After Moscow he was brought home to become the deputy director of operations and then finally director of Central Intelligence. He had served his country well and had sought no recognition. On his deathbed President Hayes had come to visit him. The President told Stansfield that preparations were under way for a full military burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The President also expressed his interest in eulogizing Stansfield himself. It was the least the country could do for a man who had given so much. Stansfield in his typical humble way declined, and told the President that he wanted to be buried where he'd been born. No pomp and circumstance, just a simple private ceremony for a very private man.

Kennedy brushed a moist strand of brown hair from her face. She missed him. Standing in the cold wind, the gray bleak sky overhead, she felt alone and isolated, more so than at any other time in her life. When she lost her father to a car bombing in Beirut it had been extremely painful, but there was one major difference. Back then nothing was expected of her. It was all right to check out for six months and travel the world in search of answers. This time she had no such luxury. First there was Tommy, her extremely inquisitive six-year-old son. There was no running from that responsibility. Tommy's father had already done that and Kennedy wasn't about to disappoint the most important person in her life for a second time. If it were only Tommy, she could handle it. But it wasn't. There was Washington.

Kennedy looked to the west, at the rise of the Black Hills and their strange ominous beauty. For a moment the thought of running flashed across her mind. Take Tommy, quit the CIA and run. Never look back, and avoid the whole mess. Let the self-serving vultures go after someone else. She lowered her eyes to the grave of Thomas Stansfield and knew she could never do it. She owed him too much. She knew he had counted on her to keep the CIA politically neutral. Kennedy could think of no one she admired more than Thomas Stansfield. The man had given close to sixty years of his life to his agency, his belief in democracy and his country. And she had given him her word. She would return to Washington.