Chapter 30
Crystal City, Virginia
September 9
0845 hours
FBI forensic technicians crawled over Kris’s apartment. Their soft chatter filled the empty spaces, the deafening silent scream that split Kris’s head in two. He huddled at his kitchen counter, slumped on a barstool, arms wrapped around himself.
Dan paced behind him, from the stove to the refrigerator and back, talking softly into his phone. “Yeah, it’s all gone. His laptop, his access card, everything.” Silence. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to tell these FBI guys, Ryan.” More silence. “Yeah, okay. Okay, thanks.” He hung up with a sigh.
He didn’t look at Kris.
Fingerprint dust glittered in the air, a dark grit that hovered, that caught in Kris’s throat. Techs flipped back his stained bedsheets one by one. Ran their flashlights over every inch of his bed, pulled fingerprints from his mirror, from his bed frame.
A tech with a set of tweezers grabbed a long, dark hair from the carpet where Dawood had prayed. He dropped it in a plastic baggie marked EVIDENCE and sealed it, set it aside.
Kris’s stomach twisted, clenched. Bile crawled up his throat. He buried his face in his hands, exhaled slowly.
Everything burned. Everything in him burned, a searing shame, a fire that, if he believed in anything at all, he’d call the wrath of God.
He was so fucking ashamed.
How had he been so fucking stupid?
Anger bubbled, simmered with resentment, with regret, recrimination. He should have told Dawood to get the fuck out. He should have told him to call the CIA, the FBI, call anyone, and sort out his legal status—dead or not dead—before saying a word to Kris. He should have told him that ten years without reaching out was ten years too many.
He should have told Dawood that ten years changed a man.
Because it had. It fucking had.
What had happened to the man he knew? The man he loved?
Kris chewed on his upper lip, memories tumbling. Had that been his husband, last night? Had that really been him? It felt like him. Tasted like him. His soul thought it was his love, his partner, his husband.
But how had his husband, the love of his life, left him… again?
And stolen his laptop, his CIA ID badge, and his access card.
Nothing made sense.
Did Dawood love him?
Or was that all an elaborate pretense, a game to get what he needed? Get Kris’s access to the CIA, his files, his laptop.
Behind him, Dan cleared his throat. He stood as far from Kris as he could, and looked like he wanted to crawl the walls, stand on the countertop, get even farther from Kris. As far as he could. “Ryan has told the FBI this is a national security incident. Everything about this is being locked down. FBI will report direct to the CIA deputy director on this.”
“To George?” Kris picked at the dark granite of his countertop.
“Yes.” Dan blew out, slowly. “So… That was him? Last night? Who—”
Who had shut the door in Dan’s face when Dan had come to see how he was doing. Kris nodded. “I didn’t know he was here. He broke in.” Kris shrugged. He should have questioned that more. How? Why? When?
But faced with his dead husband, he hadn’t thought about national security, or any darker possibilities of why Dawood was back in his life seemingly out of thin air.
“All your access has been revoked. Anyone logs into the network with your card, or tries to access the internet from your laptop, we’ll be alerted. Your laptop has been flagged, and if he tries anything, its ID will pop up at CIA headquarters. We’ll send out a response team. We’ll bring him in.”
“He’s former CIA, Dan. He knows all this. It took, what, thirty minutes to notify tech? He got everything he wanted off the laptop in under twenty.” Kris sank against the counter, laying his head on his folded arms.
Hadn’t he failed in all the ways a person could fail? Hadn’t he fallen as far as a man could fall? Wasn’t he already the scum of the CIA? Out of all the ways he’d failed, he’d never let classified material into enemy hands. Was that what he’d done now? Was Dawood one of them, still? Or one of them?
Dan inched forward, leaning his hips against the counter a few feet down from Kris. He folded his arms, pursed his lips. He still wouldn’t look at Kris.
The lead FBI agent, a woman wearing a blue suit and sporting a brisk blonde bob, marched to Kris. Set her notebook on the counter, a perfect right angle to the edge. “Sir, I’m Agent Spalding. I have a few questions for you, as part of the investigation.”
“The CIA will handle the investigation. We just need the FBI to process the evidence.” Dan jumped in before Kris could speak.
Agent Spalding cast Dan a cold glare. “We will be conducting a thorough investigation without CIA interference. National security information may have been compromised. This is no time for a turf war.”
Dan snorted. “Your boss will be calling you soon. Just a heads-up. This is staying within the CIA. Just process the evidence, Agent Spalding. The CIA will take Mr. Caldera’s statement back at Langley.”
She blinked once at Dan. Turned back to Kris. “You engaged in sexual intercourse with the suspect, correct?”
Dan flinched and turned away. Kris saw his hands grip the counter’s edge, his knuckles go white. “I did.”
“We haven’t recovered any used condoms in the trash. Were they flushed, or did you not use any?”
“We didn’t use any.”
Dan exhaled, slowly. Kris felt his exhale like a sword slicing up his spine. He’d never let Dan touch him without wearing a condom. He’d never let anyone else, ever, touch him without a condom. Dawood had been the first, the only, in his entire life.
“We’re going to need to take you to Fairfax, to the medical center—”
“Why?” Dan was suddenly there, suddenly right at Kris’s side. “Why do you need to do that? Is he hurt?” He turned to Kris, finally looked at him. “Did he hurt you?” Dan looked like he wanted to puke, then wanted to rip Kris’s kitchen apart with his bare hands.
“Mr. Caldera needs a sexual assault forensic exam. We can collect the evidence at Fairfax medical or at Quantico, the choice is yours. But we need to do this.”
“I’m going to be sick.” Kris pushed Dan away and ran to his sink, emptying his stomach of bile and shame. What had he eaten last? Lemon chicken, with Dan. And Dawood’s—
Closing his eyes, he rubbed the back of his hand over his lips. Spit dribbled from his mouth.
Dan’s hand tentatively rested on his back. A gentle, barely there spread of his fingers. As if Dan didn’t want to touch him.
“Why is this required?” Dan’s voice could cut diamonds.
“We need to definitively identify the assailant—”
“It wasn’t an assault.” Kris rinsed his mouth, spat tap water into the sink. “And I know who he was.”
“I was under the impression that there was some confusion about who this man was. The CIA asked the FBI to provide a definitive ID. We need DNA to do that. The fingerprints we’re pulling are mostly partials. If a definitive identity is what the CIA is after, this is how it’s done.” Agent Spalding’s gaze bounced from Kris to Dan and back. “But now you say you know who he is? If that’s the case, then what are we doing here? Wasting time?”
Dan squeezed Kris’s shoulder, hard enough to tell Kris to keep his mouth shut. “We do need a definitive ID, yes.”
Agent Spalding’s eyebrows arched high. She waited.
Dan didn’t give her anything more. “This is a national security matter. We won’t be sharing anything further. All evidence recovered needs to be rush processed and forwarded immediately to Deputy Director George Haugen.”
Agent Spalding snapped her notebook closed. “Then the only thing left is the forensic exam. Fairfax or Quantico, Mr. Caldera. The choice is yours.”
Kris rested his forehead on the edge of his sink. The world was spinning, had spun since Dawood had disappeared, since he’d seen the plate of eggs and the empty studio and his missing laptop. He couldn’t drag in enough air through the way his heart had caved in, crushing his chest. “Fairfax.”
“I’ll meet you there, Mr. Caldera. Go to the emergency room. I’ll have a nurse waiting to collect the samples.”
Collect the samples. He’d showered, but there could still be traces of Dawood on him, under his fingernails.
There absolutely still was Dawood inside of him. Absolutely.
His stomach lurched again. He clutched the edges of his sink, bile racing up his throat.
“I’ll drive,” Dan said softly.
The drive to the hospital was the quietest ride of Kris’s life. Not even the flight home from Afghanistan with four bodies in the same plane had been so silent. Dan’s electric car, his Bolt, barely hummed, barely made a single noise. Kris picked at the sleeves of his sweater.
Dan sat ramrod straight, driving like he was an instructor at The Farm, solid, definitive motions to every turn, every lane change. Kris finally gathered the shards of his courage and glanced his way.
Dan looked like shit. Like he’d been up all night, maybe drinking. Dark circles hung beneath his red-rimmed eyes. His knuckles were white where his hands clenched the steering wheel. He breathed slowly, in and out, like controlling his breath was the only thing holding him together.
Finally, they arrived, and Dan pulled up to the front of the ER, set out his CIA placard, his ‘don’t fucking tow this car’ sign. Sighed, and sat back in his seat.
“I thought, last night, you’d just picked someone up,” Dan breathed. “I thought everything you told me two days ago was bullshit. I thought you were just playing me.” He looked down. Toyed with his key ring. Inhaled brokenly. “I thought you’d finally ripped my heart out enough for me to move on.”
“Dan—” Tears bubbled up from within Kris, from the ragged parts that remained. “I meant it. I did. I wanted—” He couldn’t do this. God, he couldn’t do this. Pitching forward, Kris howled into his hands, sobbed into the tear-soaked wrists of his sweater. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t understand anything. Any of this.”
“I don’t either.” Dan reached for the door handle. “They’re waiting for you inside. And we’ve got to get back to Langley. Ryan is waiting for us.”
He tried to be brave, walking into the ER. Agent Spalding was there, texting someone and waiting with a nurse. They motioned for him to follow them down a long hallway to a closed room in the back.
Kris hesitated. “Dan,” he mumbled. “I don’t have any right to ask you for anything. Not anything, I know that. But…” Tears streamed down his face, a river rushing over his cheeks, down his jawline. “Will you stay with me?” His hands twisted in front of him, destroying his sweater’s wrists.
Dan’s eyes slid closed. For a moment, he didn’t breathe. It might have been easier if Kris had asked him to carve his heart out with a spoon, offer it up to Kris on a golden platter. “Yes,” Dan sighed. “You know I will.”
They made the long walk to the exam room together. Dan pulled out his phone and turned it off.
Inside, the nurse asked Kris a lengthy health history, including a list of his recent sexual partners. In front of Dan, he detailed his and Dawood’s four orgasms, his blow job from the Marine over the Atlantic, and a one-night stand in Estonia with a drunk British soldier. Dan sat, stone-faced.
The nurse asked him to strip, and then took photos of bruises on his wrists. A bruise blooming on his hip, the shape of a palm, squeezing.
“All of these were consensual,” he whispered. “I thought—” He sniffed.
“I need to swab for DNA,” the nurse finally said. She passed over a hospital gown, open in the back. “Please take off your briefs and lie facedown. I’ll be back soon.”
He shook as he undressed, almost fell over. Dan steadied him. Held him up. Guided Kris to the exam bed and helped him lie on his stomach. Grabbed a blanket from a stack on the shelves and spread it over Kris when Kris couldn’t stop trembling.
“Thanks.” Slowly, Kris reached out with his fingers, spreading them across the cheap plastic of the exam bed, inch by inch, until his index finger grazed the side of Dan’s hand.
For a moment, it seemed like Dan was going to break down, was going to split in half and sob, let out every ounce of agony Kris knew he was holding on to. Agony Kris had given him, had dropped into his lap, a giant ball of twisted anguish straight through the heart. He tried to pull his fingers back. What right did he have, reaching for Dan and his care? What right did he have asking for help, for comfort, when all he did was hurt Dan in return?
Dan grabbed his fingers, linked two of his through two of Kris’s, holding on like their fingers held the universe together. Kris could feel Dan shaking, trembling, his entire soul quaking within him.
Knocks sounded at the door. The nurse slipped back in. “All right, I’m going to make this as quick and painless as possible. Three swabs, and then we’re done.”
Kris buried his face in his and Dan’s linked hands.
Dan wrapped his other hand over Kris’s head and pressed his lips to Kris’s temple.
“Ryan is waiting for us.”
“Fuck.” Kris wilted in Dan’s passenger seat. “This day just gets worse and worse.”
Dan drove to Langley’s executive parking lot, closest to headquarters. He had a spot right up front with his name on it. Why did Dan even give him the time of day?
“Ryan has set up a counterintelligence polygraph interview—”
Kris groaned. He thunked his head against Dan’s passenger window.
“You know we have to do this. We have to know everything, Kris. And we have to be certain.”
“Today? Right now? You know polygraphs are junk science, right? And you know us SAD guys are trained to beat them?”
“I’d advise you don’t advertise that to the polygrapher. You’re in enough shit as it is right now.”
They walked in through the front doors, and as they crossed the CIA seal, Kris stared at the wall of stars, the Memorial Wall to fallen officers. Each star was carved out of the marble, chunks pulled out, each star representing something—someone—missing from the CIA. Dawood’s star was up there. He’d spent hours in front of it, feeling the edges, running his fingers through the darkness, the hollow spaces.
But Dawood was alive. He was back. How did a fallen star get put back up?
Dawood was stealing CIA property. Was he working against the CIA?
How did a good man go bad?
Allah detests violence against the innocent, Dawood had said. Wickedness. Jihad is only to be waged against the evildoers.
There are objective evils in the world.
The truth is complicated.
Kris’s heart, his soul, trembled.
His access to headquarters was restricted to being under armed guard and escort. Dan waited in the lobby with him while a retinue of internal guards arrived, each carrying an MP5 in a neck holster and glaring at him like he was a filthy traitor to the stars and stripes, to apple pie and the American way.
I was first on the ground in Afghanistan, he wanted to scream at the hulking guards. I built this agency’s terrorist hunting program. I have more kills than you’ll ever know.
But the only thing he’d be remembered for, inside the halls of Langley, was Camp Carson. And now, for breaching national security, for having his CIA files stolen by a ghost, a man who didn’t believe enough in them, in their love and in what they were, to reach out to him for a decade.
It was Ryan’s first question, once he was in the polygraph room and hooked up to the reader. “Why now? Why is Haddad back now?”
“I don’t know.” The polygrapher stared at her monitor, displaying readouts of Kris’s heart rate, the speed of his breathing, his skin temperature, his sweat. A dozen cables wrapped around his chest, EKG pads were stuck beneath his collarbones, and a pulse monitor squeezed his fingertip. A camera stared at his right eye, watching for pupil dilation.
“How long have you known Haddad was back in the United States?”
“Two days. September seventh. I was on my way home—” I was on my way to Dan’s. “—and I stopped for a drink. He showed up at the bar.”
“He showed up?” Ryan’s eyebrows shot sky high. “He just… showed up. Out of the blue.”
“He said he was following me.” Kris shifted. The cable across his chest stretched.
“Following you. Outstanding countersurveillance work there, Caldera.” Ryan pushed off the wall and started pacing. “What did he say about where he’d been?”
“In the mountains, he said. He said he was cared for by a man named Abu Adnan. The father of Al Jabal.”
“The father of the man who tortured him? Who was planning on murdering him?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Ryan kept pacing, wall to wall in the cramped room. “What does he want from you, Caldera?”
“I don’t know.” Kris’s voice shook. He felt his heart beat faster, felt his breath speed up. “I don’t fucking know. If I knew that, I’d know what to do.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Ryan glared.
“I’d know why he’s here!” Kris screamed. “I’d know if I should love him or hate him! I’d know if what happened last night was real or if he was just fucking playing with me!”
“Oh, he fucking played with you, all right. All night long, I heard.”
“Fuck you!” Kris tried to lunge for Ryan. The cables, the sensors, kept him tied to the chair.
Alarms on the polygraph machine wailed.
“Calm down,” the polygrapher snapped. “None of this is helping.”
“He’s just lost his husband. Again.” Dan tried to interject, softly. “Can we be a little more conscious of that? This is a hard time for him.”
“He hasn’t just lost his husband!” Ryan roared. “Haddad was declared dead a decade ago! If Haddad is alive, then it’s on him as to why he’s been hiding for a decade! What kept him from the US?” He whirled on Kris. “Was he held against his will?”
“No.”
“Was he a prisoner?”
“No.”
“Was he wounded? Was there any reason he couldn’t physically get to a US Embassy or military base?”
“No.”
“Then he chose to stay,” Ryan hissed. “He chose to fucking stay with al-Qaeda. He chose to become one of them. Which makes him a fucking enemy combatant! A Goddamn terrorist jihadi!”
“We don’t know that—” Dan tried.
“I told you he was unstable! I told you he was bad news!”
“He’s not fucking al-Qaeda!” Kris shrieked. “He’s not a fucking terrorist!”
“Then why didn’t he come back?” Ryan roared. “Why didn’t he come back to you? If you were so fucking in love, so fucking in love that you had to change CIA policy to accommodate you both, why didn’t he come back to that?” Ryan pushed into Kris’s face. Blood vessels had burst in his eyes, turned his gaze red.
Kris slammed his head forward. He was too far away to break Ryan’s nose, but his forehead connected with Ryan’s chin, hard.
Ryan flew back, licking a trail of blood from his split lip. In the corner, Dan smothered a tiny smile.
“Fuck you, Caldera,” Ryan hissed. “Fuck you. You should have come to us with this right away. But you hid it. You hid Haddad’s return, and that makes you complicit in everything he fucking does, from that moment on. Are you ready? For whatever that is? For the love of your life to unleash the next September eleventh on American soil? Because you didn’t act when you had the chance?”
Again, Kris tried to lunge for Ryan, tried to rip off the monitors and cables, tried to get his hands around Ryan’s throat. Never, ever again, he’d sworn. Never again. Dawood had sworn with him. They’d sworn together that they would dedicate their lives to preserving life, to saving people. To never letting hatred and violence take control of the world again. Their whole lives, they’d fought against the forces of evil, of blind hatred, of crazed vengeances and bloodthirst. No matter who was guilty.
But were they still on the same side in that struggle?
The truth is complicated.
No, it’s not, Dawood. It’s us, together forever. It’s us, always us. It’s us against evil. That’s how it always was. That’s what we did, together.
There are objective evils in the world.
Do you think I’m evil now, Dawood? Have I become your monster? The Great Satan, the evil CIA?
Is that why you never came back to me?
The polygraph machine’s alarms wailed in the silence as Ryan nursed his split lip and Kris wilted, no longer struggling against the cables.
He was going to flunk the polygraph. His emotions were careening, veering wildly left to right, up and down, too much for any reliable reading. He wanted to murder Ryan, strangle him with his bare hands. He wanted to rip the cables off and run, just run. He wanted to stand in the middle of DC and scream until his throat bled, scream and scream for Dawood to come back, just come back to him.
When Dawood did come back—if he came back—he wanted to slap him until his head spun around on the top of his spine. Nail his balls to the ground until he got his answers.
A part of him didn’t ever want to see Dawood again. A growing part of him nurtured a searing resentment, a shadow cradling a ball of ice in the depths of his soul. Hatred didn’t burn. Hatred was cold, a frozen heart, a frozen soul. He felt it forming slowly, felt his darkness cradling it close.
Did you ever think you’d hate the man you married, the man you loved with all your heart and soul? Did you ever, ever think he’d do this?
Three beeps sounded at the door. Someone badging in. Kris mustered the energy to glance up.
George strode in. Kris tried to get a read on him. Who had walked in: former friend or the deputy director?
He stared at Kris, his hands on his hips, and sighed, slowly.
“He’s all yours,” Ryan grumbled. He pushed past George and ducked out of the interrogation room. George did a double take at his split lip, but said nothing.
“Hello Kris,” George finally said. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
Kris’s eyes narrowed. “You know what office I’m in. You could have dropped by anytime.”
George looked down. “Kris, did you know Haddad was alive?”
“How can you ask me that?”
“Answer the question, Kris.”
“You honestly think I knew he was alive, and I, what, lived like I wanted to die for ten years, lived without him… just because?”
“Answer the question. This is an official inquiry. You might spend tonight in jail. Or you might go home. It all depends on your answers.”
“Home to what?” Kris cried. “My apartment is a crime scene! My dead husband abandoned me—”
“Caldera!”
“No!” he bellowed. “I did not fucking know he was alive! If I did, I would have gone and rescued him! I would have found him! I would have crawled through the fucking earth to get back to him!”
Dan looked down, stared at the cheap carpet as George closed his eyes. Exhaled.
“Have you helped Haddad in any way? Have you given him any CIA material?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Did you give him your laptop?”
“Of course not.”
“Why did you conceal your contact with Haddad for thirty-six hours? Why did you not report your initial contact with Haddad immediately?”
Kris shook his head, snorting. “I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know if I was crazy or not. If he was really there. Or if I’d finally lost it.”
“Have you seen things that aren’t there before?”
“Yes, George,” Kris snapped. “I regularly hold seances with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. We talk to the ghost of Saddam Hussein all the time.”
Dan choked back a half laugh. George tilted his head from one side to the other, glaring.
“No!” Kris snapped. “I’m fucking sane. I don’t see any ghosts or little green men or think black helicopters are following me. I don’t think my microwave is trying to send me hidden messages.”
“After he approached you in the bar… That’s why you went to the archives, isn’t it?” Dan, finally, asked a question. It wasn’t part of the polygraph, though.
Kris swallowed. Nodded. “I had to know. I had to know if we missed anything.”
“Did you find something? Some clue that we overlooked?” George looked like he dreaded the answer. “Did we leave a man behind?”
“No,” Kris whispered. “I found nothing.”
“Which, again, means he chose to stay away.” George pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kris before I came in here, I received the forensic report from the FBI. They were able to positively ID the DNA samples they took from your apartment and from the forensic exam at the hospital. I… don’t think I have to tell you this. It’s definitely Haddad. I’m about to brief Director Edwards on everything. Do you have… any idea why he’s back? Now? And why he’d steal your CIA material?”
Kris closed his eyes. Tried to think. Nothing made sense. Nothing added up. His mind kept jumping, bouncing from Dawood in the moonlight, performing his prayers, to Dawood lying over him, Dawood sliding inside of him, smiling, gazing at him like he was something long lost and beautiful. The way he’d held him, the touch of his rough fingertips against his skin. How his voice had whispered his name right before he came inside Kris’s body, everything within Dawood shuddering and trembling. Hadn’t that been real? Hadn’t that been something?
“I don’t have any idea why he’s back. Or why he’d steal from me. I thought… I thought he came back for me. To me. But that’s just not true.” Blinking fast, he looked away, staring at the boring walls, the faded paint and the scuff marks as his vision blurred.
George murmured for the polygrapher and Dan to join him outside. Kris waited, blinking back his tears. He wouldn’t give George the satisfaction of his agony. Wouldn’t give the cameras, the permanent record, or Ryan, who was probably still watching, the joy of his anguish. Watch the gay boy suffer. Yeah, Ryan would get off on that shit. No. He’d hold his chin high. He’d get through this. Somehow. No matter what.
Eventually, Dan came back with the polygrapher, who unhooked him from the machines, freeing him from the cables and the monitors. He’d dislodged the pupil monitor when he’d head-butted Ryan, but apparently that didn’t matter.
“You flunked the polygraph,” Dan said, leaning back against the wall and folding his arms. “But it’s pretty clear why.”
“No shit.” Kris shook the pulse monitor off his finger. “Whose fucking brilliant idea was it to polygraph me today?”
“Ryan.” Dan shrugged. “You know how he is.”
Kris glared Dan down, as if he could murder with his stare alone. “What’s the verdict?”
Dan took a deep breath. “Well, Wallace has benched you. You’re off SAD. And Ryan wants to start termination processing. He wants you out of the CIA.”
“He always has. Polygraphing me today, for fuck’s sake. This is a Goddamn gift for him.”
“George has held him off from that, for now.”
“Does anyone care that my husband is back? He’s back? And we don’t know why? Or where he is?”
Dan blinked. “Yes, Kris. Yes, we care. I care. I care very much.”
Fuck. Kris deflated, his heart taking the punch straight from Dan. “I’m sorry.” Two days ago, wasn’t he thinking about building a life with Dan? Wasn’t he planning on waking up in Dan’s arms, making him breakfast, falling asleep with him again? Building an us, he’d said.
Now what were they?
Why was Dan even in the same room with him? He had every right to be as furious with him as Ryan was. More so, even. Ryan didn’t want anything to do with him.
Dan wanted everything.
And Kris had shit all over his hopes and dreams.
But it wasn’t like Kris wanted this. Damn it, he was saying goodbye to David when Dawood just waltzed in and sat down, exploding Kris’s life with his resurrection exactly like he’d done with his death, a decade before.
“I convinced them to let me watch over you,” Dan said carefully. “Ryan wants to throw you in jail. George wants to send you to protective custody. I said I’d take responsibility for you.” Dan hesitated. “If you’re okay with that. If you’d rather do something else, I understand.”
Something broke inside Kris, something wound too tight for far too long, twisted and twisted and twisted until he couldn’t take it any longer. He didn’t deserve Dan’s kindness. He didn’t, and he never had. Shame rose within him, tides of it, waves and swells that made him dizzy, made him want to surrender to the depths, fall backward into the abyss.
Fall into Dan, and let him fix the world, and everything that had gone wrong.
Let him fix Kris.
After Dawood’s death, Dan had been an anchor for Kris within the storms of his soul. Why should his dead husband’s resurrection be any different?
He wanted to surrender. He wanted to just surrender this life, surrender to everyone. Raise his hands, his white flags, and let the game end.
Why had it all turned out this way?
How could it all stop?
He held his hand out to Dan, a lifeline, a surrender, a capitulation. A plea. Rescue me.
“I’d like that,” Kris whispered. “Thank you.”
“Come on,” Dan said, the hint of a smile quirking up one corner of his lips. “Let’s try and think this through together.”
Brentwood
Washington DC
September 9
1440 hours
“Oh Allah,” Dawood whispered. His voice cracked, splintered apart. Tears spilled like diamonds, his breath catching on his prayers. “I seek refuge in you from an anguish that eats me alive.” He gasped, tried to breathe through his closed throat. A sob raked through him, and he pressed his forehead harder against his prayer rug. “With your name, I die and live. To Allah we belong, and to Him we shall return.”
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
His soul burned for Kris, to the very center of himself, the center of his heart. Desperation had fueled him. He’d had to see Kris, once he’d known he was alive. See his face, just from afar. Then, up close. Just once.
Like a drug, he couldn’t keep away. He could never keep away from Kris, not ever. Not when Kris carried a part of him within his soul. How could he run from his own soul, half of his being? Memories of their love, their life together spilled through his mind. Kris’s hand on his cheek, the glow in his gaze when he stared at Dawood. How his eyes were full of love, always, for Dawood.
Kris had been the moon that rose in the darkness of his soul, reflecting the light of the sun into his pitch-black corners. He’d been half alive before Kris, caught eternally between the boy he’d been and a man he hadn’t yet embraced, living in hiding behind a mask of his own creation. His soul had been built on shifting sands, but Kris had helped him form a foundation. Bring order to the chaos within.
Until Kris had been taken from him by this horrible, twisted life. This path.
Why? he wanted to scream. Why, why?
Why had their lives diverged? Why had they endured this separation? What point, what purpose?
Why was he to know his love, his soul, lived, only to lose him again in the end?
Endure patiently, the Quran said. The promise of Allah is truth.
He squeezed his eyes closed, pressing his face harder against his rug. His fingers gripped the edges so hard his bones hurt. He could still smell Kris, still feel his body against his skin, molding to him in all the ways that had always been so perfect, so exquisite to his existence.
Rushes of anguish crested, self-loathing and bitterness warring within him. He clung to his prayers, reciting the first surah of the Quran, the Al-Fatiha, the devotion. “In the name of God, the infinitely Compassionate and Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds. The Compassionate, the Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning. You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help. Guide us on the right path—”
His voice choked, died.
Everything had shattered when he saw Kris, alive. Everything he’d planned, everything he’d meticulously laid out, for two years. Suddenly he was adrift, a castaway in an ocean of uncertainty. The man he loved, to the depths of his soul, who had defined his existence, who had given him the strength to face the world, and then face his destiny with the promise of their reunion in the beyond, was alive.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
He’d panicked, watching an egg sizzle in Kris’s studio, listening to the sounds of his love showering. What was he doing? He was off the path. He was ruining everything, everything he’d sacrificed for. Everything he’d poured his new life into. Could he really just walk away, give up on his plan?
Every prayer felt like his heart was being sliced, divided between his love and his devotion. Uncertainty was a cancer, a poison consuming him from within.
Agony poured through him, filling his heart, circling his mind. His lungs shuddered, his breath quaked, faltering. His chest seemed concave, as if someone had scooped out his heart, ripped it out of him, and he was left with the hollow emptiness.
He couldn’t breathe. Gasping, he clawed at his rug, snot and tears and choked breaths pushing against the dusty threads where he’d given so much devotion to Allah. Why, why?
Ten years in Afghanistan had changed him in ways he couldn’t fully count. The sands of his soul had shifted, resettled. He’d thought his love for Kris had been buried, lost like the ancient cities of old in the sands of history. Something deep within him, and for another time.
Kissing Kris, making love to him, brought everything back. Nothing had ever been lost, ever been buried. He’d never stopped loving Kris, not once. Not ever.
Love wasn’t something he’d expected from his life. Not when he was ten years old, staring down a cold, heartless world. Not when he was fifteen, and he’d realized with a dread that filled his entire being, that he was different, he was broken, that he craved the love of another man. His entire world had screamed that he was wrong, oh-so-wrong, and he’d buried that truth next to the memories of his father. He’d never love. Never.
David, stoic, dependable, predictable David, had been formed out of reactions. Reactions against himself, a careful mirage of everything he’d hated covered by something new, something different. Reactions formed by the world, reactions that shaped his identity until he was nothing but a kaleidoscope, shifting and ever changing under different people’s gazes.
But Kris had cut through all of that. Kris had found his soul, had delivered his soul back to him.
Afghanistan, the land of ghosts, drenched in death and regret, had to be the center of the universe.
He’d met Kris there.
Fell in love with him there.
And lost him there.
All under Allah’s gaze.
His cell phone buzzed, rattling on the table. Dawood inhaled slowly. Rose, and grabbed it.
A text appeared from his contact. [ You were supposed to keep your head down. ]
He swallowed. His throat stuck. I thought it might help. I was trying to gather intelligence. But he doesn’t work for CT anymore. His laptop was useless.
Kris’s laptop was in his bathtub, soaking until it was utterly worthless. He’d swiped what he could in under twenty minutes, enough to see that Kris wasn’t a part of the counterterrorism world anymore. He didn’t have anything for Dawood, nothing that he could use. Nineteen minutes after he’d grabbed Kris’s laptop, he’d ripped out the battery. When he got back to his motel, he’d dumped the laptop immediately into the tub.
[ There’s absolutely nothing that we need from him. He’s not important. He’s a distraction from our mission. And you’re fucking up. ]
Astaghfirullah.
[ Are you still in? Still committed? ]
Yallah, of course. Maa shaa Allah.
[ Then call Yemen. It’s time. We cannot be distracted, brother. ]
In shaa Allah.
The phone was silent. His contact stopped texting.
Slowly, Dawood kneeled on his prayer rug again. Tears dried like paint on his face, a new mask. He turned his head up, took a shaky breath. He was nothing but raw wounds, holes in his soul that had been flayed open. He should never have wondered what Kris looked like now, never have dreamed of the taste of his kiss again.
Stay? Kris had whispered. Please?
Something fractured inside him, a wall that had held everything back cracking. He’d walled everything off, a lifetime of mourning, a lifetime of agony. He’d always fought it, always fought against his pain.
His darkness, something that had lived within him since he was a boy. At ten years old, he’d been witness to the cruelty of the world, the madness that was to consume everyone, that had slipped into everyone’s soul like black oil. He’d tried to fight back his whole life, tried to do the right thing, tried to be one of the good guys, but—
What was the right thing, anymore? What was true? Where was truth in a world full of Qaddafis and planes that slammed into buildings, full of torture and a hatred that lived in the bones, so deep and dark and twisted it poisoned the world. Where was truth in the graves of the innocents, in drone strikes, in car bombs and IEDs that left lives shattered, holes in families around the whole world?
What was true, between the bonds of brotherhood and the bonds of true love? The bonds of Allah and the promise of faith?
Or was truth a cold reality, the promise of retribution? Of justice? Of death?
What was the price of justice?
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Had Allah given him this test, this cruelest of tests, as the bitter finale to this life? His heart screamed, the labyrinth of his soul caving in, the sands of his world collapsing, drowning him.
He closed his eyes. He’d done what he could. His whole life had been lived at the mercy of others’ whims, their twisted fates. From watching his father struggle at the end of a rope to feeling the press of an American soldier’s boot on the back of his neck. From loving Kris to losing Kris. From finding a father’s love again to losing it all, all over again.
The truth is complicated.
Was there any truth between the taste of Kris’s kiss and the path he had to walk? Was there any outcome, any choice for a future? Any hope, anywhere, at all?
“Oh Allah,” he whispered, prostrating himself again. “I seek refuge from the evil of darkness when it settles.”
It was evening in Yemen. His brothers would be in the middle of their isha prayer. He’d wait, for a moment, to call.
His mind spun on, possibilities and dreams colliding with reality. Was there any way—
The sands of his life kept tumbling, kept pouring in on him.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
This was always his fate.
But, he had a couple of days, still.
A few more days to watch, at least. Gaze upon Kris, the moon in his darkness, the reflection of all the light in the world, trying to shine into his soul.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
September 9
1610 hours
Kris existed in limbo, somewhere between ‘unauthorized personnel’ and ‘jailbird’. Dan got him a visitor’s badge for the CIA and escorted him to one of the secured interview rooms outside of CTC. For the umpteenth time in his career, he was on the outs. Again.
“All right.” Dan tried to smile across the table at him. It didn’t reach his eyes. Pain hovered there, a knife that went through Kris’s chest. “Let’s see what we can put together.” He slid a cup of coffee to Kris. “Caramel macchiato, sugar-free.”
Just the way he liked it. “Thanks.”
Dan flipped open a stack of folders he’d brought. Surveillance images from the bar where Dawood had first ambushed Kris. The camera pointed at Kris in the corner. Pure, perfect shock shaped his face. His hand was outstretched, like he was holding a Martini, but nothing was there. He’d already dropped his Cosmo.
From that angle, the camera had only captured the back of Dawood. But it was enough for Kris’s heart to race, for his stomach to clench.
Dan spread three photos across the table. Two from the bar: the one of Kris, and one of Dawood fleeing, a shot of his face as he’d pushed out of the front door. The third was a photo from Kris’s complex, a shot of Dawood entering the stairwell, looking up, about to make the climb to Kris’s floor.
A thousand emotions clamored inside Kris, rocked his soul. His heart was exhausted, but his senses were tuned too high, red alert blaring through his subconscious. The world tilted over like a cartwheel, like he was falling, like he was being thrown through the air, collateral from some explosion he hadn’t seen.
Dan’s fingers grazed the back of his hand. “I know this is difficult for you.”
“For you, too.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Is it his?” Kris jerked his chin to the photos of his not-dead husband.
“That’s what we need to talk about. I think we should look at this from a new angle. If Dawood Haddad were any other person of interest, what would we do?”
“A full workup. Analyze his background, his profile. Any possibility of radicalization and his propensity toward violence. Retrace his steps, get inside his mind. Understand his life, his motivations.”
Dan nodded. “Let’s do it. Let’s just go over the facts.”
They started with Dawood’s childhood, his home in Benghazi. Dan pulled immigration records, Dawood’s mother’s history. “She’s American, but she converted to Islam and went to Libya, married Abu Dawood Haddad, and then stayed after the revolution that brought Qaddafi to power.”
“They were middle class, probably on the upper end. She had money of her own. His father was an imam.” Kris closed his eyes, the memories of Dawood’s confession of his father’s fate mixing with the sands of Iraq and the scent of blood and stink of terror coming back. “His father was murdered by Qaddafi. He was made to watch.”
“Jesus…” Dan wouldn’t look at Kris. He scribbled notes down, frowning.
Kris filled out what he could. Dawood’s flight to Egypt, then America, with his mother. His rejection of Islam, of his Arabness, of everything that he was. His drive to the military, trying to fit in somewhere, trying to find a new family, a new brotherhood. Trying to find a home.
How September 11 had rocked his soul, started the first chink in the dam he’d built within him. Running from his past had turned into a U-turn, running into his future. Into facing down Islamic radicalism, forces of hatred, evil, and torture. How every step of their lives seemed to mirror something of his past, and he’d circled a darkness deep inside himself that Kris had tried to save him from.
He’d thought he had, when they married. The happiest he’d ever seen Dawood had been that month. His proposal, their elopement. Their new house. He’d thought he could heal all of Dawood’s anguish with his love, paint new love over old wounds, old cracks in his soul. That if they came together, their souls could fix the broken parts within each of them. That’s how Kris had felt, for so long.
Why wasn’t he enough for Dawood now?
He stuttered and stopped, coming back to himself as Dan cleared his throat. The dull, plain walls of the interrogation room came back into focus, the dust in the corners, the chipped plastic table. He shifted in the hard seat, folding his arms. “That’s him,” he said, shrugging. “At least, that was him. Up until ten years ago.”
Nodding, Dan kept writing. He frowned, wearing that look of concentration Kris saw whenever Dan was puzzling through something, when he was tackling something huge.
“Okay…” Dan tapped his pen against his notepad. He took a deep breath. “There’s no one profile of someone who is susceptible to radicalization or terrorism, no one standard identification matrix. But there are commonalities. Recurrent patterns that have cropped up. Haddad… fits a lot of it.”
Kris exhaled slowly.
“Most radicalized individuals are second generation Muslims. They’ve been well integrated into society for the most part, until they experience a break with society. Prison, a shock to the system, something that radically alters their paradigm. Radicalization occurs after, and psychological pressures build within that individual, until an opportunity presents itself to lash out at what the individual believes are ‘evil’ entities.”
“There are exceptions—” Kris started.
“These characteristics are, on the whole, stable.” Dan seemed to pity him, for a moment. “Most radicals are ‘born-again’ Muslims who revert to Islam after a secular life. There is sometimes a shame component, a desire to wipe away some perceived sins of the secular life. But there’s a sudden renewal of religious observances. Prayers, rituals, devotions.”
Dawood bowing in his apartment, praying to Allah beneath the light of the moon. Leaving Kris’s arms to pray. His voice, murmuring in Arabic.
Kris wiped away a tear that hovered at the corner of his eye.
“There’s also the radicals’ hegira. They typically choose to leave their home. Their family, their country. They separate from whatever society they were a part of, remove themselves to another place, a place where they can practice their pure, idealized form of Islam. The Islamic State and al-Qaeda both capitalized on this from the Quran. ‘Migrate for the faith’.”
“And then move again, for jihad,” Kris choked out.
Dan’s phone chimed, and he swiped to answer a call. “Ryan? I’m with Kris. We’re working. Yes, I know.”
Kris wiped another tear with the back of his hand. Had Dawood thought he’d needed to leave? Had he hidden in Afghanistan, radicalizing away from Kris? He should have gone there, should have crawled through the mountains until he found Dawood.
Why was Dawood back, now—
Fuck.
He froze. Inhaled, his spine going rigid. “Jesus, no…”
“I’ll let you know if we build any leads from our profile,” Dan said, nodding along as Ryan growled over the line. “Good luck at the FBI.” Dan hung up. “Ryan’s offsite, heading over to FBI headquarters to work with them on the hunt for Haddad—”
“It’s him,” Kris whispered. “Al-Khorasani.”
“What?” Dan frowned.
“Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani. The ‘Stranger from Khorasan’, on his hegira.” Kris’s voice warped, twisted by a sob rising within him. “That’s why he’s here…”
Dan’s jaw hung slack as he stared at Kris. “You really think he’s capable of that?”
“I don’t want to.” Kris tapped their notes, the pictures. “If you didn’t know him. If you were just looking at the profile, what would you think?”
Dan frowned. His jaw still hung open. “He’s your husband—”
“Was. He was my husband.” Kris swallowed. “I don’t think I know who he is anymore. Or what he’s capable of.”
“But you really think he can do that? Attack the United States—"
“He fits the profile. He is a stranger, at least to Afghanistan. To the West now, as well. He comes from Afghanistan. Khorasan. Where he’s been for almost ten years.” Kris scrubbed one hand down his face, held it over his mouth. “And, Al-Khorasani’s message? He was with me for all my interrogations. He was with me for Abu Zahawi. I got that part about Muslim pain from him. He’s the one who said it first,” Kris breathed. “In Afghanistan.”
Dan stared. His lips moved, but nothing came out.
“It’s him. I know it’s him. Dawood is Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani.” Kris shook his head, even as tears built in his eyes, tumbled from his lashes, blurred out Dan and the world. “He’s here for a reason. He didn’t come back for me. He didn’t even know I was alive. Something else brought him here, this week. And he stole my laptop. He used me. Us, our memory.”
Dan’s face twisted, heartache and rage battling for dominance as Kris spoke. His hands made fists on the tabletop.
“Al-Qaeda says Al-Khorasani is here on a mission. It’s the September eleventh anniversary in two days. He must be here to pull off some kind of attack.” Kris covered his face with one hand, trying to hold back his sudden sob. Tears rolled down his cheeks, dripped from his jaw.
His eyes closed. He couldn’t look at Dan.
Just hours before, Dawood had fucked him.
He’d fucked Kris, and fucked him over, too. Everything he’d said had been a lie. All his whispers of devotion, of his undying love. His words rang hollow and empty, especially falling from the lips of the man who’d stolen Kris’s heart and then his laptop, who’d tried to steal CIA secrets.
Who had used Kris.
Who was here to attack them all.
“You need to call Ryan,” Kris choked out. “We have to stop him.”
Dan jumped into action, not looking at Kris as he made his calls, upgraded the APB and put out an alert for Dawood’s immediate arrest. He called for all intelligence on Al-Khorasani, everything that had been found, even if it was just a scrap, a rumor, a whisper, next.
“Dan? Have them bring the original audio recording of Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani’s speech. Not just the transcript. We’ll know then.”
He knew it was true, like he’d known he wanted to marry David, but he didn’t want to face it, not yet.
His husband was now the CIA’s most wanted terrorist.
His heart was screaming, his soul was shredding, and he just couldn’t take this anymore.
Dan’s hand covered his, silently.
When the door beeped open, Dan drew back. Kris slumped over himself. A man entered, someone Kris had only met in passing. He wore a sharp suit and had even sharper features, cheekbones you could skydive from, olive skin and dark, wavy hair combed back just so. “Dan,” he said, nodding hello. His voice was gently accented. It took Kris a second to place the accent. Israel. Tel Aviv.
“You’re Noam, right? The FIA from Israel?” Kris sniffed, loudly. He must look like shit.
The man nodded. His eyes flicked over Kris. “You must be Kris Caldera.”
Kris swallowed. So even the FIAs had heard about him.
Noam leaned into Dan, one hand on his shoulder, and spoke softly. “My people have a source in Aden. They sent us these.” He set a folder down on the table, flicked it open.
Pictures in black and white. Pictures of three men clustered around the port in Aden, Yemen, beside a moored tanker ship. Saying goodbye, hugging, kissing each other on the cheeks. In the center of the group, there was Dawood.
And then, boarding a tanker, waving goodbye to the two Arab men who’d stayed behind.
“Our sources say this man—” Noam pointed to Dawood. “—is the one they called Al-Khorasani.”
Dan’s gaze flicked to Kris’s. He exhaled.
Noam squeezed Dan’s shoulder. Their eyes met, and held. “Thank you,” Dan said softly. “This is huge.” Noam smiled, something softer than just a FIA, a Mossad agent, to a CIA colleague. Kris blinked, and saw Dan and Noam in a different light. Saw the hand on Dan’s shoulder, the small smile on Noam’s face. How long their gazes lingered.
He cleared his throat, overly loud. Lifted his chin and stared Noam down when Noam started.
“I’ll come by your office later, Dan.” Noam strode out, never once looking at Kris.
Dan wouldn’t look at him, either.
“You two know each other well.”
Dan took his time answering. “Remember when I spent those six months in Tel Aviv? On assignment with Mossad? Noam and I became friends then.”
Friends. Of course. Something dark slithered in Kris’s belly.
Was he jealous? Was he fucking jealous of Dan having someone, something other than Kris? For God’s sake, he’d fucked Dawood, a terrorist, after telling Dan he would be his. Shame grabbed Kris’s spine and yanked, made him curl over. He was shit. He was a shitty, worthless person.
“I’m glad,” Kris choked out. “You deserve to be happy.”
Dan stared at him. “Two days ago, I thought I was.”
“I thought I was, too.”
But not because of Dan. No, not that. He’d thought his husband was back, he’d thought Dawood was back, had come back for him, and they were going to live happily ever after. He’d thought all of his most fantastical dreams had come true.
They didn’t speak again, not until an analyst badged in with an audiotape of the original Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani file and played it.
Dawood’s voice filled the cramped room, blew out the cobwebs and the dust and the doubt. Filled every corner of Kris’s heart and soul with the truth, with an endless, silent scream.
This is Muslim pain.
“It’s him,” Kris said. “Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani is Dawood. And he’s here to attack America.”
McLean, Virginia
September 9
1910 hours
It was strange to be driving his truck again.
Kris had kept his truck, for some reason. Kept the beat-up old pickup, the first truck he’d bought after he joined the Army. The truck was over twenty-five years old, a relic of two former lifetimes ago.
It wallowed beneath Kris’s building, backed into Kris’s second assigned space.
He had it hot-wired in under a minute.
No one would think to look for a truck that was as much a ghost as he was.
It took him an hour, winding through back roads and driving through neighborhoods, avoiding highways and busy suburbs. But, finally, he pulled up to the mosque.
He spun his keys as he walked in. Too late for maghrib prayers, too early for isha. He’d be the only one there.
Perfect.
As he strode in, the imam, kneeling in dua and facing east, turned toward him. He wore a dark dishdashi and a white turban, and he smiled as Dawood approached, his hand on his heart.
“As-salaam-alaikum.”
“Wa alaikum as-salaam.” The imam spread his hands. “Welcome, my brother. The peace and blessings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, be always with you. How can I help you, habibi?”
“I have come to speak with you.” Dawood breathed in, carefully. “About jihad.”
The imam froze. Stared at Dawood, his gaze going cold. Hard.
“I was sent here,” Dawood breathed. His hands trembled. He shoved them in his pants, hid them in his pockets. “I was sent to you.”
Silence stretched, long enough Dawood heard dust settle in the corners, heard the creak of the sun slant against the roof in the evening light. He waited. His heart, his soul, quaked.
“Sit,” the imam finally said. “And let us speak of your jihad.”