Page 225 of Whisper

“Why did you bring him there? Why did you bring a possible al-Qaeda agent into my house?”

“I... was going to look up the al-Qaeda mission logs for him.”

Dan stilled. “Did you?”

“I looked them up. I didn’t give him anything, though. I pulled your gun and made him leave.”

“You let him go?”

Kris looked away. He nodded, once.

“Jesus Christ…” Dan closed his eyes. Seemed to try to center himself, pull himself together. “Okay. Let me run through this. We may have a mole in the CIA. You let an al-Qaeda agent into my home. Almost passed along critical Top Secret intelligence. And then you let the nation’s most wanted terrorist go. We believe there’s an attack being planned for tomorrow, and we don’t know anything about it.” He opened his eyes. Sighed. “But all I can think about is how to keep you out of jail. Damn it, Kris.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Were there any laws you didn’t break? Any you left that I could try to work with?”

Kris looked down.

“What did you find in the mission logs?”

“Nothing useful. The missions were all headed up by either you or Ryan or Wallace, or signed off by George. There wasn’t a pattern. Nothing at all that broke operational regulations. Nothing that screamedmole.”

“If there is a mole, whoever it was probably didn’t authorize the missions. They probably went into the logs after. Which means we have to inspect the mission access logs. See who looked at the intel, at the mission specs before they went south.”

“And we have to track that cell number, the one texting Dawood.”

Dan pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Ryan. I know you don’t trust him. But, Kris. Ido. Trust me, okay?”

“And if he is the mole?”

“If Ryan is the mole, then this phone call will turn the heat up. He’ll know we’re on to him. He’ll start making mistakes. Try to cover his tracks. Try to get out before the net closes around him. Because while he’s supposed to be looking up the number, I’ll be looking into the mission logs. See who pulled them, and when. If it is Ryan, we’ll know soon. One way or another.”

“If it is Ryan…” Kris’s voice cracked. “He’s already ordered the FBI to consider Dawood extremely dangerous. What if he orders the response teams to shoot on sight? What if he executes Dawood?”

“If Haddad is the only one who can corroborate this, then he probably will give that order. Or, he’ll make sure Haddad goes down in whatever he’s planning for tomorrow.” Dan stared. He licked his lips. “You believe Haddad?”

Kris exhaled. His breath, his body, trembled, again. “I don’t know what to believe,” he whispered. “If I believe Dawood told the truth, then I’m hoping someone has betrayed us. Someone at the heart of the CIA. Someone who knew Dawood was alive and who kept that secret from all of us. From me. But, if I believe he’s lying… Then he’s trying to play me, craft a conspiracy that he thinks I’ll buy. Why? To send us chasing after our own tails? Turn us against each other? Distract us while he works on his grand plan?”

“Give me the phone number,” Dan said softly. “We’ll know soon enough.”

Kris waited as Dan dialed Ryan’s number, as Dan pressed his lips together, waiting for the call to connect.

He could barely breathe. His throat was closing, his lungs refusing to fill. He was drowning, drowning in conspiracy, in potentiality, in possibilities of betrayal, each darker than the next.

“Ryan? It’s me.” Dan waited, staring at the pavement. “Look, we have a situation. I’ll come brief you in a few. But right now, I need you to run a search on a cell number for me, okay? It’s tied to Haddad. I’ll explain more in a bit.” He waited again, then recited the number Kris showed him. Kris had written the number on a sticky note as soon as Dawood had fled Dan’s house. His fingers rubbed over the square of paper, over and over. “We need to know who owns that phone. And where it is.” Dan listened for another moment, nodding along with whatever Ryan said. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

He stared at Kris as he hung up. “Kris, I don’t know what to say,” Dan said softly. “I don’t know what to think. What to believe.”

“I don’t either. If he’s still playing me, then I’ll know for sure the man I loved is dead. That there’s nothing left of him. But…” His voice went high and strained. “If there’s a one percent chance that what he’s saying is true…”

Dan grimaced, shaking his head at the ‘one percent doctrine’, the guiding philosophy of the War on Terror. That philosophy had been an impossible standard, a weight that had broken the CIA’s back. They could never cover all the possibilities, all the permutations. They’d never imagined September 11. They’d never imagined Hamid.

How could they have ever imagined this? A CIA officer helping al-Qaeda. The mole was either someone inside Langley or was Dawood himself.

But someone had broken. Someone had fallen. Someone had switched sides.

Was it his husband?