The Polaris Protocol

by Brad Taylor

  He consciously focused on the goal of stopping the United States’ injustice the world over, but he couldn’t keep another nagging thought from intruding: If it failed, he’d get no money at all. No way to pay off his drug debts. No way to escape.

  Then he thought about the man receiving the protocol. Carlos. If POLARIS didn’t work, money would be the least of his problems. Maybe Booth should stay here. Just call it a day. Why go to Mexico and risk the wrath of someone like Carlos?

  But that outcome was predicated on POLARIS’s failure. Something he could test right now. If POLARIS executed like he’d programmed, it would be worth a great deal of money. And he was the only one who could make it function. Carlos could threaten, but he needed Booth’s help. If the thing worked.

  After checking in, he’d sat on the bed and contemplated a test.

  It was a risk, because the disruption would definitely be felt, causing the 2nd SOPS and Boeing to go crazy trying to figure out what had happened, but that, in itself, was worth the test. He’d buried the protocol deep, cloaking it with the GPS constellation’s own code, making it impossible to find without shredding the software that gave the satellite life. This would force them to clean the satellites one by one to prevent interruption of the overall constellation, a massive, time-consuming process. In the end, a doppelgänger of Booth would root around, trying to locate what had caused the issue, but he would have little luck finding the protocol if he didn’t know where to look.

  Theoretically.

  His GPS gave a little beep, and he saw an icon of a Volkswagen Beetle centered directly over his hotel, blinking silently. On, off. On, off. Beckoning. Booth made up his mind.

  He plugged the other GPS into the computer and waited for it to mate to the protocol. The GPS satellites were continuously circling the earth, and he needed to know which ones were overhead in order to only affect North America. It was a bit of a technological marvel that the average person took for granted when cursing their GPS, but the satellites broadcast an almanac of locational data that the little receiver then synchronized before searching the sky for the strongest signal.

  He saw a string of numbers, labeled SVN 54, SVN 67, SVN 32, and continuing until all operational satellites were listed. He now knew the location of every one, and POLARIS synchronized the data. He turned to the laptop, engaging the “equalizer” button for North America but leaving the others alone.

  He touched the “volume” dial until it showed six seconds, the timing packet used by the 2nd SOPS when working the constellation. His mouse icon hovering over the tuning dial, he debated on the degree of timing offset. He had no idea how effective his protocol was and wanted to be able to register a disruption with his crude little handheld GPS, so he went ahead and dialed it all the way to the right.

  He connected to the Wi-Fi in his room, logging on to the Internet, then pulled up Tor, a browser package that utilized a volunteer network of computers that would randomize his ISP, preventing a searcher from knowing who he was or what he had sent over the Internet. He smiled at the irony of using something developed for the military to cloak his attack against that same body.

  Once his computer had accessed the Boeing desktop in his little frigid trailer, he stroked the keys, turning off the Boeing firewall. Everything set, his mouse icon hovered over the power button to the virtual stereo deck. He glanced once more at the second GPS sitting in the window, seeing the car still blinking in the correct spot. He clicked “on.”

  The little GPS blinked, then flashed the message, “Acquiring Satellites.” Two seconds later, it showed his location as somewhere in northern Canada. Two seconds after that, it went through the same process again, the icon ending up back at his hotel.

  * * *

  A quarter of a mile away, at the 7-Eleven on Tower Road, a man attempting to buy gas for his rental car received the message “Unable to complete transaction” from the fuel pump. He ran into the store to pay, dismayed at the line. He waited at the end, glancing at his watch every five seconds, growing more and more frustrated. The line didn’t move as the cashier tried to get her machines to function. He felt the time slip by and wondered if he would make his flight. He needn’t have worried.

  * * *

  On I-70, a mother desperately trying to reach the airport before her plane left heard her GPS say, “Recalculating.” Shoving a pacifier into her crying baby’s mouth, she unwittingly drove past her exit while it bounced back and forth. Seven seconds later, when it finished calculating, it ordered a U-turn, causing her to scream in frustration. She prayed her aircraft was delayed. Her prayer would be answered.

  * * *

  In the control tower of Denver International Airport, the largest airport in the United States by area and the fifth busiest by volume, the air-traffic controllers were hard at work synchronizing a dizzying array of fuel-laden flying bombs.

  One of the first airports to be upgraded to the Federal Aviation Administration’s NextGen architecture for enhanced efficiency, it depended on GPS for accurate approach and takeoff instructions. Because NextGen was fairly new, the tower maintained the legacy radio guidance, should any receiver fail.

  In the span of three seconds, every single receiver began sending false positioning codes. An unforeseen catastrophic event, the massive data conflict caused the mainframe computer to lock up, crashing every heads-up display and scope showing inbound and outbound traffic. The radio guidance continued to work flawlessly but was tied to a computer system that was no longer functioning.

  The room filled with screaming voices as the air-traffic controllers tried to maintain separation of aircraft by eyesight alone, one man rebooting the system while another pulled an ancient set of binoculars from a closet.

  At six thousand feet, United flight 762 continued to descend as instructed. On approach for landing, the captain correctly assumed that continuing with his last instructions was a better course of action than retaking to the sky with no one at the wheel in the tower.

  On the ground before him a Cessna 182 took off, the new pilot inside trying to decipher all the shouting in his radio. Climbing higher and higher, the pilot of the Cessna never saw the wing of the Boeing 757 that crushed his cockpit like he was a gnat hitting a windshield. Never saw the 187 souls screaming on their way to earth. Never heard the captain grunting in the radio as he tried to get the plane to respond. Never felt the fireball that erupted when the aircraft sliced into the earth, spewing flaming jet fuel, luggage, and body parts.

  * * *

  Staring at his blinking little Volkswagen Beetle icon, Booth was very, very pleased. His code, created out of whole cloth and built in the dark of a basement, without any testing, had worked flawlessly. He giggled to himself at the number of inconveniences he had caused, wondering how many people across the United States had just heard that annoying little GPS voice. Or how many had had their ATM withdrawals spoiled, forcing them to start over after the six-second test.

  He heard a siren and glanced out the window, noticing for the first time a giant black cloud growing from the airport.

  40

  A small trickle of blood still flowed from the gaping wound in El Comandante’s head, tracking down his outstretched arm before dripping silently to the hardwood floor below the desk. The flow told the sicario that the attack was fairly recent.

  He scanned the office, seeing a computer ripped open, wires sprawling out like electronic intestines. The desk had been rifled, with papers scattered about, but two separate bundles of US one-hundred-dollar bills lay in the drawer, untouched.

  It didn’t add up to a narco hit. The bodies lay as they had fallen. No messages sent through mutilation, no sign of methodical execution, and nothing of value had been taken. Yet someone had ripped through a Zetas safe house, killing everyone inside. Just like the Sinaloa safe house in Juárez. Someone with intelligence and the skill to use it.

  Who would that be? Who wo
uld have the capability to penetrate both Sinaloa and Los Zetas, then attack with a scalpel, hitting two distinct houses, getting nothing in return? No law enforcement proclamations about stymieing the drug trade, no riches from the houses themselves?

  He turned and found the journalist staring at the corpse, his face pale. Scared by a dead man. The sicario found it humorous.

  He said, “Sit on the floor in this room. If you move, you will look like El Comandante.”

  He searched the rest of the house, finding more bodies, but from what he could tell, all were lying exactly where they had been hit. There were no narco banners left at the scene, no propaganda or bragging, no graffiti designed to intimidate. It was as if whoever had come had killed for no other reason than because they could, like the fox in the henhouse of his youth.

  And like that same animal, they had taken the livelihood of the sicario.

  Going down the steps to the basement, he realized that he would now be targeted. El Comandante had planned on taking him to Matamoros, which meant he’d probably already poisoned the leadership, offering the sicario to deflect blame from the Sinaloa attack in Juárez. This assault would do nothing but confirm it, leaving him on the outside.

  He reached the basement, and, as expected, it was empty, although it wouldn’t have surprised him to find the kidnap victims killed outright as well, like the chickens by the fox.

  He went back up the stairs, contemplating what he should do. He couldn’t remain in Mexico City, as all of his contacts here were Los Zetas. He couldn’t trust them for help, and the city itself was foreign. Ciudad Juárez was more his style, a place where he understood the rhythm and flow, but after the Sinaloa hit, he was sure anyone associated with Los Zetas was being targeted, and he had no illusions about his picture hanging on someone’s wall, just like Carlos’s photo had been on his. It was pure luck that he hadn’t been here when the assault went down in the first place. An interconnected event like all the other ones he’d experienced in his life. All that remained was how he would use it.

  I need safety. Someplace to hide. But there is no place in this country.

  He had one other alternative. A thing he’d always kept but never felt he would use. Maybe it was time to invoke his escape clause with his US passport. Disappear into America for good. What had been a scary, last-ditch solution before his trip to El Paso he now saw as his only option. Before, he’d been afraid of using it, but now he understood that he could cross the border and survive on the other side. Even thrive, provided he had money. A stake to get him started, which he was fairly sure he could obtain by selling the BMW and any other jewelry or watches he could find in this house.

  He opened the office door to find the journalist sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, apparently in emotional shock. A lone rooster left prancing in the yard, pecking at the dead around him and waiting on the fox. Baggage at this point. He realized it would be easiest to do it right here and leave the body with the others.

  He withdrew his Sig P226 and racked the slide. The journalist snapped his head up, seeing the end of the barrel.

  He threw his hands in the air, shouting, “Don’t! Please don’t! Remember I can still identify the contact. Carlos told those other men he was coming tomorrow. Without me you won’t find him.”

  The sicario had maintained surveillance on the meeting in the park, more than likely at the exact same moment a team of killers was ripping apart this house, and had learned that the mysterious contact from the United States was flying into Mexico City tomorrow morning. Not that any of that mattered now. He couldn’t have cared less about the American or what he was doing with Sinaloa.

  He said, “El Comandante wanted the contact. I do not.”

  “Carlos said he was selling the device. It’s worth a great deal of money. Don’t you care about that?”

  The words gave the sicario pause. Carlos had said that. Had admonished the men that they would need to bring a great deal of money to get the device—whatever it was—and they, in return, stated a third man was coming who would have the money. After the meeting had ended, and Carlos had left, he’d hoped to learn more about the third man, but the men began speaking in a language he didn’t understand, disappointing him.

  He sighted down the barrel, considering. Truthfully, if the journalist ran out of the house right now, he could do little to harm the sicario’s chances of getting to America. He had no idea of the name on the passport or of the sicario’s intentions. What was he going to do, run to the nearest policeman and start ranting? The most he could accomplish would be providing a detailed description, but without something more than a story of abduction, the police in Mexico would toss that in the trash.

  It’s worth the risk.

  He holstered his pistol, seeing the journalist sag against the wall. Not giving him any time to recover, he said, “Get that money in the drawer. Search El Comandante’s body. Take his wallet, watch, rings, and anything else of value.”

  He left and did the same to the bodies in the hall, stripping them of anything that he could sell, then methodically went room by room looking for anything of value he could scavenge. He saw evidence of a search in the other rooms as well, but once again, articles an ordinary thief would never have passed up—and certainly not a hit man from the Sinaloa cartel—were left behind, confusing him as to who had perpetrated the attack.

  Nine minutes later they were driving away, the BMW’s backseat holding two garbage bags of valuables the sicario intended to sell in the thieves’ market of Tepito tomorrow afternoon. It would take a few phone calls, but Tepito was a free-for-all of black-market goods where one could purchase anything from weapons to the latest bootleg copy of a Hollywood movie.

  The hardest would be the BMW, given its previous owner, but Tepito was overrun with Korean Mafia—a strange set of circumstances, but real nonetheless. The right man wouldn’t care who owned it, only what he could glean from its parts.

  The car brought up another dilemma: He couldn’t lie low in a hotel that would ask no questions about a gringo chained to the toilet, as the BMW would be talked about, and probably stripped by morning. He would need to stay at a higher-end hotel, with parking and security, and that meant leaving a trail.

  He said, “Have you stayed in Mexico City before?”

  The journalist slid his eyes like it was a trick question but answered. “Yes. I reported from here a few times.”

  “Where?”

  “The Sheraton next to the United States embassy, on Reforma Avenue.”

  The sicario took that in and nodded. It was a huge risk, but nobody from the cartels would dare do anything due to the security.

  “We’re going back there. Remember what I said about circumstances and making the best of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is one of those times, but not like you think. I should kill you right now, but I have not. I will not hesitate to do so if you try anything inside the hotel while I’m checking in.” He floated his eyes on the journalist, and the man shrank back. “I understand the frailty of life much more than you, and I do not hold my own existence to the same level as you. I am the fox that kills for no other reason than he can, and like the fox, I will be exterminated eventually. You did well today. Continue, and you might return to your life where right and wrong keep the predators at bay.”

  The journalist nodded, saying nothing.

  The sicario said, “Remember, you exist solely to identify the gringo coming from America. I hope for your sake you can.”

  41

  On the wide-screen TV a past administrator of the FAA bloviated on and on about what he perceived had gone wrong in Denver. Having served when air travel was a novelty and the technology was based on lessons learned from World War II, he was the perfect man to discuss the intricacies of modern-day air travel. Or at least the only man the network could get to fill in some dead air. He
pointed at a chart detailing the exponential increase in aircraft juxtaposed over the static manning hours of the air-traffic controller, extrapolating human error based on the government’s refusal to address grievances he had championed years ago. Kurt turned away in disgust.

  In his heart, he understood he shouldn’t fault the network. They were only doing what they existed to do: entice someone to watch their channel so advertisers would buy time. Like many times in the past, though, he knew what they did not. He knew the secret, and in this case the secret was bad indeed.

  George Wolffe stuck his head in the door. “Principals’ meeting in forty-five.”

  Kurt leaned back and rubbed his eyes. In the end, it was only a matter of time before he was called. The National Security team would deal with the mess created by the GPS blackout, but his organization was the only one with a thread that could lead to the prevention of a second catastrophic event. Not that he thought it was very strong. Or even something he’d really call a thread. More like a tendril of smoke.

  He said, “Any more information on the probes of our systems?”

  George grimaced and said, “Yeah. I was going to wait until after the meeting. You don’t need to hear this now.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a YouTube video posted. The usual idiot in the Guy Fawkes mask. He says Anonymous is going to expose a secret government spy ring in four days.”

  “You think it’s us? Or coincidence?”

  “I think there’s no way it’s a coincidence. We’ve had probes on all our systems linked to Grolier Recovery Services, and they’ve been very, very good. Hacking cell can’t track them back. All they know is they’re happening.”

  “What could they find? How bad could they expose anything?”

  “No gun, but plenty of smoke.”