Black List

CHAPTER 44

Daylight was still two hours off when the first strains of the Pilatus PC-12 turboprop aircraft began to be heard circling above the ranch.

Harvath flashed the lights of the Denali. Maggie threw the switch and illuminated the landing strip. The pair had already said their good-byes, and Harvath had coached her on how to report the bodies at the trough. She was savvy enough to understand why he didn’t want her watching him loading the plane. It was for her own good.

After the white-and-blue aircraft touched down, it turned around at the end of the runway and taxied back to where the party was standing.

Pulling up alongside their stack of gear, the plane came to a stop and its single turbine engine spun down. After the main door was opened and the air stairs unfolded, a clean-shaven man in his early fifties stepped out.

He had thick brown hair and was wearing a denim shirt, khakis, and a pair of work boots. He studied the group amassed beside the runway, along with their gear and the two enormous white dogs, then gave Harvath a wave.

Harvath waved back and watched as the sinewy pilot descended the stairs.

The man crossed the tarmac and Harvath stuck his hand out. “Thanks for coming, Mike.”

The pilot wrapped him in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground. “You’re damn right I came. I always told you I would. I just didn’t think it’d be in the middle of the night.” Letting go, he stood back in order to take everyone in again. “Good Lord, if this isn’t a great group of passengers.” Looking down at Nicholas he added, “How the heck are you doing? You ready to go flying?”

Mike Strieber was a character. Quick to tell a joke, as well as to find the humor in any kind of situation, his happy-go-lucky personality was infectious.

Born and raised in San Antonio, he had joined the Marines after securing his engineering degree, because he wanted to kick ass and fly planes. He flew all sorts of aircraft before deciding that it wasn’t planes he really wanted to fly but helicopters. In his indomitable fashion, Strieber went after his new goal with everything he had.

As it turned out, he made an excellent helo pilot and was eventually tasked to Marine Helicopter Squadron One, also known as HMX-1, the squadron responsible for flying the President, Vice President, cabinet members, and other VIPs. It was while Harvath was on the President’s Secret Service detail that he and Strieber had met and become friends.

When Strieber retired from the Marines and HMX-1, he decided to return to his engineering roots. He had an idea for a tactical flashlight that he thought might be pretty good. Once again, he went after his goal with everything he had and created quite a name for himself.

Strieber flashlights, as well as a very creative line of knives he had begun producing, were in such demand with the military, police, and private citizens, that Mike ran his people and his fabricating shop around the clock. With U.S. troops deployed in so many different time zones, he always made sure he had someone checking their website and e-mails 24/7. He was fanatical about customer service. It was just the way he was and his success reaffirmed it. Harvath had had no doubt that the coded message he’d scribbled down for Maggie would get through to him. The words may not have made any sense to her, nor did the latitude and longitude coordinates that looked like serial numbers, but Mike had had no problem figuring it all out.

“So, where are we off to?” Strieber asked. He said it cheerfully, as if Harvath was his biggest client and he was eager to keep him happy.

Harvath waved him over to the Denali and showed him the game bags in the cargo area. “I’m going to need to get rid of these.”

Strieber didn’t need to have the bags unzipped to guess what was inside. “You know when I told you that joke about how a friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body, I was only kidding, right?”

“I wouldn’t ever want to put you in a bad spot, Mike, but these guys killed a bunch of people tonight and they tried to kill me. They got what was coming to them.”

Strieber knew enough about Harvath’s time with the SEALs, as well as what he had been doing since leaving the White House and the Secret Service, not to ask a lot of questions. “Should I assume this is official business, then?”

Harvath nodded.

“Okay,” Strieber replied. “After we dispose of your dirty laundry, what else do you need from me?”

Harvath gestured to Nicholas, Nina, and the dogs and said, “I’m hoping you can put them up for a little bit. Someplace safe.”

“I think we can do that. What about you?”

“I’ll fill you in after we take off.”

The answers were good enough for Mike. Sizing up the passengers, their gear, and everything Harvath had in the Denali, Strieber began making calculations about weight distribution and takeoff.

Harvath suggested that Nina and Nicholas climb aboard with the dogs, and then he and Mike got to work.

Twenty minutes later, the plane was loaded. Once Strieber had completed his preflight check, he gave him the thumbs-up. Harvath climbed into the plane behind him, retracted the air stairs, and secured the cabin door. He made sure Nicholas, Nina, and the dogs were all set before walking forward into the cockpit and taking the copilot’s seat.

As he slipped on his headset, Strieber asked, “Are we all ready?”

“We’re ready,” Harvath replied.

Minutes later, they were at the far end of the runway and Mike was feeding power to the aircraft’s enormous engine. It felt like sitting astride a thoroughbred in the starting gate. The muscular plane was vibrating and seemed to be itching to take off.

“Here we go,” he said as he released the brakes, and the aircraft began racing down the runway.

Harvath watched the gauges as the speed rapidly increased. Finally, Strieber pulled back on the yoke and the sleek bird lifted off.

They headed south and then changed course and headed east toward the ocean.

The cloud cover was high enough that Strieber was flying VFR, or Visual Flight Rules, which meant that he didn’t need to file a flight plan and there’d be no record of where he’d been.

Harvath pulled a map and balanced it on his lap. Using a red-filtered flashlight that Mike had handed him, so as not to ruin their night vision, he traced his finger along the coast and asked a series of questions.

“It’s up to you,” Strieber answered. “I guess it just depends on how soon you want the bodies found.”

Harvath wanted it to take as long as possible, if they were ever found at all. That left them with two choices. They could either drop them in the marshy South Bay near the border or out over the Gulf of Mexico. Harvath didn’t have enough information about the currents to know if dumping them in the ocean would result in them washing up in Texas or Mexico. Either way, the deaths would be chalked up to cartel violence. The only difference was that U.S. authorities would conduct at least a pro forma investigation, while the Mexicans very likely wouldn’t bother. Harvath opted for the South Bay.

Mike explained how he’d make his approach and then gave instructions on where he wanted Nicholas, Nina, and the dogs while Harvath carried out his task. Harvath unbuckled himself from his seat, walked back in the plane, and got everything into position.

Using some of Mike’s gear, he fashioned a rigger’s belt and secured himself with a long enough tether to the inside of the aircraft. Back at the ranch, he had filleted each of the bodies from the pubic bone up to the sternum, slicing through their intestines. It was the only way for the gases inside the corpses to escape. If he hadn’t, they would bloat and float to the surface. While working, he noticed that two of the men had crude tattoos similar to those he had noticed on the attacker in Spain.

After placing the bodies back in the game bags and reinforcing them with duct tape, he knotted heavy nylon cord around their ankles.

Stacked at the back of the plane were eight, forty-five-pound plates that he had taken from the ranch’s exercise room. He tied ninety pounds’ worth of weight to the ankles of each corpse, pierced the game bags in order to allow excess gases to escape, and relayed a message forward that he was ready.

Strieber decreased the plane’s altitude and brought it around in a wide, sweeping arc. As they neared the bay, he signaled for Harvath to open the rear utility door.

The slipstream and the roar of the engine were deafening. Salty sea air swept into the fuselage as the aircraft descended even farther. Waiting for the last signal, Harvath kept his eyes forward. Twenty seconds later, Mike pointed his flashlight into the cabin, fired a series of rapid blinks, and Harvath shoved the first body out the door.