The Polaris Protocol Read Online Free PDF Page A

wanted to make a point.
    Like today.
    He listened to the man beg and plead through the gag strapped to his mouth and reflected on how the times were rapidly changing. As early as a year ago, he could have done this work without any fear of interruption—the violence in Ciudad Juárez was so extreme that nobody would even investigate the screams. The battle that raged for control of the Juárez
plaza,
as the crossing points into the US were called, had been horrific, giving Ciudad Juárez the unenviable title of the most dangerous city on earth. A year ago there had officially been three thousand screams such as this. He knew there had been many, many more that nobody had heard. Bodies that were yet to be found and tabulated.
    But that was then. Now it was prudent to prevent the target from alerting anyone, be it the hated Sinaloa cartel, the authorities, or even some splinter from his employer, the fragmented Zetas cartel. So he used the gag as a precaution.
    The
sicario
watched his wild eyes and the drool from his sobs, believing the man could take one more dip before passing out. To his front was a fifty-five-gallon drum sawed in half and filled with water that raged and bubbled like a mountain river, but not from the force of racing downhill. From the propane stove underneath. His target was hung above it on a winch and had already tasted the pain, his feet burned into a mess of molten plasticlike flesh extending to just above the ankles.
    The
sicario
spoke to the man next to him, a doctor who was paid to keep the targets alive. “One more, and he’ll need to be treated.”
    “Yes, yes. He is strong. I can treat him. He won’t die.”
    The man was obsequious and obviously afraid. The
sicario
had seen the doctor glance at him repeatedly, then look away, and had noticed how he trembled when they were close together. The
sicario
understood why. For one, it was simply the job and his reputation for brutality. Coming from the killing fields of Guatemala, he had taught Los Zetas the art of psychological warfare. Had brought the techniques of beheadings and other public displays of death, instilling fear in the enemy. He had achieved a mythical status among all who had heard of him, but more than that, he knew his real-life visage lived up to the legend.
    During a battle in the civil war he had been touched by the volcanic flame of a white phosphorous grenade—a grenade thrown by a fellow Kaibil—and had been burned on his head, losing his eyebrows and leaving his forehead looking like melted wax. They had shaved him in the hospital, and he’d kept that discipline ever since, meticulously shaving every bit of hair off his head. The effect was disconcerting, and he liked it that way. Fewer people to test him.
    The
sicario
watched the target violently shake his head left and right, the spittle from his screams dripping down the cloth of the gag onto his chest. Ignoring the pleading, he lowered the man and the sweet/sour odor of boiling meat permeated the room again, reminding him of his mother’s kitchen, of dinners long ago in Guatemala when he was a child. Before he had joined the Guatemalan Kaibiles Special Forces unit. Before he’d had his humanity sucked out of him like life-giving oxygen from a hole in a space suit.
    He intently studied the target’s face, and when his eyes rolled back in his head, he hoisted the man up. It did no good to punish him if he couldn’t feel the effects. As two other men lowered the target to the floor, avoiding the destroyed flesh of his lower legs, the doctor went to work, inserting an IV and treating the burns. The back-and-forth of treatment and pain would go on until the heart stopped. Some men lasted longer than others. The record had been three days, but the
sicario
didn’t feel this one had that sort of stamina. Two days at the most.
    He went into the other room for a drink of water and felt his phone vibrate. He looked at the number and answered immediately.
    “Yes, El