Knox lifted one of his gloved hands and shut the eyelids. It was out of respect. He'd known Gray well. He hadn't always agreed with the man or his methods, but he'd respected him. If their positions were reversed, he hoped Gray would've done the same for him.

The briefing papers Gray had been reading had been collected already by the CIA. National security trumped even homicide. Knox highly doubted that whatever the CIA chief had been reading at the moment of his death would be connected to his murder, but one never knew.

Yet if they could have read the man's mind in his last moments of life? When he stared out at that grave marker and that flag?

Knox's gut was telling him that Gray knew exactly who had killed him. And maybe others at the Agency did too. If so, they were letting him go through the motions on his own. He wondered why for a second and then stopped. It was tricky business trying to figure out what the hell went on behind closed doors at Langley. The only thing you could count on as the real truth was as convoluted as anything you'd find in popular fiction.

He left the corpse and mentally processed the facts as he stared off toward the Atlantic.

Gray's home had been blown up over six months ago, the man barely escaping with his life. Knox had been briefed via secure phone on the drive over. Any suspects involved in that matter were not to be considered to be involved in Gray's murder, he'd been told. This directive had come from the highest levels and he had no choice but to defer to it. Yet, still, he filed that away in the back of his head. For him the truth should not come with qualifiers or conditions, if for no other reason than that he might need it as ammo to cover his own ass at some point.