The Terminal List is a thriller novel written by American author Jack Carr. It was Carr's first book in The Terminal List series, followed by True Believer. In the novel, James Reece seeks justice for his murdered SEAL team. The book was released on March 6, 2018, by Atria/Emily Bestler Books.
The Terminal List has been adapted into a television series of the same name with Amazon Prime Video.
Plot
In Wyoming, Navy SEAL James Reece stalks and kills an investment banker named Marcus Boykin with a long distance rifle shot. Reece crosses Boykin’s name off a list written on the back of a child’s drawing.
Three months earlier in Afghanistan, Reece and his platoon are ambushed while approaching a suspected terrorist compound. Only Reece and his friend Boozer survive the assault. In the aftermath of the disaster, Reece is heavily investigated by NCIS agents who appear more interested in pinning the blame for the ambush on Reece rather than uncovering what went wrong. Reece reports his concerns that the intelligence supporting the mission seemed suspicious, but he is rebuffed by the NCIS agents. Reece begins experiencing headaches, which he attributes to the ambush. The base doctor recommends that Reece undergo more testing upon returning home.
After returning to Coronado, California, Reece learns that Boozer has died in an apparent suicide. Reece rushes to the scene, where a DCIS agent named Josh Holder claims that Boozer killed himself. Reece begins to suspect that a coverup is underway. Reece arrives at his home, only to find that his wife and young daughter have been murdered in an apparent robbery gone wrong.
Devastated, Reece contemplates suicide, but, after learning that the killers were not local criminals as the police suggested, realizes that he must have been the target of the attack. Reece undergoes testing on his head and learns that he has a brain tumor which will likely kill him in several months. With nothing left to lose, Reece decides to hunt down those responsible for the deaths of his platoon and his family.
With the help of his friend, former SEAL and CIA Ground Branch operative Ben Edwards, Reece begins to uncover a conspiracy involving the military and a pharmaceutical company run by Steve Horn. Reece also connects with journalist Katie Buranek, who had begun a separate investigation into the deaths of his team. Katie discovers that the rest of Reece’s platoon also had brain tumors, the result of an experimental drug designed to block the effects of PTSD. Reece and his men were injected with the drug without their knowledge, and when the tumors were discovered, Reece and his men were sent into an ambush to coverup the experiments. Boozer and Reece’s family were subsequently killed as part of that coverup.
With the help of Ben and Katie, Reece compiles a list of the conspirators; Agent Holder, businessman Steve Horn and his subordinate Saul Agnon, attorney Mike Tedesco, Reece’s commanding officer Admiral Pilsner, JAG Officer Leonard Howard, Marcus Boykin, the cartel members who killed his family, a local imam who secretly works for Al-Qaeda, and finally, Secretary of Defense Lorraine Hartley and her husband JD. Reece writes the list on the back of a drawing his daughter made for him, which he dubs his “terminal list.”
Reece first targets Boykin, then Holder. He tortures Agnon for information, then kills him with a fatal overdose of heroin. Reece then travels to Mexico and kills the cartel hired guns who killed his family. Returning to the US, Reece kills the imam, who organized the ambush, and stages the scene to appear as a random hate crime. Terrified that Reece will kill him next, Captain Howard flees to Florida. Reece tracks him down with the help of his friend, pilot Liz Riley, and disembowels Howard with a tomahawk, leaving him to die. Reece then kidnaps Tedesco and forces him to wear a suicide vest into Admiral Pilsner’s office, where he detonates the explosives, killing both men.
Secretary Hartley illegally orders SEAL Team Six to track and kill Reece, branding him as a domestic terrorist. Reece avoids capture and begins to suspect that one of his allies is secretly working for the government. Reece travels to New York, pursuing Horn and Hartley, and kills JD Hartley with an EFP device. Escaping from New York, Reece is aided by his friend and former SEAL teammate Raife Hastings. Raife provides Reece with a sailboat to make his final escape and tells Reece to travel to Raife’s family hunting preserve in Africa. Reece assaults Hartley’s house on Fisher’s Island and discovers that Katie has been kidnapped by Ben, who reveals that he was part of the conspiracy from the beginning. Ben threatens to kill Katie with explosives tied to a dead man’s switch, but Reece kills Horn and Hartley, then executes Ben, who was bluffing to stall Reece. Reece and Katie find documents detailing Hartley’s involvement with Horn and the project. Katie asks Reece how he knew that Ben was bluffing; Reece replies that he didn’t, leaving Katie to expose the story alone.
Accepting that he will soon die from his tumor, Reece crosses the final names off of his list, then drops it into the ocean as he begins to sail across the Atlantic. Unbeknownst to Reece, he receives a call from his doctor, who leaves a message stating that Reece’s tumor is not fatal, and that surgery would remove it.