Page 169 of Whisper

Fury roared, racing through him. “Don’t you dare speak his name!” he hissed. “Don’t you fucking dare! Not after ignoring him! Ignoring his memory!”

“Kris—”

“You’re afuckingcoward, George! You used me when you needed me for your career! Used us! And then you threw us away! You used us and you used us and then you abandoned us! You’re a fucking coward!” He was bellowing now, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“You’re right,” George said. His voice wavered. “You’re fucking right, Kris. I just couldn’t—”

“You are a fucking monster!”

“I couldn’t face you! I couldn’t look you in the eyes! Goddamnit, Kris, Isentyou there!Iwas the one who convinced the director that you were theonly onewho could get Bin Laden. Thatyouwere the one we needed at Camp Carson.Ifucking sent you, and him, there!”

He felt like a plane plunging to earth. Like a passenger on September 11 facing the end. The air rushed out of him. He clung to the carpet.

“You never liked me. You never—”

“I respected the hell out of you. I knew you were the sharpest mind we had in CT.”

“You threw me out of CT.”

On TV, the president was thanking the nation, reminding them of their history. The pursuit of prosperity and equality for all. The words rang hollow in Kris’s empty, dead heart, constricted around the memories of David being ripped from him, in the end. There’d been no equality for him and David, never.

George’s voice wavered again. “I’m sorry, Kris. I’m sorry for everything. You didn’t deserve what happened to you. It was my fault—” His voice choked, died. He sniffed and blew out a rush of air that scratched over the line.

“The part where you didn’t call? Where you didn’t do anything, not one single thing, to help me? That’s your fault. You know, once, I thought we were almost friends.”

George took it, his cutting hatred. He stayed silent.

“I didn’t deserve to get all the blame for what happened. I didn’t deserve to be thrown out in the cold. I didn’t deserve to lose my husband, the love of my life. I didn’t deserve how the CIA treated us, after. You ripped everything, absolutely everything, away from me. You never let me say goodbye to my husband. To my husband, George. You knew, you knew how much we loved each other, and you let them take David away from me in Afghanistan. Did you want to make it hurt? Did you want me to suffer?”

Another snuffle, over the line. It sounded like George was crying. There were voices in the background. The TV had cut away from the president, back to gobsmacked talking heads on CNN, commentators who didn’t know what to say, how to frame the announcement. Kris heard someone call to George.

“You have to go. You’re the big man at the White House now. Deputy director of the CIA. Such an important job. Do you ever think about the backs you stepped on to get there? How many times we bailed your ass out of a jam? Do you ever think about my dead husband?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Good.” He was vicious. He wanted George to hurt, even a quarter of what he felt, every day. “Good. Think about him every fucking day.”

“I’m sorry, Kris. I just hope this helps, somehow. Closure, maybe…” George sighed. “I spent an hour in my office after it was done. Just… empty. I don’t know what to feel about this.”

“You should feel ashamed.”

“I do,” George whispered. “About you.”

Someone called to George again. It sounded vaguely like the president.

“Go. Go save the fucking world, or whatever it is you do in CT now. Don’t call me again, George. I have no use for your sorrys. Your wasted guilt.”

“Kris—”

He hung up. He didn’t want to hear another apology. He couldn’t take it. Not a single one. He wasn’t going to absolve George, save him from his bad decisions. Not this time.

In his unit, he had a single picture of David, his official Army photo from his last year in Special Forces. The David he’d met, the David he’d fallen in love with. David before a thousand souls weighed heavy on them both, and when they spent the best years of their love working for others, for governments and bureaucrats who didn’t care, in the end, at all about them.

What if they had just run off into the sunset? What if they had been selfish? Why had the burden of security, of saving the world, landed on their shoulders?

He held the frame, traced David’s stern expression. In the back of his closet, David’s Army uniform still hung in a garment bag. David had told him once he wanted to be buried in it.

But no one had asked Kris what David’s last wishes were.