“I was on the Memorial Bridge with binoculars,” my father said, “and that is the single worst thing I have ever done, and I have done a great many things.”

We sat on the seawall behind the shop for four hours.

Here is what he told me, and I have since given all of it to the government, so I can write it down.

The helicopter went down. That part is real; four men died on that transport and their families are owed the truth and are getting it now. He was not aboard.

He had been pulled off the manifest eleven hours earlier by a man in his own directorate who had gotten frightened, and the crash — which was not an accident — was intended for him and killed four other people instead.

He had, at that moment, about ninety minutes of options.