The Polaris Protocol - Страница 4

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Carlos nodded. “I see. So it has nothing to do with the money I’m willing to pay you?”

Fawkes looked flustered for a moment, then said, “Hey, don’t question why I’m doing this. I want it out. Everyone wants it out. Fuck this, man, I didn’t ask for some Miami Vice shit. I’ll go somewhere else.”

Carlos said, “Calm down. I just have to make sure. If you want it out so badly, I’ll take it for free. Because I’m in Mexico, and as you say, I can get it into the world.”

Fawkes shuffled in his chair a bit, then wiped his nose like a fifth grader. “I have what you want, but it’s not free. Understand?”

Carlos remained silent for a moment, watching the man twitch and knowing he could get whatever he wanted without paying a dime. But he needed something more. He needed the man’s skills. He said, “Do me a favor. Run this number for me. Tell me who it belongs to.”

Fawkes said, “A test?”

“Perhaps. I, too, have to make sure you are who you say you are.”

Fawkes opened up a laptop and got online. Carlos passed him the number, then waited, Fawkes’s sausage fingers racing over the keyboard. Eventually, he looked up and said, “It’s an archeological firm in Charleston, South Carolina. Not a whole lot of information tied to it. I got a Dun and Bradstreet number, some credit stuff. What in particular did you want?”

Carlos thought about it, wondering what the hell Jack’s call could have been about. Maybe it really was just a friend. Or maybe he’s working for the Federales.

Carlos smiled. “I’d like you to take a closer look when you get back home. Just poke around and see if you can find anything strange.”

Fawkes pulled his head back like a turtle, exposing the folds of his double chin. “You think this is someone after me?”

Not after you. “No, no. I’m just curious. Consider it a favor. How long before your product is ready?”

“I’m not sure. It depends on a lot of different factors. They’ve just turned on the new control system, and it has some glitches. I have to wait for an aberration, and then when they call me to patch it, I can build the bridge. Shouldn’t be more than a week, though.”

Carlos passed across a cell phone. “Call me on this when you’re ready. Don’t use it for anything else.”

Mr. Fawkes rose unsteadily, his face glowing with a rancid glean of sweat. He skipped past Carlos, giving him a wide berth on the way out, his body odor lingering long after he closed the door.

A few minutes later, Jack was brought in and thrown onto the floor, the gunslinger passing Jack’s wallet across.

Carlos flipped through it and said, “Well, Mr. Jack Cahill, as I’m sure you are much more self-aware than that one wrong phone call would indicate, I’m really going to need everything you heard. I have to know what I envision is still safe.”

“I swear to God, I thought I was investigating a drug deal. I have no idea what is going on here. I didn’t tell anyone a thing.”

“You found this meeting somehow. Someone talked. I need to know who.”

When Jack said nothing, Carlos motioned to one of the gunmen, who pulled him to his feet.

Carlos said, “Don’t worry, we have plenty of time.”

6

I could tell the voice mail was eating at Jennifer. She couldn’t listen to it because of the crappy signal and desperately wanted to go back outside where it was stronger. Unfortunately, the mission took priority.

“He probably just wanted to say hello.”

She brushed a hair out of her face, saying, “That’s not it. I talked to him before I left, like I always do. He knew I was out of town. He wouldn’t call unless it was important.”

Jennifer was very close with her family, calling both of her brothers and her mother once a week just to chat. Her father was the only one she had no time for.

I said, “Well, whatever it is, you can’t do anything immediately from seven thousand miles away, even if you could hear the voice mail. It’s close to eleven. These guys will be leaving soon.”

She leaned back, and I saw the fear in her eyes. “I hope nothing’s happened to Mom. I don’t know what else it could be.”

I knew the unique dread she felt because it was baggage we all carried on deployment — that a tragedy would befall our family while we were gone — but it rarely came true. I had a little special sympathy, though, because in my case it had.

I said, “Useless worry. Whatever it is, we’ll handle it. Together.”

She squeezed my hand and said, “Thanks.” Her eyes shifted over my shoulder, and she squeezed again. “Pedro just passed Jake a compact disc. They’re preparing to leave.”

I didn’t want to whip my head around, knowing she had the targets in sight. I said, “Go ahead.”

She keyed her radio. “Knuckles, this is Koko. Trigger. Jake is leaving first. Pedro is paying the bill.”

“Roger. How long?”

“He’ll break the plane of the door in five seconds.”

“Roger all. We got the ball.”

We waited an additional ten minutes, and I saw we were going to be cutting the curfew very, very close. Our hotel wasn’t far away, but there weren’t very many cabs in this weird city, and we’d need to hoof it or be in danger of getting picked up.

We hit the streets and Jennifer immediately shoved her phone in the air, looking at the signal bar. She began walking down the road like a beagle sniffing a scent, holding her phone this way and that.

I followed behind her, saying, “Jennifer, it’s the witching hour. Let’s do this from our hotel.”

She cut into an alley, saying, “We don’t have a signal at the hotel. Let me just check as we go.”

She was headed in the right direction, so I let her continue. The narrow space of the alley was lined on both sides with four-story apartment buildings, turning it dark enough that her face was illuminated only by the screen of her phone. She said, “Somebody’s got a repeater around here. Signal’s getting stronger.”

Exasperated, I said, “Jennifer, it’s past eleven. Come on.”

She stopped, read the signal bar one more time, and dialed her voice mail. I looked past her, toward the end of the alley, and saw two forms leaving the glow of a streetlight. Coming our way. Great.

They keyed on the light of her phone. One shouted in Russian. I said hello in English. They picked up their pace and reached us in seconds, wearing uniforms of some kind. I had no idea who or what they were but knew this wasn’t going to end well. I couldn’t allow them to check our credentials or run our names. We had met all the official requirements to be in Turkmenistan, but with only one more night to accomplish the mission, I couldn’t afford to have any kind of spike, any kind of surveillance effort mounted against us again.

This country was a strange place, to say the least. It was a cult of personality, not unlike North Korea, with giant monuments to the “dear leader” all over the place and the police conducting a healthy bit of civilian control, which included watching all foreigners. We’d already lulled them once and gotten them off of us. A spike like this would get them back on. The documents we carried would link Jennifer and me to the entire team, which meant we’d have a blanket on us by tomorrow afternoon.

Traditionally, they’d keep the effort going only long enough to prove that we were who we said we were. Two days from now it wouldn’t matter. They could follow us all the way to Gonur. Tomorrow it would prevent us from executing.

Please take a bribe.

If they didn’t, the mission was blown. Not to mention Jennifer and I would probably spend the night in some dump prison. Damn, Pedro, couldn’t you have left an hour earlier?

I played stupid, saying, “Hello. My friend is trying to get her phone to work.”

In broken English, the taller of the two said, “It is not permitted to be on street.”

I feigned surprise, saying, “Sorry, we didn’t know.”

The shorter one said, “Papers.”

Must have learned English watching old World War II movies.

Jennifer watched the exchange with wary eyes, listening to her voice mail. The taller one tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Stop phone.”

She complied, shrinking behind me, saying nothing. I pulled out my wallet, letting them see the crisp twenty-dollar bills they could exchange on the black market. I withdrew one and said, “This paper?”

He took it, glancing at his partner, saying again, “Papers.”

Perfect.

His partner tapped Jennifer and said, “Give phone.”

She looked at me, and I held out another twenty, saying, “Here’s more ‘paper.’”

The shorter one took it while the taller one said, “Give phone. Not allowed.”

What the hell is he talking about? I knew the cellular rules, and we were meeting them. We were on their network and paying their taxes. More than likely, he wanted the iPhone lookalike just because he thought he could hold us up. Since it was working in Turkmenistan, he thought it was unlocked and something he could now use for himself. Unfortunately, it was actually a special piece of Taskforce equipment, and I wasn’t going to allow him to have it.

I pulled out another twenty, looking at the smaller man and saying, “Here, go buy your own.” The tall one grabbed Jennifer’s arm that held the phone. She jerked it away and took a step back.

The shorter one took the twenty. The taller one pulled out a baton like he was drawing a sword.