Black List

CHAPTER 55

Adaptive Technology Solutions had been the magic phrase. Based on everything Nicholas had shown him on Caroline Romero’s flash drive, by naming the company, Harvath knew that Colonel Chuck Bremmer was telling the truth.

He spent the next forty-five minutes questioning him in the Suburban. Rhodes had been left in place just in case Bremmer needed a reminder not to stray from his newfound commitment to cooperation. As it turned out, no such reminder had been necessary. It was like opening a faucet wide and letting it run.

Though the man was loath to do it, he admitted how Middleton had co-opted him and revealed the extent to which he had organized wet work assignments on Middleton’s behalf. He detailed to Harvath how the kill teams had been made up of convicted military personnel, selected because of their extremely aggressive personalities. The list of things they had been convicted of was disgusting. Many were former and even current gang members. That explained some of the tattoos Harvath had seen on the attacker in Spain, as well as tattoos he had seen when prepping two of the corpses in Texas.

It had made Harvath sick to his stomach to think that he had killed American military personnel, but that was all changed now that he knew the backgrounds of the men who had been sent to kill him.

As Harvath continued questioning, Bremmer offered up one particularly good piece of news. He explained that the initial attack on Reed Carlton had failed and that as far as he knew, the man had gone to ground and disappeared.

He confirmed that the attack on the Three Peaks Ranch in Texas had come about after the ranch manager had conducted a Google search that led them to believe the Troll was hiding there. Via their surveillance of Maggie Rose, they had discovered Harvath’s arrival, and that had cemented the decision to launch their attack.

Bremmer knew that his team had been killed and that Harvath had done the killing. Surprisingly, he made no inquiry as to the location of their bodies. They weren’t people to him, they were pieces on a game board like Monopoly hotels. If you lost a few, you could always buy more. He was a heartless son of a bitch, and it hadn’t slipped Harvath’s notice that the man had been much more vociferous in pleading for his daughter than his wife.

The Colonel admitted that he had padded the kill list based on orders from Middleton. When pressed for an accounting of all the assignments he had carried out for the ATS Director, five times Bremmer tried to horse-trade for immunity from prosecution. It got so bad that Harvath had to reach back out to Megan Rhodes and threaten not only to shoot Bremmer’s wife and daughter but to take out several of Molly’s teammates as well.

He was astounded by how quickly the Colonel could go from concern for his daughter to thinking only of himself and of saving his own skin. Had the daughter not been an exploitable, psychological pressure point, they would have had to physically torture him to get him to cooperate. He was that terrified of Middleton and what he had the power to do.

To that end, Bremmer demanded to know how Harvath was going to insulate him from Middleton’s wrath. Just because Harvath had promised no harm would come to his family didn’t mean that Middleton wouldn’t come after them. When he asked Harvath if he was going to kill Middleton, Harvath changed the subject. It was none of the man’s business. He was lucky to be breathing.

Once Harvath knew who was behind the kill orders, he wanted to know why.

“According to Middleton,” Bremmer replied, “your group had been turned. He said you were conspiring with a foreign entity that was planning an imminent terrorist attack on the United States.”

“And he brought this to you, rather than to the FBI?”

“He said your people had every agency penetrated; that it had to be handled this way.”

“And you believed him?” asked Harvath, though he could tell from the look on the man’s face that he didn’t.

“I didn’t have much choice.”

Harvath wanted to rip the man’s throat out. “You are the worst excuse I have ever seen for a human being. You have no code at all. There are barrels of innocent blood on your hands. You know that? There is nothing I want more at this moment than to snap your flabby neck with my bare hands.

“The people you are responsible for having killed were patriots who repeatedly went into the darkest corners of the globe to battle the most hideous evil you have ever seen. Middleton lied to you, and you knew he was lying, yet rather than do the right thing, you went along with him to save your own fat ass. You’re disgusting.”

Bremmer tried to hang his head, but Harvath wouldn’t let him. “Don’t you dare, you son of a bitch. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

When the man looked back up, Harvath railed for several more moments before resuming his interrogation. The more questions he asked, the more useless Bremmer proved himself. He had no idea what Middleton was attempting to frame the Carlton Group for, and he was completely unfamiliar with the term “digital Pearl Harbor” or what it might entail.

The only other thing he could offer was an interesting suggestion about how to get to Middleton. For a paper pusher, it was rather ingenious. Harvath asked a couple of follow-up questions but beyond that, showed no interest in pursuing the man’s suggestion.

Before letting him go, he gave the corpulent colonel a final warning. “You sent the best you had after me and none of them returned alive. There is nothing you can do to me. I am beyond anyone’s grasp. I also have a lot of friends, several of whom will be keeping an eye on you and your family. If you vary your routine even the slightest bit or try to take a sudden vacation, they have explicit instructions on what to do to you.

“If you tell anybody about our little talk, if you attempt to contact Craig Middleton, I will do worse than kill your wife and cripple your daughter. I know a very sadistic Bedouin who would love to add a young girl like Molly to his harem, and I’ll make sure you get complete video documentation of it.”

“No. I promise. I won’t say anything,” Bremmer pleaded.

“And if I even think one of your kill teams is on my trail, every single bet will be off and I’ll personally come for you and your family. Is that clear?”

The Colonel nodded. Harvath cut him loose and motioned for him to get out of the truck. Casey watched from the front seat as Bremmer walked back to his car.

“Do you think we can trust him?” she asked.

Harvath, who was also watching, shook his head. “No. But we really don’t have any choice.”

“Listening to him speak, I wanted to put a bullet in him. I still do, for what he did to Riley.”

“I probably couldn’t have stopped you. Why didn’t you do it?”

“Because you told me this was the right way to handle this and I trust you.”

It was a frank and honest admission, one that he respected her for.

“When this is all over, though,” she added, “I’m not the one who promised to let him live.”

“I understand.”

“Does that also mean you’ll understand if Megan and I decide to do something about it?”

Harvath held her gaze for a moment. “I can’t tell you what to do, one way or the other. Do I think the guy deserves to be croaked? Absolutely. But he also has a wife and daughter.”

“How about the operators from your group who were killed?” Casey asked. “How many of them had spouses and children?”

“Most of them.”

“So?”

“So, I think Bremmer should be made to pay, without killing him.”

“Are you moralizing now?”

“Maybe,” Harvath replied. “In fact, yeah. I am. At some point, there has to be a process. Putting a gun against his head and pulling the trigger is no better than what he had done to Riley and the others.”

“At least justice would be served.”

“Do you believe that?”

Casey looked away. “I’m done talking about this.”

It was a convenient way to dump out of the argument, but Harvath let it go. She was going to do whatever she wanted to in the end.

What mattered now was getting to Craig Middleton and preventing whatever he had planned. Though it was fraught with more than a few pitfalls, Bremmer had given them a halfway decent suggestion as to the first part. Harvath just had to figure out how to make sure they weren’t walking straight into a trap.