The Terminal List starts with Katie consenting to speak with Hartley for the interview. She’s led up to the Secretary’s house, where Hartley discloses everything. They’re apparently being led to draw the incorrect conclusions.
Hartley approved the RD4895 project, but she didn’t gain anything from the subsequent cover-up. She also admits to Katie that she wasn’t doing it for financial gain.
She reportedly tested RD4895 in an effort to try to resolve the trauma. Admiral Pillar was sending her regular medical reports, but he had falsified them to trick her into thinking the medicine was working when it very definitely wasn’t.
After sharing her experience, she releases Katie and bids her use the information as she sees fit. Is Hartley being honest, or is she lying to protect her reputation? Katie needs to make an effort to ascertain that. And she is determined.
Even though Katie modifies Lorraine’s account to fit Hartley’s account during that evening’s interrogation, she continues to have concerns about the sequence of events.
Ben and James leave but become stopped at a routine highway inspection. They thankfully manage to escape this unharmed. James hides out in the back, and it’s touch and go for a long. James is not discovered, and there is no blood shade.
Secretary Hartley reaches over to a revolver she has hidden under the table and takes it. She shoots herself in the head to escape the embarrassment of being dragged through the mud, just to reinforce her guilt in all of this.
James Reece, who was severely hurt during the earlier conflict, stumbles outdoors. A soldier approaches Reece as he is bleeding out, but instead of shooting, he decides to let Reece go.
