"I'm not a hired killer, sir. You ordered me to find him. I will do my best to do so. But that's it."

"And that's all you need do. Others will take over from there."

"If Carr is as smart as I think he is, he knows all this. He might have devised a way that his violent death will trigger the very disclosure you don't want. A packet of information to the New York Times perhaps in the event a bullet slams into his brain?"

"Find him, Knox, and I believe we can persuade him that such action would not be advisable."

"What leverage would you have over him at that point?"

"As you said, he's a very loyal man."

Knox considered this for a moment. "So his friends are his Achilles' heel? Only in your version instead of coming back and going to jail he takes the bullet, he falls on the sword silently so his friends can what, live?"

"That's certainly one scenario."

"One or the only one?"

"Just find him, Knox, that's all you have to do. Any leads of interest?"

"The friends have given me squat, and if we have to do this outside the law now it comes back to following the physical evidence as far as it takes me."

"Back out to the crime scenes then?"

"Yes."

"Time is not on our side."

"It never is. This information would have been helpful earlier, sir, in all candor."

"I'm sure it would have. But there you are."

"So I'm competing with the cops on this one too? What if they get there first?"

"We've taken certain actions that will preclude that from happening."

"And if some detective gets lucky?"

"That's highly doubtful because they know nothing of John Carr or his ties to Gray and Simpson. So you have a tremendous advantage there. But if the police get to him first, we will make sure that he will disappear from their custody. National security trumps all, Knox."

"Of course. Can I inquire as to what the chain of command is on this, sir?"

"You report to me, no one else," he said sharply.

"No, I mean who do you report to, General?"

Hayes finished off his drink and carefully put the glass down on an antique side table. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Good luck. Regular reports."

"Absolutely," Knox said, with more edge to his voice than he would have liked. One could push Macklin Hayes only so far, but Knox was getting sorely tempted to push as hard as possible. Like off a cliff.

"One more thing. John Carr is probably the best assassin this country has ever produced. The fact that he was able to single-handedly kill a dozen of our best paramilitary field agents thirty years after he left Triple Six speaks volumes. God, he must have been something else indeed in his prime. What an honor to have commanded such a killing machine. Gray was lucky in that regard. The meteoric rise of his career was tied, in no small way, to Carr's ability to hit the bull's-eye time after time."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"Just want you to understand the playing field. We need him alive, Knox. We need to know what he has before the sword falls. Never forget that. There may need to be sacrifices, of course."

As Hayes left the room Knox did indeed understand the playing field. They clearly needed Carr alive.

Sacrifices? But they didn't necessarily need Joe Knox still breathing when the dust settled, did they?

Knox left the brownstone, climbed back in his Rover, and drove off in pursuit of apparently the greatest assassin his country had ever produced, while a cagey former general who had no problem allowing his foot soldiers to die to achieve his goals was crowding his rear flank.

Whoopie.

CHAPTER 21

VERY EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Knox started with the caretaker's cottage at Mt. Zion Cemetery. He went over every square inch of it, pulling up loose floorboards, emptying every drawer, checking inside the fireplace, and poring over the books Stone kept there, many in different languages.

"If the guy can speak all these languages, he might have already left the country," Knox told himself. Other than that, the cottage was a bust. The guy had obviously cleaned it out before fleeing. He next set about searching the cemetery. Here he was a bit more fortunate, though it ultimately turned out to be nothing. His sharp eye discerned that one tombstone had been recently moved. He yanked it over and found the small compartment carved in the earth. Whatever had been there, though, was now gone.

The "dirt" Macklin Hayes had hinted at?

Two hours later found him standing in the rear grounds of Carter Gray's former home. Knox had decided not to go by Simpson's murder scene. The vacant construction site had not given up any clues on the first go-round and he'd wisely decided that it was probably not going to give up any simply because he went back.

He stared out at the bay. Stone had told the FBI agents that the person who'd blown up Gray's house might have escaped by jumping off the cliff. He walked to the edge and peered down. Hell of a long dive, but probably easy for someone like Oliver Stone/John Carr.

Okay, he tosses his rifle into the water and jumps. Then where did he go?

He did not for a second believe that Stone had committed suicide. One did not plan hits so meticulously to merely end it all with a plunge off a cliff. He had lived. Knox was sure of that.

Carrying a knapsack over his shoulder, Knox walked along the cliff's edge, following on land what might have been Stone's journey in the water. He passed through woods, open fields, and then more woods, all the while keeping his eye on the shore below. Finally, he stopped. There was a bit of a beach down there. Stone had shot Gray before seven a.m. Knox had checked the tide charts. That time of morning would largely mirror the tide he was looking at right now. He eyed the boulders, then spotted the cleft in the rock, the trail coming up. He followed it to where it reached the top of the cliff. There was a path there. He took it. A half hour later he came to the series of shacks.

"Can I help you?"

Knox looked over at the short, squat man in the Green Bay Packers knit cap and greasy coat who was staring at him from beside an ancient tractor with one wheel off.

Knox approached. "I was over at Carter Gray's house." He held up his creds. "I'm Agent Knox."

"Good for you. They call me Leroy because that's my name. Gray, huh? The important fellow what got himself shot?"

"That's right. I take it someone's been by to see you."

"Hell, yeah. But like I told them, I don't know nuthin' 'bout nuthin'."

"You live here by yourself?"

"That's right, ever since my Lottie went to meet her Lord four years ago."

"Sorry to hear that. Nobody to help you around here? What is it that you do, by the way?"

"Anything I can to make a little money. Had me a helper but he went on."

"When was that?"

"Same day that man got shot."

Knox looked anxious but Leroy held up his hand. "Don't get yourself excited. He was here when them FBI folks come by. You can ask them. He's old, bum leg, bad eyes and feller couldn't even talk, just grunted."

"Tall, short? Fat, thin?"

"Skinny, though with the bad leg it was hard to tell how tall he was. Lot taller'n me, that's for sure. Big beard and thick glasses."

"Why'd he leave?"

"Who the hell knows? Been with me about four months. Then he just went moving on. It's not like I had him locked into no million-dollar long-term contract." Leroy laughed and shot a glob of spit at the ground.

Knox looked around. "Did he stay in one of those buildings?"

Leroy nodded and pointed at the one closest to the path.

"Mind if I take a look through it?"

"What agency you with again?"