Page 40 of Whisper
“Agha Gul Bahar, you will tell them what you learned. What we spoke about.”
“Of course, General.”
“We will wait for your bombs to drop from the sky and for Mazar-e-Sharif to be liberated.” Khan gripped his and David’s hands, hopped into his truck, and headed back to the front lines.
Exhausted, Kris and David trudged for their compound. Two figures burst from within, heading for them.
“Here we go,” Kris murmured, watching Ryan and George run pell-mell.
“Where’s General Khan?” Ryan shouted as soon as he was in range, pulling ahead of George. “Where did he go?”
“He left. Back to the front.”
“We wanted to speak to him. Damn it!” George kicked a baseball-sized rock, hurling it down the flinty road.
“What did you do?” Ryan pressed into Kris’s space, glowering. “What did you do to piss him off, Caldera?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Back up!” David dropped their pack and shoved his way between Ryan and Kris. “You’re out of line!”
“Stand down, Sergeant, you’ve done your job.” Ryan shoved back, pushing David away. David didn’t budge. He loomed larger, spreading his shoulders, his legs, bracing for a fight.
“Enough!” George bellowed. “All of you, enough!” He glared at Kris. “What the fuck happened? Did you get the GPS data?”
“That and more. We got the entire front of the Shomali Plain mapped. Shura Nazar forcesandconfirmed Taliban positions. Khan also tipped us off about Mazar-e-Sharif. He needs help there. Wants us to send forces.”
“Langley is thinking the same. CENTCOM wants to use Mazar-e-Sharif as a northern outpost. A staging ground to shuttle supplies in-country from Uzbekistan.”
“Khan will be delighted to hear that.”
“Why the fuck didn’t he stay to talk to us?” Ryan still fumed. “Why the hell is he so captivated by you, Caldera?”
“I’m not an asshole, Ryan! Maybe that’s why!”
“Both of you. Shut your mouths, right now,” George growled, his hand slicing through the air. “We’re not doing this in front of the Afghans.” Eyes followed them everywhere. “Ryan, get back inside. Kris, hand over the GPS data. Ryan and I need to send it to Langley.”
Kris rifled through their dusty pack, ripping out the GPS handhelds. He shoved them at George, ignoring Ryan’s fixed stare, his rancid glower. “Everything is in there.”
George passed the GPS units to Ryan, who took off, heading back for their nerve center.
“Get washed up.” George looked back and forth from Kris to David. “You look like you brought the entire battlefield back with you.”
Kris took a splash bath out of a small bucket of frigid river water, scrubbing the dust from his face and his hair and splashing his pits and crotch as clean as he could. Someone from the village had washed his left-behind clothes while he and David were on the front, and he slipped into crinkled cargo pants and a thick turtleneck, trying to warm up. David went next, and he met Kris after at the fire pit with two cups of instant coffee.
David stared into his coffee cup, a deep frown etched on his face. His beard twitched, lips pursing as his jaw clenched. “Why does Ryan dislike you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
David stared at him.
Kris turned away, back to the fire. “I’m gay,” he said quickly. “And I don’t have any business being here. Being a part of this operation. Ryan’s always known that I’m going to fuck it up, somehow, someway.”
“Is that what you think, or is that what he says?”
Kris shook his head.
“I didn’t know you could be out in the CIA.”
