Black List

CHAPTER 54

Colonel Chuck Bremmer had done exactly what Harvath had said. He’d rolled the stop sign. Gretchen Casey had also done what Harvath had said and had timed her impact perfectly.

The SUV struck the rear of Bremmer’s car just as it entered the intersection. The impact was hard enough to pop open the lid of Bremmer’s trunk and give him a good jolt but, to Casey’s credit, not so hard that it deployed her airbags.

Slamming on his brakes, Bremmer came to a complete stop in the middle of the road.

“The lid of his trunk released,” said Casey, as she put the SUV in park. “He’s getting out. I don’t see any other vehicles headed toward us.”

“Roger that,” said Harvath.

As he heard her open her door, he counted to five and then activated the rear hatch. Even before he had slipped from the cargo area, he could already hear Bremmer yelling.

“You idiot! What the hell is the matter with you? I could have been killed!” he screamed as he leapt from his car. When he saw what he was yelling at, another part of his anatomy kicked in and his tone instantly changed.

“Are you okay? Oh, my God. I’m so sorry,” Casey said. “Please tell me you’re okay. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m trying to get to my daughter’s field hockey game. The phone rang and I know I should have let it ring, but…”

Bremmer raised both his hands palms out. “I’m fine. I’m sorry for my language. I think we’re going to the same field hockey game and it looks like we’re both late.”

Casey, who had met him at the rear of his vehicle, bent over, ostensibly to survey the damage, and didn’t need to look up. She could feel his eyes on her chest. “I really did a number on your bumper.”

“Are you sure?” he replied.

“It looks pretty bad. I guess we should probably trade information,” she said as she straightened up.

Bremmer readjusted his focus from her chest to her face. “I guess we should. Let me get a pen out of my car.”

Upon turning, he froze.

“I don’t think you’re going to need it,” said Harvath, who had crept up on him from behind and was now pointing his weapon directly at the man’s face. “Put your hands behind your back.”

“It’s you,” Bremmer said, barely above a whisper.

“If you ever want to see your wife and daughter again, put your hands behind your back right now. Do it.”

The Colonel complied and Casey removed a set of plastic Flex-Cuffs from her pocket and trussed him up tight.

“Jesus, those hurt,” he said.

“Shut up,” Harvath admonished as he slammed the lid of the man’s trunk, only to have it pop back up.

“I’ll take care of it,” replied Casey. “Don’t worry. Let’s get moving.”

Harvath led Bremmer to the rear of the Suburban, placed a hood over his head, and had him lie down in the cargo area on his stomach. After cuffing his ankles, he hog-tied him and rolled him over on his side. He then nodded at Casey, who returned to his car and used an extra set of cuffs to help hold the trunk lid down before they began moving again.

They rallied at the final location they had scouted, parking far enough off the road that they wouldn’t be noticed. Opening the hatch, Harvath removed his knife and sliced through the restraints that had secured Bremmer’s ankles to his wrists. He had him swing his legs out, but before he let him stand, he gave him a warning. “You know who I am, so you know what I am capable of. Do exactly as I tell you and don’t piss me off. Now stand up.”

Bremmer did as he was told. “What’s going on?” he said through the hood. “Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” said Harvath, jerking him forward. “Move.”

He led the Colonel through a wooded area to the top of a small hill. When his hood was snatched off, Bremmer’s eyes took a moment to adjust. “Oh, my God,” he said when he noticed the field hockey match in the distance. “What are you going to do?”

“That’s up to you. Do you see that over there?” asked Harvath pointing in the near distance. “Ten o’clock? About a hundred yards out, on top of that large rock?”

Bremmer strained to see what his captor was talking about. “I think so. Why?”

Harvath raised one of the Garmin walkie-talkies Rhodes had packed and said into it, “A-One.”

Seconds later, the gallon of milk they had set up as a target exploded in an enormous spray of white. There’d been no discernible report from Mike Strieber’s suppressed, takedown rifle.

A chill went down the Colonel’s spine as he realized Harvath had a sniper with a suppressed weapon somewhere nearby.

Tucking the radio in his back pocket, Harvath pulled out Casey’s cell phone and showed Bremmer three photos—Patricia Bremmer, Molly Bremmer in her field hockey uniform, and the car they had driven to the game. “Here’s how this is going to work. If you lie to me, if I even think you are lying to me, I take my radio back out, I give the command, and two shots will be fired.”

“No,” the man said. “Please, no.”

Harvath ignored him and continued. “The first shot will go into the stands. It’ll be a head shot, killing your wife. The second shot will hit your daughter and she’ll end up paralyzed. I’ll make sure she knows that her mother died and she was paralyzed because her father put himself before his own family.”

“Don’t. Please.”

“I’ll then make sure that you’re exposed and prosecuted for what you’ve done. It’ll be a public relations firestorm. The story will break so big that there’ll be no way the White House or DoD can cover their asses. They’ll have no choice but to roast you alive in order to save themselves. You’ll go down in flames.

“And when your prosecution is complete and they send you to Leavenworth or wherever they decide to cage you for the rest of your miserable life—and that’s if you escape the death penalty—your torment will have only just begun. I’ll make sure that every day inside that cage is a living hell for you. The prison shower scenes you’ve seen in movies are nothing compared to what’s going to happen to you. You’re going to have so many admirers that they’ll have to put a revolving door on your cell and you’ll need a social secretary to keep all your gentlemen callers straight.”

“You can’t—”

“I can’t what?” Harvath said, getting in the man’s face. “I can’t make sure you pay for what you did? You just fucking try me, asshole. You killed friends of mine and it is taking every last thing I have right now not to kill you myself. And I don’t mean just put a bullet in you. I mean, drag you to a farm in the middle of nowhere to torture you for months on end. It would be a hell you can’t even begin to imagine. I have nothing left to lose at this point.

“You, on the other hand, have everything to lose. I am offering you the opportunity of your miserable lifetime. Don’t throw it away.”

He could tell by looking at Bremmer that the most dangerous thing the man had ever wrestled with was a stapler. He was a bureaucrat, a paper pusher.

Harvath hated using someone’s children and family, but sometimes it was the most efficient and expeditious method. The key was to knock the man off-balance right away and scramble him emotionally, so he couldn’t think and became psychologically unhinged.

“You’ve already sent everyone you could after me and you couldn’t stop me. So how’s this going to end? Are you going to kill your wife and cripple your daughter, or are you going to cooperate with me?”

Bremmer looked toward the field hockey game and kept his eyes there for several moments. When he turned back to Harvath, he slowly nodded.

“Have you sent men to kill me?”

“Yes,” Bremmer replied.

Harvath studied the man’s face as he asked questions he already knew the answers to. He wanted to have a baseline in case the man started lying to him. “Where did they try to kill me?

The Colonel swallowed. “Paris. Spain. Texas.”

“In Paris, was I the only target?”

Bremmer shrugged. “You were the primary target.”

“What does that mean?”

“We knew the woman would be with you and that our best chance would be to take you at the apartment.”

“So you ordered her killed as well.”

“She was a threat. Yes.”

“You also targeted other people I work with,” Harvath stated.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Bremmer replied, “you were on the list.”

Harvath detected a slight change in the pitch of the man’s voice. It was paired with a microexpression that lasted less than the duration of a camera flash, but there was no mistaking it. The Colonel was either lying or holding something back. “What list are you talking about?”

“It’s called the Black List. I don’t compile it. I just handle the names once they’ve been added.”

Harvath conducted his interrogations much like a shark, swimming in wide concentric circles around his subject as he gathered information. The more information he gathered, the closer to the truth he came and the tighter the circles began to get.

There was blood in the water, though, and it was Bremmer’s. His last answer had been a lie; the tell had reappeared once more. When a subject began to bleed lies, Harvath had to restrain his desire to strike. Sometimes, seeing a fin slice through the waterline was even more psychologically terrifying than having a bite taken out of you.

“Who’s responsible for the list? Who compiles it?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you that,” Bremmer replied. “It’s classified.”

Harvath smiled. “You and I are way beyond classified, Colonel. What’s more, I think you’re trying to dance with me now, and I already explained what would happen if you did that.” Taking the walkie-talkie back out, he lifted it to his lips and said, “He’s not playing ball. Take out both targets.”

Bremmer stepped forward. “No, no, no. I’ll tell you.”

Harvath raised his pistol and pointed it at the man’s head. When Bremmer stepped back, Harvath lifted the radio again and said, “Cease fire. Do not engage targets. Stand by.”

“It’s a panel of national security people who are close to the President, and it also includes the Attorney General.”

“Who put my name on it?”

“You were accused of treason.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” Harvath said, noting the man’s tell yet again. “Who put my name on the list?”

“I don’t know. The meetings are way above my pay grade. They’re beyond top secret. I don’t attend. I just handle the list. I’m telling you the truth. You have to believe me.”

“You’re lying to me and I told you what would happen if you did. Never forget that you could have stopped this,” replied Harvath. He raised the radio once more and said, “You are cleared hot. Fire when ready.”

“Jesus, no. Please dear God. No,” Bremmer begged.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve calling on God to help spare your family. You could have saved them, but you chose not to. For as long as you live, don’t you ever forget that because you lied, they died.”

Tears began to roll down Bremmer’s cheeks as he blurted out “I did it. I added your name to the kill list. Tell your sniper to stand down.”

“Why?”

The Colonel’s eyes were wide with fear. “Call off your sniper, for God’s sake, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Tell me now.”

Bremmer couldn’t believe his ears. He darted his eyes from Harvath to the field hockey match and back again. “Craig Middleton,” he implored. “He’s the person who wanted your name added to the list.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Please. You have to radio your sniper. Tell him not to engage. I’m begging you. He runs a company called Adaptive Technology Solutions. He’s the one behind all of this. I had no choice. Please don’t hurt my daughter. None of this is her fault. Please.”