Page 247 of Whisper

One driving, clinging to the steering wheel.

One beside him, something in his hand, outstretched toward the driver, hidden beneath the dashboard.

The sun gleamed, winking off cars and the river. He couldn’t see, couldn’t make out—

Dawood.

Dawood sat in the driver’s seat, staring at Kris like his bedraggled, dirty ass was an angel sent from heaven, like he was the Prophet Muhammad come back to life, Jesus Christ resurrected. Like he was every dream Dawood had ever had, standing on the hood of a honking sedan in the middle of Arlington Memorial Bridge.

Kris raised his gun. Took aim. The wind shifted, blew his trench to the side.

I’ve come for you, my love. I willneverdoubt you again.

Dawood closed his eyes. Smiled, bruises on his face stretching.

Four gunshots split the air, cracking the DC morning.

Three bullets slammed into the Blazer’s windshield, pummeling Noam in his chest, one dead center through his throat. Blood arced against the windshield, the passenger window.

And one bullet slid sideways, from the gun concealed in Noam’s hand, through Dawood’s side. Kris watched Dawood double over, clutch the steering wheel, grit his teeth as he screamed.

“Dawood!”

He ran, jogging over cars and leaping from hood to hood. The horns had stopped. Drivers had their cell phones out, recording him, his wild sprint to Dawood. Sirens rose in the distance, from both sides of the bridge.

Good luck getting to them, through the gridlock.

It was just him. Only he could get to Dawood.

Through the cracked windshield he watched Dawood sit back, press one hand to his side. Cringe, before the sun obscured his view.

“Dawood!”

Dawood threw the Blazer into reverse. The SUV rammed the car behind it, flattening the front end, sending it crunching into two cars behind it. He roared forward, shoving three cars out of his way. Again, and again, until he had maneuvering room, until he was able to turn the SUV.

Aim it toward the walkway.

The edge of the bridge.

“No!” Kris bellowed. “No!No!”

Dawood honked, over and over, his fist pounding the horn as he crept forward, enough to get the message across. Pedestrians scattered, shrieking, racing out of the way.

“No! Dawood, no,stop!”

Dawood turned to Kris, only twenty feet away. Kris saw his battered and bruised face, his swollen eyes, his busted lip. Someone had beaten him.Dan.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Dawood was the hero, and he was supposed to live. There had to be something, anything they could do. Anything other thanthis.

“No!”

The Blazer roared. Jerked forward, and then barreled over the empty walkway, crunched through the old concrete barrier on the side of the bridge.

The SUV hung in midair, suspended like time was paused, like Kris had grabbed the hands of a clock and frozen the seconds, the moments that would bleed forward. Kris exhaled. Too slowly, he was moving too slowly, trapped in a nightmare, locked in a reality where he was always too slow, too late, too wrong.

The SUV tipped forward, the back end rolling over the front, tumbling as it careened toward the glassy surface of the Potomac.

Kris made it to the edge of the bridge in time to see the Blazer slam into the water’s surface, in time to see the nose and roof of the SUV hit the river as one.