The Polaris Protocol Read Online Free PDF

Comandante.”
    “Pelón, I have a task for you. It needs to be done immediately.”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “Sinaloa has something big in motion. I don’t know what it is, but there is a man who does. He’s an American, and I’ve just found out they mean to bring him here to Juárez.”
    “You want me to kill him?”
    “No, no. That’s what
they’re
trying to do. He’s apparently a reporter who knows of their plans. I want you to snatch him from them. Find out what he knows. Find out how he can help us.”
    That was a tall order. Ciudad Juárez was huge, as big as El Paso, and absolutely flooded with drug cartel safe houses much like the one he was in. Getting to the man and getting out alive would mean a fight, and with the balance of power between Sinaloa and Los Zetas, it would more than likely mean a running gun battle. He wouldn’t get to pick the time and place of capture, like he ordinarily did. Sinaloa would be waiting, and Los Zetas no longer had the monopoly on violence they’d once possessed.
    Initially formed in the late nineties as an enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, the core of Los Zetas was defectors from the GAFE—Mexican Special Forces—who took their name from the code letter
Z
given to them when they were working with the federal police trying to halt the flow of drugs. The government couldn’t offer nearly as much money as the Gulf cartel, and the men had simply switched allegiances. Before they defected, the GAFE had done many cross-training events with the Kaibiles in Guatemala, and the connection still lingered, pulling in defectors from that Special Forces element as well, including the
sicario
.
    By 2007, Los Zetas were doing much, much more than simply enforcing for the Gulf cartel. Their tendrils extended all the way into Central America, and their brutality became legendary. They split from their Gulf masters, forming their own cartel, and the blood began to flow, with Los Zetas proving to be more ferocious than any other cartel. The guard dog had turned on the master.
    In recent years almost all of the original Special Forces leaders had been killed, leading to infighting for control and less restraint as the violence spiraled upward. Los Zetas had turned feral, killing each other as much as anyone else. Like a bonfire, they were consuming themselves in a spectacular spasm of destruction and running out of fuel. Now, with the Gulf cartel in alliance with the Sinaloa cartel, the Juárez
plaza
was in danger of being lost forever, and Los Zetas would do anything to prevent it.
    The
sicario
knew that refusal of the mission would simply mean his death. There was no form of loyalty anymore. It wasn’t like the early days, when accomplishment counted and the Special Forces bond meant something. Now it was a day-to-day fight for existence.
    He said, “You know where he will be taken? What area of the city?”
    “No. Not here. But I know where in El Paso. It’s why you have been chosen.”
    “I don’t work in America. I
can’t
work in America. If I’m caught there, I won’t be deported.”
    “So don’t get caught, Pelón. It’s just across the border, in an area nobody controls. It will be easy.”
    Despite his fearsome reputation, the
sicario
still worked for a boss, was still subservient to the Zetas chain of command, and he knew exactly why he was being given the task. Someone would need to penetrate the border into El Paso, capture the guy, then return. Someone who had the ability to avoid a majority of the scrutiny at the bridge. Someone who knew how to get around in America.
    The
sicario
didn’t fit the last requirement. He hadn’t been across to El Paso in over thirty-five years and had no idea what the city was like. But he did have the ability to get back and forth, since he had an American passport.
    Because he’d been born there.

8
    T he
sicario
puttered in the northbound traffic on the Paso del Norte Bridge, seeing the line of cars snaking out before him.