Page 168 of Whisper

In the back, the very back, stuffed out of sight, were two old duffels from Afghanistan.

He pulled out David’s clothes, three years, six months and twenty-eight days old. They still smelled like him, like Afghanistan. Like woodsmoke and sweat, like David and spice. Like hazy sunshine and Virginia woods, and happiness that had nearly burst him apart. How was it possible to be that happy, he’d thought. How was it possible to love someonethismuch?

He buried his face in David’s shirt, trying to fling himself back in time, trying to will the world to stop turning, to reverse course, to return to that morning. He’d do everything different, everything.

Hours later, he huddled with David’s old clothes and his duffel in front of his couch, watching the television. Nothing had happened. CNN was still reporting the daily news as talking heads bantered back and forth over domestic policy. David’s clothes shrouded him, and he’d buried his nose in the fabric of David’s old workout shirt. He held his phone like it was a lifeline, his only connection to a lifeboat and he was about to drown.

Breaking Newsflashed across the screen. News anchors fumbled, flabbergasted. The president was about to address the nation. They had moments, and they blubbered, cut to the White House feed.

The president strode down the entrance hall on a red carpet. He stopped at a podium and stared into the camera. “Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world, the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

The rest of the president’s speech spun away, each word, each syllable warbling and stretching until it snapped.

Bin Laden, dead.

David, you should be here. You should see this. This is what you wanted.

He kept inhaling, dragging David’s scent in through his nose, over and over.

It felt like an ending. This was where they’d started. This was how they’d met. Hunting Bin Laden, chasing him across Afghanistan.

Now, Bin Laden was dead.

And so was David.

Everythingdied in Afghanistan, in Pakistan. In the shadowlands of the mountains, at the ends of the earth. Afghanistan, Pakistan, the tribal regions. They were just lines on a map. The earth in those countries was the same as the earth everywhere else. There wasn’t any reason to believe they were haunted, that those spaces on the planet were different, somehow, than all the rest.

Except, they were. Afghanistan was the graveyard of empires, the mausoleum to millennia of men who had the hubris to think they were capable of defeating the land. The soil was made of bones, and only death bloomed. The mountains were the home of ghosts, ghosts that would always remain. The haze over Afghanistan wasn’t just dust. It was the remnants of a million lives lost within those dark lines on a map.

Part of David was there, and always would be.

And now, so was Bin Laden.

His phone rang, again. He answered, never taking his eyes off the screen. The president was talking about how he’d directed the CIA to make finding Bin Laden their top priority. That had been him. He’d been given that mission. He’d been in charge of the hunt, in a remote base on the edge of the world.

“Hello?” His voice was hollow. Even to himself, he didn’t sound human. He sounded like something that had died and come back from the grave, but was missing something integral.

It was George. “Are you watching?”

The president spoke, echoing eerily over the line. He could hear the president speaking somewhere near George and over his television, an echo of a delay. “As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not—and never will be—at war with Islam. I've made clear, just as the president did shortly after September eleventh, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al-Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

“That’s what David thought. What he believed. What the president just said.”

“The guys, they did it. They got him.”

“Did they give him an extra for David?”

“They gave himtenextra.”

“Show me,” he growled. “I have to see.”

George hesitated. “Hold on.”

A moment later his cell vibrated. An incoming picture message.

Bin Laden, dead. Shot through the head. More rounds in his chest. Dead, undeniably, unequivocally, dead.

George spoke again, his voice faint through the phone’s speaker. “For David. And for everyone.”