Stone looked out the long window that faced the cliffs overlooking the water.
“Tired of Virginia farm country?” he said.
“My ambition as a young man was to be a sailor, see the world from the deck of a ship,” Gray said, cradling his Scotch, his wide face strangely offset by a pair of narrowly placed eyes. There was a lot in that head, Stone well knew. Gray was not a man that one could ever reasonably overestimate.
“A young man’s ambition, can there be a more fleeting prospect?” Stone said idly. The darkness outside the window was complete. No moon, no stars; an approaching storm had hidden the sky.
“I never thought John Carr would be given to lapses into philosophizing.”
“Goes to show how little you really knew me. And I don’t go by John Carr anymore. He’s dead. I’m sure you were briefed on it years ago.”
Unperturbed, Gray continued. “This place used to belong to another former director of CIA, who went on to become vice president. It has everything I need to be comfortable and secure in my old age.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Stone said.
“I’m actually surprised you came. After your little gesture outside the White House?”
“How is the president, by the way?”
“Fine.”
“Did you feel any homicidal impulses when he plunked that medal on you? Or are you over wanting to kill the man?”
“Without directly answering your ridiculous question, circumstances change. It’s never personal. You should know that as well as any man alive.”
“The point is, I wouldn’t have been alive if you’d had your way.” Before Gray could respond, Stone said, “I have some questions I want to ask you and I’d appreciate answers, truthful ones.”
Gray put down his Scotch. “All right.”
Stone turned from the window to look at him. “That easy?”
“Why waste what time we have left playing games that don’t matter anymore? I take it you want to know about Elizabeth.”
“I want to know about Beth, my daughter.”
“I’ll answer what I can.”
Stone sat down opposite him and asked question after question for about twenty minutes. His final one was articulated with some trepidation. “Did she ever ask about me, about her father?”
“As you know, Senator Simpson and his wife raised her after they adopted her.”
“But you told me you brought them Beth when Simpson was still at CIA. If she had said something, surely-”
Gray put up a hand. “She did. It was actually after Simpson had left CIA and begun his political career. Understand she may have mentioned something about it before, but this was the first I’d heard of such a query. They had told her years before of her adoption. It’s not something Beth seemed to dwell on. In fact, I’m not sure she told many people about it.”
Stone leaned forward. “What did she say about her real parents?”
“In all fairness, you should know that she asked about her mother first. Girls, you understand, they want to know.”
“Of course she should know about her mother.”
“They had to be delicate, considering the… uh… the circumstances of her mother’s death.”
“Of her murder, you mean. By people who were looking to kill me.”
“As I told you, I had nothing to do with that. I sincerely liked your wife. And if truth be known, she’d be alive today if you had-”
Stone rose and stared down at him with a look that chilled even Gray, who well knew how many ways John Carr could kill another human being. And no man he’d ever employed had been better at it. “I’m sorry, John-I mean, Oliver. I admit that was not your fault.” He paused while Stone slowly sat back down. “They told her a little about her mother, all positive I can assure you, and that she had died in an accident.”
“And me?”
“She was told her father was a soldier who was killed in the line of duty. I believe they even took her to your ‘grave’ at Arlington. To your daughter you died a hero.” Gray paused and added, “Does that satisfy you?”
The way he said it made Stone wonder something. “Is this the real truth or the truth Carter Gray style, meaning a load of bullshit to appease me?”
“What possible reason would I have to lie to you now? It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? You and me, we don’t matter anymore.”
“Why did you ask me here tonight?”
In answer Gray went behind his desk and picked up a file. He opened it and held up three color photos of men in their sixties. He placed them one by one in front of Stone. “This first man is Joel Walker, the second Douglas Bennett and the last Dan Ross.”
“Those names mean nothing to me, and neither do these pictures.”
Gray pulled three more photos from the file, all much older and in black and white. “I think these will look far more familiar to you. And the names as welclass="underline" Judd Bingham, Bob Cole and Lou Cincetti.”
Stone barely heard the names. He was staring at photos of men he’d lived, worked and nearly died beside for over a decade. He looked up at Gray.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because in the last two months all three of these former comrades of yours have died.”
“Died how?”
“Bingham was found in his bed. He had lupus. The autopsy found nothing unusual. Cole hanged himself. At least it appeared that way, and the police have officially closed that case. Cincetti apparently got drunk, stumbled into his pool and drowned.”
“So natural causes for Bingham, suicide for Cole and an accident with Cincetti.”
“And you don’t believe that any more than I do; three men from the same unit dying within two months of each other?”
“It’s a dangerous world out there.”
“Something we both know all too well.”
“You think they were killed?”
“Of course.”
“And you invited me here to what, warn me?”
“It seemed like the most prudent thing to do.”
“But like you said, John Carr is dead. Who looks to kill a dead man?”
“These three fellows had excellent cover. Cincetti was particularly deeply buried. If someone could find him, they could find out John Carr isn’t really in that box at Arlington. That he’s actually a man very much alive who calls himself Oliver Stone.”
“And what about you? Carter Gray was the master strategist for our little group. And you’ve had no cover all these years.”
“I have protection. You don’t.”
“Then you’ve given me fair warning.” Stone rose.
“I’m sorry things ended up as they did. You deserved better.”
“You were prepared to sacrifice me and my friends not too long ago, for the good of the country.”
“Everything I ever did was for the good of this country.”
“At least how you defined it, anyway. Not me.”
“We can agree to disagree on that.”
Stone turned and walked out the door.
CHAPTER 14
CARTER GRAY’S MAIL was screened at an off-site center run by the FBI and then delivered to him in the evening. The courier duly drove up and the mail was given to one of the men assigned to protect Gray. These men lived in a cottage about a hundred yards from the main house. Gray would not agree to anyone living with him in the house, which was protected by a latest-generation security system.
Gray opened the letters and packages, not really focusing on any of them until he reached one item. The envelope was red and had been postmarked from Washington, D.C. There was only one thing in it, a photo. He looked at the picture and then over at the file on his desk. His time had come, it seemed.
He turned out the lights in his study and went to his bedroom. He kissed the pictures of his wife and daughter that had places of honor on the fireplace mantel. In a grotesque twist of fate, both women had perished at the Pentagon on 9/11. He knelt, said his customary prayers and then turned off the light.