by Tal Bauer
Should they bracket the fire? Sleeping bags on either side, and try to keep it going all night? Would Haddad insist on staying awake and trading shifts to watch over it?
“We’ll need to sleep side by side. For warmth.” Haddad tugged at one of the cushions, dragging it across the dirt and sliding it beside the other. “We can lay the sleeping bags next to each other. It will help, especially when it drops below freezing.”
Silent, Kris laid their bags out as Haddad directed. He felt Haddad’s gaze on him, heavy, weighted with something. It was almost like Ryan’s stare, but it moved through him in a different way.
He didn’t want to run from Haddad.
Haddad crawled into his sleeping bag and passed out almost immediately. Kris stayed awake, watching the flames flicker on the cave walls, watching the shadows turn to puppets and plays, images dancing in front of his unfocused gaze.
As the soldiers went to sleep, the front lines quieted, a silence that seemed to saturate time. Without the noisy snores of George and Ryan, without Phillip and Jim working on the radios, or the soft chirps and whirrs of the computers in the nerve center humming away, or the groan and chug of the generator, it was as if the world had gone adrift. Three weeks ago, he’d been at Langley in the United States, and now he sat before a fire on the front lines of a war in a corner of the world that wasn’t on most maps. Somewhere, sometime in those three weeks, he’d bungee jumped from the edge of reality, and he was still falling. When would he snap back?
Or was he going to fall forever?
Eventually, Kris slid into his own sleeping bag, his back to Haddad. Haddad had spread out, sprawled on his back, one arm over his head and the other flung wide, as if waiting for someone to crawl in next to him, curl into his side. He’d look amazing with a sweet girl against him, someone kind and gentle who thought he was her Superman. Kris could see a perky American blonde, someone with a button nose and a cheerleader’s outfit from high school in her closet. She’d have porcelain skin and blue eyes, the classic American beauty, the look that had been force-fed to him his entire life as the impossible standard. She’d be someone who scrunched up her nose at him, winked over coffee. Someone who held his hand as they walked through a farmers’ market together, picking out weird fruits and farm-fresh flowers and homemade breads, getting suckered into buying local honey. Haddad would protect her, shield her, be her hero against the world. He’d be gallant, her knight in shining armor.
He'd be like he was with Kris, a personal guardian angel. Except he’d be hers, and she’d know it. And she’d love him for it every day.
Kris lay on the very edge of his cushion, his head just barely resting over Haddad’s outflung arm. He stared at the flames. The heat prickling his eyes was the scorch of the fire, too bright for his eyes. Nothing else.
Haddad’s arm fell across his waist, and his body scooted in behind Kris. Sleeping bags rubbed together, nylon whining as Haddad pressed as close as he could, separated by the vast distance of compressed down. Haddad nuzzled his face into Kris’s neck. His beard, unshaven since Tashkent, tickled Kris’s skin. His breath smelled of black tea and ghee, the Himalayan butter. His snores were soft, gentle puffs of breath that tickled Kris’s ear.
Kris let his soul pour backward, let his body go limp, let everything he was fall into Haddad’s sleeping hold.
Just for this night. Just until dawn.
The scratchy, off-tune wail of the soldiers’ muezzin calling the azan woke them as the first ray of sunlight split the horizon and peeked into the cave.
Kris woke bundled in warmth, wrapped in two arms of solid muscle, strength and power that kept the world and darkness at bay. His cheek nuzzled a scratchy beard, a warm face. Safety flowed through him, and a flicker of contentment. Happiness. From his head to his toes, Haddad was pressed against him, spooning him, only their sleeping bags separating their bodies.
His eyes popped open. Shit. At least it wasn’t as awkward as it could have been: their bodies uncovered, pressed together, uncomfortable truths exposed against bellies and thighs. He ached. God, he hadn’t woken with morning wood in weeks. Now, in a cave in Afghanistan, his body was acting up? He tried to edge away, slip from Haddad’s hold.
“Five more minutes,” Haddad mumbled.
Kris froze. Haddad must be dreaming still, lost in his memories of home and the sweet American girlfriend. “What?”
“It’s what I told my mom every morning. When I was in high school.” Kris felt Haddad’s smile, the shift of his beard on the back of his neck. His sleepy breaths, his soft voice.
He shivered. “Sergeant, we need to get up.”
“You can call me David.” Haddad swallowed. “If you want. We usually drop rank when we’re operating in-country. Try to blend in. Use our first names only.”
Kris tried, he really tried, to control his breathing. Keep from hyperventilating. His body ached, straining against melting back into Haddad’s—David’s—hold again. “You can call me Kris, then. Kris with a K.”
“I like your name. It fits you.”
“Do you prefer David or Dawood?”
David was quiet for a long moment. “They’re two different people. I’m David now.” His breath caught, hitching against Kris’s neck. “But I like the way you say it.”
“Joking about my accent?” He was as American as New York City, as Coney Island and heat baking off the asphalt in Lower Manhattan. His mamá’s accent was as thick as the day she’d flown out of Puerto Rico. He, however, had been socialized on cartoons and New York streets. His accent was sass and snark, with just a dusting of his mamá, a touch of island.
“I had an accent when we moved from Libya. The kids made fun of me. I spent all summer getting rid of it.” David’s voice changed, shifted. Went flat and nasal, his sound dropping to the back of his throat. “I was ashamed to be who I was. I had to change everything I could.”
David’s body burned through the sleeping bag, everywhere they were pressed together. They hadn’t moved, not even an inch. “I know what you mean,” Kris whispered.
David’s breath fluttered against Kris’s hair, his jawline. The azan faded, the muezzin’s caterwauling finally finished.
“I think that’s the first bad muezzin I’ve ever heard.” David chuckled. “Usually they’re chosen for their voice.”
“He sounds like he wants to be doing it as much as we want to be hearing him.”
“Let’s win this war so he can give his duties to another muezzin.”
“Sounds good.” Kris laughed and felt David squeeze him, just slightly, an almost hug. He didn’t know if he should hug back, wrap his arms around David’s, hold on to his hold. Or pretend it never happened? What if he was misreading it? What if that was just a stretch, and not a hug at all?
David let go, rolling back and sighing, stretching on the cushions Khan had provided. They were softer than the ground, but lumpier. Kris’s hips ached as he rolled over. “How’s your back?”
“Stiff. But it’s nothing like training. I’m good.” David smiled. “I can go another hundred miles. And you can add another hundred pounds to the pack.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Just a little.” David winked, and then peeled himself out of the sleeping bag. They’d slept in their clothes, added layers of warmth, and David readjusted as he stood and stretched.
Kris watched it all, the ache in his body growing. David caught his gaze, blushed, and looked away. “I’m going to check on what’s happening out there.” He slipped out of the cave.
Groaning, Kris dropped his head, rolling over and face-planting into his sleeping bag. His promises to be distant were growing thinner every day. Every moment he spent with David.
It was one more thing to add to the guilt pile, the avalanche of shame rolling through him.
Plotting the rest of the Shomali Plain took the entire day. They broke for the night at the western end of the Shura Nazar lines, celebrating with Khan and his officers. The battle lines turned and
followed the White Mountains, the spine of Afghanistan’s north, to Taloquan and Mazar-e-Sharif, cities in northern Afghanistan that had once been Shura Nazar territory, but were seized by the Taliban.
“Whoever holds Mazar-e-Sharif holds the north,” Khan said, sitting across the fire from Kris and David. He spoke in halting English, saying he wanted the practice. “Whoever controls the north controls Kabul.”
“What makes that city so special?” David sat next to Kris, reclining against the pack, his legs crossed, boots tucked under him. David pressed into Kris’s side.
“It was the most brilliant city in Afghanistan before the Taliban destroyed it. The rest of the country was devastated by the Taliban’s bombs. They wanted to erase everything, start over, build from the time of the Prophet, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam. But! They also needed the money to be seen by the rest of the world, yes? Mazar, she has oil and gas outside the city. Russians wanted to drill it. They let them.” Khan held his hands up, as if in defeat. “The longest paved runway in Afghanistan is in Mazar. And the people in Mazar, they are the best of Afghans. What they have endured, under those dogs.”
“How did Mazar-e-Sharif fall?”
“The Taliban came. They destroyed everything. They had so many fighters. General Hajimullah, my commander in Mazar, he had to take his people and run south to the Darya Suf river valley. The Taliban took Mazar-e-Sharif and took the high ground around the city. Right away, they slaughtered six thousand people. Any man who refused to join them, any man or boy who hid. Any woman caught out of her home. They castrated the men, cut the heads off everyone they arrested. They left the bodies in the street to rot.”
Silence. David’s molars ground together. Kris heard them over the crackle of the flames.
“You must tell your government that we must bomb the Taliban in the Shomali to advance on Kabul. But we must also free Mazar-e-Sharif. Or the Taliban will use the city as a northern base. Squeeze Kabul between Kandahar and Mazar. And the people there. They will be slaughtered. Again.”
“What forces do you have in the north? Outside Mazar?” Kris took notes as fast as Khan spoke.
“General Hajimullah is there now with his fighters. They are trapped in the Darya Suf, surrounded by the Taliban in the hills. The villages have been destroyed, bombed. In some, the Taliban locked the people in their homes and burned the village to the ground. Only ash remains.”
Kris’s vision went double as he wrote, flames leaping out of the fire and scratching across his eyeballs. Smoke choked him, filled his nose, his eyes, his throat. Screams echoed, screams of Afghans, screams of Americans. The roar of an incoming jet, flying low, too low—
“We fought in Safid Kotah in summer and into autumn. The Taliban dug into the mountains there, with their heavy weapons. Hajimullah’s people tried to storm them, but the Taliban shot them down. They tried to climb by hand, but the snows came, and we could not get supplies to Hajimullah. They tried to fight the Taliban hand to hand, in the snow. His fighters climbed the mountains with only five bullets in their rifle each.
“We turned to raids before you Americans came. At night, climbing the ice and snow, Hajimullah’s people drove the Taliban’s tanks, their artillery, off the mountains so their brothers would live in the next battle. But it is not enough. The Taliban have more weapons. More tanks. With the oil money, they have been able to buy enough weapons to take all of Afghanistan. If you Americans want to help Afghanistan, you must help us here. Give us this help so we know this is not just your war. That we are not your puppets. Muslim lands have been playthings for the West for generations. Show us this is different. That you are allies. Before we are exterminated by the Taliban.”
“In shaa Allah, we will help you. We will.” David’s voice was firm, hard. “You won’t be exterminated, General.”
Kris stared. The Arabic vow, the Muslim vow, falling from David’s lips was a shock to both him and Khan.
“I have heard American promises before. In shaa Allah, you are different, this time. You are either the answer to our prayers or the last trick of the devil.”
Chapter 7
Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan
Khan brought them back to their compound, deep in the Panjshir, by the middle of the next day. He traded hellos with Fazl and Ghasi but didn’t wait for George and Ryan to finish with their satellite call to Langley.
“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 forces and confirmed 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.”
“Well… I’m not sure you can be, really.” Kris shivered, more than just the Afghanistan cold seeping under his skin. “You didn’t know?” How was that even possible? Everyone knew just by looking at him. Everyone knew, with a single look, that he wasn’t worth their time.
“From the moment I shook your hand, all I’ve seen is a CIA officer who knows his shit. Who is an undisputed expert in this country, in Islam, and who consistently performs exceptionally. That’s all that matters.”
Kris couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t look at David, either. His stomach knotted, and knotted again, coiling tighter than a spring about to snap. “You’re the only one.”
“General Khan sees that too.”
“Caldera!” George’s voice boomed from the compound’s entrance.
Kris twisted. George waved to him, ordering him inside.
“The principal is calling. Wish me luck,” Kris murmured, rising. David said nothing, just watched him stride into the compound, following George.
Jim and Phillip were gone. Maybe on the roof. Derek was nowhere to be seen. Even Palmer was gone, though he normally shadowed Jim and Phillip on the radios. It was just Ryan and George, standing in front of the giant map he’d helped hang.
“Kris… We need to talk.” George stood beside Ryan, arms crossed, scowling. “We think it’s time you head back to the States.”
He’d known it was coming. He’d known from the first moment Ryan had protested, back in Langley, September 14, that this would come. His ignoble removal from the team, sent packing, don’t let the door hit his ass on the way out.
He hadn’t thought he’d be so enraged. Fury billowed through him, an inferno that sucked the air from his lungs, from the room. “Why?”