Page 53 of Whisper

Too many. Too many for this to be an accidental fire, a tragedy of fate.

If they sifted through the ash, they’d no doubt find a bar that had held the door closed, locked from the outside. They might find a grenade, or a canister of fuel.

David stayed down, kneeling beside the burned wall as he reached for a bone. It fit in the palm of his hand, gently curved. Once, it must have wrapped around the chest of a child, a young boy or girl’s rib.

Footsteps, coming out of the house where the mullahs had been. One of the leaders walked their way, toward the edge of the village, the darkness just beyond this house. He carried a rifle, but lazily, slung over his shoulder like a teenager would slough a backpack at school.

Kris ducked, his back to David’s, one hand on David’s thigh.Freeze.Beneath his touch, David went completely still.

He lifted his rifle, the folded stock pressed to his shoulder, sights tracking the mullah’s every footfall. They were in the darkness, in the shadows, completely blacked out. But if a star happened to shine on the lens of his NVGs, if a flicker of flame winked across their bodies, arced around their presence, the game was up. Kris’s finger half squeezed the trigger.

The mullah sighed as he faced the darkness, feet from Kris. He fumbled with his robes, eventually adjusting to relieve himself. They heard everything, the splash and spray, the mullah’s stream as it hit the dirt and then petered off. After, he muttered a quick word in Dari, prayers of the ultra-faithful following urination, and headed back.

David’s hand covered Kris’s, still on David’s thigh. He squeezed.

Time to go.

They didn’t speak until they were out of the village and back down the path, lying against the dirt berm beneath the Taliban’s gun positions. From where they lay, they could hear Taliban fighters speaking in Dari in their foxholes.

David pulled the laser targeting array out of his backpack. “Call it in,” he breathed in Kris’s ear. “I’ll hold the target.”

Kris skidded down the berm, to the very base. He was maybe sixty feet from the Taliban. He pressed his radio to his lips. “Eagle Eye, this is Jammer Three. Request priority strike on confirmed enemy position with senior Taliban leadership. Target is laser designated.”

Static whistled in his ear. He pressed on the earbud. “Jammer Three, confirm. Are civilians present?”

“Confirmed. No civilians present.”

Static. He waited.

“Jammer Three, two aircraft inbound. ETA, twenty minutes. Standby.”

He clicked his acknowledgement and crawled back, sliding in beside David. “Two inbound,” he mouthed along David’s ear. “Twenty minutes. Probably Navy.”

“Quick strike then,” David breathed. “They have to get back to the carrier before they bingo fuel.”

Kris nodded. He settled in to wait, leaning into David, almost on top of him. He felt the rise and fall of David’s back, each inhale and exhale. They were close enough that they only had to turn their heads and they would be speaking in each other’s ears.

The firstwhoosh, the deep scratch against the night sky that was the fighter honing in, screamed in above. Kris’s earbud whistled with an incoming radio transmission. “Jammer Three. Aircraft on deck. Patching to pilot now.”

A whine, and a new voice came on, a woman. “Laser target locked on,” she said. “Bombs away.”

“Now,” Kris breathed. He and David flicked off their NVGs, plunging the world into pitch black. Kris counted, barely breathing. David pushed his face against Kris’s, their cheeks pressed together.

They could hear the Taliban laughing at the sound of the jet, cursing the sky and the inept American fighters who had yet to hit them with their bombs.

A fireball bloomed, erupting with a crack and rolling thunder rising over the berm and enveloping the Taliban-occupied village. The shock wave followed, rushing wind like a slap, burning heat pushing him and David into the dirt. Debris rained, smashing down like hail. A shattered turret from one of the tanks landed straight up, embedded in the hillside, still smoking.

Broken bodies and screams split the night in every direction. An inferno raged, consuming everything blown apart by the strike.

“Jammer Three, R-T-B,” the pilot said. “Good luck.”

“Good strike,” Kris replied. He didn’t have to whisper, not anymore. Not with the screams of the Taliban loud enough to hear all the way in Kabul. “Finally.”

Chapter 9

Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan

November 7, 2001