The Polaris Protocol

by Brad Taylor

  She’ll get hurt.

  It was like a subconscious truth springing forth, clouding my deliberation, making me question my decisions. I trusted Knuckles’s judgment more than anyone on earth’s. Right now, more than my own. I asked, “You think she can handle it?”

  He looked at her and said, “Yes, I do.”

  In a weird bit of role reversal, Jennifer had finally made it to the inside, convincing Knuckles of her worth, and I was the one keeping her out of the action. Keeping her safe from harm. Protecting her because of what she meant to me.

  Decoy opened the back door, looking at me expectantly.

  I turned to Knuckles and said, “It’s your plan. Brief it.”

  37

  Jennifer came over the barrier last, being the only one who could scale the fifteen-foot brick wall without any help. When she landed, she was sweating profusely from helping to push all four of us up. I don’t know why, but I found that funny.

  I’d gone up first and waited on the top, the wall being about a foot wide at the apex, but luckily not embedded with broken bottles or strapped with razor wire. Blood, the designated point man, came next. I pulled him up, then hoisted up Knuckles. Once he was set on top, Blood and I both went over, giving us two guns on the ground if we ran into trouble instead of one man on his own.

  The foliage was extremely thick, reminding me of working in the jungles of Panama. Blood had moved only a few feet, but I had to look hard to see him. The pool area was still out of view, but I knew it was only about fifty meters away.

  After we had everyone together, spread in a tight wedge, I signaled Blood, and we began moving like a patrol at Ranger school, only with suppressed Glocks instead of any type of long gun.

  We went about twenty meters before I saw Knuckles take a knee and hold his fist in the air, a relay from Blood. I followed suit and took a knee, looking at Knuckles. He shrugged, telling me he didn’t know why Blood had stopped. I saw him lean into Decoy, who whispered something. He then leaned my way and hissed a word I didn’t understand. When he saw I wasn’t getting it, he held his left hand like he was mimicking a pistol, index finger out but with the thumb inverted and pointing at the ground. The hand signal for enemy.

  I tensed, getting ready for a fight, aggravated that I’d trusted the Taskforce analysts on the guard force outside the compound. He pointed again and hissed a word.

  What the hell is he saying? “Fighter”?

  I got sick of the dance and slid over to his position, keeping my voice low. “What is it? A guard?”

  He whispered back, “No. A tiger.”

  “A what?”

  “A fucking tiger. Blood says there’s a tiger up there.”

  I shook my head, trying to figure out what that meant. Blood was a former Recon Marine but had spent most of his time with the CIA in the Special Activities Division. I wracked my brain for some code word that we didn’t use in the Army but that he might have used as a Marine or paramilitary officer in the CIA.

  And came up dry.

  I slid through the foliage toward him, moving as slowly as I could. I reached his position and leaned into his ear. “What’s up?”

  From a knee, he pointed forward, and sure as shit there was a Bengal tiger staring at us about ten feet away, its tail twitching and its mouth open and huffing.

  My first thought was How many others are in this little zoo? but I didn’t get to dwell on it long, because the cat darted right at us. We both leapt up, our Glocks spitting rounds, and it kept coming.

  Heedless of the noise, the entire team crashed backward, everyone now firing at the wraith coming through the jungle. I could see the bullets hitting its side, the forty-five slugs pummeling the body. The cat leapt in the air right at Decoy, hitting him in the chest and knocking him to the ground. Decoy jammed his barrel into its mouth and pumped two rounds, ending the fight. He kicked the beast off and stood, breathing hard.

  He whispered, “Never get outta the boat.”

  On a knee, we all began chuckling silently, except for Jennifer, who didn’t get the immortal line from Apocalypse Now. I whispered back, “That explains the lack of a guard force here.”

  We waited in silence for an additional five minutes, checking to see if there would be a reaction from the house. I knew they couldn’t hear the suppressed weapons from this distance but wasn’t sure about the noise we’d made thrashing through the brush. When nothing appeared, I signaled Blood to continue.

  We made it to the edge of the pool area without incident, keeping inside the vegetation, and Knuckles and I left the team, moving forward on our bellies for a view.

  A giant wall of glass fronted the pool, and inside an ornate den I could see a man with a beard watching a wide-screen TV. I scanned the room and saw a door to the left, cracked open, which, being the only intel we were going to get, would be the first room we cleared after breach. To the right the glass wall continued on to a small gazebo, complete with a gigantic barbecue grill set into another expanse of brick and an outdoor fireplace.

  How do they use all this stuff with a damn tiger roaming around? I figured there was a cage for it somewhere in the jungle and let it go.

  I scanned to the left of the glass and saw a large wooden door. Breach point. I looked at Knuckles and he nodded. I pulled back into the foliage, getting the team in close.

  “There’s a breach to the left of the glass. Knuckles, you got it. Blood, you’re his backup. Remember, quiet as a mouse on the lock. Inside the house I can see one room with an open door. It’s on the left, and our first interior breach. I’ll take lead toward it.”

  I turned to Jennifer. “There’s a man in the den sitting on a couch. That’s your target. You enter first and go right. You’ll see him. We’re coming in right behind and going left toward the door.”

  She said, “I’m first in?”

  “Yeah. He needs to be dealt with immediately, but I need all the rest of my guys to enter the room. I have no idea how big it is or what’s inside. Once he’s down, fall back to us. Pull security on the door we enter.”

  She didn’t speak and I said, “You good with this?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good with it. Just didn’t think I’d be first.”

  Knuckles winked at her, and I saw a little smile slip out before she began checking her weapon. I said, “Any questions?”

  Nobody uttered a word. I tapped Knuckles on the shoulder, and the plan was in motion.

  38

  Knuckles slithered around the pool on his belly, staying in the foliage, Blood following close behind. I saw Blood take a low knee, his pistol on the door, then Knuckles duck-walked forward the last few meters. He tried the knob, then turned and waved his hand in front of his face in a deliberate motion, like a director signaling “cut.”

  Unlocked. Perfect.

  He stayed put, keeping the movement down, and we all collapsed in on Blood’s position. I got a thumbs-up from the people around me, then pointed at Jennifer. I could tell the adrenaline was flowing, but her hands were steady. She inhaled and exhaled, then nodded.

  I pointed at Knuckles, and we rose, running to the door in a crouch. Two feet from it, he pulled the latch down and swung it open, letting us flow into the target like hornets looking for a victim.

  Jennifer entered and jerked right, out of my sight. I spent no time on the target in the den, trusting her to eliminate the threat, running straight to my breach, knowing I had four other men doing the same. I heard the spitting of her Glock and kicked the door inward, leading with my weapon. I saw a man behind a huge desk working a computer, the fat cigar in his mouth spilling to the floor at my entrance. He lurched forward toward a pistol, and I drilled him in the forehead.

  The room wasn’t that large and was secure in a half second, before Jennifer even made it to us. We bounded back into the den and began clearing, racing silently through the large expa
nse, checking nooks and crannies. We reached the end of the den, which choked into a hallway that stretched away, deeper into the house. To my front I could see a stairwell leading up, with a door immediately on my left.

  I let the stack catch up, waited for the tap on my shoulder, then swung open the door. I almost bounded into it before I realized it was another stairwell, this one going down. And it stank.

  The holding cell.

  I said, “Jennifer, stay up here. Cover our back.”

  She nodded, and we began bounding down the stairwell, one man covering while the other moved. Two-thirds of the way and the stairwell took a right-angle turn. Blood held up, putting his barrel around the turn for cover, and Decoy rounded the corner. We each took turns covering as the next man went, a dangerous game of tag.

  By the time I had reached the bottom, someone had found a light switch, and I saw three men staring at me with a mixture of fear and hope, unsure where to place their trust. They were looking a little worse for wear, to put it mildly.

  But no Jack Cahill.

  All three were Latino. None were Caucasian. I held a finger to my lips, then heard Jennifer’s Glock snap, followed by a fusillade of rounds from an unsuppressed weapon.

  Oops. They know we’re here.

  We raced to the stairs, turning the corner and seeing Jennifer at the top firing controlled pairs and ducking back. Knuckles looked at me with a smug grin and I said, “Yeah, yeah. Good idea to bring Jennifer.”

  If we hadn’t left her at the top, we would have been as badly trapped as the captives themselves, with no way to get up the stairs. A grandpa with a .22 could have prevented movement out.

  We reached the top, staying in the protection of the stairwell, and Jennifer said, “Three guys came down the stairs. Two are still in the stairwell, one is dead.”

  I leaned out and saw a body on the floor, about twenty meters away. I said, “Jennifer, suppress the stairwell. Blood, Decoy, get to the other side of the hall, back into the den.”

  They nodded and I leaned over Jennifer’s shoulder, putting rounds into the banister of the stairwell. Jennifer followed my lead. Decoy and Blood made it across without issue and began to move down the hallway under the protection of our guns.

  Before they reached the stairwell, Knuckles and I slid out, moving on the opposite side of the hall. We got within view of the stairwell and pied off the corner, preventing escape. Blood and Decoy turned into the opening and began firing. I heard one unsuppressed shot, then Decoy appeared, giving an all-clear. I turned and found Jennifer right behind us. I said, “Go down the stairwell. The hostages are there.”

  Her eyes lit up, and I remembered.

  “Jennifer, your brother wasn’t down there.”

  She took that in, nodding vacantly. I said, “Check them for injuries and get them ready to move. Find out what they know.”

  She nodded more forcefully and took off at a trot. We continued clearing, finding nobody else. The remainder of the house was empty. We rallied at the head of the basement stairs.

  I said, “How are they?”

  “They can move,” Jennifer said. “They’re a little beat up but ambulatory.”

  “Okay, Blood, Decoy, figure out the gates to this place and bring in two vehicles. Knuckles, Jennifer, get them ready to load. I want to be out of here in less than a minute. No telling if any of these guys called reinforcements.”

  Jennifer said, “Jack was here, Pike. They said that. He was here and taken out this morning.”

  I said, “What? Here in this house?”

  She nodded, her eyes boring into me, looking for the magic answer that I didn’t have. Truthfully, the words were like a hammer. Like being a Son Tay raider in Vietnam.

  If we’d only gotten the intel earlier.

  “Decoy and Blood, go. Get the vehicles up here.” After they left I said, “You sure?”

  She said, “Yes. He was here.”

  I ran through the risk and decided. “All right, listen. We have no more than five minutes to SSE this place, and that’s pushing it. Go find phones, laptops, CDs, thumb drives, whatever. Knuckles, take the last two rooms we cleared. The ones with desks. Jennifer, take the first room we entered. The dead guy in there looked important. I’ll take the den and kitchen. Ignore the second floor. It’s nothing but bedrooms.”

  Jennifer gave me a grateful smile and we split up. I found nothing of interest in the den. The kitchen was the same, so I continued into the garage. I saw two Mercedes and a BMW, with a fourth spot empty. On the wall was an impeccably kept little key assortment, like you see at a valet stand. Three of the slots held two sets of keys or key fobs. The last slot held only one fob. A keyless-looking thing for a BMW.

  And Jack had been taken from here in some type of vehicle.

  I snatched it off the rack and returned, finding Decoy leading the captors to the front door. Knuckles had a couple of phones and a thumb drive. Jennifer had a hard drive she’d ripped from a computer.

  In forty minutes we were out of the area and driving back to the city center. We segregated Felix from the other two and released them at the Zócalo in the historic district, giving them each a wad of pesos. I suppose we should have taken them to their respective houses, but the fewer people who saw us, the better. They’d have to make do with finding a taxi or using a pay phone. Felix, on the other hand, was a little more personal to us.

  When we pulled over, the two were weeping uncontrollably, profusely praising and thanking us over and over. We admonished them not to say a word about the team, and, if asked, to say they had escaped on their own. I didn’t worry about them going to the authorities, because they were free and that was all that mattered in their minds. They knew going to the authorities wouldn’t get them any justice, so they wouldn’t bother. Very few kidnappings were reported in Mexico, and they probably didn’t trust the police not to take them back. The story might get out, but they had nothing to really go on, other than saying we were gringos.

  We drove to the Gomez residence in Polanco and let Felix buzz us in. We went straight up the circular path, parking behind a late-model BMW. The bodyguards came flying out the door, guns drawn, and Felix waved at them. They looked flabbergasted. One shouted inside, and Mrs. Gomez came out. She saw Felix and went berserk.

  He flew up the steps and was whisked inside. Arturo came out, wiping his eyes.

  He said, “How did you do it? How did you find him?”

  I said, “You found him. It was your GPS device.”

  He pointed at Jennifer. “Did you find her brother as well?”

  “No. He was there this morning but was taken out before we arrived.”

  He grew solemn and said, “I’m so sorry. I can never repay you for what you’ve done. However I can help, I will.”

  I stared at the BMW in the driveway. I pulled out the key fob I’d found and said, “You ever seen one of these?”

  Confused, he said, “Yes, of course. I have the same thing. Why?”

  “Is this the key to the car? How’s it work?”

  “It’s keyless entry. Come here.”

  He led me to the car, showed me his own key fob, then stuck his hand in the handle. The doors unlocked by proximity alone, and the seat began moving back. He said, “It controls the car.”

  I leaned in and saw what I was hoping for: a little cover near the rearview mirror that opened up, exposing a red button like an old bomber switch. “What does this thing do?”

  “You press it if you have car trouble, and someone from BMW gets you help. It works through satellite.” He pulled out a smartphone and tapped an app, saying, “Look, with it I can find my car using my phone. It shows where it is on a map.”

  I bounced the fob in my hand, getting the sniggle of an idea. “You serious about helping me?”

  “Of course, whatever I can do.”

  “You k
now a BMW dealer around here?”

  39

  Sitting in his hotel room on Tower Road, just outside Denver International Airport, Booth placed two Garmin GPSs in the windowsill and waited for them to lock on to a signal. His flash drive already inserted, he stuck his thumb on the biometric scanner, disabled his software booby traps, and pulled up POLARIS, toying with his new interface.

  It looked marvelous, exactly like the dials and switches on a 1990s-era stereo. The “volume” control set the desired length of time, the “radio tuner” set the degree of disruption of the timing signal, and the “equalizer” switches were each associated with a section of the world. He’d even designed a delay system allowing the settings to be uploaded for execution at a later date.

  A person pretending to be Tom Cruise in Risky Business, jamming the volume and equalizer settings to the max while “tuned” to the highest FM “frequency,” would fatally disrupt the satellite-timing signal worldwide and subsequently render useless anything that leveraged the GPS constellation.

  At least in theory, that is. While Booth was pleased with the aesthetics, sure that a child could use his program, he realized that he had no idea if it actually worked. It wasn’t like he could test the code as he wrote it. He’d had to create it whole, without any measure of success, then inject it based on faith.

  Not wanting to fly out of Colorado Springs for security reasons, he’d made the drive to Denver International, coming up a day early and getting a hotel. Throughout the trip, a nagging thought had spread like oil on water: What if the system doesn’t function?

  Why fly all the way to Mexico City, put himself at the potential mercy of a suspected cartel boss, and then pass something that was little more than a broken string of ones and zeros? The protocol would do nothing, and his risk would be worthless. Unlike Manning and Snowden, he wasn’t exposing information, he was using it. He was the first to actually exploit the network for good instead of merely talking about it.