The Polaris Protocol pl-5

by Brad Taylor

  Of course. That’s why he had all the pictures. It made perfect logical sense now. Except the phone trace led to him, which meant he was helping the kidnappers by providing them all the information on the investigation. Possibly even setting up the snatches.

  I said, “I’m just paranoid, I guess. Can we sit down and talk?”

  He nodded and led us to an anteroom. After settling onto a couch, he began recounting the loss of his son, talking in a monotone as if he’d repeated the story a hundred times. The boy was a student at a university south of the city and had been taken from the campus. The last known location was about four miles away from the university, in a residential area where the suspects were seen driving. Not a whole lot of help.

  I said, “You have pretty good security here. Didn’t you have anything on your son?”

  “Yes. He had a bodyguard, who was killed trying to protect him. We found the corpse and my son’s car.”

  “But someone was left alive, right? Someone saw the suspect’s vehicle.”

  “No. Only the bodyguard was with him.”

  “Then how did you get the report that they’d been seen miles from the campus?”

  Arturo looked at his wife like he’d let something slip he shouldn’t have. She spoke in Spanish, and he nodded, then said, “My son has a tracking device implanted in his arm. We haven’t told anyone until today. The company that’s supposed to locate him told us to keep it a secret to protect him, but they have failed.”

  Great. They got suckered. There was a plethora of antikidnapping companies selling RFID chips the size of a grain of rice and claiming they had GPS capability, but in reality, all that thing could do was identify the body after it was dead because the chip could be read from only about three feet away. It was basically the same thing people used to identify runaway animals in the United States. The companies here made a fortune on services for the “tracking,” but the truth was it did little good because the actual locating device was the size of a cell phone, and once it was taken farther than three feet from the subject, it did no good.

  Two things about the statement caused me to think, though. One, this man was smart enough to do the research and would know it wouldn’t work, and two, there was a second location. If it wasn’t an eyewitness, then it was something else.

  I said, “Nothing small enough to embed under the skin could transmit a location. I’m sure you know this.”

  “Yes. I do. The actual transmitter is built into the belt he was wearing. It has a battery life of forty-eight hours once activated and is supposed to send a location every fifteen minutes. It only sent one.”

  “But it did send one? The residential location?”

  “Yes.”

  So it had worked at least once. “How does it send the location? What’s the method?”

  He said something to one of the bodyguards and the man left the room. He came back carrying a brochure. He handed it to me, and I saw the specifications of what was being billed as an “antikidnapping alert” device. I said, “So it works on the cell network, sending an SMS text to a server, which then plots on Google Maps?”

  “It’s supposed to. But it hasn’t since that one time.”

  Which meant the belt was without cell service. Unable to reach a tower. So to find it, we would need to bring the tower to it. Or it meant that the damn belt had been tossed. Think good things. The belt is still active until proven otherwise.

  I said, “Can you get me the number of the belt? What it’s using to transmit to the company?”

  He nodded and rattled off some more Spanish. One of the bodyguards got on a phone, and something else Alex said finally penetrated.

  “You said you’ve not told anyone until today. Do you mean until you told us?”

  “No. I told the investigator just before you arrived. The company is doing no good, and I thought he could use the information.”

  Holy shit. Use it is right.

  I leapt to my feet, saying, “Jennifer, give him your contact information. Call her with the number as soon as you have it.”

  I dialed Knuckles and began giving instructions, walking at a fast pace to the front door.

  31

  The sicario listened to El Comandante rail and realized he was now finding threats in every shadow, paranoid. It was a cycle the sicario had seen many times before. When you assume the mantle of leadership through treachery and murder, you cannot retain control without starting to find the same everywhere, whether real or imagined.

  Hearing a break in the stream of vitriol, he said, “El Comandante, with all due respect, do you really think someone attacked Sinaloa so Los Zetas would remove you? There are many cartels vying for the Juárez plaza. Maybe it was Beltrán Leyva, or someone in the Gulf cartel. Sinaloa has many, many enemies.”

  “I’m being blamed for it! I have to travel to Matamoros to explain to the capo why I attacked them, and I had nothing to do with it. Sinaloa is going on war footing, and Los Zetas are not pleased. Someone is trying to get me out. That’s the only explanation. Someone who knows Juárez.”

  Someone like me, thought the sicario.

  “Do you wish me to go to Juárez? Attempt to find out what happened and punish those responsible?”

  El Comandante rubbed his face. “No. Take the journalist to the airport again today. I’d like to report some good news when I leave. Find the man coming from America and find out what he has that Sinaloa wants.”

  The sicario could read between the lines clearly enough. El Comandante no longer trusted him and wanted him close. He believed the sicario was involved in this ludicrous attack and feared what he would do once in Juárez.

  He said, “If the man doesn’t show today, what do you want me to do?”

  “Kill the journalist. Dump him in the desert, then return back here. You will be coming to Matamoros with me.”

  As an offering to the capo. The sicario betrayed nothing on his face, simply saying, “It will be done.”

  He entered the basement, seeing their new captive cowering in the corner, afraid to even meet his eyes. A young man, most likely from a rich family. The sicario was probably the foremost expert on the mechanics of kidnapping that Los Zetas had, but he’d never done it for money, like Los Zetas were known for in Mexico City. In Juárez, he did it for one thing, and no amount of money would alter his captive’s fate.

  He waved the journalist to his feet, feeling the irony of his work in Juárez. He had been tempted multiple times with huge amounts of cash but had always remained loyal to Los Zetas. Always executing exactly what the jefe wished, condemning his soul to hell in the process. Walking back up the stairs with the journalist in tow, he wondered if that loyalty would now be his death.

  * * *

  They had been on the road for close to thirty minutes, the sicario aggravated at the antics of the cars around him. Yesterday, the drive had been novel, not the least because he was operating a brand-new BMW 5 Series instead of the usual clunker that blended in around Juárez and allowed him to work his deadly skills. In Juárez a car like this would have been as bad as driving a fire truck with the lights spinning, but here it had been a diversion from the traffic. Now, the satellite radio, heads-up display, and other electrical wizardry no longer held his interest, and the idiots in the vehicles around him began to grate.

  With thoughts of his meeting with El Comandante swirling in his head, he uttered his first words to the journalist that weren’t a command.

  “Tell me, what is it like in the United States. Is it like here?”

  He heard nothing and glanced at the journalist in the passenger seat. The man sputtered for a moment, then said, “I… I don’t know what you mean.”

  The sicario said, “Do you live in fear? Do people in your cities fear men like me?”

  At first the journalist said, “Yes,” followed by a pause, then, “Well, no, that’s not true. There is no one like you in America. At least not in my world. The only people that run into men like you are cri
minals. If you do nothing wrong, you don’t have anything to fear. Unlike here.”

  The sicario pondered the statement, wondering how the journalist could believe such a thing. Surely his world and the journalist’s were not so removed from each other.

  He said, “Life is nothing but a series of interconnected events. There is no right and wrong, only moving forward, making the best of each circumstance. Good and bad is a myth to explain away things, nothing more.”

  When the journalist didn’t reply, he said, “Do you agree?”

  He could tell the man was working up his courage. He smiled and said, “There is no right or wrong answer, either.”

  Finally, the journalist said, “No. I don’t agree. We create our own destiny by the path we choose. Right and wrong do matter.”

  “So you’ve done something wrong on your path of life, and it led you to me. You deserve this?”

  The journalist’s eyes widened. “No! I’ve done nothing bad. I don’t deserve to be here.”

  The sicario stared at him for a moment, causing the journalist to turn away. He said, “And yet here you sit, next to me. A killer working for men who you would say have done only bad. How did right and wrong matter on your path, then?”

  The journalist said nothing, and the sicario was disappointed. He had hoped to glean some truth he had missed in his life. Hoped to learn a secret from another world he had yet to experience.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then the journalist surprised him by asking, “Do you have a family?”

  “I did, but they’re dead now.”

  The journalist paused, then said, “May I ask how they died?”

  “In a war. They were killed in a raid.”

  “And you don’t think that’s wrong? When it happened, did you feel it was justice?”

  The images of the campesinos fleeing from his machete flashed in his mind, and he shunted them aside. The day before that attack, he had been told of the death of his mother and sister at the hands of the rebels, and his rage had flowed through the peasant village in retaliation. The campesinos were long dead, but their ghosts punished him still.

  He said, “When I was a child we had a coop of chickens. It was our livelihood, with my mother bartering the eggs for other things. One day, I went to feed them and found all of them slaughtered. A fox had come in the night and had killed every single one. He didn’t eat them. Just killed them. He had taken our livelihood. Was the fox evil?”

  The journalist said, “You can’t compare a chicken coop to human beings. The fox is an animal. He doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong.”

  The sicario pulled into the parking area for terminal one and said, “Or there is no right and wrong. Only interconnected events.” He turned off the car and said, “Do you see? Or do you have a different explanation for your fate?”

  The journalist seemed to withdraw into himself, disappointing the sicario yet again. He wanted a new truth. A new reason for what had happened in his life. Instead, it looked like he was instilling a new reality into the journalist. The one true reality.

  They entered the terminal, and, like before, the sicario muscled his way to the front, his slight frame not nearly as powerful in exacting compliance as his gaze. He positioned the journalist and began to wait, sure he would end up killing the man in another couple of hours, and was a little sad at the prospect. He would have liked to talk again. Explore the differences in their lives a little more.

  Forty-five minutes in, growing more positive the journalist would be sacrificed, he was beginning to construct a plan for disposal of the body when he saw the man visibly start. Thinking he had spotted the courier, he followed the journalist’s gaze, then did a double take before his eyes reached the doors exiting customs, having a flash of recognition of a man on his side of the ropes.

  Carlos.

  He studied the face to be sure, then backed away. It was Carlos. A respected member of the Sinaloa cartel’s operations in Juárez, he had been marked for capture by Los Zetas numerous times but had always escaped either through luck or through a change in focus of El Comandante. The sicario had studied his life intently, learning his patterns and methods, and had nicknamed him El Traje because of his habit of always wearing a business suit, like he did today.

  Why is he here? El Comandante had said the leadership had been killed. Decimated in a military-type attack.

  He saw three men approach, and a discussion ensued. He wished he could hear what was being said, but the directional microphone was in the BMW, too large to use unobtrusively here.

  He sidled up to the journalist and said, “Did you see the man? Is he here?”

  His face white, he said, “No. No, he hasn’t come through.”

  Sure he would tell the truth if the man appeared, if only to save his life, the sicario said, “Who did you see?”

  The journalist ducked his head and said, “No one. I thought I saw him, but it wasn’t the right guy. He’ll come, though, right? He’ll come.”

  Carlos and the men began walking to the rental car counters, and the sicario had a choice: continue waiting here or follow them. Maybe Los Zetas’ information was only partially correct. Maybe someone was coming, but it wasn’t the man the journalist knew.

  He made his decision, pulling the journalist with him to the car and circling around to the exit for the rental lot. When the three men appeared in a yellow Toyota, he waited. Soon enough, he saw Carlos drive up in a dented, beat-up American sedan like he was accustomed to using in Juárez. He let them get a few cars away before beginning to follow, knowing the traffic would keep them from eluding him.

  After winding through Zona Rosa they pulled over at Chapultepec park and exited, walking toward the lake that fronted Paseo de la Reforma Avenue. The sicario parked as well, pulling out the directional microphone and saying, “Do as I say and you may yet live through the day.”

  When the journalist didn’t respond, he said, “Do the right thing. Follow me.”

  The park itself was very large, with paths intertwining throughout and food vendors hawking their products, giving the sicario plenty of options to approach without being seen. He passed the lake without finding his quarry and looped around a strip of food vendors, searching the tables. He came up empty. He was preparing to go deeper into the park, away from the lake, when the journalist said, “There. At the paddleboats, on the bench. Are those the guys you were following?”

  The sicario looked at him curiously and the journalist said, “Please remember that when we talk to the leader again.”

  They settled onto a bench screened by a row of shrubs and the sicario placed the headphones on his ears as if he were listening to music. The microphone looked like a black tube with a pistol grip on the bottom, connected to a small box with two dials. He laid it alongside his leg and angled it toward his target.

  He fiddled with the gain on the box for a second, then adjusted the volume. Satisfied, he began to listen, turning on the digital recorder.

  Within seconds, he knew he had made the right choice.

  32

  I was driving as fast as I could in the traffic, weaving in and out, trying to get a handle on our target. And a handle on our authority.

  Jennifer was on the phone, talking to our pilots, getting them to feed the number the father had sent into the embedded collection capability hidden in the aircraft, and Knuckles was working the trace of the cell phone for the cop.

  I jerked the wheel to swerve around a jackass who had decided to stop in the middle of the street, causing Jennifer to slap her hand against the door and me to start cursing. The only good thing about the dumb-ass drivers in the Federal District was the fact that I couldn’t do anything bad enough to get pulled over, because everyone here treated all traffic rules as advice only. Lanes, red lights, whatever, it was only a guide and not something to be followed if you didn’t feel like it.

  I heard Jennifer talking to the pilots and wanted to snatch the phone away from h
er. “Yes, that’s the number. We need you to suck that thing in…. No, it’s not a blanket. We aren’t trying to prevent it from talking. We need to draw in an SMS text…. No, we’re not conducting unauthorized surveillance. It’s sending a code. We need the code. What do you mean you don’t have the capability? I know you have it….”

  I finally had heard enough. I snatched the phone. “Hello? Who the hell is this?”

  “Jim Beam.”

  Dumb-ass pilot call sign. “Jim, did you hear what was just said? Do you have an issue with it? Because I’m on a road that leads to the airport and I could be there just as quickly as I could execute this mission.”

  “Hey, I heard everything she said, but I can’t start affecting the cell network in a foreign country just because you guys called. I need authorization. We diverted to Mexico for transport only.”

  “This is my mission, and I’m Pike Logan. I say again, Pike Logan. I’m authorizing the operation. Do you understand?”

  “Uhh… no…”

  What the hell? Another new guy?

  I saw Jennifer roll her eyes and wave her hand for the phone back, but that insult was too much to let go. I took a breath and said, “Okay. Well, clearly, you haven’t heard about me. But we did meet, right? You remember what I look like?”

  I heard him talking to someone next to him, then, “Uhh… yeah. Brown crew cut, scar on your face? You had the hot chick with you, right?”

  Now I really wanted to throw the phone. “Yes. That’s me. I was running Taskforce collection operations before you got your pilot’s license. Now put that number into the collection device and turn it on with the largest gain you can. We’re trying to get an SMS text that is out of range of the nearest tower.”

  I heard nothing for a moment, then, “The package in the plane isn’t authorized for Grolier Recovery Services. All you are authorized for is transport. I need someone from headquarters to release.”

  Jesus Christ. The Taskforce actually separated the individual capabilities of the aircraft? I should have known, because I’d seen it a hundred different times in other scenarios where I was authorized but others weren’t. This was a first for me, though. As a civilian, I wasn’t supposed to be read on to what was in the aircraft, but I was, and now I needed it and I had no time to work through the bureaucracy.