Page 218 of Whisper

“Jesus Christ…”

“We made our way over the border, back into Afghanistan. To Kandahar City.”

“Kandahar City? You were two miles from a NATO base. You could have come home anytime.”

“I had—have—a son.”

Kris whipped his head around, staring at Dawood, wide-eyed. His jaw clenched, his teeth scraping together. “You said there was no one else!”

“Behroze’s family was killed in the bombing. I took him in. Cared for him, like I needed after I lost my father.”

Kris strode ahead, leaving Dawood behind in the pine needles and the silence.

Dawood chased after him. “What else could I do? I was looking in the mirror of the darkest, most terrible parts of my life! I saw a boy who wasme, brokenhearted, broken in his soul! What would you have had me do, Kris? Tell me, what you would have had me do!”

“I don’t know!” Kris shrieked, whirling. “But you could have at least told me you were alive! And we could have figured it out together!”

“I thought I was on Allah’s path,” Dawood breathed. “And at the end of the path… wasyou.”

Kris shook his head. Stared over Dawood’s shoulder, at the sunlight winking through the trees. “So you raised a son in Kandahar City. A hotbed of jihadism and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Did you fight for them?”

“I was one of their imams.”

“JesusfuckingChrist.” Kris buried his head in his palms. “Are you shitting me?”

“You have no idea what it’s like.” Dawood’s voice trembled. “Burying your friends. Burying children you helped care for. Digging bodies out of the rubble of houses and farms that moments ago were standing. You can’t see the drones coming. You can’t hide from them. You can’t tell when or where death will come, so you just live with knowing every single moment can be your last.” He breathed hard, his fists clenching. “Did you know the kids there, they talk about the drones like they’re the Hand of Shaytan? Like Shaytan lives in the sky and reaches out, murdering whomever he feels. How can a child know the difference between their loving father and an al-Qaeda fighter? When the father has been by the child’s side their entire life, playing soccer and eating dinner together? When the boy’s father is everything to him?”

“They’re the enemy. They want to kill us. They do kill us.”

“And we kill them.Yallah, we arevery,verygood at killing Arabs and Muslims all over the world. We’ve made it an art form. A disgusting, hideous art form. There’s so much death, Kris. I am exhausted of death. Of seeing everyone I know dying. Of praying the prayers of the dead, washing corpses and shrouding them and burying someone I know, someone I love, every single day!”

“We’re fucking tired of it here, too!” Kris hissed. “Five CIA officers in the past year have been killed in Afghanistan! Five! And almost a hundred members of the military! Do you have any sympathy for them?”

“My soul aches for everyone.” Dawood reached out. “Didn’t yours, once? You saw this pain, once. Muslim pain.”

“That was before they took you from me.”

Before Dawood had been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.

No, before Dawood had been kidnapped, tortured, and dumped on a mountain.

Before Dawood had chosenthemoverKris.

Dawood dropped his hand. He kept talking. “Two years ago, an al-Qaeda fighter came to Kandahar City. He’d been Al Jabal’s friend. His best friend. The only one Al Jabal ever told about leaving me with his father in the mountains.”

“What’s this jihadi’s name?”

Dawood stayed quiet.

Kris looked away, squinting. Just where were Dawood’s loyalties? What was he giving up, and what was he keeping quiet?

“He said he’d been looking for me. That he’d been looking for the CIA spy Al Jabal had been keeping to execute later. To make an example of him, finally. I told him that man was dead and gone. He didn’t exist anymore. But he knew who I was. And he wanted me to help their fight, as a sign of loyalty.”

“You didn’t, did you? You did not take up arms against the United States…”

“No. I never have. He wanted information. He wanted to corroborate what he was being told by a CIA officer who was passing intelligence to him.”

“The supposed mole?”