One of the most interesting pieces of information he’d gleaned from the file had to do with the now defunct Triple Six Division of the CIA, or its “political destabilization” arm as it unofficially had been known to the CIA rank and file. The less polite term of course was “government assassin.” Triple Six was one of the CIA’s most closely guarded secrets. Officially the CIA did not kill, torture or falsely imprison. Or, for that matter lie, cheat or steal. Unfortunately, the media had made some inroads into the Agency’s past, resulting in some embarrassing revelations. Officially, Knox had followed the company line and been upset that the press had ferreted out some of this skullduggery. Personally, he’d never had much use for that side of the Agency. While it was true that the United States was better off with certain people dead, Knox had felt the CIA’s best use of resources was in intelligence gathering, not authorized murder or stringing people up by their toes or making them believe they were drowning to induce them to talk. His experience had been that tortured people would tell you anything to make the pain stop. There were far more effective ways to get to the truth.

Gray had apparently concluded that several retired Triple Six assassins had been murdered. Whether these deaths were tied to the unauthorized mission in the former Soviet Union he had no way of knowing. According to one of Gray’s bodyguards, the former intelligence head had met with a man at Gray’s home on the very night it had been blown up. That man worked in a cemetery in Washington, D.C., and had been questioned by the FBI in connection with Gray’s believed murder. And it was this man—the one Macklin Hayes had alluded to—who had suggested the bomber of Gray’s home might’ve jumped off the cliff into the Chesapeake Bay.

Knox smiled grimly as he thought of the name the man had given the FBI agents.

Oliver Stone.

Was he a lunatic or something else? Since Carter Gray was not known to summon mentally unstable people to his home, Knox opted for the latter. Oliver Stone had been accompanied by a Secret Service agent when he’d visited Gray’s demolished house. That too was interesting. He would have to get acquainted with Agent Alex Ford.

The last bit of interesting information had to do with a recent disinterment at Arlington National Cemetery. The grave of a man named John Carr had been dug up on orders from Gray. The coffin had been taken to CIA headquarters. Knox did not know the results of that action or actually who had ended up being in the coffin. He had seen some of Carr’s confidential military record, and it was an exemplary one. Yet then the man had simply disappeared.