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.
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.
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
