Page 155 of Whisper

He had. Half his soul had just been ripped out of him.

Wherever you are, be happy. Be with your father. Find the peace you longed for in this world.I’m so sorry you met me. I’m sorry you loved me. I’m sorry I killed you.

“Caldera?” Somewhere, far away, someone was trying to speak to him. He heard the voice like it was coming from a dream, warbling and distant, like a megaphone underwater.

It had been four days since he’d seen through the smoke. Four days since the mosque had blown as the team was trying to escape, a remote detonator set off by someone on the outside. The drones hadn’t seen any cars speeding away from the village. Someone nearby, someone watching.

The rubble had buried the team for three hours, until a second QRF team dispatched from the base was able to dig through and extract the soldiers. Four were seriously injured. The Pakistanis were outraged, telling the world of the Americans’ violation of their borders and of the destruction of the mosque. No matter how many times they said it had been blown by al-Qaeda, the public believed the Americans had detonated it. Protests raged in front of the US Embassies in Islamabad and Kabul.

The last man the team had shot inside the mosque, in the room with the burning car, was a young man the locals had identified as Farrohk. He’d been shot twenty-one times, destroying a videotape he’d carried in his jacket, over his chest. The mosque falling down on him had crushed the tape further, destroying most of it. Portions were recovered, inches of film that could be restored and viewed.

David’s trial. His crimes against Islam, against Allah, read aloud by Al Jabal.

All in all, the recovered tape was a little under two minutes, but it was two minutes of the end of David’s life.

Kris watched it and puked, wailed.

Farrohk was probably supposed to take the video to be uploaded to the internet. He was probably supposed to escape, the analysts said. But since he hadn’t, and the Americans had recovered it, the tape would never see the light of day. David’s last moments wouldn’t be broadcast for all to see, for some to gloat over. His memory, at least, would find peace.

There would be no peace for Kris. Never, ever again.

“Caldera?” Again, the voice.

Ryan. Ryan was trying to talk to him. Kris focused, trying to draw back to the world. It was like plunging into a river, diving headlong from a cliff. Reality rushed at him, ice-cold and shocking.

Everythingwas real.Everythinghe feared was right there.

David wasgone.

“Kris…” Ryan sighed and scrubbed both hands over his face. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

He’d been in Kabul for three days. Ryan had dragged him back to the CIA station and put him in the embassy hospital. After a day, he was discharged and put in embassy quarters. He’d been left, abandoned, since. Until Ryan’s summons to the CIA station, and to the station chief’s office.

Ryan spoke stiffly, chewing on his words. “I have to formally censure you for this. This… entire thing,” he sighed. “The Hamid operation has blown up in our faces. Congress has already started an inquiry. The director has launched his own internal investigation. Everything is pointing one direction.” He stared.

“It’s all my fault,” Kris breathed. “All of it.”

“They’re going to focus on the planning, the prep. How much you vetted Hamid. How much you knew and didn’t know, and how much you assumed.”

“You were there, Ryan,” Kris breathed. “We knew next to nothing.”

Ryan looked away.

“We all wanted it so badly,” he whispered again. “We were starving for this. Desperate for it to work. Everyone was. Not just me.”

David’s fears, his words of caution, came back to Kris.You were right. You were always right.

“I am relieving you of your command,” Ryan choked out. “And you’re being removed from the counterterrorism division. Immediately.”

“What?” Counterterrorism was everything he’d ever done. Everything he knew. He and David had dedicated their lives to the fight. David had been taken from him by the men he hunted. No, he had to stay. He had to continue the fight. Avenge David. At the end of the day, what else did he have left?

There was nothing else. No hope, no home, no love. His heart was gone, shredded, turned in on itself until it was a black hole. All he had left was vengeance. “CT is my life. It’s everything I do, everything I know!”

“Everything you know got fourteen people killed, and more seriously injured.”

He flinched. Gritted his teeth. “Fire me then.” Maybe he’d do it himself. Disappear into the wilds like a bandit of old, like the Punisher, like an action hero or a comic book hero. Or he’d join a gun slinging contractor, blood for hire, and take out his rage through licensed murder.

Or he’d go home and eat a bullet, sitting on the porch that was David’s dream.