The Polaris Protocol pl-5

by Brad Taylor

  He absently tapped the interface, checking for any glitches from his programming the night before, proud of his chosen name. Polaris was the North Star, which was the old-school, analog GPS that had guided navigation for centuries. He thought the name very apt, as the program would revert the world back to using it.

  The executable file seemed to work fine and, in truth, would have worked fine a week ago. All he was doing now was refining the aesthetics of the interface while he waited to inject it into the GPS constellation, changing it from code only a computer maven could understand into an intuitive screen that anybody could use.

  Booth hadn’t come into Boeing with any intent to harm. He wasn’t a mole who had spent decades wheedling his way into the inner circle. He was just a guy with expertise in computers who needed a day job so that he could execute his night activities and still eat. He worked so that he could work, righting the wrongs of the world as he saw them. That notion had changed as he became aware of the extent to which the GPS system controlled government and corporate actions. The satellite constellation was a sterile machine that did nothing but send out streams of ones and zeros. But the people who used the signals did some pretty nasty things.

  Booth had worked with the hacktivist group Anonymous on multiple occasions and had even taken leave to protest Wall Street during the heady days of the Occupy movement — wearing the ubiquitous Guy Fawkes mask that was an Anonymous hallmark — but those had always been separate and distinct from his work at Boeing. It wasn’t until the United States government began killing its own citizens in Predator drone strikes that he decided to act.

  The solution had been elegant in its simplicity, and he’d often wondered why he didn’t think of it before. He’d marched on Wall Street using analog methods when the digital destruction of that enterprise was staring him in the face the entire time.

  GPS had been created solely as a military application, and as such it had been designed with safeguards in mind. Since the satellites blindly launched signals continuously, the military was worried that the very position, navigation, and timing features that would allow US smart weapons technology to dominate a future battlefield could also be used by an enemy, and they were determined to prevent that from occurring.

  In essence, while incredibly complicated in execution, the concept of GPS was fairly simple. A receiver acquired a signal from a satellite, along with how long it took that signal to reach it. Once it had three or more of those signals, complete with the time it took each to reach its location, it simply triangulated its position based on its inherent knowledge of the satellites’ location. Easy.

  The key was the timing signal, as it had to be nanosecond-precise to get an accurate location, and that was what the military adjusted. All thirty-five of the satellites currently in orbit had an application called selective availability embedded within them. With a flip of a switch, the military could turn on this feature for any satellite they wanted, which, in essence, simply altered the timing broadcast. In other words, the receiver would think it took X nanoseconds to reach it, when it really took Y. Thus, the receiver would triangulate an incorrect location. The military controlled the degree of offset, and the greater the aberration, the greater the error, but civilian use of the system had overcome the military monopoly.

  The Department of Defense had begun to lose control of its creation since its inception, like water eroding a riverbank. It was just too good an application not to be capitalized on in the civilian market, even with selective availability. GPS became more and more entrenched in the public world, with the timing feature becoming embedded into the United States’ national architecture. Everything from bank transactions to cell phone towers to power grids used it. So much so that President Bill Clinton abolished the use of selective availability in the year 2000, and the new Block III satellites scheduled for launch in the next decade didn’t even include the feature.

  But it was still there on the legacy systems that were currently in space. All Booth had done was create a program that could access it. With his own personal switch, he could cause every single GPS-enabled device to fail — including the military-only encrypted signal — whether it was a red light in New York City that solely needed accurate timing or a train switchyard that needed accurate positioning of its customers. Or, in his mind, a corrupt banking system that utilized GPS timing for every single transaction and a fleet of Predator UAVs armed with Hellfire missiles looking for something to kill.

  Creating the program had been simple. Getting into the satellites was what had proven hard. The 2nd Space Operations Squadron was responsible for all functions of the GPS constellation, and it controlled them from inside a building that had more security than the CIA. His trailer was only a stone’s throw away, but he wasn’t allowed on the floor of the new operational control segment and could only access the system when asked to because of an anomaly, using the network inside his trailer. And so he was forced to wait.

  His freezing little work trailer did provide one benefit, though. Because of its criticality, the entire GPS architecture was air-gapped from the World Wide Web, completely stovepiped to prevent hackers such as him from infiltrating. The only connectivity was with his trailer — which was wired into the Internet, but through Boeing work systems that weren’t involved in the GPS maintenance. It had been a simple matter to fix that.

  Now, in theory, once the script was embedded in the satellites, he could activate it from anywhere. Which was a good thing, because he wanted to be nowhere in the chain of evidence when it went operational. It would look like a simple hacking penetration of Boeing, causing some security analyst to lose his job back in DC but not pointing at Booth.

  It was why he’d gone to El Paso in the first place. Two weeks ago he’d been surprised when his dealer had “bumped into” him in a bar in downtown Colorado Springs, the nearest town from his work at Schriever.

  Booth had never been into heavy drugs, but he had a marijuana habit that was out of control and had racked up quite a bit of debt. His dealer had always been courteous, but the menace of nonpayment had hung above Booth’s head like an anvil waiting to fall. That threat had come crashing down with voters passing Amendment 64. Now that marijuana was legal in Colorado, the dealer saw his profits dwindling and had demanded immediate payment on the debt, something Booth couldn’t afford outright. The dealer hadn’t punished him — yet — but instead had given him time to collect the money, and he had introduced Booth to a man named Carlos, a supposed hacktivist from Mexico.

  Booth had gone along, but he had suspected from the beginning who he was talking with. Carlos knew computers but not much about the hacking fraternity, which had raised Booth’s suspicions. Not a great deal, but some. Because of events he’d rather have kept buried, he knew a thing or two about activities in Mexico.

  Two years ago, the group Anonymous had threatened Los Zetas because they had allegedly kidnapped one of its members in Mexico, saying they were going to expose every corrupt official involved with Los Zetas unless the man was released. Los Zetas, in routine fashion, threatened to kill ten men for every one exposed. At that, Anonymous had backed down, claiming the man had been freed. No corrupt officials’ names had been released. Booth had no idea if the man had even been kidnapped but had worked with Anonymous to locate the officials collaborating with the cartel, compiling a database in an effort he felt was worthwhile.

  After the Zetas’ threats, and further indications that they were actively recruiting their own hackers to track down Anonymous members, Booth had become somewhat of an expert on the cartels, working to protect his own skin instead of exposing Mexican corruption.

  Using those same computer linkages, he’d researched Carlos and had found a few interesting things. Not much, but enough to determine that if he was aligned with a cartel, it was Sinaloa and not Los Zetas, which gave him the confidence to continue. Sinaloa hated Los Zetas, and thus would probably pay him a bonus instead of cutting off his head. In the end, he didn�
��t care how POLARIS was released, as long as it didn’t lead back to him. Like the group, he wished to remain anonymous.

  He was gazing at his creation, toying with the idea of adding a row of slide switches that looked like an old stereo equalizer bar, when a flashing light caught his eye from the bank of computer monitors. He stared for a full second, in a little bit of shock. It was an alert sent from the operational control segment located in the secure building two hundred meters away. There had been a glitch, and they were requesting that he find it. Nothing crucial, but enough to warrant a bug fix. Enough to warrant his rooting around in the new operational control segment for hours.

  20

  The digital recorder ended for the third time and I dropped it on the bed, turning away from Jennifer and rubbing my eyes. I was still not seeing the smoking gun that would get the Taskforce chasing after her brother. But I knew she wouldn’t want to hear that.

  She said, “What’s that look? Can’t you see they’re talking about national security issues? This isn’t about drugs.”

  I dropped my hands, waited a beat, then said, “Jennifer, I don’t know what they’re talking about. That fat-ass guy just blathers on about freedom of information and a bunch of computer crap.”

  “He talked about our Global Positioning System. One of the most sacrosanct things the United States controls.”

  “He mentioned GPS. He didn’t talk about it. He also mentioned Wall Street and WikiLeaks. This isn’t enough to act. What do you want me to do, call Kurt for a fishing expedition? I’m probably in enough trouble for coming down here in the first place.”

  Colonel Kurt Hale was the commander of the Taskforce, and while we’d known each other for close to fifteen years, he was in command. Make no mistake, he was a close friend, but he was still my boss. He cut me more slack than most, but this was asking for a poke in the eye.

  Jennifer was quiet. I almost saw the smoke coming off of her brain as she tried to come up with something that would persuade me to call Kurt. Finally, she whispered, “But Jack’s going to get killed.”

  I softened my tone, seeing the hell she was going through. “Jennifer, I know he’s in real danger. I believe you. It’s just that we’re not a hostage-rescue force. That’s not what we do. We don’t even have any authority to operate in Mexico. You want Omega for a hit, and we don’t even have a target.”

  The Taskforce called every stage of an operation a letter from the Greek alphabet, starting with Alpha for the introduction of forces. Omega meant we had authority from the Oversight Council — our own extralegal body of wise men hand-picked by the president — to execute operations on foreign soil. Operations that often had repercussions extending way beyond the action itself, possibly with second- and third-order effects that were worse than the problem we were trying to prevent. Which is why we answered to the council instead of ourselves. Why we couldn’t go hot-rodding after her brother.

  I moved to the window and cracked the curtain, wishing we’d spent some time searching the Internet instead of pulling over at the first hotel we could find, in this case a La Quinta Inn. Best described as “clean and serviceable,” it didn’t have a whole lot of ambience.

  Out in the parking lot I saw two black and white police cars pull up, both older models looking like they’d been borrowed from the set of CHiPs. Something about them seemed odd, but I didn’t focus like I should have. Instead I turned back to Jennifer.

  She was standing in the same place, her eyes slightly unfocused as she went through probabilities in her head. Torturing herself.

  I went to her and said, “Look, we can’t assault the place, but we aren’t helpless. Kurt has the ear of the most powerful people in the world. We can get him to move on this. Get some official help.”

  She drew some hope from that and nodded, wiping her eyes. I had just started to say something else when I heard footsteps on the concrete balcony outside our room. A lot of footsteps. My instinct went into the red zone, but it was too little, too late.

  The door splintered inward from the force of a metal police battering ram. Five uniformed men piled into the room, guns drawn. I pushed Jennifer to the floor and shot my hands in the air, shouting, “Don’t fire! Don’t fire!”

  Two of the men covered down on Jennifer while three moved to me. The man with the battering ram turned around and covered the exit to the room. All were Hispanic, and as with the police cars outside, something seemed odd. By the time they’d closed on me, it clicked what it was: Their uniforms were mismatched. Some had name tags, some didn’t. Some had patches on their shoulders, others didn’t.

  I shouted, “Jennifer, they’re fake!” and exploded, trapping the pistol of the first man and rotating his arm in a vicious circle, forcing him to fling himself over the torque or have his wrist shatter. He thumped the floor and I hammered him in the temple, ripping the gun out of his hand. I launched up from the floor and drove my fist under the chin of the next man like a piston, hearing his jaw crack as his head popped backward. I whirled to the third man.

  He pointed a pistol at my chest and shouted, “Stop! Stop right now.”

  One of the men who had gone to Jennifer was on the floor, rubbing his face. The other had her hair in his hand and a knife to her throat.

  Keeping his own weapon on me, in accented English, the third man continued. “Drop the gun. You cannot beat us both. You shoot me, she dies. You shoot him, you die. Neither has to happen. If we wanted you dead, we could have just started shooting.”

  I did as he asked, kicking myself for not paying more attention. For letting Jennifer’s pain supersede my survival instincts.

  He said, “We are going to handcuff you both and leave here one at a time. Act like you are being arrested. She goes first. If she says anything outside the door to anyone who has come to watch, you die. You go second. If you say anything outside the door, she dies. Understood?”

  I nodded my head. He turned to Jennifer, and she did the same. My hands were cuffed behind my back and our Taskforce phones, Jennifer’s tablet, and the digital recorder were shoved into Jennifer’s bag. I watched her being led out of the room, a man on each side. Shortly, it was my turn. The leader picked up Jennifer’s purse and nodded.

  We went down the stairs and I hung my head like I’d seen on numerous episodes of Cops. Sure enough, there was a small crowd, all pointing and whispering. None moved near us. My heart sank when I saw only one police car. I’d expected them to transport us together, but Jennifer was already gone.

  We pulled out of the parking lot without lights, ignoring the crowds. We drove for two blocks, then circled behind a grocery store, the police car stopping adjacent to another sedan, both screened by the loading docks used for large trucks. A gun was placed to my head and I was jerked out, a man on each arm. As if I could do something with my hands cuffed behind me.

  They opened the trunk of the sedan, and in the dim glow of the exterior lighting I saw it was already occupied, feeling a small measure of relief. I was unceremoniously crammed into it and knew instantly the body wasn’t Jennifer’s. It was a man who stank as if he hadn’t bathed in a week.

  And he was weeping uncontrollably.

  21

  Eduardo looked out the window across his estate, surveying the lights twinkling in the ghetto of Juárez. He hated it here. Hated having to live in this dump and longed to get back to Mexico City. Back to the land of the rich. But earning plaza boss came with a price, and he’d been entrusted with the fight for Juárez by Sinaloa, so here he would stay. At least until he could clean up the mess.

  Behind him, Carlos said, “This will work. Things are coming together very well.”

  “Well? You let a woman escape from your grasp. Here, in the heart of Juárez. It’s absolutely shameful. I look incompetent, and we still don’t know who took the reporter.”

  Carlos began to fawn. “You don’t look incompetent. She had help. We couldn’t predict that. Nobody even knows she was here. Nobody knows of her escape, and I’m work
ing to rectify the situation. I was able to set up a screen on the north side of the border after she fled our net.” He gave a shallow smile. “The Americans spend so much time checking vehicles that it worked in our favor. She didn’t cross with any speed. We followed them to where they’re staying, and it’s still close enough to the border to be useful. I hope to hear some news soon, and we will learn who they are. Of greater concern is the traitor in the ranks. My plan will work.”

  “You really think he is part of my circle? I cannot believe that.”

  “There’s one way to find out. You already have a meeting planned. Let it be known that we’re moving forward with Mr. Fawkes. Tell them he’s flying down tomorrow or the next day. Give out a flight number. Then we simply check all outgoing calls before anyone is allowed to leave.”

  “Is he flying down?”

  “No. Not yet, but that’s not the point. We need to set a trap with false information. You don’t want Los Zetas to know anything real.”

  “What makes you think the traitor will call from here?”

  “Tell them they are to remain here overnight. Give them some excuse. He’ll call. I guarantee he’ll call if he thinks he’ll miss getting the information out.”

  Eduardo turned from the window and said, “Okay. That’s easy enough. What of this Mr. Fawkes? Surely you know who he is by now.”

  Carlos said, “Yes. He checked out. He’s Arthur Booth, a midlevel computer technician working for Boeing. I believe he can do what he says. He was almost giddy on the phone today. He’s completed the task and wants to pass what he calls the POLARIS protocol. All we need to do is meet him now.”

  “What is this protocol?”