Chapter 29
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
September 8
0645 hours
“Caldera? What the fuck?” Wallace’s confused voice broke through Kris’s haze, shattered his ironclad concentration. “Fuck have you been doing in here?”
Exhaling, Kris sat back from his workstation. Coffee cups littered the floor, beside a thousand sheets of paper, printouts from the CIA archives, records, reports, after-action reviews. Anything he could access from his workstation, pore through and dissect in minutiae.
David’s autopsy, such that it was, lay open on the desk. Burned bone fragments recovered from the trunk of unidentified vehicle parked inside mosque. Incomplete skeletal remains. X-ray imaging inconclusive. DNA dental or bone marrow recovery impossible. They’d decided it was David because of David’s blood on the outside of the car, in the back seat, and on the trunk lid. The bumper. Evidence suggests drag patterns and blood spatter. Overwhelmingly, the evidence points to DAVID HADDAD as the deceased.
But it wasn’t David.
They’d missed something. Goddammit, they’d missed something, for a whole decade.
“Caldera!” Wallace, again. This time, he shouted. Wallace was his SAD team leader, and if there was anyone who hated Kris more than Ryan did, it was Wallace. “I asked you a question!”
Kris’s bones creaked as he pushed back from his desk. His chair ground over paper, crinkled reports on the strike team’s mission, the recovery team’s findings at the destroyed mosque. His mouth tasted like death behind his molars, like burned coffee, worse than Afghanistan’s had been. Something was alive in his veins. Rage, hope, or too much caffeine, he couldn’t tell.
How long had he been sitting there? All night, since he’d raced back to headquarters, after picking himself up from the bathroom floor? The bartender had wanted to call the cops, certain Kris had been attacked, assaulted. He’d stumbled, fumbled, kept saying no, but no one could understand him through the shrieks, the wails, the body-shaking sobs. He’d managed to slip out of there before the cops arrived, jogging down the street as the bartender bellowed for him to come back.
An hour in his car, screaming, punching his steering wheel. Losing all of his shit, every last bit, like he’d never done before.
Until all that was left was silence and snot, an ocean of dried tears cracking into salt flats on his cheeks. Streaked mascara.
And questions.
He’d turned the key, put the car into drive. Steered toward headquarters.
Somewhere, there were answers. And he’d always been the man to find them, no matter how far he had to dig.
“I’m working, Wallace.” Kris stood, grabbing David’s autopsy and a list of files he couldn’t access, not from his station. He needed to get to the archives, pull the hard copies.
“Working what? Making a fucking mess isn’t your job!” Wallace grabbed one of the papers off the floor. His eyes flicked to Kris. “Why are you digging up this shit?”
Kris shouldered past him.
Wallace grabbed his arm, spun him around. He shoved the paper against Kris’s chest. “SAD lost six guys that day, you know. Because of you.”
Kris stared. He said nothing. Didn’t reach for the sheet. Wallace let go, and it fluttered to the floor, slipping between their boots.
“Why’d you live, huh? When good people, good men, died?”
Kris ripped his arm free. He stared into Wallace’s eyes as he backed away, files tucked under his arms.
“Gonna make us clean up your shit again, huh?” Wallace kicked an empty coffee cup toward Kris. It flew, skittering and tumbling in the air before veering into another workstation. “You’re a Goddamn shitshow, Caldera!” Wallace bellowed. “I can’t fucking wait to get rid of you!”
Kris flipped Wallace off with both middle fingers as he backed out of SAD’s office.
“Caldera—”
Wallace’s shout cut off as the heavy door slammed shut.
Kris ran, racing down hallways, pushing through doors and throwing himself down stairwells until he finally made it to archives. Chest heaving, breathing hard, he hesitated outside the double doors.
What had they overlooked?
How had they let David go missing for ten years? Why hadn’t they turned the world upside down, shaking every tree, every mountain, until they found him? Never, ever leave a man behind. It was ingrained into the marrow of their bones, engraved on the underside of their ribs. Never, ever. How had David been left?
Had Kris missed something? Had he sentenced David to exile?
How had he left his husband, the love of his life, for a decade?
What had happened to David, all this time?
What if he found what they’d missed?
What if he didn’t?
Kris badged his way into archives, bypassing the check-in desk and heading for the old mission records. Archives smelled like dust and secrets, like redaction ink and old tears. The secrets and lies of the CIA were buried in the stacks, in between papers and in between the lines.
His hands trailed over documents boxes, spines of notebooks, bound folders wrapped with string. Canisters of microfilm. He counted down the numbers, the dates, until he got to what he was looking for.
Afghanistan, 2008. Camp Carson. Hamid Operation
Three file boxes. That’s what the fulcrum of his life was to the CIA. Three file boxes, two of which contained the Congressional inquiry’s findings and evidence. Had it been up to the CIA, there would be no file boxes, he was certain.
Kris dragged all three to the floor and flipped the lids. Start from the beginning, the very beginning. He slid to his knees and pulled the first file—
David’s personnel folder fell open in his lap. His picture was stapled to the front corner, taken just before their deployment to Camp Carson. At the bottom of the photo, David’s left hand was just visible, a gold ring glittering on his finger.
He ripped the photo from the file. Crumpled it, gasping, bending over at the waist as he breathed in, the smells of Afghanistan flooding him from the files, the smells of death and waste. His eyes closed.
Why did you never reach out? Why did you stay dead? Why didn’t you do everything you could to come back to me?
I thought you were dead, David had said. He’d repeated it, like a robot, like a ghost. But ghosts and robots didn’t feel warm, and they didn’t leach sorrow like it was the only thing inside of them. He could still see David’s gaze from across the bathroom. A thousand regrets wreathed in a bottomless, aching pain.
Slowly, Kris uncrumpled the photo and set it on the nearest shelf. Propped it against the files so David could watch over him. “I’ll figure it out,” Kris whispered. “You know I will.”
He turned back to the files. Somewhere, there was a truth, a real truth, and Kris was going to find it.
September 8
1430 hours
“Kris?”
He opened his eyes. Fuzzy shapes appeared before him. Shoes. He followed the shoes up, to ankles, pants, legs. He rolled over. A paper stuck to his cheek.
Damn it, he’d passed out sometime between reading the Congressional inquiry and cross-checking the team’s findings in the mosque with David’s autopsy. He lay on the floor of the archives, in between the stacks, in a pile of folders and scattered papers.
He was a fucking mess. His clothes were ruined. Rumpled, with coffee stains and ink all over them. He could smell himself, the stink of his adrenaline, his desperation. How many hours had it been since he’d been home?
“Kris?” Dan crouched in front of him. Beyond Dan, three techs from archives hovered at the end of the aisle, blatantly staring. “You didn’t come home.”
Fuck. He was supposed to go to Dan’s. They were supposed to—
Jesus fucking Christ, how could he start a relationship with Dan? When David was alive, was actually fucking alive, living and breathing and walking somewhere out there in DC? When Kris had felt him, felt his skin? Heard his voice.
If David was alive, wasn’t he still married? Could he be married to a legal ghost? David was dead, according to the law.
“Fuck, Dan,” Kris moaned. He pulled the paper from his cheek and sat up. Everything in him ached, his bones, his muscles. He fucked up his sparring partners every other week, spoiled for fights with Russian GRU agents in seedy bars, but this was too much. He was pushing on the door of forty. He wasn’t a young man anymore. “What time is it?”
“Fourteen-forty. September eighth.” Dan swallowed, and his gaze wandered over the files Kris had spread like toys on the floor. “What are you doing?”
Kris rubbed his hands over his face. How could he possibly explain this? Where did he even start? He couldn’t tell Dan about David, not yet. David was a ghost, still, for a reason. Kris had to know why.
But bringing Dan into his quest for the truth about David just stung in all the wrong ways. Kris had done many things he wasn’t proud of in his life. But he just couldn’t do that to Dan. Or to David.
“What if we missed something, Dan?” he whispered. “What if we missed something that day?”
“What do you mean?”
Kris swallowed. “What if David wasn’t killed? What if he survived?”
“Oh Kris…” It was Dan’s turn to cover his face. Kris watched his shoulders shudder, heard his deep breaths behind his hands. “Kris, don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I have to know. I didn’t— I’ve never looked at the files. I’ve never looked at what actually happened.”
“Kris…”
“I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t know. But, Dan, the autopsy. They couldn’t definitely prove it was him. Everything was circumstantial.”
“I’ve read it, Kris. He was beaten to death beside the car,” Dan whispered. “There was enough blood in the rubble to know he’d lost so much. Then he was dragged into the trunk, where they poured accelerant on his body.”
“There was no DNA match to the bones.”
“Because every trace of DNA was gone. He was ash. Even the bones that did remain… They fell apart when the team tried to recover them.” Dan’s face twisted. “Kris, they took him out of there with a shovel. His ashes filled a plastic bag. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t hurt yourself like this.”
It wasn’t David. It wasn’t David because I saw David last night, I held him in my arms.
It wasn’t me they burned, David had said.
“Kris.” Dan reached for him, grabbed his hands. Held them between this own. “Kris, please. If this is because of last night. Us. Please, Kris. You need help. I want to help you, but I can’t help with this.” He nodded to the files, the papers littering the floor. “I love you, and I want you to be happy. I thought I could do that for you, but this.” He kissed Kris’s hands. “You need help. Have you ever talked to anyone? About his death?”
Kris ripped his hands away. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. This is not fine.”
“I am fine! Don’t you think knowing is important? Don’t you think we should be sure, absolutely certain, about what happened?”
“We are certain! We know! There was a Congressional inquiry, for God’s sake! You don’t want to go down this path, Kris. You’re only going to hurt yourself with the truth!”
He stood, turning his back on Dan as he started gathering the papers, the files, the statements and evidence.
“And you’re hurting me,” Dan breathed. “What is this? Another reason to not be with me? Another excuse for us not being together?”
Kris sagged. The air punched out of his lungs, like he’d taken a hit right to the center of his chest. “Dan…”
“We can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep taking this from you. Last night, you made me the happiest I’ve ever been. I thought, ‘Finally, he’s letting me in. He’s letting me love him. Maybe, maybe one day he’ll love me a little bit, too’.”
“Dan—”
“I can’t compete with a ghost. I can’t compete with your complete devotion to him. And if last night sent you spinning down this rabbit hole. If being with me is such a terrible, terrifying thought for you that you had to come here, do this…” Dan took a shaky breath. “You need to get help. You need to move on. And I can’t be a part of that. You have to do that for you.”
Kris slammed the lid on one of the file boxes. How the fuck could he move on when David was alive and out there somewhere? How could he ever let go?
But… David had pushed him away. Had shoved him away and then fled. What did that mean?
Did David not want him anymore?
What had ten years apart done to David?
What if he’d moved on?
What if Kris really was clinging to a ghost?
“Kris…” Dan’s voice shook. His voice never shook. Kris couldn’t face him, not now. “They called me here because you scared the techs. And you’re scaring me. Please, I’m begging you. Call someone. Today.”
Kris stacked the file boxes, grabbed David’s autopsy report and his photo, and strode away.
Brentwood
Washington DC
September 8
1500 hours
Brentwood hummed with urban decay, with poverty, with murders in broad daylight. Police sirens wailed at all hours. Steel-eyed residents turned inward, living behind fortressed walls and ignoring the outside world.
Dawood had slipped into the neighborhood, setting up in a run-down motel. The neon sign buzzed, five of the lights busted and one half-sputtering at night. A pool once full was now only algae green, a swamp of refuse and beer cans. Prostitutes brought men to the rooms and gave the owner a cut of their earnings. He heard banging headboards as he made his daily prayers, heard loud moans and cries of orgasm.
His prayers were scattered, his mind a mess. Kris was alive. He hadn’t believed the news reports, the lists of the dead he’d finally drummed the courage to search for online. Camp Carson Base Commander, Sole Survivor of al-Qaeda Triple Agent Suicide Bombing.
How many nights had he lain awake, convincing himself he’d seen Kris’s dead body? That Kris had died in the attack?
Fear had kept him imprisoned for years. Fear of finding Kris dead. Fear of losing what he’d found on the mountain. Fear of his sandcastle tumbling down, again.
How many choices had been made because of the certainty of his fear, his desperation?
How many steps along the path taken with false knowledge?
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Allah, you knew. You knew he was alive. And yet, this is the path you laid.
He prostrated, his forehead digging into his prayer rug. Trust, trust. “Oh, Allah, I have put my trust into you,” he prayed. “Whosoever puts his trust into Allah, He will suffice him.”
A moan sounded through the wall. Dawood breathed out. A headboard slammed, and slammed again.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Trust in Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said. But tie your camel.
He stood, rolling up his prayer rug and hiding it. If anyone came into his motel room, they’d find nothing but a backpack, some chewing gum, and a few changes of clothes, bought with cash from a Walmart. A bottle of water, a toothbrush and toothpaste. He was nobody. He was nothing.
He pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket. It had been waiting for him when he arrived, waiting in an envelope at the lockers on the wharf, just as promised. Ten days at sea on a cargo ship and then another six with a smuggler, moving through international waters and dodging the US Coast Guard until they slipped into the Chesapeake and rode right up to the waters of DC.
He texted the one number programmed into the phone. When do we meet?
[ Soon. Your partner is on his way. Wait, and don’t draw attention to yourself. In shaa Allah, this will succeed. ]
He rubbed his thumb over the screen, over the message. In shaa Allah.
In shaa Allah, if only everything had been different. If only he’d known.
But that wasn’t the path. That wasn’t the path Allah had set for him.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Grabbing his money and his motel key, Dawood headed out.
Crystal City, Virginia
September 8
1920 hours
Kris trudged down the hallway to his door. How had everything gone so wrong? How had everything ended up upside down, backward instead of forward?
Where did he go from here?
Dan wanted him to get help. What did he tell a psychologist? That he’d seen his dead husband, had kissed him. But David had shoved him away and disappeared, and he had no proof, none at all, that it had ever happened?
Maybe he should get tapes from the bar. Get a statement from the bartender. Surely, he’d remember last night. It wasn’t every day a man came apart like Kris had, all over the bathroom floor.
If he told anyone David was back, without proof, he’d be locked away for evaluation.
How did he find David?
Did David even want to be found?
What did it mean that he was a widower but his husband was alive? And not with him?
He turned the key in his lock, shouldering open the door. He wanted to crawl into bed and wake up yesterday, before all this happened. He’d go to any other bar, any other place. Not see David. He’d go straight to Dan’s.
No, he wouldn’t.
He didn’t know what he’d do.
Eyes closed, he slipped into his unit and shut the door, leaned back against it.
“Hi.”
His eyes flew open. His heart stopped, his lungs. His fingers scrabbled at the door behind him.
David sat on his couch.
Blinking, Kris looked from him to the door and back. He’d locked it. Of course he had. He always locked his door. He’d just unlocked it, for fuck’s sake. He lived in a secured building. No one was supposed to break in, ever. Certainly not his not-dead husband who didn’t know where the fuck he lived.
“I looked you up. When I got here. I thought I would go visit your grave.” David looked away, to the empty white wall opposite Kris’s couch. “When I found out you were alive, I drove out to the house. But… You sold it.”
“Do you think I’d really live there? Without you?”
David swallowed. Kris watched the rise and fall of his throat, the movement of his Adam’s apple. “I tracked you down. Property records. Found out you bought this place. There are two parking spots per unit. I found my truck in one.”
This wasn’t happening. Kris’s fingernails scraped over the door, the only sound in the studio between David’s soft words.
“I waited until you showed up. And then…”
“You’ve been following me?” Had he watched his unit, watched when Kris had come home the day before? And then followed him to Langley, then out to the bar? “You followed me to the bar last night?”
“I just wanted to see your face,” David whispered. “Even in all my memories, every dream I had of you, nothing compares to the reality of you. I couldn’t ever remember you perfectly. Not the way you actually are. All your perfections, all your subtleties. The exact curve of your smile. The angle of your jaw. I just wanted to see you again.”
“What the fuck did you think was going to happen?”
“I didn’t think.” Finally, David looked at Kris. His eyes were fireballs, stars blazing in the dim light of his unit, the setting sun over the Capitol casting shadows over everything, except him. “I thought you were dead. You, alive… I never thought it was possible you could have lived.”
“I never thought it was possible you lived.” Kris ripped David’s autopsy from his laptop bag and flung it across the apartment. Papers fluttered, landing upside down on the carpet in front of David. “This is how you died.”
“It wasn’t me they burned,” David whispered. “The son of the internet café owner. They took him, as collateral. He—”
Silence. Kris heard David breathe, heard the squeak of his leather couch as David shifted.
“How did you get here? You’re dead. You couldn’t have made it through customs.”
“You know as well as I do there are a hundred different ways to enter the US under the radar.”
“Smugglers? Through Mexico? Canada?”
“By boat.”
Kris nodded slowly. Licked his lips. “Which means you’ve been in contact with civilization. Phones. Emails. US Embassies. You didn’t think at any time to try and reach out? To the CIA? To me?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“You keep saying that—”
“Without you, there was no point in coming back! To the world, to the CIA, to anything.”
Damn it, wasn’t that exactly how Kris had felt? The world wasn’t worth living in without David. It hadn’t been, for a decade. He wilted, slumping, and his head thunked against the door.
“Ever since I found out you were alive… I can’t think.” David trembled, curling forward. “Every thought I have comes screeching to a halt, crashing against the knowledge that you’re here. You’re alive. You’ve been alive all this time.”
Two for two on that. It was like David was saying the thoughts forming in Kris’s mind. But hadn’t they always been linked in that way? Hadn’t David and he always shared a soul, shared a mind? Finished each other’s thoughts, each other’s sentences. Would a decade apart truly change that?
“Why are you back? Why now?”
David inhaled, shakily. “I had to come.”
“But why—”
Knocking pounded on the door behind Kris. He flew forward, spinning, his heart in his throat. He was going to die of a heart attack, murdered by too many fucking surprises. Too many uninvited guests at his home. “Who is it?” he shouted.
“Kris, it’s me.”
Fuck. Dan. Kris’s gaze bounced from the door to David. David frowned, confusion unfurling as he stared back.
But, of course. David didn’t know that Dan and Kris were on the cusp of something, that David had interrupted his big grand gesture to Dan, his hanging up of his jock and his condoms and trying to settle in for round two of the good life.
“Kris… I’ve been thinking about you all day. This afternoon…. You’re scaring me, Kris. Please, let me in. Can we talk? I want to help you.”
“I’m fine, Dan. Really. It’s okay.”
“Please.” He heard Dan sigh. “Please, just let me see you. I’m frantic over you right now. I’m so sick, thinking I pushed someone I love into this. God, Kris, I’m so sorry—”
Confusion on David’s face bloomed, morphing to shock, to realization. To agony.
He had to get rid of Dan. Right now.
“You didn’t do anything, Dan. It wasn’t you. I promise.”
“Open the door, please. Just let me see you.”
He made sure the chain lock was on. Reached for the doorknob and sighed. He glanced over his shoulder. David had disappeared from the couch. There was no way Dan could see over Kris’s shoulder and into his studio, could spy David back from the dead.
He wasn’t ready for Dan—or anyone—to know, not yet.
Maybe David would disappear again. Maybe they’d say the goodbye they never got to say. Maybe David was riding off into the sunset and Kris was just one stop on his goodbye tour. What did ten years as a dead man do to a man? Did the same person come back?
He cracked his front door. Pressed his face into the opening. “I’m fine, Dan.”
Dan looked him up and down, taking in his same clothes, rumpled and stained. His exhaustion, warring with the adrenaline of finding David in his apartment. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier. That I couldn’t be a part of your healing. Don’t think that I’m walking away from you. I’m not. I never will. I just want you to be okay.”
“I’m— I’m fine. I’m going to be fine. I will.” He nodded, ridiculous bobs of his head up and down. He had no idea what he was saying.
“Kris…”
David appeared, hidden behind the door, out of sight. Rage thundered through his gaze, primal purpose. Lightning flashed in his eyes. “He’s busy,” David growled. He slammed his palm against Kris’s door and shoved it closed, right in Dan’s face.
Kris heard Dan’s gasp, his choked-off shout of surprise, muffled through the closed door. “Why did you—”
David grabbed him, spun him. Pressed him against the door. His hands squeezed Kris’s shoulders and his legs pressed against his, from feet to thighs. Every part of David trembled.
He stared into Kris’s eyes, every emotion roiling within him laid bare. Like sixteen years before in Afghanistan, when David had finally let Kris see into his soul, had let him see how he truly felt before their very first kiss. Agony, anguish, heartache. Confusion. Anger. Need.
Desire. Hunger.
Love. So much love.
Terror. Fear. He saw David’s fear spin on and on, heart-clenching, throat-choking anxiety. Was it too late? Was he too late?
Did ten years change a man?
Yes… and no. Kris responded to David like he always had, like part of his soul was reaching for David, like something inside of him needed to be with something inside of David. Like they were two halves of a whole, desperate to be one.
Ten years, and he still loved David with every fiber of his being. Every part of his soul, every shattered remnant of his heart.
And David still loved him.
He grabbed David and pulled him close, as close as he could. David groaned, shuddering as he collapsed against Kris, as their bodies fit together.
Hands were everywhere. Grabbing jackets and shirts, tugging, pulling, freeing skin. On waistbands, undoing pants and jeans.
They were naked in moments, clothes scattered on the floor. Kris’s hands roamed over David’s body, over his warm, burnished skin. He knew this body, knew it inside out. Had loved it for years, and still loved him in his dreams. But there were new scars, new marks. Burns and cuts, ragged lines where the skin had been torn, healed roughly. Star-shaped bullet wounds. Ten years had not been kind to David.
David ran his rough hands over every inch of Kris’s chest. SAD had filled him out, turned his lean body hard, made him cutting. He had scars, too, every one of them earned after David’s death, earned because Kris had wanted to feel a fraction of the agony of David’s death. He’d been reckless, so reckless. He’d wanted to die.
“Kris,” David breathed. Their noses bumped, shared breaths mixing together. He kissed Kris’s face, his nose, his cheeks, his eyes. “Kris, please—”
“Yes, David, yes. Make love to me,” Kris whispered.
David backed him through his studio, through the tiny space to his bed. They kissed and never stopped, hands exploring, relearning, remapping bodies they’d committed to their hearts. Kris’s legs hit the edge of his bed, and he scrambled onto the mattress, dragging David by the hand after him.
David surged, covering him completely, his body sliding against Kris’s, claiming him, owning him. Kris whimpered. His arms and legs wrapped around David, holding tight.
“You’re so beautiful,” David whispered. “Ya rouhi.” He bent to Kris again, kissing him, caressing him in every way, dragging a symphony of moans and shudders from Kris.
Kris tipped his head back, gasping for air. Everything inside of him burned, everything. His blood, his bones, his heart. His soul was on fire, every shattered piece of his heart reforging in the heat of David’s love. Nothing existed beyond this moment. Nothing existed beyond their bodies, pressed so close, locked together. Shock waves erupted from within, earthquakes in his soul that rocked in time with David’s thrusts, in time with his grunts, his breaths in Kris’s hair, his ear.
“I love you,” David whispered. “I have always loved you.”
“David!” Kris’s fingers dragged down David’s back, left furrows in his skin. Ran over raised rough ridges, old scar tissue.
David burrowed into Kris’s body, into his soul, into that place inside of Kris that had always and forever been David’s and David’s alone. That part of him that had always held David’s soul.
Somewhere inside of David, part of Kris’s soul existed, too.
David kissed his way down Kris’s throat, cradled him in his arms. Rocked forward, and pressed their foreheads together. Stared into Kris’s eyes. David dragged Kris’s pleasure out in long, languid lengths, until Kris couldn’t breathe, until his back arched and his toes curled and he screamed, yelling at the top of his lungs. It was different, God, it was so different, when there was so much love. Nothing could compare, ever.
David held him, after, caressing him as he kept gently rocking into Kris’s body, whispering kisses and declarations of love in English and Arabic all over his skin.
Dizzy, Kris tried to hold on to David, tried to keep both hands on his dead husband as the world tumbled, twirled away. Was this madness? He was okay with it, if it was.
“I want to make love to you forever,” David whispered. “All night long. And tomorrow. And the day after.”
Kris shivered, to the tip of his toes. “Why don’t you?”
Above him, David grinned. He kissed Kris’s nose, his lips, both of his eyelids. “Okay.”
Hours later, they finally rested.
The bed was destroyed. Sheets lay in a pooled heap on the floor. Kris’s white bedspread was torn, more off than on. The mattress was exposed on one corner, the sheet ripped free as Kris screamed through his third orgasm, as David rode him through his second. Handprints streaked the glass mirror at the head of the bed from when Kris had ridden David slowly, an hour’s worth of heat building between them until David tipped him backward and took control.
They lay entwined, one edge of the fitted sheet wrapped around their hips against the cold. Wet spots stained the bed, lube and everything else.
David’s gaze flicked to the bowl of condoms beside the bed. His eyebrows arched.
Kris swallowed. Looked down. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t know how to deal with that—”
David silenced him with a kiss.
Jealousy slithered up Kris’s insides. “You? Ten years is a long time…”
David shook his head. “Nothing. There was never anyone. Never anyone else.”
“Jesus, that makes me feel worse.” Kris covered his face with his hands. How many men had it been? He tried to add up the round numbers, the nights he’d spent, the weeks in a year multiplied. His face burned.
David kissed his chest, his collarbone, his throat. “Ya rouhi, it’s in the past. Don’t think of it again.”
Kris bit his lip. “Are you back? Are you here for good? You’ve just appeared out of the blue twice. What do you want, David?”
David’s hand splayed over Kris’s belly. “It’s Dawood, now,” he said softly. “I go by Dawood.”
“Dawood.” Kris blinked. “Are you… Muslim again?”
“I’ve always been Muslim. I was born Muslim.”
“Are you practicing?”
David—Dawood—nodded. “La ilaha illah Allah wa-Muhammad rasul Allah,” he breathed, whispering the shahada.
“What happened over there? What happened to you?” Kris propped himself up on his elbow, turning toward Dawood. He laced their hands together, fingers entwined. “Tell me, please.”
Moonlight glittered into his studio, curving through the windows. Pale light fell on the bed, between their bodies. Dawood held out his hand, as if he could catch a moonbeam in his palm. “Every night, I whispered to the moon. As if it could take my messages straight to you. Every night, I thought of you. Told you what happened during my day. Gave you my prayers. I thought you were with Allah and that you could hear me. I thought the moon was our messenger.”
Tears slipped from Kris’s eyes and fell into the moonlight.
Slowly, Dawood spoke. About how Al Jabal had dragged him free from the rubble of the mosque through an escape tunnel and driven him north, hundreds and hundreds of miles, to the footsteps of his father, Abu Adnan, in the remote mountains of Bajaur Province. “I was supposed to be a prisoner. In secret. One day, Al Jabal would come for me and finish me off.”
“Ryan killed him. Two weeks after your death. Ryan put everything and everyone in Afghanistan into the hunt for your murderer. Two drones obliterated him. I saw his death photos myself.”
Dawood winced. He muttered a prayer under his breath, Arabic too soft for Kris to catch. “Abu Adnan told me. And he told me his son’s death freed me. That his son had told no one, ever, about his home. That no one in the world knew where I was.”
“Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you find some way to reach out? Any way?”
“The mountain felt like the end of the earth. Like the oceans had been turned upside down and we lived somewhere entirely off the map. Maybe even a different world. Some days, I didn’t know if I was alive or dead, if anything was real. The only thing I knew, for certain, was that if I came off the mountain and you were dead, I wouldn’t survive.”
Kris squeezed Dawood’s hand until his bones hurt.
“Abu Adnan took me in. He took care of me. Nursed me back to life. Gave me a place in his home.”
“Al Jabal’s father? Your murderer’s father?”
“He became a father to me as well. Bismillah.”
Kris blinked, slowly. “I can’t even imagine…”
“I had a father again,” Dawood whispered. “I had a father, and I had Allah, too. I thought you were dead, in Paradise, and I gave my prayers to you through the moon. I was just waiting to see you again. That’s all I lived for.”
Hadn’t that been all Kris lived for, as well? But he had stopped believing in fairy tales of an afterlife, delusions of heaven or a hereafter. He’d stopped believing because David—Dawood—hadn’t come back for him like he’d promised he would.
But if Dawood was alive, then of course he couldn’t come back from the dead, from an afterlife, for Kris. Of course not. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Why had he left his husband for ten years? Guilt twisted at his guts, slicked up his spine. Shame, the familiarity of it, curled around his heart. It felt like a homecoming.
“I’m sorry,” Kris whispered. He cupped Dawood’s cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
Dawood covered his hand and kissed Kris’s palm. “I’m not. It was good, being there. I was alive in a way I hadn’t been.”
“Spiritually?”
Dawood nodded. He glanced out the window, to the moon. “I need to pray, ya rouhi.” He kissed Kris’s nose and rose, striding out of bed and to the bathroom. Kris watched him, watched his naked body move, the long lines of his legs, the strength in his back.
Water turned on in his shower. Dawood stepped in, rinsed. He could hear him speaking softly, Arabic words, prayers. He’s doing his ablutions. After intercourse, after any bodily fluid had been spilled, a full washing was required.
Silently, Kris watched Dawood pad back out of the bathroom after the water turned off. Beads of water clung to his skin, the ends of his hair. He’d let it grow long and had brushed it back off his face. A towel wrapped around his waist, covering his hips and his thighs. Dawood lined up, facing east, and began his prayers. “Allahu Akbar.”
Kris sat up, the sheet pooling around his hips, their releases staining his skin, his bed, as his husband gave his prayers to Allah. Arabic whispered over his studio as Dawood bowed, kneeled, prostrated, and prayed. “Allahu Akbar.”
He finished with the tasleem. “As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullah wa barakatuhu.” Rising, he stretched, the moonlight carving around his body.
“I thought you believed Allah was dead.”
Dawood crawled into bed slowly. He lay beside Kris, one hand stroking Kris’s leg, his sheet-covered hip. “I believe Allah created you and me out of one soul. That we are meant to be together, before time and after time ends. If I believe that, how can I truly believe Allah is dead?”
“Your father?” Kris whispered.
Dawood blinked. He licked his lips. “I have tried to become a man my father would have been proud of. I try to do my part to make the world a better place.”
“There’s so much evil in the world. So much hatred. It seems to get worse every year, every day. Where is the justice?”
Dawood’s gaze skittered away. “Sometimes, justice is what we make ourselves.”
“And evil? How do we fight that?”
“If I have lived for Allah and lived like my baba, then evil will be fought.”
Kris lay back on the mattress. The pillows were long gone. His thoughts slid to Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani, the jihadi on his hegira for war. Where was he going? What were his plans? Was he coming to America to slaughter Americans, blaming them for the evils of the world? Americans were complicit, or so the jihadist sayings went, in the actions of their government, thanks to democracy. He chewed on his lip. “There are many people who say they live for Allah and fight against evil. But everyone points the finger at each other, saying everyone else is the evil one. Where is the truth?”
“The truth is complicated,” Dawood whispered again. His eyes were lost in darkness, only the shadow of the moon reflecting in slivers off his dark irises. “But there are objective evils in the world. Death, before someone’s time. Murder. Torture. Oppression. Betrayal. Some things are just wrong. I put my faith in Allah to help me find my center, as my baba did.”
“What about this?” Kris hitched his naked leg over Dawood’s. “Us. Doesn’t the Quran have a few things to say about people like us?”
“Allah made me this way. He made me, and He is perfect. He does not make mistakes. And, in the Quran, the Prophet Lot was aghast by the cruel treatment of strangers by the inhabitants of Sodom.” Dawood kissed the back of Kris’s hand. “If you go into the texts, into the classical Arabic, the meaning is forced sodomy. Rape of men. Specifically, the inhabitants of Sodom attacked travelers, blocked their way, and raped them.” He rubbed his cheek, his beard, over Kris’s fingers. “The Quran is a book for all time, given by God to us for our learning. It is a book that renews itself, reveals itself deeper as we progress as human beings. How can we ever presume to understand His mind? Allah speaks in poetry, in science, in sunsets and sunrises and shooting stars, in planetary orbits and psychology. But He has made all things possible. If a line in the Quran seems to violate His world, His order, then that line is just more of His poetry. He made me.” Dawood kissed Kris’s fingers, the tips of his pads. “He made us. Made us out of one soul. He did not do that in error. Sometimes…” Dawood sighed. “I believe Islam has ossified under so many layers of human error. Of fatwas and rulings and dusty old men issuing their rulings. We have lost sight of the truth, and faith has become stagnant in our blood, in our souls. We, as Muslims, must go back to the beginning, to become closer to Allah.”
“Isn’t that what the fundamentalists say?” Kris whispered.
“Allah detests violence against the innocent. Wickedness. Why is so much of the world in collapse, now? Why has so much evil risen? Allah is trying to tell us something, but no one is listening.”
“Tell that to the jihadis. They think they have a straight line to Allah. Dedicated cell service.”
“Jihad comes in many forms. But, qitaf fi sabilillah. The holy war. That is only to be waged on the evildoers, the ones against God. Anything else is not allowed.”
Ten years had changed Dawood. The dead weight of his past, the silent scream he’d carried inside of himself, was gone. Something else was in its place, something Kris couldn’t quite put his finger on yet. Certainty? Or something else?
“I’ve missed you,” Kris breathed. He reached for Dawood’s hand as moonlight drenched their bed. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Dawood kissed his nose. Smiled. “I am here now.”
“Will you stay? We can figure this out. Go to the CIA, explain everything. You can be declared undead. Not-dead. Whatever it is.”
Dawood leaned forward again, kissing him softly. Like he’d kissed him the day they married and the day Kris had said yes. Like they’d kissed the morning before the Hamid operation had broken everything apart.
“You didn’t finish your story.” Kris pulled back. “You were living on the mountain with Abu Adnan. And now you’re here. Fill in the blanks.” He settled back and took Dawood’s hand, kissed his palm.
Dawood looked away, a million miles away. “’Bu Adnan died.”
“Oh, shit. Jesus, Dav—Dawood.” He fumbled on Dawood’s name, the shape of it unfamiliar on his lips. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Two fathers in Dawood’s life, gone. “Was it… peaceful?”
Dawood shook his head.
Kris tugged him down until Dawood’s head lay on his chest, right over his heart. He wrapped both arms around Dawood, cradled him close. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Dawood turned, rolling against him. Brought his body against Kris’s, their legs and hips and everything else pressed so tightly together. “Make me forget,” he breathed. “Make me forget, for tonight.” His lips closed over Kris’s.
Kris held him close, drawing him in, wrapping his arms and his legs around Dawood as Dawood crawled over and above him. His lips parted, and he kissed Dawood with everything he felt, every moment of loneliness, every night he’d cried himself to sleep, every dream he’d had of waking up with Dawood beside him once again. Every memory of his smile, his laugh. His fingers carded through Dawood’s hair as his legs fell open, as Dawood pressed against his thigh, his hip.
Yes, he wanted this, wanted Dawood. Wanted their love and their life back. He wanted Dawood to slide within him again, all the way in, until their souls merged and they drowned in each other, and all the darkness, all the pain, all the agony of every day of the past ten years, was erased. He arched his back, opened himself to Dawood. “Love me,” he breathed.
“Ya rouhi, I always have,” Dawood whispered. He slid inside Kris, into his soul, and shuddered. Kisses whispered over skin, hands, fingers, caressed. “Ana bahibak, my love. I always will.”
September 9
0710 hours
Kris woke to Dawood’s soft prayers, his calls of Allahu Akbar before the rising sun. Squinting, Kris shifted, standing on wobbling legs and heading for the bathroom. He was a mess. He hadn’t been loved this much, this hard, since—
Since their trip to Hawaii. Since their wedding night. Since their new house. Every one of his best memories were Dawood.
“I’m going to shower,” he called back. “Want to join me?”
“I’ll make breakfast.” Dawood appeared in the doorway, his jeans on but unbuttoned at the waist. “You still like your eggs over easy?”
“I always like everything you make me.”
Dawood smiled and disappeared.
Kris took his time in the shower, relaxing under the heat, letting loose muscles that hadn’t relaxed in ten years. He laughed out loud, smiling into the spray. How was this possible? How did happy endings happen? How did dead husbands come back?
He sobered as he washed his hair. What was he going to tell Dan? Last night, Dawood had shoved him away, had sent a loud and clear message to Dan. How had that gone down? He had, in the ancient wisdom of an old TV program, some ’splaining to do to Dan.
This was going to hurt, no matter how it went down. But, in his heart, Dan had always wanted the best for Kris. That had to still be true. It had to be.
Between Dawood and Dan, there was no contest, and there never had been. His heart, his soul, had always belonged to Dawood.
He toweled off, fluffed his hair, and pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and a loose sweater. He’d call out for the day, spend his time with Dawood. Figure out their plan together.
Barefoot, he padded out of the bathroom.
A plate rested on the kitchen counter. Two eggs, perfectly fried. A piece of toast. A glass of orange juice sat beside it.
But his studio was empty.
“Dawood?”
Nothing.
No.
This couldn’t be happening. His heart raced. He spun, checking the corners, peeking under the curtains. His gaze flicked back to the bed. Was Dawood hiding, or lying down, or…
The walls were closing in the faster he spun, the harder he breathed. No, no. Where had he gone? Where? And why? Why had he left, again?
Kris stopped, staring at his front door.
His bag, his laptop, everything he’d brought home from the CIA, was gone.
And so was Dawood.
Collapsing, Kris screamed, grabbing his hair, pulling on the strands, screaming and screaming until his voice went hoarse and his throat was raw. He flung himself forward, a mimicry of Dawood’s prayers only an hour before.
Dawood had stolen his CIA-issued laptop.
Dawood had robbed him.
Dawood had used him.
And he was gone. Again.
He had to call Dan.