Page 230 of Whisper
“Dan never called me. I haven’t heardanyof this. I’m with Wallace. We’ve been holed up all day. We’re just about to—”
“George, where is Ryan? Where is he?”
“Ryan is coordinating the hunt for Haddad with the FBI. He’s been out of pocket all day, all evening, following up leads.”
“How do youknow? Have you seen him? With your own eyes, George? Do you know where he is?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” George muttered. “When did Dan disappear?”
“He told Shannon he was going to see Ryan. Now no one can get a hold of him. And no one seems to know where Ryan is, either.” Kris sucked in against the stabbing pain in his chest, a knife into his back. All this time, he’d been wondering about Dawood, agonizing over his husband, but Dan had been in danger. Was missing. What if—
Kris heard George moving, heard him tell Wallace to keep trying Dan’s phone. Heard him breathe hard as he jogged down the hallway, started running down stairs. He pictured George running from his executive suite, down to the operations units, down to CTC. Heard him shout orders to people, for someone to call the FBI command center, for someone to find Ryan,now,now.
“I need you to do me a favor, George.”
“Kris,no. We need to let this process work. I’ll call the FBI. They will locate Ryan. He was with them last. They can track him down. Wewillfind him.”
“Weneedto track the cell phone that Ryan has been using to communicate with Dawood! You need to track it!”
“Youknowwe can’t do that on Americansoil. To an Americancitizen. That’s the FBI’s turf. Wedon’thave jurisdiction.”
“We don’t have time for this! There is an attack planned for September eleventh, right now, in our country! The only one who has the information is Ryan!”
“Are you willing to blow any chance of a criminal prosecution? If we act and we don’t follow the rules, anything we uncover can’t be used as evidence. Youknowthis.”
“I’m not thinking about a trial,” Kris snapped. “We have to stop him. We have to. He’s been playing us for two years. Jesus, he’s known Dawood was alive all this time and he didn’t tell anyone! Didn’t tell me! Trial is the last thing on my mind.”
Silence. “What is it you want me to do?”
“As deputy director of the CIA, I want you to do a geo search on that cell number. You can create a legal justification, I know you can. Since Ryan has been texting Dawood, and Dawood is associated with an Afghanistan al-Qaeda cell, you’ve got jurisdiction right there.”
“I thought you said Haddad was on our side.”
Kris swallowed. “I hope he is. But then that means someone on our sideisn’twith us.Ryan.”
George grunted. “I’m walking into CTC now.” He heard the buzz of CTC, the hum of activity. “It’s a fucking beehive in here.”
Kris waited as George shouted for Shannon, explained to her that he needed a number traced, immediately. Shannon walked him to the secured data center, the bridge between the CIA and the NSA, the cluster of data points and network access that gave them backdoor intrusions to cell phone networks and internet service providers. “Give me the number.”
Kris read it off to him. He’d folded and refolded the sticky note a hundred times since that afternoon, staring at the numbers like they were tea leaves to be divined from.
“It’s definitely a burner. No registration data. It’s not logged as being contracted to anyone.”
Keystrokes, the sound of typing. “And, it’s off,” George said. “It’s not sending a signal into the cell network.”
“Wake it up, then.”
“Kris, we’re crossing a big fucking line here. We’re breaking lawsspecificallyput in place to stop this, exactly this. Are youabsolutelycertain? About Dawood? About the mole?”
“I am one hundred percent certain about my husband. And I regret not believing everything Dawood told me, from the very first moment. If I had, maybe Dan wouldn’t be—”
He should have brought Dawood in, kept him safe. Should have trusted him. Should have worked with him, searched the mission logs with him. Come up with a plan. Together. They should be doing this together.
Now where was Dawood? Facing Ryan alone? Without help, without backup?
He needed to be with him. Needed to help him. Now. They were supposed to be together forever, and he’d left Dawood to face this alone.
“I trust Dawood. I do, George. He is with us. Doyoutrustme?”
