Page 175 of Whisper

David wasdead. David wasgone. And there wasn’t anything after this life, nothing waiting for him, for them. David, everything he was, everything they had, wasgone.

Dan had walked into his bedroom with an omelet and mimosas and had found Kris sobbing.

“I’m not ready,” Kris had finally whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready.”

Dan had dumped the omelet in the trash and driven Kris home in silence. Anguish, tinged with anger, had poured off him, nearly drowning Kris.

He hadn’t been ready to love again. He hadn’t been ready to care for Dan, or anyone. He hadn’t been ready to try and resurrect his heart, a heart that wasn’t even inside him anymore.

His heart was six feet deep in Arlington.

No, his heart was in the back of a burned-out sedan in Afghanistan.

His heart was nothing but a pile of ash.

But, the easiest way to get over someone was to get under someone else, or so the saying went.

Hecouldn’tfall for Dan. But hecouldfuck his way through DC and feel nothing at all.

And he did.

CTC

Langley, Virginia

September 7

1430 hours

“Hey.” Kris leaned into Dan’s office, smiling. “I made it back in one piece.”

Dan was elbows-deep in a red-bordered intelligence file, scouring eyes-only intercepts and source intelligence. He snapped the thick file closed as he looked up. Shock, and joy, broke over his face. “Hey you,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

Kris shrugged. He padded inside Dan’s office and collapsed in one of the dark leather club chairs. Dan had done well in his career, surging where Kris had faltered, had failed. He’d become head of CTC. His glass-walled office overlooked the operations bay, the workstations and monitors they had once worked at together, so many, many years ago.

Why was he here, though? Why come see Dan, put that glowing smile on Dan’s face? Dan knew his game. He knew exactly how Kris was. Some nights, it was Dan’s bed he ended up in after a few drinks, or a long week of hating everyone and everything at the CIA. Other times, months went by before he showed up at Dan’s door.

Sometimes, with someone else’s fingernail scratches still on his back.

Maybe it was Mike. Maybe his best friend finally finding the love of his life, finally settling down, was affecting him. He’d been happy like Mike, once. He’d had the house and the love. The joy and the laughter. The smiles over coffee in the morning, the warm body to curl into. He’d had it, and he’d loved it.

Maybe part of him wanted that again.

Kris propped his boots on the edge of Dan’s desk and crossed his ankles. “All quiet on the Western Front?”

“I wish.” Dan snorted. He jerked his chin to the folder he’d closed. “Something strange is rumbling out of Afghanistan. Pakistan. Yemen. Even Iraq.”

Kris’s mind still went sideways, like a radio channel tuned to static, whenever anyone mentioned Afghanistan. He blinked. “Similar chatter? From different locations?”

Dan rubbed his temples, frowning. “Yeah. Different al-Qaeda affiliates are starting to echo each other. They’re talking about someone coming.”

“Someone?” Kris’s eyebrows shot up.

“Mmhmm.”

“Think it’s Bin Laden’s kid? Is he starting to take the reins?”

Dan shrugged. He opened his mouth—