Black List

CHAPTER 34

MARYLAND

Come in!” Craig Middleton yelled after slamming down the handset of his STE. He had been on and off with Bremmer for the last three hours. The operation in Spain had been an utter failure.

Kurt Schroeder stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. He carried a file folder in his hand.

Middleton looked at him. “What the hell do you want?”

“It’s about Reed Carlton.”

“Is that the coroner’s report?”

Schroeder nodded. He removed the report from the file, walked over to his boss’ desk, and handed it to him.

The older man snatched it away and flipped to the end. “What the fuck is this? Inconclusive?”

“The bodies were very badly burned.”

“Ya think?”

Schroeder ignored the sarcasm. “We’re talking charcoal. They had to go by dental records. The only problem is that Carlton was CIA, so his records are classified.”

“Bullshit. Nothing’s classified to us. We practically run that place. Get the records.”

“I did, but they’re so old they were still on paper. I had to request a copy from the Agency’s dead-file storage.”

“So why are you wasting my time?” Middleton asked. “What’s the bottom line?”

“Carlton’s body was not among those recovered at the scene of the fire.”

As a new wave of anger overtook him, the older man’s face reddened like a rapidly rising thermometer.

Schroeder could tell that his boss was going to blow and tried to circumvent it. “I’ve already set up a dragnet. If Carlton uses his phone, a credit card, or reaches out to anyone on his relationship tree, we’ll know.”

“We’ll know?” Middleton bellowed. “The fuck we will. He’s not going to do anything under his real name.”

“I’ve plugged in all known aliases for him too.”

“And he’s got a hundred or two others we’re not aware of.”

Schroeder felt his boss was overestimating, but he wasn’t sure. “That many?”

“I’m exaggerating, you idiot. It doesn’t matter how many aliases he has. Carlton has decades of field experience. If someone like that doesn’t want to be found, it’s almost impossible to find him.”

The younger man bristled at being called an idiot but kept his temper in check. “You’re the one who always says we own every haystack.”

“Are you being a smartass?”

“No, sir.”

“It doesn’t matter if we own every haystack,” Middleton asserted, “if we can’t find the needle in time. Whatever they’re planning, we know it’s supposed to happen soon.”

“Then let’s call in some help with the haystack,” said Schroeder, who still didn’t have a complete picture of what his boss thought was coming.

Middleton looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s get local law enforcement to put out a Be-On-The-Lookout for Carlton. Suspected arson and homicide.”

The older man liked the sound of that. “Good idea. The more people searching the haystack the better. Just make sure it doesn’t trace back to us.”

“Don’t worry. I can do it so it looks like it came through the FBI.”

“Then do it. What else do you have for me?”

Schroeder pulled a sheaf of pictures from his file folder and handed them over.

“What the hell are these?” Middleton demanded.

“Surveillance photos.”

“I can see that. What I want to know is what I’m looking at.”

“They were taken this morning at the airport in McAllen, Texas. The woman in the truck outside the civil aviation terminal is Margaret Rose. She manages the Three Peaks Ranch near Agua Nueva. She’s the one who conducted the Google searches for Caucasian Ovcharkas and primordial dwarfism,” Schroeder replied.

Middleton was suddenly interested. “And who’s the guy she’s picking up? None of the cameras seem to have captured his face very well.”

“I noticed that too. He flew in on a private charter from Monterrey, Mexico, but cleared customs and immigration with an Italian passport.”

Middleton took an even closer look at the photos. “Do we know if he was anywhere before Monterrey?”

“We do,” Schroeder replied. “I ran him through the Mexican databases and it turns out he just arrived in Mexico last night.”

“From where?”

“Bilbao. He flew into Mexico City via Madrid.”

“And how close is Bilbao to Harvath’s last-known location?”

“As far as commercial airports go, it would have been one of the closest.”

Middleton was suddenly very animated. “I want you to download all the CCTV footage from every airport he passed through. I want to know every step he made, every person he talked to.”

“I’m already on it,” Schroeder said as he headed for the door.

Staring at the final photograph that showed Harvath climbing into the truck branded with the Three Peaks Ranch logo, Middleton smiled and said, “Gotcha,” as he reached for his STE.