Page 57 of Whisper

“They’re out without a chaperone. Before, they were imprisoned in their homes.” Kris nodded to a group of women meeting on a street corner, their burqa-covered hands clutching each other’s. He saw their burqas tremble, the fabric rustle. “It’s the first day. Let them feel safe first. Let them realize the religious police aren’t going to beat them this afternoon.”

Palmer and his men lay on every available horizontal surface in the guest room they’d been given. There were two single beds, a thin love seat, and a writing desk. They were trying to soak up all the sleep they could. It was amazing, how sloth-like Special Forces soldiers could be when at rest. As if they knew they had to capture every moment, stack it up like a savings account they could draw on in the future.

“I’ve got to call George. Let him know we’re in Kabul.” Kris rolled his neck.

“Think Washington is going to shit?”

“Probably. Which means I’m going to get it all.”

David squeezed his shoulder, then dragged his hand up, stroking up his neck until he cupped the back of Kris’s head. He said nothing, just stared into Kris’s eyes.

Six weeks they’d been at each other’s side, from the frigid cold of the mountains, the lonely nights of the front with only the dust and the stars and each other, to the frenetic chaos of combat, of air strikes, of decimating the Taliban all over Afghanistan. And now they were in Kabul, surrounded by David’s team and Kabulis learning how to live again.

Was there ever going to be time to talk about the way David looked at him? Kris had already hardened his heart to the possibility that there was nothing there. A passing moment in a life, a blip of human connection in the horrors of war. Warmth, physical, perhaps even emotional.

But not hunger. Not need. Not desire.

Not what Kris dreamed about, despite his ceaseless recriminations.

David took a breath. Opened his mouth. “I—”

Ring ring ring.

The shrill scream of the satellite phone Kris kept on him at all times, in the front of his thick jacket, ripped the evening apart. Soldiers groaned, rolling over to avoid the noise. David pulled back, dropped his hand.

“Shit. I’m sorry.” Kris fumbled in his jacket, finally found the phone. Groaned when he saw the caller ID. “It’s George.” He pressed to answer and cringed. “Caldera.”

“Kris! Are you in Kabul with Palmer’s team?”

“Yes, George.”

“Is everyone all right? No injuries?”

“No injuries.” He hesitated. “Khan wasn’t going to stop outside the city. He never even slowed down. And I wasn’t going to tell him he couldn’t win his war.”

“You did the right thing, Kris, going with him. Washington is screaming about it, but you did the right thing, and I’m telling Clint that. They are imagining a bloodbath in the city. Tell me what’s really going on.”

Kris almost couldn’t answer. He blinked. “Uh, the market is open. We’re in the old Taliban guesthouse overlooking one of the bazaars in the main square. Kids are outside. Women are out, talking together. Men are cheering. Khan stationed his soldiers at intersections to keep the peace. There were some reports of looting, but that was mostly Kabulis trying to destroy former Taliban homes.”

Wonder filled George’s voice. “My God, we did it. We took Kabul.”

“General Khan and the Shura Nazar took Kabul.”

“Our alliance took Kabul. Which wouldn’t have happened without you.”

Kris stayed quiet.

“We need to move into Kabul, ASAP. We need to search the Taliban and al-Qaeda facilities there, start interrogating prisoners the Shura Nazar have captured. Do you have a facility we can move into?”

“This guesthouse is huge. It could hold us all, and room for more.”

“Good, because Washington is already talking about sending in more teams to Kabul, to the north, and to the south.” There was a lot of work to be done in the south, near Kandahar, the ancestral home of the Taliban. Taliban and al-Qaeda forces were still rampant there. “Any word, any intel on Bin Laden?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll get the team ready to move out to Kabul. It will be good to get us all together again. See what you can do about setting up a headquarters there for us.” George paused. “And good job, Kris. Really, great work.”

George arrived with the rest of the team in a convoy of trucks, lugging all of their gear that had once been set up in the Panjshir, then moved to Bagram, and finally to Kabul. Derek had stayed behind at Bagram to coordinate incoming CIA and Special Forces teams from Pakistan and the Gulf. Kris got the okay from Khan to convert the guesthouse into the first CIA station in Afghanistan in over twenty years, since the closing of the US Embassy.