Page 145 of Whisper

They’d eaten breakfast before David had dressed and driven off. Kris kissed him through the driver’s window. “Be safe, my love,” Kris had whispered. “After this, we’re going home.”

“Home is where you are.” He’d blown a kiss as he drove off. The rest of the base had been humming, full preparations for Hamid’s arrival already underway. His job, in comparison, was simpler. Pick Hamid up. Drive him back.

Finally, at the border crossing, David spotted him.

Hamid was wrapped in thick robes, like David, against the Afghanistan winter. Snows were already on the mountains, and the Panjshir, far in the north, was frozen. Hamid picked his way through the crowd and slid into the back seat.

“As-salaam-alaikum,” David said, twisting around to get his first look at Hamid.

Hamid was exhausted, that much was obvious. Dirt clung to his robes, and his beard was disheveled. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes. His face was lean, far leaner than the photo Ahmad had shared from his case file. Two years of hard living in Pakistan could do that, though.

Hamid leaned back in the car and sighed. “Wa alaikum as-salaam,” he breathed. “Shukran.”

David passed him a soda and a bag of chips. “Please, eat. We won’t be long. But make yourself comfortable.”

Hamid accepted the chips and the soda with a smile. “Shukran, habibi,” he said, nodding.

The drive back to base was only thirty minutes, but David stretched it to an hour, taking switchbacks and parking on the side of the road to, ostensibly, check his tires or his radiator fluid. He watched for followers, observers, anyone trailing them. The road bled into and out of the mountains, along ridges and ravines. He passed donkeys and carts led by stubborn mules, refusing to walk another foot. He kept his eyes peeled, scanning the road and the ditches for new dirt or fresh rises in the mud, evidence of burying. The signs of an IED. He snaked into the dusty town that squatted between Camp Carson and the military base, Camp Seville.

All the while, Hamid crunched his chips in the back seat and stared out the window.

Farmland surrounded Camp Carson, fields that had been harvested and left fallow for winter. The irrigation ditches lining the field were low, the waters mostly mud and filled with blown trash from the village. As soon as he started down the straight dirt road that led to the main base gate, he flashed his headlights twice.

That was the signal. The Afghan guards at the base were to open the gates and leave their posts, head to the mess hall for tea and a break.

David watched the main gate rise and stay open.

He slowed as he neared and made his way through the twisting maze of concrete barriers and sandbags.

Ahead, he could see Kris, and Darren, and Ahmad. The analysts and interrogators, all standing in front of the command center, a double-wide cargo container converted into a state-of-the-art technical repository, but from the outside, looking like another nondescript, bland, meaningless building. The security team held their positions in a grid surrounding where he was to park the car. They were small dots at the end of a long stretch of gravel road, paralleling Camp Carson’s airfield.

Once we’re through, once we’ve got them, we can go home. Our part in this will be over. We’ve given our all. It’s time to go home. It’s time.

David kept his eyes on Kris, the love of his life. Home, and the promise of the rest of his days in Kris’s arms, safe and secure and wrapped up in love. Kris’s love was the closest he’d ever felt to the love of his father. Unconditional, all-consuming, all-encompassing love.

One more mission. One more task. And then they’d gohome.

When he was close enough, David saw Kris smile, his big, beaming smile, not his sly or snarky grin. The smile David saw most, or Kris only let slip when his emotions couldn’t be contained, couldn’t be suppressed. David grinned back.

The hardest part of the operation was over. Hamid was here.

For the first time, David actually believed it could really happen. They could get Bin Laden, or Zawahiri. They could end what they had begun together. They could go home, knowing they had finished what they’d promised they would.

David slowed, gravel crunching under his tires. The security team moved in slowly, weapons at the low and ready. He pulled to a stop, brakes on the ancient Afghan sedan squealing, metal shrieking against metal.

Behind him, the front gates were still up. The guards wouldn’t return until Hamid was safely inside the interrogation rooms off the command center.

“Driver, exit the vehicle,” Carl barked.

He slid out, leaving the driver’s door open, and walked away from the car. He wanted to go to Kris. Wanted to hold his hand. Wanted to be with him at this moment. The excitement, the rush that Kris must have felt for the past two weeks had finally hit him, too. Hamid fever.

This wasit.

But Carl had ordered him to stand twenty feet behind the car after exiting, and he headed to his position, keeping an eye on Hamid and the front gates.

Everything had gone perfectly, according to Kris’s plan.

“Sir, exit the vehicle, slowly,” Carl barked again, this time to Hamid. He reached for the back door of the sedan and opened it for Hamid.