This intelligence from Finn, while compelling and interesting, should not have made a difference to Knox insofar as his mission was concerned.

But it did.

It had come as no shock to Knox that his agency had less than clean hands. That was just the nature of the business. But though Knox was a veteran of the intelligence world, there was something in his gut—perhaps as deep as his soul—that had recoiled in anger with every fact that Finn had revealed about John Carr and how his country had repeatedly ripped the man’s life apart.

There was right and wrong, although those lines got blurred all the time. Justice and injustice too were often all over the place, he knew. There were no easy answers and whatever road you took, be it the high, low or more likely somewhere in between, half the people would hate the result and half would applaud. And the hell of the thing was in a way they’d both be right.

However, as Knox dwelled on all this, it seemed to him that John Carr, no matter what he might have done on that rainy, gray morning a few days ago, deserved to live out his life as a free man, but that was not Knox’s decision to make. His investigator mind told him to verify what he’d been told. Then he would just have to see.

Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

VISITING HOURS at the hospital were long over, but Stone found a sympathetic nurse who let him into the ward after he explained his connection.

“That’s right,” the nurse said. “Doc Warner mentioned that. Who would’ve thought to use a car engine to start somebody’s heart?”

Somebody who’s been in a war.

Willie was propped up in the bed and hooked up to an IV drip. Other cables connected to his body ran to a monitor where lines and numbers darted across.

When Stone walked in Willie opened his eyes and said, “Who the hell are you?”

“Ben. I helped your grandfather get you here.”

Willie put out a hand. “Gramps told me about that. I guess I owe you my life.”

“You look like you’re doing better.”

“Don’t feel all that much better.”

“Did they tell you how long you’ll be in here?”

“No. I still don’t know what the hell happened.”

“You overdosed.”

“I know I did. I just don’t know how I did it.”

“So what’d they find in your bloodstream?”

“Docs said oxycodone along with some other stuff.”

“That would do it.”

“But I didn’t have any. That shit is expensive unless you got a prescription. You’re talking a couple hundred bucks a pill on the street.”