Page 18 of Whisper

“Are you?”

Jim handed him a cup of coffee, then held his own out for a toast. “Here’s to the last cup of Starbucks.”

The rest of the drive to Langley was silent. Fog shrouded the city, heavy with dew in the early-morning hours. Jim’s headlights got lost in the gloom. Kris watched the yellow beams fall apart in the gray haze. It looked like smoke, like he was in the center of a firestorm. His heart sped up, beats pounding. He smelled fire, tasted ash. Heard the screams again. Was this what so many people had seen that morning, their last vision of the world? Dust and ash, forever?Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

He leaned back, resting the side of his head on the window, and counted the minutes until they arrived.

Jim badged into the front gate and drove out to the long-term parking structure. He poured a bottle of fuel stabilizer into his tank. “Hope this car is still here when I get back. God knows how long we’ll be gone.”

They grabbed their rucks, Kris’s shoulders screaming, his back aching. He forced his expression neutral, hiding the pain, the way it felt like his spine was compressing down to a single inch. He didn’t speak as they made their way across three parking lots of people just starting to arrive. The newcomers didn’t seem to care about two men hiking toward headquarters, looking like they were going off to war. Then again, it was the CIA. Weird things happened every day. And everyone knew the CIA was on the move, mobilizing to respond to the attacks.

The rest of the team was waiting with their gear and the crates that had lined the hallways and conference room for days.

In minutes, the truck rumbling across the parking lot would ferry the gear and crates, and the bulk of the team, to Dover Air Force Base, where they’d fly out to Germany that afternoon. Kris and George were taking a later flight from Dulles, rendezvousing with everyone before transferring to Tashkent to meet the Special Forces team.

Reality was starting to set in. The team joked loudly, trying to bleed out the adrenaline, fill up the quiet spaces that hung over their heads.

Maybe they’d never return. Maybe they’d never set foot in Langley again. Kris caught Ryan eyeballing him, his dark eyes watching from beneath the brim of his ball cap.

“Let’s load up!” Ryan slapped the side of the truck when it braked. Hot exhaust fumes poured over the team. They moved fast, hauling the heavy crates into the back. Their gear followed. Kris loaded his ruck, grunting to heft it the final foot. Ryan grabbed it from him with one hand and swung it the rest of the way.

When everything was loaded, Ryan, Phillip, Derek, and Jim hopped aboard.

“We’ll see you in Germany.” George shook Ryan’s hand. “Safe travels.”

The truck rumbled away. Kris tried to swallow.

An hour later, he and George countersigned for a release of $5 million. The money was packaged in twenty-dollar and hundred-dollar bills, all used. There were bundles of $10,000, and bundles of those to make $100,000. Everything was loaded into two black duffels. The CIA accountant glared at them both. “You both will be the signatories for this cash. Keep track of every expenditure. Get receipts.”

Kris snorted. George smiled. He took one of the duffels and gave the second to Kris. They’d never be able to get receipts from the Shura Nazar. The concept didn’t even exist in Afghanistan.

Their last stop before leaving was to see Clint Williams.

Even though Kris was the least experienced, he was indispensable to the mission. His connections with the Shura Nazar, his language abilities, his familiarity with the culture, the way he’d become the Afghanistan expert in the CIA—if there was anyone else, literally anyone else who could go instead of him, Kris knew George would take them instead. But Kris was the man who had what George, and the CIA, needed for this mission. Which, despite Ryan’s Special Forces experience and the team’s experience in the field and in hostile situations, made Kris almost the most valuable man.

He could feel George’s resentment, burning like a heat wave crossing the desert, as they sat in Williams’s office.

“Gentleman,” Williams said. He folded his hands. “The president has asked me to give you your final orders. You already know you are to convince the Shura Nazar to work with the CIA and the United States military and to accept US forces into the Panjshir Valley. Wewillbe utilizing their territory as a base of operations for our war against the Taliban and against Bin Laden. They need to be on our side.”

Kris shifted. George leaned forward, nodding.

Moving high speed into Afghanistan, coming on full throttle with demands to the Shura Nazar would be just about the worst way they could possibly approach building an alliance. In a culture built on reputation, on saving face, the US would be perceived as an invader and an interloper. They had to have a softer touch. They had to become allies. Friends. They couldn’t go off like a misfired firework, or the entire mission would blow up in their faces.

“There’s one more thing you gentlemen need to take care of. The president has ordered your team to do anything and everything you can to find Osama Bin Laden, and his senior leadership, and to kill them.”

Silence. Kris froze. Beside him, he saw George go still, his spine stiffening. Kill orders, in the history of the CIA, were rare. Far rarer than the public believed. Rare enough that Kris knew it was George’s first. His first, too.

“Bin Laden can’t be captured. He can’t be tried here in the US. He sure as hell can’t be tried in some Sharia court in a Muslim country. Any al-Qaeda leader would turn into a symbol, a rallying point for every terrorist who hates America. No, the president wants Bin Ladendead. And I want to ship Bin Laden’s head to the president in a box of dry ice. I told him you could deliver.”

George blinked. Kris’s gaze slid sideways.What now, fearless leader?

“Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent.” Williams stood, buttoning his suit jacket. He shook George’s hand, then Kris’s. “You men have your work cut out for you. You’d better get going.”

George and Kris shared a long look as they walked out, hauling duffels filled with $5 million in cash and heading to the farthest spot on the planet.