Black List

CHAPTER 45

ANNAPOLIS JUNCTION

MARYLAND

Information was knowledge, and knowledge was power. By having access to every scrap of information, Craig Middleton was able to amass unlimited power. It gave him and his inner circle at ATS control over everything—money, politicians, and, whenever necessary, whether people lived or died. Middleton had always felt in control. Always, that was, until now.

Things had been going perfectly until Caroline Romero. He’d made a mistake sending his own security people after her. They’d botched the job, she had been killed, and they’d failed to recover the hard drive. He had no idea how much she had learned, but he had to assume that whatever she had uncovered, it would spell disaster for him and for ATS. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. It was imperative to get the drive back at all costs.

Discovering that the lingerie shop had sent a package to Romero’s sister had been a big break, but it hadn’t come soon enough. By the time Bremmer had gotten his team down there, the sister had disappeared. Middleton had a pretty good feeling that it wasn’t just underwear that had been mailed in that box. Caroline had sent her the flash drive as well.

She had also instructed her sister on how to remain hidden. Nina Jensen had abandoned her apartment, her job, her credit cards and cell phone. She hadn’t contacted any friends or family. But based on the surveillance Bremmer’s men had conducted at the ranch, she had managed to link up with Carlton’s dwarf, as well as with Scot Harvath.

These were two streams Middleton would never have imagined intersecting. The nexus had to be Caroline. At some point she and the Troll must have become acquainted. She got the flash drive to her sister, and the little computer hacker followed not long after. He was likely the one who had reached out to Harvath and had drawn him to Texas. The fact that they had all managed to stay off the grid was significant. Had it not been for the ranch manager’s Google search, they might have completely slipped through the net.

Two teams had been sent after Harvath, and both had failed. This time, Bremmer had instructed the Texas team to place one man in an overwatch position to act as a sniper. Middleton had pressed for details, but the Colonel didn’t have much more to provide. The team would complete their surveillance and assemble their own assault plan. They understood that they were not to kill the girl until she gave up the flash drive. If they needed to torture her to get it, they were authorized to do so. Once they took physical possession of it, all three subjects were to be terminated.

After the hit, the team would put as much distance between themselves and the scene as possible. At some point, they would make contact. Bremmer would then detail how he wanted them to deliver the drive.

Middleton had not been able to sleep. He knew the assault would happen sometime in the early-morning hours. He had no way of knowing if the sister had secreted the drive somewhere, but he doubted it. In all likelihood she had it with her at the ranch. He hoped that the third attempt on Harvath would be the charm, but as the night wore on and Bremmer failed to report in, Middleton became more apprehensive.

As he poured himself another scotch, his mind turned to another of his problems, Reed Carlton. The aging spook was a slippery old fox. How he’d made it out of the inferno that had been set at his home was a complete mystery. Bremmer’s men had been lying in wait, ready to take him out if he managed to escape his master bedroom, which had been locked down tighter than a drum. None of Bremmer’s team had seen anyone leave the house. Everyone assumed Carlton had been consumed by the blaze. Yet when the smoke literally cleared, he was nowhere to be seen. He had completely vanished.

And while Middleton liked the idea of the BOLO being put out on him, he had his reservations about the efficacy of some law enforcement officer stumbling across a man who’d been trained by the best and had spent decades slipping in and out of hostile countries around the world.

Carlton and Harvath seemed to be cut from the same cloth. Both had been able to slip Bremmer’s kill teams. Taking control of Carlton’s Skype account had been a clever way to pinpoint Harvath, but in hindsight, Middleton wondered if they shouldn’t have waited until the old spy had been confirmed dead. Maybe they could have used the account to lure both of them into a trap.

He was Monday-morning-quarterbacking himself and he knew it. They had every reason to believe that Carlton had died in that fire. When Harvath had popped up on Skype, they would have been foolish not to jump at the chance they had.

Leaning back in one of the leather club chairs in his study, Middleton swirled the scotch in his glass. Erasing everything and starting from scratch, he rebuilt the relationship chain in his mind. Caroline had contacted her sister. The sister had contacted the dwarf. The dwarf had contacted Harvath who had attempted to contact Carlton. And who had Carlton contacted?

Once the coroner’s report had come in, he had posed the same question to Schroeder. It made sense that in an emergency, Carlton would have secluded himself someplace he felt was safe and then would have reached out to the people best able to help protect him, his hitters.

Schroeder got on it and came back a short time later. ATS had been monitoring the cell phones of Carlton’s operators. Within twenty-four hours of the fire, each had been sent a text message reading Stock Update: Blue Petroleum, Oil & Lubricant. It wasn’t a coincidence. It had to be some sort of code.

The phone that had sent the message was still emitting a signal, and Schroeder had tracked it to a truck stop in Arizona. He tipped the Arizona State Police, who dispatched units to the location in search of Carlton. Middleton, though, felt something wasn’t right.

When the signal started moving again, Schroeder, posing as a surveillance tech from the FBI, was able to help the authorities pinpoint its source. It turned out to be an eighteen-wheeler headed toward Bakersfield, California. While the driver was being questioned, other officers scoured the rig. They eventually came up with the cell phone, which had been placed in a Ziplock bag and taped underneath. Carlton was a clever son of a bitch.

Though they assumed the phone was clean and wouldn’t offer any leads, Schroeder still arranged for it to be shipped back on the first commercial airline flight in the morning.

Middleton had to hand it to the old spook. It was a halfway decent red herring. But it was also a tell. Carlton obviously knew that eventually the phone was going to get tagged. He’d used it only once and then dumped it. This got Middleton to thinking. What did he do next?

Again, he reassembled the relationship chain in his mind—Caroline to her sister, the sister to the Troll, the Troll to Harvath, Harvath to Carlton, and Carlton to his operators. But when his operators didn’t respond, who would be next on Carlton’s list? Who would he have turned to for help?

Not only ditching the phone after one use by placing it under the westbound truck but having a clean phone to begin with showed that Carlton thought ahead; that he was a tactician. This didn’t surprise Middleton. It was to be expected from a man with his training. He would have known that they’d be looking at all of his relationships, which in fact they were. Carlton would have had to turn to somebody. He would want answers, and he would need help in getting them. Either he reached out to a contact who wasn’t in his relationship tree, or—like Caroline—the sister, the Troll, and Harvath had found a way to communicate that didn’t trip any alarm bells at ATS.

Walking over to his desk, he set his drink down and brought his computer back from sleep mode. Pulling up Carlton’s relationship tree, he studied the various branches and interlocking relationships for the hundredth time. He felt certain the answer was there; he just wasn’t seeing it.

Whom did he trust? More importantly, assuming that he had figured out that all of his hitters had been killed, whom did he trust with his life? Without knowing what enemy had risen against him, to whom could he turn? If it was just one person, who could help him unravel a puzzle this complex, where the stakes were so incredibly high?

Staring at the chart, Middleton excluded candidate after candidate as he delved further back into Carlton’s professional career. Very likely it would be someone local; someone with exceptional contacts in D.C., who could dig for him without arousing suspicion. That suddenly brought a completely different parameter to Middleton’s mind—who might fit the bill perfectly, but at the same time be the least likely candidate of all?

Middleton searched for colleagues whom Carlton had been at odds with, people he had had professional or personal run-ins with. There were a few, but not many. Nevertheless, Middleton wrote their names down.

He was about to close out of the file when he decided to give it one last perusal and aim for the absolute least likely candidate of all. As he did, he came across a name and a bell went off somewhere in his head.

Highlighting the header, Middleton opened the subfolder for Reed Carlton’s mentor, Thomas “Tommy” Carver Banks.