I read it, and I read it again, and then the thing I had been holding rigid for a year and a half simply let go, and I put my face in my hands and wept in front of two federal investigators and did not care.

He had known.

In the last clear seconds of his life, with his own aircraft killing him, Gabriel had spent his final breath making sure that whatever else happened, I would not be allowed to blame myself — and the message had sat in a classified file for eighteen months while I did exactly that.

He had trusted me to the end.

He had trusted me past the end.