on the planet.
At the moment, their focus was on the United States, and there wasn’t a single sphere of influence within it that ATS didn’t control. Who got elected, what laws were passed, what judgments came out of the courts, stock market performance, the price of commodities, who the U.S. went to war with and why, the rise and fall of outspoken voices across the political spectrum, reshaping what was taught in schools to American children… ATS had even successfully inserted themselves into theology and was influencing what was being preached in many churches. They had a honed, singular vision of the world upon which they were focused with absolute precision, and the greater their advancements in technology, the more able they were to reshape the country, and soon thereafter the world, exactly as they wanted it to be.
It was like walking through your house in pitch darkness, confident you knew where all the furniture was, only to have someone flip on the lights and show you that everything, every single thing, was not at all where you had thought. Middleton had been sleepwalking his entire adult life. Only now had his eyes been opened. The depth of the deception was so amazing, so total, so complete that it was beyond even a man like Craig Middleton’s ability to describe. Everything he wanted, everything he had ever envisioned, was within his grasp. He was home.
Though he was already out front on the power curve of leveraging data, his ATS mentors helped refine his skills and taught him many things he had never even considered possible, particularly when it came to influence operations. They demonstrated how to bring powerful figures to heel and keep them there.
One of Middleton’s earliest and most ingenious contributions to ATS was the development of a software program to help screen for individuals ripe for leveraging. Similar to the program they would sell to tax assessors, which constantly monitored satellite imagery for unpermitted home improvements, Middleton had built a similar overlay program for government, intelligence, and military data. It searched for inconsistencies, contradictions, or holes in personnel files, briefings, and reporting. When it found any, a digital flag was raised as the system then attempted to decipher and address the problem.
It was this very system that had helped Middleton identify the man he was about to call.
Picking up the handset of his STE, Middleton inserted a Crypto Card into the slot and dialed.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” said the man who answered on the other end.
“We’ve located your lost dog,” Middleton replied. Taking one more look at the Harvath information on his screen, he then e-mailed the file. He didn’t care how secure the telephone system was. He always spoke in code unless he was in a completely secure situation and the person was sitting right in front of him. “I just sent you the file.”
“I’ll look at it in the morning.”
“It’s morning now. Look at it.”
“I’m putting you on hold,” the other man said as he got up and walked downstairs to his study. There he turned on his computer and waited for it to boot up. When it did, he opened the e-mail, read the pertinent details, then picked up the phone again. “All this information has been confirmed?”
“I wouldn’t have called if it hadn’t. Let’s get coffee.” It was their code for a face-to-face.
“It’ll have to wait,” the voice replied. “I’ve got a lot on my plate today.”
“Let me guess. Double-booked the wife and the mistress for lunch?”
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll see you in an hour,” Middleton said, hanging up.
CHAPTER 16
When Middleton arrived at the Pentagon, Colonel Charles “Chuck” Bremmer was waiting for him.
Bremmer was in his late fifties, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He stood a foot taller than Middleton and projected an aura of prowess and integrity. That aura, though, much like the aura that surrounded his career, was false.
Jowly and out of shape, Chuck Bremmer had been a mediocre soldier of above average intellect who had risen to the rank of colonel without ever having served in actual combat. He was what was known in military parlance as a Chairborne Ranger. He was a man who had succeeded in the Army by kissing ass, not necessarily kicking it. The most dangerous assignment the man had ever seen was more than twenty years ago in Kuwait City; a full month after the U.S. had driven Iraqi forces out of the country.
While chauffeuring then-Lieutenant Bremmer to a meeting, his driver had suffered a heart attack. He had lost control of their SUV, and it barreled into a Kuwaiti shisha cafe and pinned two men underneath. It was a terrible accident, made worse by Bremmer’s reaction. With the fuel tank ruptured and fearing it would detonate, he had bailed out and retreated across the street, leaving his driver behind to die.
Though he would later claim he was in shock from the accident, it had been nothing more than cowardice. Somehow, though, Bremmer’s reptilian brain was overruled by another part—his ego. He realized what a fool he was being. This was the perfect opportunity to prove himself a hero.
Rushing back to the cafe, he struggled to pull his driver from the vehicle. Sadly, the man had already expired. It was at this point that Bremmer took a bad situation and made it worse.
Unaccustomed to the capacity of Middle Eastern men for histrionics and lacking any Arabic skills whatsoever, Bremmer completely misread the screeching and wailing of the Kuwaitis struggling to extricate the two cafe patrons trapped beneath the SUV. Because of his military uniform and air of authority, they were beseeching him to help them. That wasn’t how Bremmer saw it. To his inept mind, they were blaming him; and the men off the street who were now flooding into the cafe to help weren’t good Samaritans, they were the beginning of a mob that very well might have torn him apart had he not acted. And act he did.
As the crowd swelled and the men tugged on his sleeves, trying to get him to do something, anything, Bremmer drew his sidearm and fired not one but four “warning shots” through the ceiling of the cafe and into the dwelling above.
Terrified, all of the locals, including those trying to lift the vehicle and pull the seriously injured men from underneath, backed off. But it was only temporary.
Like a nuclear reaction, white-hot rage instantly infused the crowd. While Bremmer had misread the group as a burgeoning mob, there was no mistaking it now. They were out for blood—his—and they were bound and determined to get it.
When one of the men turned on him with a broken chair leg, the lieutenant, who was not the best of shooters, punched two 9mm rounds directly through the man’s heart, killing him instantly.
Bremmer didn’t bother waiting for the man’s lifeless body to hit the floor; he turned and took off running.
Within a block, his chest was heaving and his lungs felt like they were on fire. After another block, he felt like he was going to vomit. Three blocks later, he did.
As the first wave of nausea subsided, Bremmer looked at his surroundings and something else took hold of him—panic. He had no idea at all where he was. He hadn’t paid any attention while he was being driven to his meeting and had taken limited interest in the layout of the city. Now he was completely lost.
He needed to get off the streets. He needed to get someplace safe where he could think. He chose the first apartment building he saw and, after multiple attempts, succeeded in kicking in the lobby door.
It was a small building with two apartments per floor, and Bremmer trudged up the stairs toward the roof. He had to figure out where the hell he was.
The top floor consisted of a single unit, a modest penthouse with a small rooftop garden. Using his shoulder, Bremmer charged the door and knocked it wide open, startling a woman and two small children inside.
Before the woman could scream, Bremmer pointed his weapon at her face and placed his index finger against his lips. His message couldn’t have been any clearer. Pulling her children to her, tears rolled from her eyes, but she never made a sound.
Pointing at the food the children had been eating, Bremmer gestured for the woman to pick it all up and then he confined the three of them in the bathroom.
A cabinet in the living room hid a small bar filled with cheap knock-offs of American brands. At this point,
