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
“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?”
