Page 74 of Whisper

“I was. It’s… new.”

“In Afghanistan?”

“It’s secret. We’re not out. We’re—” Kris fumbled for words, stumbling over his exhaustion and the wine.

“He’s military.” Dan nodded slowly. He stared into his wine. “I understand.” He sighed. “Whoever he is, he’s a lucky guy. But I hope we can still be friends.”

“I’d like that.”

The night before the raid, he and David lounged in a tepid bath surrounded by stubby candles. The safe house had sunken mosaic tubs in most bedrooms, playthings for the wealthy who had lived stratospheres above the rest of the city’s inhabitants. David rubbed his feet, massaged his legs, kissed his way up and down Kris’s body. They made love silently, Kris riding David as his hands traced David’s chest, his body, mapped the terrain of his lover. Candlelight flickered over their skin, threw shadows against the walls. Kris came with a muffled cry, his head thrown back, David’s hands clinging to him, his arms wrapped around his back. David’s lips kissed every inch of his chest.

Their teammates were on either side of the paper-thin walls. Kris could hear their laughter, their conversations, between his gasps, his muffled moans.

Who knew about them? George, for sure. Had he told Ryan? Ryan was still his deputy. Jim and Phillip were wrapped up in their own projects. Derek had stayed in Afghanistan. Jackson? Palmer’s team had to bunk together, and Jackson was David’s roommate.

David spent all his time in Kris’s room, though. What did Jackson think about his absent partner?

And Palmer? He’d seen them kissing back in Tora Bora.

David had become distant from his team since moving to Pakistan, moving with Kris and on the ground instead of holding surveillance and going on night raids with the others.

They weren’t supposed to be doing this. David’s entire career could come apart, shatter under theDon’t Ask, Don’t Tellrules of the military.

Sleeping with a partner on an overseas mission happened, but it was generally filed under “ill advised” by the CIA and “disastrous” when it went all wrong.

It was illegal to be gay in Pakistan. Illegal to love another man. They were in Pakistan on diplomatic cover, but the bond between Pakistan and the United States was tenuous, a daily negotiation of threats and bluster. A scandal like this, which the Pakistanis could use to claim the US disrespected their culture, their laws, and flagrantly violated their beliefs, could tear their alliance apart.

And, for the first time, Kris had some measure of respect. Dan’s words haunted him, repeating in his mind on an echoing loop. His name was said with praise. People believed in him. Thought he could do something. That he wasn’t just afagor a limp-wristed gay people put up with. His whole life, he’d been treated like half a man.

Until now.

But for how long? Should they stop? Should they just put it aside, focus on their mission? They were risking too much, with this.

But hecouldn’t. He couldn’t set David aside, couldn’t put him out of his mind. David had become linked to him, inextricably linked, like two stars orbiting each other. Words like “combat stress” and “adrenaline bonds” tried to nip at him from the darkness, but he pushed them back.

David was in his bones, in his blood. He set his heart by the moments he stole with David. He’d never let that go, not unless David was ripped from him. And even then—

David held him after they finished, cradling Kris close with his forehead pressed to Kris’s temple as they caught their breath. Sticky Pakistani heat clung to their sweaty skin. A limp ceiling fan circled overhead, lazy circles that moved stale air and the stench of sex. Could their teammates smell what they did? Could they smell David on Kris, like Kris always could?

Much later, Kris pulled the curtains back and stared out their bedroom window. He’d wrapped up in a silk robe, a gift David had bought for him during one of his undercover trips into Pakistan’s twisting cities. He’d bought Kris a small mountain of gifts since they’d arrived in-country. Silk shirts and linen suits, long robes, and the finest salwar kameezes. A gold necklace, a filigree of the Hand of Fatima, that he wore under everything, every day. Now that they weren’t in Afghanistan, they got to change their clothes every day, actually look decent again. David, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to make Kris’s wardrobe the finest in all of Pakistan. Kris reveled in David’s gifts, in the luxury. In the knowledge that every day, no matter where David was, Kris was on his mind.

David stood behind him, kissing his bare shoulder where the robe slipped down. The call to prayer sounded, the wail of a hundred muezzins across the city rising as one. There were no stars above Faisalabad, no moon in the sky. The stars were spread below, a blanket of lanterns and fires that turned the air to wood smoke and musk.

Across Faisalabad, somewhere in the darkness and the smoke, Abu Zahawi prayed.

His last prayers as a free man.

“In three hours, we leave the safe house in our breach teams. At zero one thirty, each breach team will stage outside their target location.” Kris pointed to the giant map on the wall, with each of the fourteen targets marked and surrounded by surveillance photos. “Pakistani police will meet you at each target.”

An FBI agent, from a team that had been flown in from DC overnight, interrupted. “Is ISI involved?”

“No. ISI has not been briefed.” Pakistan’s military intelligence, ISI, had been caught leaking information to al-Qaeda, both during the Afghan invasion and after. Kris kept them iced out of his entire operation. The FBI agent, jet-lagged and clinging to a mug of coffee, nodded.

“At exactly zero one fifty, each team will stage at the outer breach marker for each site. Your team leads have your specific coordinates for your site in their packet. At precisely zero two hundred, at all fourteen sites, we breach simultaneously. The order of entry is as follows: The Pakistani police enter first and subdue any resistance. They separate the women and children from the men. The FBI enters second and preserves the scene for evidence collection. The CIA enters last.”

The FBI, appraised of Kris’s operation to catch Zahawi, had insisted on inserting into the takedown team. The September 11 attacks were considered an active criminal investigation in addition to being an intelligence failure and the new target of an independent Congressional oversight investigation. Jurisdiction was overlapping, and messy.

“I and my team—” Kris nodded to Dan, David, Ryan, Jackson, and Palmer. “—will accompany the breach team at Target X-Ray.” The last target on the list, the villa he and David had found with the windows closed and locked.