Page 249 of Whisper

“Help me,” Kris croaked. He gasped, chest heaving, but could barely drag in any air. Water lapped into his mouth, and he coughed, sputtering into the Potomac. Dawood lay heavy in his arms, dragging him back down.

Splashes, nearby. His head dipped under water. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see.

“We got you, we got you.” Hands lifted him, helped him get his head out of the water. More hands hefted Dawood.

People, in the river. Men who’d come to help him, swimming from the banks by Ohio Drive and the Lincoln Memorial Circle. They dragged them both back to shore, where a crowd waited, civilians on cell phones recording every moment, police muscling their way through, firefighters and paramedics racing to get to the riverside.

“He… he’s CIA,” Kris sputtered. “He’s CIA. He’s one of the good guys. Just saved us all.”

They dragged Dawood out first, up the muddy banks and onto the grass. Blood trailed behind him, staining the ground a watery red. Kris shook off his rescuers, scrambled up the muddy slope. Slipped on the grass and crawled the rest of the way to Dawood’s side.

Paramedics hovered over Dawood. “I’ve got no pulse. Asystole.”

“No breathing. Starting compressions.”

“Dawood, you have to come back,” Kris whispered. He reached for Dawood’s hand. “You have to come back. You have to come back to me. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. This can’t be the end. I cannot lose you again!”

“Airway ready.”

“Intubate.”

A second paramedic dropped Dawood’s jaw, tipped his head back, and slid a breathing tube down his throat.

“Resume compressions.”

A third paramedic slid a needle into Dawood’s vein, an IV line and a bag of saline. He held a syringe in one hand, poised over the access port for the IV. “Ready with the epi.”

“Go.”

He slid the needle into Dawood’s IV, plunging epinephrine into the line, into Dawood’s body. Kris lunged for Dawood as they did, cupping Dawood’s cheek, pressing his lips to Dawood’s icy skin, willing him back to life. “Come back to me!” he screamed. “If you die, I’m coming with you!”

“Get back!” One of the Paramedics shouted. “Get back! We have to keep working!”

“Dawood!”

Hands grabbed him, yanked him, lifted him bodily off Dawood. He tried to beat them off, tried to fight, but he was carried away, down the grass slick with river water and blood, until they both collapsed, falling into the mud.

The man’s arms wrapped around Kris, holding him close. His face buried in Kris’s neck. “Let them do their job, Kris,” Ryan grunted. “They have to save him. They have to.”

He watched the paramedics pump his husband’s chest until his vision blurred and his throat went raw, and his screams were drowned out the sirens, by the roar of the helicopter that came to take his husband away at 8:46 AM on September 11.

Chapter 36

George Washington University Hospital

Washington DC

September 16

Kris’s entire world had been reduced to a series of beeps. Every two seconds, another soft beep. Every forty-five seconds, the slow flow of oxygen restarting. Red and green and blue, washing the hospital room in dim lights, dancing lines whispering over the still bedsheets.

He sat at Dawood’s bedside, listening to the hum of modern medicine. Watched the IV lines and arterial catheters, the oxygen lines, all snaking from his husband. Monitors traced the steady beat of his heart, measured his oxygen levels.

Kris’s touch ghosted down Dawood’s still hand, skirting the IV needle and the bandage, following the bones in the back of his hand down to his ring finger.

A gold wedding band, inlaid with a channel of dusty diamonds, was back where it belonged. Dawood’s ring, on Dawood’s hand.

He’d flown into a rage after the helicopter lifted off from the traffic circle outside the Lincoln Memorial, flying Dawood across the capital to George Washington University Hospital. Ryan had let him go, let him run after the helicopter, screaming, crying, shrieking at the top of his lungs until he fell again, a soaking wet pile of adrenaline and terror.