by Tal Bauer
Ryan and George shared a long look. George opened his mouth.
Ryan spoke first, cutting George off. “You’re a liability. Whatever is going on between you and General Khan is interfering with this mission. We’re worrying that an Afghan general is going to sexually assault you instead of focusing on the mission.”
“What?”
“We needed the GPS data and we knew you could get it quickly. Khan connected with you, we believe, inappropriately. But we knew we could use that connection to get the intel we needed, fast,” George said, his voice heavy with something.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ruby rage colored Kris’s vision. He could feel his hands slicking, his muscles tightening throughout his body. “You think Khan wants to fuck me?”
“Are you inviting it from him? Your behavior around the general is concerning,” George said carefully.
“I am behaving exactly as the culture prescribes! Which you would fucking know, if you bothered to learn anything at all about it!”
“Holding his hand, being touchy-feely with him, being all up in his business? That’s culture?” Ryan snorted.
“This isn’t a machismo culture!” Kris roared. He’d never shouted this loudly, never bellowed like this. Not at his drunkest, not even when he was thrown out of beds in college or dumped by the older men he’d slept with on weekends and ditched on Monday mornings. Never, ever had he been filled with this much rage, this much sizzling-hot blood. “In Muslim cultures where there is a strict division of the sexes, men form close emotional bonds with other men. They aren’t concerned with posturing or proving who has the bigger dick in a perpetual ‘who is the bigger asshole’ contest! Yes, men here hold hands! Yes, men here hug! Being physical is a sign of trust!”
“That’s just Khan. We haven’t even started on you and Sergeant Haddad.” George sighed.
“What the fuck do you mean about me and David?”
“Oh, it’s David now, is it?” Ryan shook his head. “Of course it is.”
“Ryan.” George cut his gaze to Ryan. His expression had gone dark, a frown worrying his forehead. His fingers dug into the sleeves of his jacket, his knuckles white. “Look, Kris…” Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I asked Sergeant Haddad to look out for you. To keep an eye on you. And I think you may have gotten the wrong message from that. We’re concerned you’ve taken his protection as something it’s not. And we’re worried about what the Afghans will think about how you are around him.”
“How I am around him…”
From the inferno of his wrath to the frozen pit of his soul. He’d known. He’d known that all of this, everything, was only a test he was bound to fail. That no one was on his side.
George kept going, hammering the nails through his wrists. “We’ve all seen how you are with him. If we’ve seen it, the Afghans have seen it. We can’t waste our time and our energy worrying about how the Afghans are going to react to you. To your—” George waved his hand over Kris, as if he could encompass everything Kris was with one limp-wristed waggle.
“It’s time for you to go.” Ryan’s glare could cut diamonds, could cut Kris’s soul to shreds. “We’re contacting Langley. Tonight.”
There was nothing to say. Nothing he could do. If he gave them the satisfaction of his rage, they’d win. If he tried to argue, they would say he was belligerent, combative, and it would prove their point even more: that he wasn’t fit to be there. His life, again, was being decided by other people, others who had ideas about who and what he was. His only choice, his only power, was in his reaction.
He said nothing, just turned and walked away.
David waited for him outside the compound, hovering by the dusty glass doors leading to the dirt courtyard and fire pit. He was like a gargoyle without a ledge, waves of morose frustration coming off him. His frown lines were etched deep into his face, canyons that held something dark, something secret.
George’s admission repeated inside Kris’s skull. I asked Sergeant Haddad to look out for you… taken his protection for something it’s not.
He hadn’t hoped for anything with David, except for maybe a friend. But that in itself was too much, too audacious a wish. He’d forgotten the rules of the world: he wasn’t allowed to befriend these men. He wasn’t allowed to befriend any men.
“What happened?” David pounced as soon as he fled the compound, falling into step with Kris as he thundered across the cold dirt.
He just had to go, walk away, be alone. Not let anyone see how much it hurt. Or they’d win again. They’d always win.
“Don’t. Don’t worry about it.”
“Kris, something happened. What? What did they say to you?”
“Sergeant, it’s fine—”
“Sergeant?”
Kris slipped around the edge of the stables and collapsed against the mudbrick wall. He threw his head back, staring up at the peaks encased in ice and dusted with snow, down almost to their compound. Another week or two, and they’d be getting snow falling on their heads. But he wouldn’t be there to see it.
David followed, standing too close. He hadn’t stopped staring at Kris, peering at him like he was trying to decipher a riddle, read the way Kris fought to keep his chin from trembling, stop his hands from clenching. “I thought we were past ‘sergeant’.”
“George told me about your agreement. That he asked you to keep an eye on me.” Kris exhaled slowly. His fingers scraped the wall behind him. “It’s fine, I understand. I appreciate all you did. But—”
David’s frown, if possible, grew deeper. There was an intensity to him, a star hovering on the edge of a supernova, as if everything that he was had compacted deep down inside his body. Rarely, so rarely, parts of him escaped, solar flares thrown off, intense enough to fry the sky. Kris had only seen hints of that intensity.
“Sergeant, you don’t have to do this anymore. I’m going home. They’re sending me back.”
“What?” The world narrowed to David, to his shock, the way his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. He stepped closer, almost boxing Kris in against the wall. Kris tried to shift away.
“They’re sending me back.” His voice went thin. He grunted, dug his fingers deeper. “I’m leaving. As soon as they can get me out of here.”
“Why?”
Kris laughed, hysteria straining through him. “Because they think my cultural sensitivity is inviting sexual assault. That it’s too risky having an openly gay officer here. That I’m too close to you, and the Afghans will see that. I’m gay, and that’s the fucking problem. For everyone. They don’t want to worry about me, they say.” Dry mud flaked from the wall, coming apart beneath his fingernails. Like the dirt, his control crumbled, and Kris felt the first sob bubble up in his chest.
No, not in front of David. Let him keep a sliver, a shred of dignity. Just one tiny piece.
“That’s bullshit!” Rage poured off David, an explosion of it, the sun shedding its outer layers. Kris could almost feel the heat, the power. “You’re the best officer the CIA has in-country. You get the Afghans, more than George and Ryan combined. You know the culture. General Khan respects you. You were his honored guest at the front!”
“Even if I told them all that, they wouldn’t listen.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
“Their minds are made up. They don’t want me here.”
David’s jaw squared and set. He pulled back. Glared over Kris’s head, over the roof to the compound beyond. “Then I’m telling them. They need to know what you did.”
“Sergeant, please. Don’t.” Kris grabbed David’s arm, trying to stop him. It was like trying to stop a bull. “Don’t make this worse,” Kris called after him.
“How can it be worse? They’re sending away their expert. You leaving would be the worst thing for the mission. The absolute worst thing.”
“Won’t you be glad you don’t have to babysit me anymore?”
That stopped him. David spun, the fury on his face darker,
the edges of his scowl harder. “I do not babysit you!”
“You were told to watch out for me—”
“I was already watching you. Before they asked.”
“Why?”
David said nothing. He turned and kept walking for the compound.
David burst into the nerve center. George and Ryan were conferring, their heads leaning close. Phillip was at the radios, starting the switchover to convert to the secured satellite uplink back to Langley.
“We need to talk.” David stared right into George’s eyes. “Now.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ryan rolled his eyes. “You too? What the hell?”
“Ryan.” George closed his eyes, for a moment. “All right, both of you. Ryan, Phillip. Out.”
“Sir—”
George cut off Ryan’s protest. “Out. Now.”
David waited while Ryan filed past him, brushing too closely, staring him down. David kept his eyes fixed on George. Ryan was an asshole, but he was just the voice in George’s ear. George made the calls.
“What’s on your mind, Sergeant Haddad?” George had a pained expression. He spread his legs and crossed his arms, as if he were waiting for the executioner’s bullet.
“You’re making a mistake. Don’t send Caldera home. He’s the best officer you have on the ground.”
Everything in George slumped, a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“General Khan respects the hell out of him. He was Khan’s honored guest. We’ve been at the front for two days, embedded with their fighters. Not once, not once, during that entire time was he treated with anything other than the utmost respect and deference.”
“What was your role during the scouting? Did Khan speak to you?”
“I carried the backpack and I wrote what Caldera told me to write. I was muscle. That’s it. If you’re going to try and say I was the one Khan worked with, you’re wrong.”
“What about the Shura Nazar fighters? Did anyone… perceive anything?”
“You’re asking if the Afghans are freaked out about Caldera?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What did he do? What about his performance is causing you to question him? What has he done to earn this skepticism?”
“His performance has been fine—”
“Then where is this coming from?”
“You know where! We took a chance bringing him because of his knowledge base, but it’s too big a risk! We shouldn’t have done it to begin with. We don’t bring female officers because of the risks, and we shouldn’t have brought Caldera! I’m sick of worrying that he’s going to be attacked! That someone is going to take offense to his existence! Or, if things go wrong, and he’s captured by the Taliban! I can’t sleep, I’m spending all my fucking time worrying about him!” George turned away, pacing to the far wall. He stopped in front of the map and dropped his head. “I don’t want to lose anyone I’m responsible for.”
“You’re willing to banish the best man you’ve got on the ground?”
Turning, George peered at him. “You really believe that?”
“I’ve seen it. Firsthand.”
George withered. One hand rose, covering the mark on the map where their village was.
“Your fears and your prejudice are going to ruin the mission. And they’re hurting Caldera.”
“I’m not prejudiced.” George glared. “I have nothing against Caldera. Nothing.”
“Except you’re judging him on all the wrong things. For all the wrong reasons. Start looking at what he’s doing, not who he is. Start looking at his performance. At how exceptional he is here.” David snorted. “Stop listening to Ryan.”
George’s glare turned sour. He squeezed his eyes closed. “What about—” He hesitated. “—him and you? What’s going on there?”
“Nothing. Nothing is going on. You’re so focused on Caldera and worrying about him, you haven’t even realized that he and I are exactly the same.”
George blanched, rearing back. His jaw dropped open.
“I mean, we’re acting the same.” David fumbled his words, stuttering once. “We’re behaving the same. If the Afghans don’t have a problem with me, they don’t have a problem with him. With our friendship. It’s probably closer to what they’re used to seeing. Frankly, you’re just reading into everything, seeing what you want to see and thinking the worst.”
“I thought you were coming out, Sergeant.” George chuckled, shaking his head. He groaned. “I couldn’t take double that stress. Not now.”
David kept his mouth shut. His fists clenched, the leather of his gloves squeaking, fingertips digging into his covered palms.
“I know he’s the best. That’s why I sent him to the front, to Khan. I thought, ‘once he’s done, once he’s got what we need, he can go home’. Does he need to be here still?”
“Do you want this alliance to really work? Do you honestly think everything is just fine, it will go perfectly smoothly from here on out? What about when something happens that you can’t fix, or when you’ve pissed Khan off so badly he wants to throw you out of the country, and Caldera is ten thousand miles away?”
“Damn it.” George scrubbed his hands over his face. “All right, he stays. You guys obviously work well together. I’m going to keep you partnered up. Captain Palmer says he’s fine with that, that the rest of your team is making good progress with their appraisal of the Shura Nazar forces. Are you good with it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Watch out for him, Sergeant. Don’t let anything happen to him.”
“Sir, can I speak freely?”
George grunted.
“You need to think about why you believe Caldera needs protecting. He’s a CIA officer, the same as you. You both went through training. He’s stronger than you give him credit for.”
“That’s enough, Sergeant.”
“And you need to think about why it took me barging in here to make you see reason. Why couldn’t Caldera himself tell you this? Why don’t you see his accomplishments? Why did you only listen to me?”
“I said that’s enough!”
David’s jaw snapped shut.
“Get out of here. I’ve got to go over the intel you guys brought back from the front and get on the horn with Langley.” The dark circles beneath George’s eyes seemed to grow, spread, turning to pools where all the sleep he wasn’t getting stacked up like spilled ink. “Send in Ryan when you leave.”
David didn’t speak as he strode out of the nerve center. Ryan waited just outside, leaning against the wall and smoking a cigarette. He stared at David, his cheeks hollowing when he sucked in a deep breath of smoke.
“What happens is on you,” he said, puffs of smoke billowing around his every word. “You wanted this. You own it.”
David kept walking. Kept his shaking hands balled into fists. Shoved them into the pockets of his jacket. He needed to get away. Get clear of everything.
Get away from Kris, especially. Just for a little while.
Palmer and his men had set up a makeshift firing range in the hills above the village, shooting into the dirt and dust against the slope of the mountains. Snow crunched under David’s boots as he climbed the narrow goat track leading to the range. Sounds faded, falling away, until it was just the snow and his breath, the sounds of himself, his own life, that surrounded him.
He pulled his handgun and lined up, taking aim at the debris his team had dragged in for targets. Old water canisters and broken furniture. Decrepit Soviet jeeps, half blown apart. Moldy tires, more than half disintegrated.
He breathed with each bullet he fired. Slowly, in and out. His mind cleared, going blank, until there was nothing left. No thought, just breath. Just the squeeze of the trigger and the bullets slamming into their targets, and then into the snowy hillside. Thump, thump, thump.
The isolation suited him. Fit him like a glove, a perfect pairing of his soul and nothingness.
He’d always been alone, always been an other, from ten years
old on. He’d been a boy without a home, without a father, a history, a people, or an identity, a boy apart from all the others. He’d learned early to carve and mold and cover the parts of himself that didn’t fit into the world. Keep the fractals of himself hidden, the way he came up at harsh angles to everyone else. He was a kaleidoscope, shifting and changing in the light. What was true was kept in the shadows, the same shadows that lived in his bones, that covered the memories of praying beside his father in the sunlight, murmuring the Quran.
He’d practiced hiding so many parts of himself so many times, that when he became a man and there was something else to hide, it was only too easy, and oh so natural, to bury that as well.
Bury everything.
It was harder to keep everything hidden here, in Afghanistan, the land of secrets and death, the graveyard of eternity. His seams were coming apart, the latticework he’d laid over his soul to contain everything he never wanted the world to see. At night, truth rose like stars, like the moon, bathing him in things he didn’t want to see, to feel. The rhythms of Islam were pulling on him, the daily calls to prayer, the whispers that saturated the air, made the country thick with the presence of Allah. Something was tapping at him, something he had thought had been cut out and he’d left behind in the sands of Libya. Something that had been forcefully ripped from him, twenty-one years ago.
And something else, too. Something he’d found when he was a teen in America, a part of himself he’d walled off instantly. But between Afghanistan and Kris, between the prayers and the whispers and the pull toward Mecca, toward Libya, toward his memories, and between the tug in the center of his being toward Kris, as insistent as the constant of gravity, he was splitting apart.
He kept firing until he was out of bullets, and until the whispers and the pulls on his soul were buried again.
“Kris? Can you join me on this call to Langley?”
Numb, Kris followed George to the waiting satellite connection that would be the end of his tenure on the team. His jaw locked, closed around words he couldn’t speak. Shame scraped his insides like a rake.