The Terminal List

Marcus Boykin is a wealthy accountant who lives half the year in one of his Wyoming vacation homes. He enjoys a rigid routine and drives into town three times a week to eat at gourmet restaurants and connect with other rich residents of the area.

James Reece hikes into the mountains dressed as a deer hunter. He has scouted out a perch in the mountains that overlooks the highway and studied this area aerially and on foot. Reece carries a rifle that his father gave him after Reece’s first deployment following 9/11. As he prepares to sleep, he remembers his dead wife and young daughter.

The next morning, Boykin follows his typical routine, driving into town. Reece waits to see Boykin’s Mercedes on the highway below and shoots the windshield. Boykin dies, his car eventually flipping off the road. Reece pulls out a child’s drawing and flips it over to strike out the first name on a list, indicating that there are more people left to die.

Three months earlier, Reece is deployed in Afghanistan, leading a Navy SEAL team mission. He has a bad feeling about the mission, mainly because he is wary of the fact that many high-level military personnel wanted this mission to occur, which is unusual. Reece has also been suffering from unexplained headaches and is waiting to hear back from doctors about his test results. As his military team begins to move forward toward their target, an improvised explosive device (IED) goes off, killing and maiming the majority of the men.

Reece wakes up in a hospital on the Bagram Air Base with Boozer, his only surviving team member, by his side. Boozer tells him that the entire mission was a trap: After the initial explosion, the rescue helicopters set off a second explosion when they landed in the valley. Almost everyone died between these two explosions. Boozer additionally informs Reece that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is waiting to interview him.

NCIS Special Agent Robert Bridger enters Reece’s hospital room to ask him some questions about the mission. After changing back into his bloodied uniform, Reece and Bridger head toward the base’s NCIS building. Reece does not wear any insignia or rank on his uniform, which allows him to go unnoticed by most of the other junior and senior officers.

When Reece enters the interview room, he meets Special Agent Dan Stubbs, a second NCIS agent. Reece then outlines to the two agents what he knows about the mission, “mission number 644: Odin’s Sword” (25). It was a time-sensitive target, and the intel came from just one source. It appears that Odin’s Sword was a mission to take down a new Taliban compound; however, this makes little sense to Reece because his team is active in the supposed location of the compound, yet they have heard nothing about its existence.

After Reece finishes recounting the events of the explosion, Stubbs begins questioning him about his emails. Reece had previously engaged in emails with international relations and tactical strategy scholars as a form of professional development. Based on the emails, Stubbs accuses him of “subversive activities, disclosure of sensitive information, and violation of Article 13: conduct unbecoming of an officer” (29-30).

Reece meets with Dr. Peter O’Halloran, a spine surgeon who joined the US Army Reserves after 9/11. O’Halloran performed brain scans on two of Reece’s men and discovered oligodendrogliomas (malignant brain tumors). He also found one in Reece’s brain and notes how rare it is for all three men to have this kind of brain tumor. Reece lies to O’Halloran, saying that he has not experienced any headaches, but promises to make a follow-up appointment with O’Halloran’s office when he returns home.

Admiral Pilsner, Captain Leonard Howard, and Secretary of Defense Lorraine Hartley speak on the phone to discuss the mission’s failure. Hartley demands that any survivors of the mission stay in Afghanistan for as long as possible to keep the American public from viewing these survivors as heroes. Additionally, she wants Reece to take the majority of the blame for the failed mission and encourages Howard to charge him with as many crimes as he can.

After two weeks of NCIS’s investigation, Reece is finally cleared to fly home. Reece feels guilty about being unable to fulfill his responsibility as a team leader; not only could he not keep his men safe in battle, but he also couldn’t fly home to help their families grieve. He continues to feel like he’s missing some valuable information about the mission.

Steve Horn, the CEO of a company called Capstone Capital, waits for Saul Agnon, his underling. After being criticized by Horn for failing to ensure that Reece died overseas, Agnon tells Horn that O’Halloran knows about the tumors and is asking a lot of questions. He has arranged for O’Halloran to be killed overseas.

Agnon lays out his plan for Reece and Boozer. Special Agent Holder is headed to kill Boozer, and Horn suggests hiring some gang members to kill Reece and his family in a home invasion.

Reece lands back in the United States and is met by his best friend and former teammate, Ben Edwards. Edwards now works for one of the United States’ intelligence agencies. Edwards drives Reece to the SEAL Team headquarters (Teams). As Reece enters Teams, he sees a chief from another platoon looking panicked. The man tells him that police are at Boozer’s apartment and Reece should head to the apartment immediately.

Reece arrives at Boozer’s apartment and runs in despite police officers trying to hold him back. He sees that Boozer has died by a supposed suicide using a SIG Sauer P226, which is the gun issued to Navy SEALs. Reece is sent by his boss to Balboa Naval Medical Center for a welfare check.

Reece spends the rest of the day at Balboa being observed by doctors and then is driven to pick up his car. As Reece drives the short 10-minute drive to his home, he thinks about how excited he is to be home with his family and how relieved he is that he will not deploy again.

When he arrives at his home, there are emergency vehicles and police tape around his house. Reece leaves his car in the middle of the street and attempts to run into his house but is tackled by multiple police officers. He is thrown into the back of a police car where he starts to sob, unsure about the fate of his wife and daughter and overwhelmed by the last few weeks’ events.