Page 158 of Whisper

David hit the ground. He landed on his face, on his broken ribs, his shattered leg. He gasped, inhaling dust and frigid, thin air. He was in the mountains again. He could taste the snow, the alpine air.

“Hide him,” Al Jabal hissed. “Hide him for me, Baba. I have to go.”

“Habibi, what have you done?Wallah, this is not right!Astaghfirullah!”

“He is my hidden treasure, Baba. But hemustbe a secret, for now. I will be back for him. I will use him to end this war. Get rid of the Americans, the crusaders, for good!”

“Habibi, no—”

“The bees do not come here, Baba. Keep him hidden. Keep him safe! I will return.” Al Jabal spat on the back of David’s head. “Treat him like the dog he is.”

David watched through his swollen eye as Al Jabal ran back to the open driver’s door and slid into the car. The old man’s voice came closer, and two wrinkled bare feet appeared before David. He tried to roll away, flinching.

“Habibi!” Al Jabal’s father called. “Come back here! Stay at home! Do not return to the fighting!”

“Fighting is all we have left, Baba.” A car door slammed. The engine sputtered and turned over, shuddered, and finally started. Tires spun. Dirt and a thousand tiny rocks slammed into David’s face.

Al Jabal drove off, squealing tires and creaking shocks bouncing over the rutted goat trail sloping and winding its way down the mountain.

He tried to move. Tried to put one palm on the ground and push himself up. He collapsed, a scream dying on his lips as he pressed his face into the dirt. His arm, his ribs, his bones, felt like they were being ripped from his body, like his skeleton had been pulled apart beneath his skin.

Al Jabal’s father crouched beside him. He rested a gnarled hand on David’s shoulder and brushed his son’s spit from David’s hair. “As-salaam-alaikum,” the old man whispered.

“Let me die,” David breathed. He spoke in Arabic, his first language. He repeated his plea in Pashto. “Let me die.In shaa Allah. Please.”

“In shaa Allah, you will not die.” The old man got his arms under David and pulled him up. Got him sitting, even though David screamed and gritted his teeth, tears flowing from his eyes. “Please!” he whimpered. “Please, let me die...”

Roughened hands cupped his face, and leathery thumbs stroked away his tears. “Bismillah, do not presume to know Allah’s plan for you, or for the world. Your death will come when Allah decides. He has decided to bring you to my home, and as for me, I will not allow another to suffer. I will care for you, brother.Alhamdulillah.”

David shook his head. More tears fell, rivers streaming from his eyes. He didn’t want kindness, especially not from Al Jabal’s father. The father of the man who’d kidnapped him, tortured him. Had planned the deaths of his fellow officers. Was Kris even alive? He’d trade his life for Kris’s, had begged Allah to trade. Why was he still breathing?

Was the pain he felt only physical? Or was this what it felt like when a soul was ripped in two? Was this what his mama had felt that night, watching the television in Libya and seeing her husband climb a rickety ladder to a noose?

Al Jabal’s father started reciting a hadith. “Whoever removes grief from a believer, Allah will remove from him one of the griefs of the Day of Judgment. Whoever cares for those in need, Allah will care for them in this world and the next. Whosoever protects a Muslim, Allah will protect him in this world and the next.”

He laid David’s arms over his shoulders and helped him stand, bearing David’s weight when David cried out, unable to walk. His leg, and possibly his pelvis, was shattered. He leaned into the old man’s surprisingly strong shoulders, resting his filthy forehead against his neck. For the first time, he could see more than the dirt or the inside of a car trunk.

Untouched land spread for miles and miles, the slopes of mountains unblemished by the scars of war, bomb craters from drone strikes or missiles or artillery. Villages dotted the tableau, lazy coils of smoke rising from thatched roofs beside tilled fields. Snow was creeping down from the ridgeline, already covering some of the villages, parts of the dirt trails that wound over and through the mountains. This was a corner of the world untouched by the modern world, unravaged by war. Where did such a place exist? Where on the planet was he?

“I will bring you into my home,” the older man said. “It is just there, beyond the fields. You will be safe with me.In shaa Allah, you will.”

Chapter 24

Andrews Air Force Base

Maryland

January 2009

It should be raining. It should be thundering, lightning rending the sky, the world splitting in two. The world should end, like Kris’s world had ended.

But the sun was shining and the sky was a perfect blue, a crystal blue. Not a cloud marred its flawlessness. He resented the sun on his skin. The crisp freshness to the air. Why did the earth continue to spin now that David was gone?

Shouldn’t his death make an impact in the world? Shouldn’t the planet mourn? Where was the rain, the snow, the frozen tears from the sky?

He’d been the only living passenger on the CIA’s Learjet back from Islamabad to DC. There’d been no fanfare, no send-off. He had two duffels with him, the totality of his and David’s belongings in Afghanistan.

There were four flag-draped coffins in the belly of the jet.