Page 239 of Whisper

All for an electric ghost and a man who had never existed in the world.

Dan heaved the shrapnel-stuffed body into the rear of the SUV. Noam had packed the vehicle with explosives, built to ISIS specifications, using ISIS blueprints. He’d wiped his own fingerprints, had meticulously spent hours pressing their corpse’s fingers on each block of plastique, each wire. In the end, only fragments and ash would remain, scattered traces of DNA, but the hint of one partial print would be all they needed.

One dead ISIS member, one SUV packed with explosives, and Haddad, detonating the bomb on the anniversary of September 11.

There was no better start to the end of days.

“I’ll pack up.” Noam shut the trunk. “Haddad and I will head to the staging point. What are you going to do with Caldera?”

“I’ll keep him with me. He’s our insurance. If Haddad balks in any way, call me. I’ll send video of Kris eating a bullet to get him back on track.”

Noam snorted. “You’dkillhim? You?” Noam stared at him, the edges of his gaze pitch black, as if his eyes were sucking in the moonlight, the starlight, taking the light out of the world.

Dan swallowed. “Is there anything you wouldn’t give for this?”

Noam had spent nine months undercover inside ISIS ranks, had been a part of the migration from Syria to Iraq, the first months of the war. He’d seen the butchery, the bloodlust, the calamity unleashed upon the world. When Dan had met him in Tel Aviv, Noam had been hovering on the edge of eating a bullet or ten, one shot of vodka way from ending it all. He’d dreamed in screams and the roar of gunfire, in crimson blood and bodies burned alive.

He’d seen the future, the end times, the way the world would go if they didn’t act. If they didn’t right this wrong,now, put down those animals once and for all. All of them. Every last one.

Their plan had been born then, in whispers of rage, in drunken bloodlust, in sweat-and-sex-covered delirium, a hundred nights of perfecting their shared wrath, their bitter fury.

And now they were here.

“Haddad still has something to do.” Dan tore out a page of the SUV’s manual from the glove compartment and stalked back into the warehouse.

Haddad hovered over Kris, his lips pressed to Kris’s temple, tears falling like rain on Kris’s smooth skin. “I love you,” he whispered. “Forgive me,ya rouhi. Forgive me my love for you.”

“Get the fuck off him!” Dan kicked Haddad, the flat of his foot slamming into Haddad’s face. Bones crunched in the darkness, Haddad’s nose, his cheek, and he went flying, landing on his cuffed hands in a skid across the ground. “He’s not yours anymore.”

Haddad didn’t move. He lay on the ground, his chest shuddering, face to the dirt.

Dan tossed the torn page and a pen on the ground in front of him. He pulled out his handcuff keys. “Time to write your confession.”

Chapter 34

Deanwood

Washington DC

September 11

0043 hours

“There’s no one here.” Ryan cursed, his bloodshot eyes scanning the empty warehouse. Red-and-blues flashed, lighting up the dark corners, the empty spaces of the abandoned industrial dump. “Whoever was here is long fucking gone.”

“We found Dan’s personal vehicle two blocks away.” George swallowed back his bile, his rising vomit. “It’s what Kris was driving. And the FBI is lifting tire tracks from an unknown vehicle that was parked by the side doors now. Looks like an SUV.”

“There are amillionSUVs in DC.” Ryan’s face pinched, his emotions battling his control. “Has Dan answered any of your calls?”

“His phone is off. He’s pulled the battery. We can’t get a location trace.”

Ryan spun away, both hands over his face, his eyes squeezed closed. George watched him pace, watched his shoulders tremble.

Techs swarmed over the warehouse, FBI agents looking in every crack and crevice with their flashlights, CIA analysts shadowing their moves, working in concert with one another. George and Ryan stood with the FBI deputy director, managing the hunt that had just shifted, twisted from hunting for a terrorist to hunting one of their own.

What would a CIA officer on the run do? Where would he go? They were staring their own playbook in the face, trying to track an enemy that knew all of their moves, that could play everyone against each other. Who knew their defenses better than even they did.

If there was anyone who could pull off a September 11-style terror attack and pin the blame on someone else, it was Dan.