“I’m not just going through the motions, General. I did my little dog-and-pony show with all of them except for the Reuben Rhodes character, and I’ll catch up to him at some point. They’re all lying. They all know more than they’ll admit. That’s progress right there as far as I’m concerned. At some point they’ll make a slip and then we move in.”

“I seriously doubt the man left them a copy of his travel itinerary.”

“I doubt that too, but Carr is a loyal guy. If we can nail his friends on something, put them at risk for prison time, then that may flush him out.”

“Meaning he’ll come running back here to save his friends? You really believe that will happen, Knox?”

“I’ve studied the man, gone over his career, talked to his friends. Yeah, I think that might happen. And what’s the downside if it doesn’t work?”

Hayes finished off his glass of wine and stared into the fire. “Let me speak frankly, Knox. Hopefully it will be instructive and won’t bore you too much.”

“I doubt anything you have to say would bore me, sir. And you know I’m a sucker for truthful information.”

Hayes ignored the barb. “Carr is a killer, clearly. He was at the Capitol Visitor Center that night. We know he murdered Gray and Simpson. That part is simple, the rest is not.”

“And do I finally get to hear the rest?”

Hayes rose and poured himself another glass, this time of scotch, and sipped it while standing in front of the fire. Gazing at this tall patrician figure dressed in a three-piece suit with his beautiful snowy hair, square jaw and twinkling eyes and holding his cut-crystal snifter made Knox fantasize he was in a Hollywood spy film.

Let’s see, how does that story go again? Oh, yeah, bright, refined, patriotic people recruited from Ivy League schools doing their noble best to keep their country safe while nattily attired in their Brooks Brothers suits, bedding all the beautiful women, sucking thoughtfully on their sweet-smelling pipes and remaining high above the riff and the raff. Like me. And John Carr. The riff and the raff.

Knox had quickly found that that notion was indeed a fantasy. Intelligence was a nasty, dirty business and necessitated each side to get as filthy as the other. The only rule was there never had been any rules at all. No, actually he was wrong. There was one rule. People like Macklin Hayes did remain above it all. Untouchable. And yet that rule was not absolute. Look at Carter Gray. John Carr had pulled him right down into the trench shit with him.

You go, John.