Chapter 26
Tallinn, Estonia
September 6
Kris rolled his neck as he settled into the last seat on the CIA’s unmarked Gulfstream jet. The others from the mission took seats up front, leaving a wide berth around his back row.
Just the way he liked it.
Up front, the three CIA officers held hostage by Russian president Dimitry Vasiliev during his war games with President McDonough were smiling and popping bottles of beer as they reclined in the front row seats. Banged up and bruised around the edges, they were no worse for wear. President Vasiliev had waited until President McDonough was just about ready to invade before agreeing to release the officers in a pseudo prisoner exchange.
The US didn’t release any Russians back across the Koidula border crossing in Estonia.
A dark van filled with balaclava-wearing Russians had screeched to a stop on the Russian side of the bridge and shoved the three CIA officers out. On the other side, a company of Estonia’s infantry, a platoon of British Royal Marines, and a platoon of US Marines waited, a strong showing of NATO-aligned military.
Kris, and the rest of his team were there, too, matching the Russians, dressed in head-to-toe black.
He’d almost wished it had gone sideways, that he’d had a shot at the Russians. The exchange had been too simple, too easy. He itched for more.
When they landed in DC, he’d head to the gym, try to drum up a sparring partner. Sweat it out with some right hooks and roundhouses.
Or maybe head out for the night. Mike wouldn’t be up for tagging along. He was playing house and settling in with Tom. Finally, Mike had found a good man, and if Tom knew what was good for him, he’d keep Mike happy. The trial of the century was over and done with, Tom had come out on his own, and his best friend, Mike, was happy. Things were looking up, for some, at least.
His skin prickled, a heavy weight, like someone was staring at him. People often stared. Being the CIA’s pariah came with that side effect.
But this was something different.
Kris caught the gaze of one the younger Marines. All baby-blue eyes, fresh buzz cut, and an earnest little vibe. He flushed when he saw Kris had caught him, but didn’t look away. His gaze slid down Kris’s body.
Maybe he’d soothe that itch right here, right now.
Kris winked at the Marine and settled back, pretending to sleep. The pilot gave his preflight announcement, calling out the twelve-hour flight time back to DC. Cheers rose from the freed CIA officers. The rest of the team, US Marines and SAD officers, started drifting to sleep soon after the plane lifted off.
He waited, until most everyone was snoring and only a handful were reading by the dim light of the plane’s overheads. Standing, Kris caught the gaze of the young Marine again. He smirked. Dipped his head to the back of the plane.
Kris stepped into the jet’s bathroom—a significant step up from commercial airliners, with enough room to actually move—and waited, door propped open with his boot.
Thirty seconds later, the Marine appeared. He hesitated.
Kris reached for his fly. “You know what to do,” he purred. “Get in here.”
The Marine rushed in, dropping to his knees. As Kris slid the lock closed, a warm pair of lips closed around him. He tipped his head back. Groaned. “Harder.”
Andrews Air Force Base
Maryland
September 7
1100 hours
Kris downed a double vodka and dropped off into a long, post-orgasm nap for the rest of the flight. He didn’t wake until they were already on the ground, already taxiing to the CIA’s hangar.
Kris waited while the rest of the team deplaned, stretching and grabbing their gear and shuffling toward the ramp. The returning CIA officers were welcomed like heroes, their families rushing to meet them. Director Edwards was there, even. He shook the hands of every Marine, every SAD officer.
Except for Kris.
Kris threw his duffel over his shoulder and walked in the opposite direction, toward the hangar and his parked SUV. The director liked to pretend Kris didn’t exist, and Kris felt exactly the same.
“Hey! Uh, wait up a sec.” Footsteps pounded the pavement behind Kris. He stopped, sighing. He didn’t turn around.
“Uhh, hey man.” The Marine came around his side, a flush on his plump cheeks and a bashful grin stretching his lips. “I was wonderin’... could I hit you up sometime? Maybe we could hook up?”
Kris slid his sunglasses on and smirked. “Sorry, kid. Forget you ever met me.”
He left the kid to pick his jaw up off the ground while his unit hollered for him to come back and catch up. A moment later, the Marine raced away.
Kris climbed into his SUV. Watched as the rest of the officers laughed and smiled, welcomed home their colleagues from Moscow. Stood in the sun and were friendly. Happy.
Exhaling, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes. Push it all away.
A minute later, he started the engine and drove away, heading for Langley. The drive was simple, the traffic light for a change. He badged in at the gate, ignoring the glare from the gate guard as he stared him down with his aviators low on his nose.
In the political hierarchy of the CIA’s parking lots, he’d been relegated to the farthest one. Whatever. He took his time walking in, sauntering with his duffel over his shoulder, slowly smoking a cigarette as he passed by George and Ryan and Dan’s parking spots before he stomped it out in front of Director Edwards’s space.
He dropped his gear in his cube—the farthest in the SAD cubicle farm—and typed up his short after-action report. The rest of the guys were bullshitting over coffee in the break room and planning a beer run at the local bar.
He, of course, wasn’t invited.
He checked his email—reminders about security procedures, range-time information, and a monthly CIA picnic next week—before shutting down his computer. Time to head out. Kris gave the rest of his team a princess wave as he passed by. They glared at him, their conversation going silent.
It would be a wonder if he didn’t get a bullet in the back of the head one day. Friendly fire, blue on blue. He was too gay, he was sure their defense would go. We just snapped. It was one wrist swish too many. One perfectly arched eyebrow too much.
Kris’s boots squeaked to a stop in the wide central hallway of the headquarters building. Should he…
Goddamn it.
There was a tiny part of him that kept him up at night, that ate away at the base of his brain. He’d been ruthless with himself, shutting that voice down. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, there was an emptiness inside of him that just opened wider. Some days, he thought he was a skinsuit walking around with a void inside him, nothing but darkness and bones.
That tiny, tiny part of him kept asking, did it have to be this way?
He glanced down the hall toward CTC. Dan had texted, of course, while he was in Estonia, telling him to be safe. He’d asked Kris to check in when he got back.
That didn’t have to be immediately.
He and Dan weren’t anything.
Though... Dan wanted to change that.
He’d always known how Dan felt about him. From that rooftop in Pakistan fifteen years before, sharing a shitty bottle of chardonnay when Dan had confessed he wanted to take Kris out to dinner. Wine him, dine him. Woo him. But he’d been two months too late. Kris’s heart had already belonged to David.
But fifteen years… Shouldn’t the affection have tempered? He’d thought Dan would have moved on, found his own partner, husband, someone to love. But every time Kris asked, Dan always demurred.
He had been Kris’s best and only friend, until Kris started going to the gay men’s community center events a few years back. Started socializing with other gays again, finally. He’d been like a chrysalis breaking free, a part of his soul resuscitated by rejoining his people. He’d dived in headfirst, desperate for his people, desperate for normality in his life. He hadn’t played volleyball since college, and even then, it had only been to check out the guys on the team, but he’d joined the gay men’s DC league on a whim.
He’d started going out again, too.
At first, he couldn’t quite close the deal, though. Nights out at bars ended with an apology and an “another time” as he slinked toward the door. He’d wanted his people, wanted the energy, the vibe, the thrive. Wanted to be full of the gay life again, have everyone’s gayness pumped straight into his veins, as if he needed a transfusion of gay to come back from the dead.
But he just couldn’t go home with anyone, then. Couldn’t kiss another man and not think of David. Couldn’t look at another man and feel aroused, constantly comparing him to his dead husband.
Every man competed against a ghost, and every man was found wanting.
One night, he’d met Mike, a new gay from out of town, freshly transplanted to DC. Everybody in the bar had wanted him that night, but Mike had zeroed in on Kris. Uh-uh, honey, you’re barking up the wrong tree. He’d wanted to be rid of Mike, send him spinning in another direction. But Mike was fun and kind, gentle when he had no right to be. He’d wanted Kris, and for a moment, a half of a breath, Kris had thought about it. Mike was the only man he’d ever met who reminded him of David, in a way. Who had that same mixture of strength tempered by warmth, and an earnest, honest kindness.
Mike was David without all his ghosts, he’d finally realized.
But he’d told Mike no, no a half-dozen times. Mike asked him out for brunch the next morning instead.
He had shown Mike around DC, given him tips on where to live, what to watch out for, and who the real snakes in the grass were. They’d had dinner, and then drinks, and then that became routine.
Mike never pushed again. And Kris had one more friend.
It was nice, having a friend who didn’t know his entire tragic past. Who had no idea he’d once been Director Edwards’s hand-picked hero. A hero who had made the president crow with pride. But who then had gotten his entire team killed, let his husband be murdered. Who was the scum of the CIA, a walking scarlet letter of pure shame.
Of course, he told Mike in fits and starts. The first time, five Martinis too deep into a night that seemed innocuous to Mike, a Thursday, but to Kris was the sixth anniversary of Saqqaf’s death. Two weeks later, he’d ended up a raging mess in Mike’s apartment, six years after David’s proposal.
Dan was the only person alive anymore who knew him. Who truly knew him, every shadow, every dark secret. Dan had refused to let him wallow, refused to let him slip beneath the waves of darkness that tried to suck him to the bottom of his personal abyss. He was Kris’s partner to plays and art galleries, his lunch date, his after-dinner drinks meet-up. It was good. They’d always had an easy friendship.
Four years after David’s death, Dan invited him to be his guest to a dinner honoring CIA leadership. By that time, Dan had been promoted fully onto the leadership track in his own right, managing CTC. He, along with George, the deputy director of the CIA, and Ryan, the new chief of clandestine operations, would all be receiving handshakes and huzzahs from Director Edwards and the president himself.
Inviting Kris to be Dan’s date was the juiciest kind of fuck you, a coup de grace to Kris’s personal relationship with the director, with George, with Ryan, and with the whole CIA.
“You sure you want to even be seen with me? I’m the CIA leper. You’ll catch whatever I have. Soon you’ll be the agency’s most hated.”
Dan had shrugged demurely. “It’d be worth it.” He’d winked. “Especially to see the looks on their faces.”
It was a black-tie affair, and they’d showed up in matching tuxes and holding hands. Director Edwards shook Dan’s hand and ignored Kris, as if he weren’t even there. Ryan had avoided them. George had carefully kept to the opposite side of the ballroom for the entire evening.
They’d flirted outrageously, holding hands through dinner and sharing bites off each other’s forks. They’d made each other laugh, caught each other’s gaze over glasses of champagne.
It was good to laugh again. Dinner turned to dancing, and Dan led him through swings, spins, and dips. He’d loved it, every moment, drank in the way he felt alive for the first time in four years.
He’d never had the chance to dance with David.
When a slow song played, Dan had stepped back, letting Kris go. There had been a heaviness in his gaze, a resignation that hadn’t been there before.
Kris had reached back for him, drawing him close again.
“Are you sure?” Dan had whispered. His hands had landed softly on Kris, as if afraid to actually hold him. “You know, don’t you? How I feel about you?”
“I know.”
“I’ve never asked you for anything. I never will, Kris. I know, I know how much you love him, still. I can’t replace him, I know that.”
“Dan...”
Dan had smiled, looked down at the floor. “This is the part where you say I’m just your friend. It’s just, dancing with you, like this—” He’d cradled Kris in his arms, so close their noses brushed. “I can’t help it. I am so in love with you,” he’d whispered.
Kris had felt something snap then, the final break of something he’d buried and buried and tried to erase. The bottom had fallen out from beneath his feet, and again, like four years before, he was falling, plunging, a freefall into a darkness that he was already so intimately familiar with.
But, God, he couldn’t go back there. He couldn’t survive the freefall. He’d known he wouldn’t survive that darkness again.
He was lonely, and aching, and four years into a broken heart that hadn’t mended. He was riding high on adrenaline, on a fuck you to the CIA that had put him there, and on waves of champagne. And Dan was there, warm and alive. He knew all of Kris’s sins and he still forgave him, still loved him.
If there was a bottom to the abyss Kris was lost in, if there was something after the freefall… Maybe it was Dan.
He’d nuzzled his nose against Dan’s, heard Dan’s sharp inhale. Felt Dan’s fingers curl on his back, into his tux. Felt Dan’s hand holding his tremble.
“Kris…”
He’d cut Dan’s words off with a kiss.
They didn’t stay long after that. Dan had nearly set a land speed record driving back to his house in Maryland, even in his shitty little electric car. He’d helped Kris out, wrapped his arms around him. Had kissed him, trying to guide him through his house without ever breaking their kiss, their hold.
Tuxes had flown, landing on the carpet and the back of a couch, a table in the hall. Dan had laid him down in his bed like Kris was the last copy of a timeless novel, a priceless jewel recovered from a shipwreck.
For a moment, Kris had hesitated. His wedding ring had been heavy on his left hand.
But David was gone.
Dan had hovered over him, his gaze filled with so much desire, so much care. He’d crawled over Kris, their faces hovering, skin brushing. “If I could make it all go away,” he’d breathed, “I would. I would do anything to make it better. Anything.”
“Make me feel,” Kris had whispered. “Make me feel alive again.”
Dan made love to him like his touch could heal Kris’s soul. His hands mapped Kris’s body, the long, lean lines of his legs, the taut muscles of his back. The scars on his chest. Kris was more awkward, having to relearn how to love, where to move, how to slide and arch and press into a new lover. Into someone not-David. But, it was easier than he’d thought, tumbling into bed with Dan.
Dan kissed him through it, watched him. Traced his eyes and his lips and his face, captured every gasp with a kiss. He took his time, until Kris thought he was going to come apart at the seams. His fingers had clawed Dan’s back, grabbed his hair, his ankles had wrapped around Dan’s hips, and he’d just managed to not shout David’s name.
Dan had buried his face in Kris’s neck when he came and breathed, “I love you.”
They came together twice more that night, Kris riding Dan and then Dan pounding him hard and fast as Kris screamed face-first into a pillow. They’d been a sweaty, sex-ruined mess when they finally fell asleep.
In the morning, Kris had woken alone, listening to Dan whistle softly to himself as he cooked breakfast.
It had felt wrong, suddenly, all wrong. He was still wearing his wedding ring. David wasn’t having sex, not in the afterlife. He’d said he’d wait for Kris. He’d said he’d always be Kris’s. None of that seventy-two virgins in paradise for David, they used to joke.
What the fuck had he done? What would David think? Jesus, he had to get out of there. He had to go, just go. He’d jumped up, grabbed his pants and his button-down, gotten dressed.
He’d collapsed while trying to find his socks and ended up slumped on the carpet, his back to the bed he and Dan had partially destroyed.
David was dead. David was gone. And there wasn’t anything after this life, nothing waiting for him, for them. David, everything he was, everything they had, was gone.
Dan had walked into his bedroom with an omelet and mimosas and had found Kris sobbing.
“I’m not ready,” Kris had finally whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready.”
Dan had dumped the omelet in the trash and driven Kris home in silence. Anguish, tinged with anger, had poured off him, nearly drowning Kris.
He hadn’t been ready to love again. He hadn’t been ready to care for Dan, or anyone. He hadn’t been ready to try and resurrect his heart, a heart that wasn’t even inside him anymore.
His heart was six feet deep in Arlington.
No, his heart was in the back of a burned-out sedan in Afghanistan.
His heart was nothing but a pile of ash.
But, the easiest way to get over someone was to get under someone else, or so the saying went.
He couldn’t fall for Dan. But he could fuck his way through DC and feel nothing at all.
And he did.
CTC
Langley, Virginia
September 7
1430 hours
“Hey.” Kris leaned into Dan’s office, smiling. “I made it back in one piece.”
Dan was elbows-deep in a red-bordered intelligence file, scouring eyes-only intercepts and source intelligence. He snapped the thick file closed as he looked up. Shock, and joy, broke over his face. “Hey you,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
Kris shrugged. He padded inside Dan’s office and collapsed in one of the dark leather club chairs. Dan had done well in his career, surging where Kris had faltered, had failed. He’d become head of CTC. His glass-walled office overlooked the operations bay, the workstations and monitors they had once worked at together, so many, many years ago.
Why was he here, though? Why come see Dan, put that glowing smile on Dan’s face? Dan knew his game. He knew exactly how Kris was. Some nights, it was Dan’s bed he ended up in after a few drinks, or a long week of hating everyone and everything at the CIA. Other times, months went by before he showed up at Dan’s door.
Sometimes, with someone else’s fingernail scratches still on his back.
Maybe it was Mike. Maybe his best friend finally finding the love of his life, finally settling down, was affecting him. He’d been happy like Mike, once. He’d had the house and the love. The joy and the laughter. The smiles over coffee in the morning, the warm body to curl into. He’d had it, and he’d loved it.
Maybe part of him wanted that again.
Kris propped his boots on the edge of Dan’s desk and crossed his ankles. “All quiet on the Western Front?”
“I wish.” Dan snorted. He jerked his chin to the folder he’d closed. “Something strange is rumbling out of Afghanistan. Pakistan. Yemen. Even Iraq.”
Kris’s mind still went sideways, like a radio channel tuned to static, whenever anyone mentioned Afghanistan. He blinked. “Similar chatter? From different locations?”
Dan rubbed his temples, frowning. “Yeah. Different al-Qaeda affiliates are starting to echo each other. They’re talking about someone coming.”
“Someone?” Kris’s eyebrows shot up.
“Mmhmm.”
“Think it’s Bin Laden’s kid? Is he starting to take the reins?”
Dan shrugged. He opened his mouth—
“Never mind.” Kris waved him off. “I don’t care. I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me anything.” He’d forgotten, for a moment, that he didn’t care at all, not one single bit, about the CT world anymore.
Knocks pounded on Dan’s door, just before Ryan poked his head in. “Hey, have you looked at the—”
He stopped. Glared at Kris. “What the fuck are you doing here? You’re not part of CT.”
“Personal visit.” Kris slouched in the chair, getting comfortable. “Visiting my boo.” He blew Ryan a kiss.
Purple bloomed over Ryan’s features, a furious fuchsia. “Dan, we need to get the most recent dump from Islamabad analyzed. They’ve got something.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
“And, have you seen the FIAs?”
Foreign Intelligence Agents. Occasionally, the CIA hosted officers sent from overseas agencies for six-month training missions. Currently, Israel and Saudi Arabia had sent over an officer each. Not an easy combination to handle.
“Noam is spending time at the satellite bay.” Noam Avraham, from Mossad in Israel. “I don’t know where Zaiden is.” Zaiden Asfour, from Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate.
Ryan nodded, glared at Kris again, and ducked out.
Dan stared. “Your boo?”
He shrugged. “It got rid of him.”
For a second, Dan couldn’t hide the hurt. He looked like a kicked puppy, quickly turning back to his desk and stacking folders, making sure the edges were obsessively straight. Anything to not look at Kris.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.” Dan smiled, sadly. “It’s okay. I know your rules. I’m just one your ‘boos’.”
“It’s not like that. I don’t…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
“It’s been nine years,” Dan whispered.
“Some days it still feels like yesterday,” Kris snapped. “Time doesn’t heal all wounds. That’s crap. It’s bullshit, what they say. You’re never over it. You’re never fine.”
“I’m sorry.” Dan held up his hands, surrendering. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just…” He exhaled hard, his face twisting. “I wish I could see you smile again. I wish you were happier. And I know I can never replace him. I know I can never be who he was, and I know you can never love me like you loved him, but—” He stopped, drawing up short, like he’d let too much slip free. “I wish you would let me love you,” Dan finally breathed. “I wish you wanted to come see me right away when you got back. I wish this wasn’t a surprise for me. I wish I was your only ‘boo’. I wish we could really do this, Kris. And... most of all, I want to be the man who makes you happy again.”
Kris’s jaw dropped. Dan hadn’t been that blatant, that direct with him, ever. It was the thing they never spoke of: Dan wanted more. Kris… didn’t know what he wanted, except a good hard fucking, something to numb the pain. But now Dan had said it, had actually put words to his feelings in their twisted little dance.
Damn it, he didn’t want to know. Knowing made things complicated. Knowing tugged on things he didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to think about. His eyes darted around Dan’s office, hiding, searching for somewhere to look, somewhere that wasn’t at Dan. He fumbled for something to say.
Dan ended the conversation for him. He always did. How many times had he let Kris off the hook, accepted the tiny morsels Kris threw his way without complaint? “Look, I’ve got to get going on this new dump of traffic from Islamabad. This thing, from al-Qaeda… it’s getting big. I’ve got to go.”
Kris stood. “You, uh, will probably be working all evening?”
“All night.” Dan rubbed his forehead. He looked exhausted. “I might crash here for a few hours and keep working tomorrow.”
“’Kay.” Nodding, Kris backed out of Dan’s office. “I’ll see you around.”
Dan chuckled, once. “Yeah. See you around.”
Kris felt his gaze on his back as he walked away.