Page 129 of Whisper

He felt nothing.

Carter spoke to the waiting Situation Room. “Confirmed, Mr. President. Saqqaf is dead.”

The medical team wheeled Saqqaf away for an autopsy and a full investigation into his death, and what they could learn about his life. The strike team headed back to their part of the base. General Carter marched into the command center, still on the phone with the Situation Room.

What would happen next? When would the announcement of Saqqaf’s death be made? What kind of reprisals would his fighters, the children of Saqqaf, attempt? What would happen to Saqqaf’s movement, his death cult that wanted to remake the world in shades of hatred and gore?

What would the president do? What was the US’s role now? What could they do to right this U-turn of history and despair?

David interrupted Kris’s swirling mind, taking his hand and drawing him close. Dust from Saqqaf’s death house clung to his black fatigues. Blood stained his sleeve, his knee. Saqqaf’s blood. David pressed their foreheads together.

“Let’s go home,” he whispered. “Let’s get the hell away from here.”

Chapter 20

July 2006

A different sun and a different sand filled their days.

David took Kris to Hawaii, where they rented a beach house and spent their days lying in the waves, or lying in bed. Lying in each other’s arms, never separating.

David drank Kris in like he was nectar from God, manna from heaven. Kris felt their breaths sync, felt their hearts beat as one when they lay beneath the stars, when they watched the heavens unfold, endless stretches of eternity and radiance.

A thousand million stars in the sky would not be enough to count the ways I love you. Or grains of sand on the beach, even if you split every grain in half.

They kept the TV off and never looked at a newspaper. Didn’t read email or download cables to check on. Nothing existed, for two perfect weeks, except for them and their love. If there was a heaven, each moment could have been an eternity spent in perfection. Lying on the beach, facing each other, David laced his hand through Kris’s.

He didn’t have to say anything. Kris already knew.

Kris’s cell phone rang on the thirteenth day.

“Mr. Caldera.” Director Edwards called him, personally. “You did ahellof a job in Iraq. Onehellof a job. I have to say, I’m incredibly impressed with your analytical expertise, and your ability to target and neutralize two of our most wanted targets in the War on Terror. You’re the real deal, Mr. Caldera. The president wanted me to pass along his personal thanks to you, and to tell you he’s incredibly impressed. And proud.Veryproud.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I have to say… I’m also impressed by the moral stance you took early on with the detainee program. We’re cleaning that program up now. Mistakes were made, but they won’t be again. Not on my watch.”

He didn’t know what to say.

Director Edwards sighed. Kris heard leather creak over the line, like Edwards was in his office, sitting back at his desk. “Kris, the reason I’m calling is that I want to talk to you about your future. I realize that you may have a lot of opportunities coming your way soon. But I want you to stay. And, more than that, I want you back on the hunt for Bin Laden. In Afghanistan. Yourcountryneeds you, Mr. Caldera. Theworldneeds you. What do you say?”

Never, in the history of ever, in his whole life, had he imagined the director of the CIA would tell him he was impressive. That he was amazing. A hero, even.

That the president thought he was something special.

That was a world that didn’t exist for him, he’d thought. Sissy gays and men with too much attitude didn’t get noticed like that. They got noticed for their clothes or their voice or the way that straight people always made a spectacle out of their existence. They got noticed for being bothersome, or outside the norm.

He cried when he hung up, chest-wracking sobs as he buried his face in David’s hip. For a moment, he wanted to call his papi, scream in blistering Spanish at him, throw the president’s praise in his face.Ididbecome something, you son of a bitch. Other people see me. Why could you never?

The impulse faded as soon as it had sparked. He’d given up on his papi when he was sixteen. Instead of a father’s approval, he sought the approval of dozens of lovers, mixed with college professors and the thrill of proving people wrong. How that led to the CIA, and then to the president being proud of him…

Dan’s voice came back to him, replaying a night years and years before in Pakistan, drinking cheap white wine on the roof.You blew the door open, Kris. You blew the door for all us gays open.

Where was Dan now? He’d lost track of everyone and everything while he and David were mired in Iraq. For two years, it had been as if nothing else existed outside Iraq’s borders, that the rest of the world was some far-off place, totally removed from the horrors of the day to day.

“What are you going to do?” David stroked his back, broad, rough palms sliding over his smooth skin. “Do you want to stay?”

I have to stay, he’d said once to David, in an abandoned embassy in a ravaged country on the other side of the world. They’d been younger, and the war had only just begun.I have to stay and make sure this never happens again. He’d been so idealistic, so certain that he was where all the failures had originated, that he’d been the weakest link in the chain of American national security.