suit, exiting just before the train left for the next stop.

Carlos said, “You’re two hours late and you took the wrong train. Idiot.”

As he walked up the stairs, gasping for air, it was almost too much for Booth to absorb. He said, “I’m late because of a plane crash at the Denver airport. Didn’t you see the news? Every damn flight is late coming out of Denver because of it. Why did you change the instructions? Why aren’t I meeting you at the hotel?”

“No. I didn’t see the news.” Getting to street level, Carlos grinned. “I thought maybe you were working for the US Federales, but I think it’s safe to say your stupidity proves otherwise. Either way, we aren’t going to the hotel I sent you. You’re just lucky my people kept an eye out for you.”

“Federales? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. You have the protocol?”

“Yes, I have it. Of course.”

They walked down an alley toward a dented sedan with the trunk held in place by a rope. Carlos motioned for him to get in.

Driving west, Carlos said, “I’m going to want you to show me how it functions.”

“I don’t think that’s smart. I’ve already tested it with my own GPS and it works. Every time you do that, you give them a chance to plug the holes. Trust me, it worked. Better than I expected. I think I caused the plane crash in Denver. You pay me for it, and then you can launch it after I leave. After I’m back in the US.”

Carlos slammed the brakes and threw the car into park on the side of the road. He turned to Booth, baring his teeth. “You need to understand something. You belong to me now. You will do what I say, or I’ll turn you loose right here. You’ll last about an hour after I make some calls.”

Booth recoiled, nodding his head over and over again, the fear of this newfound world making him wish he’d never boarded the plane. Making him wonder if Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden had ever put himself in danger like this. The thought brought a small tendril of pride at his audacity. Small, but large enough to give him the courage to continue. He might not make any money on POLARIS, but he’d at least get it released. Others could talk the talk, but he was walking the walk. Snowden and Manning had garnered a legion of people preaching their hero status. What Booth was doing would be exponentially better.

Carlos started driving again, saying, “I really don’t care what happens to you after I get POLARIS, but you’ll care a great deal if the thing you brought doesn’t work. You’ll care for hours, I promise.”

The words sucked the courage out of Booth like a dental vacuum rooting around a mouth.

They drove in silence for another twenty minutes. Then Carlos pulled against the curb next to a run-down building of crumbling brick surrounding two roll-up doors.

He said, “Follow me,” and walked up a narrow stairway on the side. At the top, he held the door open, letting Booth enter. Inside was a one-room flat with a sofa bed and a corner kitchenette, the toilet in the back competing with the rest of the space with its odor alone.

Carlos said, “Put the computer on the table and turn it on. Show me how it works.”

Booth did as he was told, then said, “Do you have Wi-Fi? Internet here?”

Carlos looked bewildered for a moment, then said, “No.”

“It won’t work without a connection to the Internet.” When he saw Carlos’s face grow dark, he whined, “I’m telling the truth! Think about it, I have to connect to the satellites somehow. I can show you how it works, but I can’t prove it does without Internet.”

Carlos stared at him, and Booth was sure he was considering putting a bullet in his head. Eventually, he sat down in front of the laptop and said, “Show me.”

Booth pulled up his stereo interface and began to explain, detailing how to control the protocol. He was discussing the equalizer tabs and how they corresponded to sections of the earth when someone knocked on the door.

Carlos jerked his head at the noise and drew his pistol. He held a finger to his lips and crept to the door. He leaned in, putting his eye against the peephole.

Booth heard a cough, no louder than a hand clap, then saw Carlos’s head snap back. He felt a spray of liquid like someone had popped a wet towel near his face, then watched Carlos crumple straight down.

In shock, Booth touched his face, and his hand came away with a viscous fluid tinged in red. His mouth opened and closed like that of a fish gasping on a dock, and the door exploded inward. What entered was something out of the Brothers Grimm. A man of normal height, wearing normal clothes. Normal ended at the neck. The man had no hair on his head, and his forehead was smudged, as if someone had sculpted a bust and then scraped the forehead in anger before it was set.

In his hand was a large pistol, pointed directly at Booth’s head. The barrel didn’t register at all because of the death above the sights. A hypnotic stare coming from beyond the world Booth lived within.

The golem said, “Close the computer.”

Booth did so without hesitation, waiting on a further command, the sweat spreading on his body like a rash. The man said, “Make any indication you do not want to comply and you will be dead. Do you understand?”

Booth nodded furiously.

“Follow me.”

Booth stood, and for the first time noticed another man on the landing, crouching down and holding his arms over his head.

The man looked up, and he saw it was a gringo.

I
did a double take in my rearview, noticing that the statue behind the cross was a skeleton. “What the hell is that?”

Jennifer set her smartphone down and glanced backward. “It’s a church for Santa Muerte, the patron saint of death. It’s a bastardization of Catholicism, and pretty popular with those on the illegal side of things.”

Leave it to her to actually know the answer.

“You mean it’s some kind of cult?”

Jennifer said, “Yes and no. It’s not a cult like you mean, with only a few people belonging to it. La Santa Muerte’s huge down here, but it’s also definitely frowned upon by the Church. The Mexican government thinks it’s nothing but a way for the drug cartels to sanctify what they’re doing, and it’s officially illegal, but I guess around here being illegal doesn’t mean a whole lot.”

We were just south of Eje 1 Norte, only a half mile or so from the tourist area of the historic district and the president’s palace, but had crossed some border that separated the good guys from the bad. The Tepito barrio was just across the road, and according to all the research I could find, it was about as bad an area as I could possibly imagine. Known as the thieves’ market since colonial times, the barrio was home to every sort of illegal activity, from prostitution to gun running, and the people who lived there were known throughout Mexico as fighters. Tough guys who took pride in their rough-and-tumble existence.

Merchandise was sold throughout in all manner of tiny little shops or right out in the streets, each alley clogged with stolen, smuggled, or counterfeit items. The people here knew which alley to go to for drugs, weapons, CDs, or phones, but we didn’t have a clue. All we knew was that the little blue marble on our smartphone, representing the BMW from the
narco
’s kidnapping house, was located in the heart of the barrio.

After we’d dropped off Felix yesterday, his father had taken Jennifer and me to a BMW dealer to see what we could do with the key fob. The dealer was closed because of the late hour, but Arturo had pulled some strings. I’d heard him shouting into a phone and figured his son’s rescue was paying off.

I’d wanted to go just by myself, because it was a long shot and I didn’t want to get Jennifer’s hopes up. I wasn’t sure what the thinking would be back home and needed to contact Kurt Hale before I did anything else. The last thing I wanted was for Jennifer to think we were still on the hunt for her brother, only to have the Oversight Council pull us home. I’d probably end up tying her to the airframe to prevent her from doing something stupid.

After a little baksheesh exchanged hands, courtesy of Arturo, the BMW dealer read the fob. It turned out that not only did it work the doors, ignition, and windows, but it had the maintenance records for the car stored on its embedded chip, including the VIN and other identifying characteristics. In other words, a partial lead. It would take some hefty convincing to make the lead pan out, as I’d have to get the Taskforce to penetrate BMW of North America and create a BMW Assist account tied to the VIN for us to track the vehicle.

It was almost a 100 percent guarantee that the
narco
didn’t have that sort of thing operational in his car—what crook would want Big Brother to have the ability to track him?—but it was about only a 50 percent chance that he’d taken the extra step of removing all the electronic infrastructure that allowed the feature to work, especially since that infrastructure was probably threaded throughout other operational capabilities like arteries in a body.

We’d taken the information back to our hotel in the Zona Rosa and I’d given the team what little we had, telling them to return to their rooms for some shut-eye. We all needed some decompression time after the activities of the past couple of days, and I wasn’t sure when we’d get another chance. It was the way of such operations. You might get sleep for the next four months because the command decided to pull the plug, or you might be up for the next four days.

Used to the stop-and-go, they left, but Jennifer had stayed behind. I let her, given her brother’s life was at stake.

I had contacted Kurt on our company VPN, an encrypted network that bounced around forever through various ISPs to cloak who I was calling. He took the information, but, as expected, he was decidedly lukewarm on doing anything with it.

Jennifer, behind me and off camera from the VPN, had pleaded with him, trying the same hand she had with me about a threat to the GPS constellation, but he wasn’t buying it, and I understood why. Hell, I wasn’t even buying it. The evidence was simply too weak, and we were literally flying by the seat of our pants down here, conducting operations without a shred of backup should someone get rolled up.

In the end, Kurt said he’d prep the intelligence picture—a nice way of saying he’d have the hacker cell penetrate BMW—but we were to stand down until further notice. We agreed to talk again the following morning, and I signed off.

After the call had ended, I’d sat for a minute reflecting. Jennifer had cleared her throat, reminding me she was in the room, and I told her to go get some rest. She didn’t move.

I joked, “What? You want to sleep in my room tonight?”

She slowly shook her head and said, “No. Not with your attitude about my brother.”

Trying to lighten the mood, I said, “Usually the woman waits a little longer in the relationship to start withholding favors to get what she wants.”

Jennifer’s face was flint. Not a bit of humor at all. She said, “Usually the man I sleep with isn’t such a callous ass.”

I realized the joke was a mistake. I’d just brought our relationship into the equation of what should have been a team member–team leader discussion. I needed to get that back.

“Jennifer, listen to me closely. I care about your brother, and I’ll do whatever I can within the limits of what’s possible, but right now, you need to get your head on straight. This is a Taskforce operation, period.”

She said, “You never seemed to care about that in the past. You always did what you thought was right, regardless of Taskforce rules. Remember in Prague? You rescued all those sex slaves when you could have simply used a beacon. Now, when it’s someone I care about, you’ve turned into a by-the-book soldier.”

It was true, I’d taken a significant risk assaulting a house full of Albanian Mafia who were trafficking in young girls, but she was failing to remember that the only reason I’d done it was because she had demanded the assault. I thought it prudent to let that remain unspoken.

“Jennifer, one of those girls could have positively ID’d the terrorist. That’s why we went. Just like we did today, in case you have forgotten. We just hit a house we thought was holding your brother, but he wasn’t there. I’m sure there were a few girls out the night we hit the house, and we didn’t go running around the countryside chasing them.”

“Because the girl with the knowledge
was
there. If she hadn’t been, you might have chased her down.”

I said, “Jennifer, please . . . don’t make this hard. You know I’m correct here. Don’t make me play team leader.”

She took my hand and said, “I don’t want my team leader. He’s kind of an asshole. I want my Pike back.”

Damn it. Unfair.

“Jennifer, listen, if we’re stood down tomorrow, that’s the end of it. They’ll take the aircraft and head home and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t call a Prairie Fire for your brother.”

She held my eyes. “I’m not asking them. I’m asking you. If they fly home, we stay and find my brother. Just the
real
Grolier Recovery Services. That’s all I want.”

She stared into my soul, waiting for an answer I knew damn well I couldn’t give, but my resistance was eroding just from her presence. I was beginning to wonder if I’d lost the ability to control my own fate. If somehow she’d planted a chip in my head and had a remote control in her purse.

She was the exact opposite of me, always following the rules and chastising me for bending them—or breaking them outright. Now she was begging to do exactly that. I should have found it a relief, like I was rubbing off on her, but I didn’t. All I felt was a loss of control. Well, my conscious brain did anyway. My subconscious was another matter entirely, and it apparently held more sway.

“Okay. Damn it, okay. We’ll find your brother.”

She smiled. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” She kissed me, then moved to the bed.

I said, “What,
now
you want to stay?”

She propped a pillow under her head and lay down. “I always want to stay when Pike’s in the room. That asshole team leader is a different story.”

Christ. She drives me batshit.

She leaned to face me and smiled. “You going to sleep on the floor tonight?”

The comment meant more than the words alone. It was something she’d said a long time ago, in Bosnia, when we were both being hunted and she didn’t trust me as far as she could throw me. Whatever remote control she had was obviously tied to her mouth.

I thought about saying the exact same thing I had in Bosnia, then curling up with a pillow next to the bathroom. Well, for a nanosecond anyway. I’m not
that
stupid.

We’d gotten a hell of a lot less sleep than we should have and then had to wake up extra early to allow her to execute her little walk of shame back to her room before the team showed up. I felt like I was in high school, but she insisted. I guess it would have been a little awkward with her being the ”first” to arrive while wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday, her hair looking like she’d just awakened.

As it was, Knuckles was the first in, knocking on my door a mere two minutes after Jennifer had left. He took one look at me and shook his head.

What, is it painted on my face?

I said, “You’re getting here a little early, aren’t you? I was going to sleep in, glad I didn’t.”

He rolled his eyes, pushed past me, and said, “Shut up. I saw her get in the elevator.”

I said, “Who?”

Before he could answer, another Johnny Eager Beaver knocked on my door. I let in Decoy, and the conversation was dead. Thirty minutes later, everyone had arrived but Jennifer. When she entered, Knuckles caught her eye and gave a theatrical scowl. She winked at him, just to rub his face in it, I suppose.

Oh, man.
His scowl turned real. I glared at her, then got the room’s attention. I brought them up to speed, telling them about the VPN last night and the potential for future operations, which, given the current state of affairs, wasn’t that great.

They broke for breakfast and I waited with dread for the morning VPN with Kurt. Honestly, I didn’t see how I was going to access the BMW data if Kurt told the team to stand down. I might be able to do it from DC, but Mexico was a different kettle of fish. The hacking cell activities were taken about as seriously as an actual hit, and getting them to work unauthorized would take some creative skill. Skill that might get me kicked out of the Taskforce for good.

The VPN initiated, and I found out how quickly things could change overnight, along with a reminder that I should watch the news while on operations. A horrific airline crash due to some GPS blip had caused the Oversight Council to switch into full-alert mode, and we were given carte blanche to find Jennifer’s brother. Kurt and I both agreed that it wasn’t going to do anything against whatever threat was out there, but it sure made me happy. I could have my cake and eat it too.

Six hours later, I was sitting with Jennifer outside the Santa Muerte cult of death church, and the blue marble marking the BMW was blinking steadily inside Tepito. The
narco
hadn’t gutted the system from his car, and the Taskforce penetration had worked. BMW Assist was giving us great assistance.

We’d downloaded the BMW app to our phones, plugged in the user name and password, and voilà—we were tracking the car. It was all I could do not to access the system, get the car on the line, and shock the hell out of whoever was in it by saying, “BMW, how can I assist you in selling cocaine?”
That
would have been good theater.

Instead, I’d sent in Knuckles and Blood for some dismounted reconnaissance, with Decoy on a leash as backup in a sedan. I picked the recce team with a purpose, given what we had to work with. Jennifer was usually perfect for this kind of thing, because nobody expected a woman, but in this case, with the homogeneous nature of the barrio, she’d stand out.

Knuckles had black hair that he always wore long, like a hippie. Blood was African-American, and while he wouldn’t exactly fade into the landscape, he had a better shot than Jennifer or me. With a two-day growth of beard and some ratty clothes, both looked like they belonged in Tepito. Which was fine for a recce, wandering around like they were looking to offload a shipment of bootleg CDs.

What we would do once we found the target was another story entirely.