by Brad Taylor
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 working 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?”
“I’m not really sure. He said he’d explain it when we met, but what I do know is that it will affect the navigation systems of the surveillance drones on the border.”
“So you don’t even know what it does? How it works?”
“My meeting with Booth in El Paso was just to establish the connection. We didn’t discuss the specifics of the protocol. The point was to get him on our side, and it apparently worked.”
Eduardo’s lips split into a sinister grin. “Okay, Carlos. I’ll let you hold the keys for now. Call the men.”
Two hours later, sitting in the conference room with Eduardo and the other men of the inner circle, Carlos felt his phone vibrate. He spoke briefly, then held up a hand. When Eduardo nodded, he said, “Things are looking up.”
22
I bumped along in the blackness of the trunk, having given up trying to find out who the man with me was. All he did was beg me not to talk, then began weeping again. Clearly, he was convinced we were going to die. I wasn’t so sure he was wrong, so I spent the time trying to prevent that outcome.
I had been to a multitude of defeating-restraints courses during my time in the military, and after all the instruction one thing stood out: Prior planning beats MacGyver shit every day. Almost all handcuffs operate with a universal key in order to allow any officer to free a suspect, be it for health and safety reasons or just for convenience, and I, like many operators I worked with, had taken to carrying one in my wallet.
In over twenty years I had never, ever used it, and Jennifer had made fun of the habit on more than one occasion. Now I was wishing I’d forced her to do the same.
I wormed around, digging my wallet out of my pants pocket and then losing it for an instant in the bouncing. I scooted my ass backward, sweeping my hands until it connected with the leather. Working by feel, I opened it and dug my fingers in until I hit the pocket for business cards. This was where it became critical, and my lack of planning was causing issues.
I’d simply buried the key at the base of the pocket, surrounded by a bunch of business cards I always carried that supported my job as an intrepid archeological explorer. If I dumped all the cards and shook the wallet to get the key, I’d give away that I was up to no good. When they opened the trunk they’d see a confetti playground and know something was awry.
Why didn’t you go the distance? Tape the damn thing to the license or a single card? It was like buying a fire extinguisher for your house, then storing it in the attic.
I cradled the wallet and squeezed its sides, then began shaking, using one hand to keep the cards in. If the key was set right, I knew it would fall, because it had done so numerous embarrassing times in the past, usually at the airport with a twentysomething TSA agent grinning lasciviously at Jennifer over the implications. But that would be pure luck, and with mine, it was probably trapped at the base underneath the cards.
The car went over a speed bump hard enough to bounce both of us into the roof of the trunk, causing me to lose the wallet again. I slapped the metal, sweeping aside detritus that had accumulated in the trunk. The car stopped just as I closed my left hand over it. I began shaking it and heard the doors open. When they slammed shut, the key fell into my hand. I rolled over onto my back and shoved the wallet into my pocket just as the lid opened.
I was jerked out, seeing a sign for a sleazy roadside motel called the Traveler’s Inn.
Uh-oh. Jack’s motel. Not good.
The man was pulled out behind me, and for the first time I saw he was Hispanic and about sixty, wearing cheap rubber sandals and a stained white T-shirt. When he saw the location, he began to wail until he was cuffed in the head.
We were led straight to room number twelve, with one of the men opening the door using a key from his pocket. We got inside and the men pushed me into a corner, sitting me on my haunches with one of the guys standing over me. The door was shut, and the captors began speaking in Spanish. The older man began to wail again as he was shoved to his knees.
The leader of the group began a lengthy soliloquy in Spanish, none of which I understood, but I could tell the ma
n on his knees did. He became catatonic, not even flinching when a large bowie knife was produced, the blade about twelve inches long.
I felt the sweat break out on my neck and began working the key into the lock, an almost impossible task without being able to see the cuffs. Like everyone else, the guard in front of me had his eyes focused on the older man, watching the snot roll down his face as he blubbered.
The bowie knife came down, and as much as I had seen in the world, it still didn’t register as real until both carotid arteries had been slit and the blood began to spray from the damage. I involuntarily flinched, trying to sink into the corner of the room. I heard the gurgles as the knife bit deeper; attempting to sever the head from the body. The knife was stopped momentarily by the spine, and I closed my eyes, focusing on the task of staying alive. I felt the key sink into the hole and gently worked it left and right, trying to seat the pins correctly. Trying to calm the raging adrenaline flowing through me from the fear. I would only get one shot.
I heard the leader shout in Spanish and opened my eyes to see the bowie knife begin cutting the hands off the corpse. One flopped free, held only by a tendon. The man chopped at the floor like he was slicing garlic, and the hand separated. He worked on the other one, sawing through tendon and bone. They placed both hands on the chest of the corpse, then faced me. My turn.
In English, the leader said, “This man was an informant and met a traitor’s fate. You are involved in his actions, and we wanted you to see what happens to those who oppose us.”
Feeling bile in my throat at my helplessness, I simply nodded.
The leader flicked his eyes at the person guarding me, and he placed his hands on my head, pushing it into the wall, exposing my neck. The leader said, “We want to know why you were in Mexico. We want to know what you were doing.”
I saw the man holding my head pull out a blade. Much smaller than the bowie but lethal nonetheless. He leaned in, showing me the knife, his eyes locked on mine. I rolled to the left, a prehistoric instinct to get away from the danger, a low grunt escaping as I strained to get out of his grasp. I twisted my wrist, and I felt the lock click free.
A small snick that opened up a world of hurt.
I whipped both hands to my front and lashed out with the wrist still clamped, slashing the guard’s face with the teeth of the open handcuff. He screamed and started to roll back, but I trapped him against the wall, grabbed his wrist with the knife, and drove it deep into his eye socket.
The man with the bowie knife shouted and drew his gun. I jerked the dead guard in front of me and used him as primitive body armor, rushing forward, barely registering the weight, the rage of survival adrenaline making me feel superhuman. He fired multiple times in my direction and I felt the rounds impact the corpse. He tried to back up and I threw the body on top of him, then turned to the leader.
He had a look of shock on his face, still with his weapon in its holster. He scrambled to get it free but I was already on him, wrapping one arm around his neck and trapping the weapon with the other. I bent him backward, batted his hand away, and drew his pistol. I jammed it into his chest and pumped two rounds, letting him fall.
I whirled around and raced to the bowie wielder still under the body, now frantically trying to free himself. He raised his pistol and I stomped on his hand, the round going harmlessly into the wall. He screamed something in Spanish and I jabbed the barrel into his forehead.
He shook his head violently from left to right. I held for a second, then softly nodded up and down. And pulled the trigger.
I stood, coming to grips with the carnage, needing to think. I began searching for keys. I found them on the leader and went to the car that had carried me, seeing Jennifer’s purse in the front seat. I pulled out my phone and began dialing, leaving the parking lot with the battered tires of the sedan screeching, heading to the border.
Kurt picked up on the third ring, immediately asking why I was in El Paso and why I had left our mission early. I cut him off.
“Sir, it’s too hard to explain. Jennifer believes there’s a national security threat here on the border, and her brother’s wrapped up in it. I thought she was full of shit, but the cartels have just taken a huge gamble to capture us here, in America. She was correct, and I need a team right fucking now. Where is Knuckles? He should be CONUS with the bird.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Cartels? Capture you? What are you doing? I can’t even get to the Oversight Council until tomorrow. Forget about Knuckles and talk to me.”
I was flying down Interstate 10, headed back to the border bridge, and realized I didn’t have the facts to convince him. There was no way to get Oversight Council approval for operations in Mexico on a timeline that could save Jennifer. It just wasn’t what the Taskforce did. We were slow burn, not crisis management. Unlike in my previous life, we didn’t sit on alert.
I pounded the steering wheel and said, “Sir, is Knuckles in the United States? Is he here with a package in the aircraft?”
Kurt’s voice grew concerned at my shrill tenor, saying, “Yeah, he’s here. In Atlanta. What the hell is going on? You sound like you want a Prairie Fire.”
And his words broke free the best that the United States had to offer. Prairie Fire was the code phrase for the potential catastrophic loss of a Taskforce team and was used only under the most extreme circumstances on official missions, when everything else in the United States arsenal had failed. The words had been uttered a single time in the entire existence of the unit, but it was the one thing that Kurt could execute on his own, without Oversight Council approval, because Taskforce lives were not held to the same standard as Taskforce missions. I had never given the phrase serious thought, egotistically figuring that if I had communication and could utter the words, I could solve the problem on my own before the Taskforce could ever break anything free quickly enough to help.
Now I held the phone and savored the words. “I need Knuckles to divert to González airport in Ciudad Juárez. I’ll meet him there. I’m calling a Prairie Fire. I say again, I’m calling a Prairie Fire.”
He said nothing for a moment, and I saw the exit for the bridge. I coasted for a second before he came back on.
“You know what you’re doing, right? You got a real Prairie Fire?”
“Sir, listen to me closely. You and I have been through a lot, but nothing like this. I just saw a man get decapitated in front of me. I’m covered in blood from three dead men in a hotel. Jennifer is in the hands of fucking savages, and if I don’t get some help immediately, she’s going to be slaughtered. Or worse.”
I turned onto the bridge and heard, “You got them. Update me as soon as you can.”
23
The door at the top of the stairwell opened, spilling light into the room, and Jennifer knew someone was coming down. Finally.
She regretted the thought as soon as it came into her head. She knew whoever was on the stairs would offer nothing good, but she’d been shackled in the dark for over three hours, on top of the two-hour ride in the trunk, and the shock of the capture had worn off, leaving her wanting to see why it had occurred. Wanting to learn the fate of Pike and her brother Jack, even if it hastened her own demise.
Initially, when she’d been taken out of the trunk and brought down to the basement, she’d been dismayed to find it empty, expecting to see Jack bound and shackled like her. She’d been tossed unceremoniously on the ground, and the lights had been extinguished. She’d waited for Pike to join her. Waited for him to arrive so they could plan their escape. After some time in the dark, she realized he wasn’t coming and now wondered if he was still even alive. She thought so—hoped so—simply because of the way she had been treated.
The men hadn’t been unduly violent like she’d expected. She wasn’t smacked around or made to do anything lewd. There was little respect, but they hadn’t been overtly cruel either. They’d treated
her more like a piece of livestock, prodding when she moved slowly and showing little concern for her welfare when shoving her in or pulling her out of the trunk.
In truth, after the fear of instant death had worn off, she’d become more concerned about carbon monoxide poisoning during the ride, the leaking exhaust fumes filling the trunk and making her nauseous. Taking solace in small comforts, she initially had just sagged in the dark of the basement and drawn in clean oxygen, trying to clear her lungs of the stench of the exhaust.
Left to her own thoughts, she’d reflected on the enormous risks her kidnappers had taken. Imitating police officers on United States soil and kidnapping two United States citizens was brazen, and she knew her brother had found something much greater than drugs. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but she knew enough about cartel operations to understand what the impact would have been if the mission had gone wrong. She was valuable for a reason she didn’t understand. She might not have known what was at stake, but she knew two things for sure: One, she had been captured by a cartel, and two, she was now in Mexico.
Trying to penetrate the feeble glow from the stairwell, she heard more than one person descending and sat up, using her shoulder against the wall to make up for her hands being shackled behind her back. The overhead light blazed on, and a man was thrown in front of her, hitting the ground hard. At first she thought it was Pike, her stomach clenching in fear when she saw the man’s battered face, only relaxing when she spotted a mustache.
Three other men followed him into the room, one in a business suit, two with jeans, rough shirts, and pistols in their hands. The business suit kicked the prostrate man in the stomach hard enough to lift him an inch off the ground. The man grunted, then began coughing. No one paid a bit of attention to her, conducting the actions as if she didn’t exist.
