Page 39 of Whisper

“I think that’s the first bad muezzin I’ve ever heard.” David chuckled. “Usually they’re chosen for their voice.”

“He sounds like he wants to be doing it as much as we want to be hearing him.”

“Let’s win this war so he can give his duties to another muezzin.”

“Sounds good.” Kris laughed and felt David squeeze him, just slightly, an almost hug. He didn’t know if he should hug back, wrap his arms around David’s, hold on to his hold. Or pretend it never happened? What if he was misreading it? What if that was just a stretch, and not a hug at all?

David let go, rolling back and sighing, stretching on the cushions Khan had provided. They were softer than the ground, but lumpier. Kris’s hips ached as he rolled over. “How’s your back?”

“Stiff. But it’s nothing like training. I’m good.” David smiled. “I can go another hundred miles. And you can add another hundred pounds to the pack.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Just a little.” David winked, and then peeled himself out of the sleeping bag. They’d slept in their clothes, added layers of warmth, and David readjusted as he stood and stretched.

Kris watched it all, the ache in his body growing. David caught his gaze, blushed, and looked away. “I’m going to check on what’s happening out there.” He slipped out of the cave.

Groaning, Kris dropped his head, rolling over and face-planting into his sleeping bag. His promises to be distant were growing thinner every day. Every moment he spent with David.

It was one more thing to add to the guilt pile, the avalanche of shame rolling through him.

Plotting the rest of the Shomali Plain took the entire day. They broke for the night at the western end of the Shura Nazar lines, celebrating with Khan and his officers. The battle lines turned and followed the White Mountains, the spine of Afghanistan’s north, to Taloquan and Mazar-e-Sharif, cities in northern Afghanistan that had once been Shura Nazar territory, but were seized by the Taliban.

“Whoever holds Mazar-e-Sharif holds the north,” Khan said, sitting across the fire from Kris and David. He spoke in halting English, saying he wanted the practice. “Whoever controls the north controls Kabul.”

“What makes that city so special?” David sat next to Kris, reclining against the pack, his legs crossed, boots tucked under him. David pressed into Kris’s side.

“It was the most brilliant city in Afghanistan before the Taliban destroyed it. The rest of the country was devastated by the Taliban’s bombs. They wanted to erase everything, start over, build from the time of the Prophet,salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam. But! They also needed the money to be seen by the rest of the world, yes? Mazar, she has oil and gas outside the city. Russians wanted to drill it. They let them.” Khan held his hands up, as if in defeat. “The longest paved runway in Afghanistan is in Mazar. And the people in Mazar, they are the best of Afghans. What they have endured, under those dogs.”

“How did Mazar-e-Sharif fall?”

“The Taliban came. They destroyed everything. They had so many fighters. General Hajimullah, my commander in Mazar, he had to take his people and run south to the Darya Suf river valley. The Taliban took Mazar-e-Sharif and took the high ground around the city. Right away, they slaughtered six thousand people. Any man who refused to join them, any man or boy who hid. Any woman caught out of her home. They castrated the men, cut the heads off everyone they arrested. They left the bodies in the street to rot.”

Silence. David’s molars ground together. Kris heard them over the crackle of the flames.

“You must tell your government that wemustbomb the Taliban in the Shomali to advance on Kabul. But we must also free Mazar-e-Sharif. Or the Taliban will use the city as a northern base. Squeeze Kabul between Kandahar and Mazar. And the people there. They will be slaughtered. Again.”

“What forces do you have in the north? Outside Mazar?” Kris took notes as fast as Khan spoke.

“General Hajimullah is there now with his fighters. They are trapped in the Darya Suf, surrounded by the Taliban in the hills. The villages have been destroyed, bombed. In some, the Taliban locked the people in their homes and burned the village to the ground. Only ash remains.”

Kris’s vision went double as he wrote, flames leaping out of the fire and scratching across his eyeballs. Smoke choked him, filled his nose, his eyes, his throat. Screams echoed, screams of Afghans, screams of Americans. The roar of an incoming jet, flying low, too low—

“We fought in Safid Kotah in summer and into autumn. The Taliban dug into the mountains there, with their heavy weapons. Hajimullah’s people tried to storm them, but the Taliban shot them down. They tried to climb by hand, but the snows came, and we could not get supplies to Hajimullah. They tried to fight the Taliban hand to hand, in the snow. His fighters climbed the mountains with only five bullets in their rifle each.

“We turned to raids before you Americans came. At night, climbing the ice and snow, Hajimullah’s people drove the Taliban’s tanks, their artillery, off the mountains so their brothers would live in the next battle. But it is not enough. The Taliban have more weapons. More tanks. With the oil money, they have been able to buy enough weapons to take all of Afghanistan. If you Americans want to help Afghanistan, you must help us here. Give us this help so we know this is not just your war. That we are not your puppets. Muslim lands have been playthings for the West for generations. Show us this is different. That you are allies. Before we are exterminated by the Taliban.”

“In shaa Allah, we will help you. We will.” David’s voice was firm, hard. “You won’t be exterminated, General.”

Kris stared. The Arabic vow, the Muslim vow, falling from David’s lips was a shock to both him and Khan.

“I have heard American promises before.In shaa Allah, you are different, this time. You are either the answer to our prayers or the last trick of the devil.”

Chapter 7

Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan

Khan brought them back to their compound, deep in the Panjshir, by the middle of the next day. He traded hellos with Fazl and Ghasi but didn’t wait for George and Ryan to finish with their satellite call to Langley.