“Just like everyone else, I was there to pay my respects.”
Stone stopped at one area and silently counted down the rows of white headstones until he came to one near the middle. He stood, his arms folded across his chest, while the setting sun burned down into the horizon. Reuben checked his watch but seemed reluctant to interrupt his friend.
Stone’s solitude was finally halted by a group of men passing nearby. He watched as they headed toward the newest expansion of Arlington Cemetery and one that was not yet completed. It was the 9/11 memorial site that abutted the grounds of the cemetery. The site included a signature monument to the lives that were lost at the Pentagon, and a memorial grove.
Stone stiffened when he saw who was in the center of the wall of armed security. Reuben glanced over too.
“Carter Gray,” Reuben muttered.
“Here to see his wife, I would assume,” Stone said quietly. “Before the crowds come tomorrow.”
Carter Gray stopped at the gravesite of his wife, Barbara, knelt on the ground and placed a small bouquet of flowers on the recessed earth. Technically, the anniversary of his wife’s death was tomorrow, but the cemetery would be filled that day, and, as Stone had deduced, the man had no desire to share his grief with a mass of strangers.
Gray rose and stared down at where his wife’s body lay, while his security detail kept a respectful distance away.
Barbara Gray had retired from the army as a brigadier general after a distinguished career in which she set many firsts for women in the military. Barbara Gray had also been one of the most vocal advocates for members of the World War II-era WASPs, or Women’s Air Force Service Pilots, to be eligible to receive burial at Arlington with full military honors, something denied to them because they were summarily disbanded after the war. In June of 2002 a new regulation allowed a number of women’s military groups, including the WASPs, to at least be buried with the more limited funeral, instead of full, military honors. Unfortunately, Barbara Gray had not lived to see it happen.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Barbara Gray, then a civilian consultant, was meeting at the Pentagon on a project with two members of the army when the American Airlines flight slammed into the building, obliterating the room she was in. As an appalling footnote to this tragedy, the Grays’ daughter, Maggie, a government lawyer, had just arrived at the Pentagon to meet her mother. Her body was virtually cremated in the initial explosion.
As Carter Gray stood there looking at his wife’s grave, the image of that morning cut deeply into him. And then the waves of guilt followed, for he should have been in that building too. Gray was supposed to meet his wife and daughter at the Pentagon before they all headed out on a long-planned family vacation. He’d been caught in traffic and was running about twenty minutes late. By the time he got to the Pentagon, his family was gone.
As he finally pulled his gaze from the consecrated ground, Gray looked around and spotted the two men staring back at him from a distance. He didn’t recognize the large man, but there was something familiar about the other. Then he watched as the two men turned and walked off. Gray lingered by his wife’s grave for another ten minutes, and then, his curiosity getting the better of him, he headed to the spot where the two men had been standing. He realized this section of graves was familiar to him. He started looking at the headstones, his gaze moving swiftly down the neat rows of markers, until he stopped at one.
The next moment his security staff was hustling after Gray as he rushed down the walkway. As he drew closer to the exit, he stopped and bent over, sucking in huge amounts of air as his security team circled him, asking if he was all right. He didn’t answer them. He didn’t even hear them.
The name on the grave marker that had caused his pell-mell rush was pinballing around his mind. There was no body in the casket under that marker, Gray well knew. It was all a sham, all part of a cover-up. Yet the name on the marker wasn’t a fraud. It was a real man who, it was thought, had died in the defense of his country.
“John Carr.” Gray said the name, one he had not uttered for decades.
John Carr. The most accomplished killer Carter Gray had ever seen.
Nathan’s wasn’t that crowded yet, and Alex Ford and Kate Adams were seated at a table in a corner near the bar area and had ordered some drinks.
“Lucky’s a real pistol,” Alex said. “How’d you hook up with her?”
“Before I went to Justice, I was in private practice. I handled the trusts and estates work when her husband died. We became friends, and she eventually asked me to come live with her. I said no at first, but she kept asking, and Mr. Right had failed miserably to show up at my door in the meantime. I pay rent for the carriage house,” she added quickly. “Lucky’s a very interesting person. She’s someone who’s been everywhere, knows everybody. But she’s lonely too. Old age doesn’t go down well with someone like her. She’s so alive, and she wants to do everything she used to do; but she really can’t anymore.”
“From what I saw she’s doing a pretty damn good job of trying,” he replied. “So why’d you jump to the government side?”
“Nothing too original. I got burned out on the billable hour treadmill. And you’re not going to change the world doing T and E law.”
“So what do you do at Justice to change the world?”
“I’m into a fairly new thing actually. After Gitmo Bay and treatment of POWs at Abu Ghraib, the Salt Pit and other places, Justice formed a new group to enforce the civil rights of prisoners deemed to be of a highly political nature as well as foreign combatants, and to investigate any crimes against those class of persons.”
“Well, judging from what I read in the papers, you must keep pretty busy.”
“The U.S. overall has an excellent record when it comes to treatment of POWs and persons listed as foreign combatants, but the longer the war against terrorism goes on, the more tempting it is for our guys to stoop to the other side’s level. After all, they’re only human, and they might come to view the person sitting across from them as someone not worthy of any rights at all.”
“But that doesn’t excuse them breaking the law.”
“No, it doesn’t. And that’s where people like me come in. I’ve been to the various war zones six times in the last two years. Unfortunately, it’s not getting much better.”
“It looks like Carter Gray has started counterpunching well.”
Kate sat back and sipped on the glass of red wine she’d ordered. “I have mixed feelings about that. I feel for him personally and his loss on 9/11. I think that’s the only reason he came back into the government sector. But I’m not convinced it was a good thing. ”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
“I know he’s gotten extraordinary results. I wonder if he employs extraordinary means to achieve them. For example, we’ve had real problems with rendition.”
“I’ve heard that’s quite a political football.”
“It’s no wonder with the way the procedure works. Suspected terrorists are transferred from the U.S. to other countries or vice versa without any legal processing or access by the International Red Cross. When we transfer prisoners out to other countries, verbal assurances are first required from the receiving country that the transferees won’t be subjected to torture. Well, the problem is there’s no way to verify that torture doesn’t occur. And in fact, it seems clear that the torture often does happen. On top of that, because such torture in the U.S. is illegal, some think NIC and CIA are actively involved in rendering prisoners to other countries so that torture can be used as a tool to get useful information. They’ll even get the receiving country to trump up charges against a suspect so he can be jailed, interrogated and often tortured. That’s against everything that America stands for.”