Page 210 of Whisper

It was evening in Yemen. His brothers would be in the middle of their isha prayer. He’d wait, for a moment, to call.

His mind spun on, possibilities and dreams colliding with reality. Was thereanyway—

The sands of his life kept tumbling, kept pouring in on him.

You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.

This was always his fate.

But, he had a couple of days, still.

A few more days to watch, at least. Gaze upon Kris, the moon in his darkness, the reflection of all the light in the world, trying to shine into his soul.

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

September 9

1610 hours

Kris existed in limbo, somewhere between ‘unauthorized personnel’ and ‘jailbird’. Dan got him a visitor’s badge for the CIA and escorted him to one of the secured interview rooms outside of CTC. For the umpteenth time in his career, he was on the outs. Again.

“All right.” Dan tried to smile across the table at him. It didn’t reach his eyes. Pain hovered there, a knife that went through Kris’s chest. “Let’s see what we can put together.” He slid a cup of coffee to Kris. “Caramel macchiato, sugar-free.”

Just the way he liked it. “Thanks.”

Dan flipped open a stack of folders he’d brought. Surveillance images from the bar where Dawood had first ambushed Kris. The camera pointed at Kris in the corner. Pure, perfect shock shaped his face. His hand was outstretched, like he was holding a Martini, but nothing was there. He’d already dropped his Cosmo.

From that angle, the camera had only captured the back of Dawood. But it was enough for Kris’s heart to race, for his stomach to clench.

Dan spread three photos across the table. Two from the bar: the one of Kris, and one of Dawood fleeing, a shot of his face as he’d pushed out of the front door. The third was a photo from Kris’s complex, a shot of Dawood entering the stairwell, looking up, about to make the climb to Kris’s floor.

A thousand emotions clamored inside Kris, rocked his soul. His heart was exhausted, but his senses were tuned too high, red alert blaring through his subconscious. The world tilted over like a cartwheel, like he was falling, like he was being thrown through the air, collateral from some explosion he hadn’t seen.

Dan’s fingers grazed the back of his hand. “I know this is difficult for you.”

“For you, too.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“Is it his?” Kris jerked his chin to the photos of his not-dead husband.

“That’s what we need to talk about. I think we should look at this from a new angle. If Dawood Haddad were any other person of interest, what would we do?”

“A full workup. Analyze his background, his profile. Any possibility of radicalization and his propensity toward violence. Retrace his steps, get inside his mind. Understand his life, his motivations.”

Dan nodded. “Let’s do it. Let’s just go over the facts.”

They started with Dawood’s childhood, his home in Benghazi. Dan pulled immigration records, Dawood’s mother’s history. “She’s American, but she converted to Islam and went to Libya, married Abu Dawood Haddad, and then stayed after the revolution that brought Qaddafi to power.”

“They were middle class, probably on the upper end. She had money of her own. His father was an imam.” Kris closed his eyes, the memories of Dawood’s confession of his father’s fate mixing with the sands of Iraq and the scent of blood and stink of terror coming back. “His father was murdered by Qaddafi. He was made to watch.”

“Jesus…” Dan wouldn’t look at Kris. He scribbled notes down, frowning.

Kris filled out what he could. Dawood’s flight to Egypt, then America, with his mother. His rejection of Islam, of his Arabness, of everything that he was. His drive to the military, trying to fit in somewhere, trying to find a new family, a new brotherhood. Trying to find a home.

How September 11 had rocked his soul, started the first chink in the dam he’d built within him. Running from his past had turned into a U-turn, running into his future. Into facing down Islamic radicalism, forces of hatred, evil, and torture. How every step of their lives seemed to mirror something of his past, and he’d circled a darkness deep inside himself that Kris had tried to save him from.