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And start digging.

Three hours later, I'm surrounded by forty years of history.

Garrison Knight wasn't difficult to research.

Not exactly.

He was wealthy.

Connected.

Philanthropic.

A businessman who moved in circles most people only read about.

There are photographs. Old newspaper articles. Board memberships. Charity dinners. Trade delegations. Political fundraisers. Business conferences.

Men in expensive suits shaking hands in rooms where decisions affecting entire countries were being made.

I keep going.

Deeper.

Archived articles. Digitized newspapers. Old corporate filings. Photographs with captions so faded I have to enlarge them.

And eventually I find something.

A series of connections from the eighties. Political figures. International business leaders.

A few foreign officials whose names look significantly worse through a modern lens than they would've appeared in a society-page caption forty years ago.

My pulse accelerates.

I follow every one.

Every photograph.

Every dinner.

Every organization.

Every overlapping board.

Every donation I can substantiate.

And in the end?

Nothing.

There is no smoking gun. No secret partnership. No evidence Garrison Knight funded oppression or profited directly from persecution.

No proof he supported the policies of every politician or foreign leader who happened to occupy the same ballroom.

What I find is a wealthy American businessman who existed in wealthy international business circles during the nineteen-eighties.

That's it.

Some of those people later became infamous. Some governments changed. Some alliances soured.