Whisper

by Tal Bauer

  “When will you be home?”

  “Three, four days, at the most.” There was a pause. Static. “We’ll have three weeks off when we get back. Stabilization. I can be anywhere. I don’t have to stay at base.” Kris heard David swallow. “Can I—”

  “Yes.” Yes, David could come. Yes, David could stay. Yes, David could spend every day and night at his apartment, in his life. Yes, he wanted David. Forever.

  Three days later, as fireworks bloomed over DC, David pulled into Kris’s apartment complex in his truck. He was still in his uniform, his green military bag on the floorboards and a duffel beside him in the passenger seat. David jumped out, jogged to Kris, and wrapped him up in a hug, lifting him from the ground and swinging him around, like they’d been apart for months and not two weeks. Fireworks kept bursting overhead, red, white, and blue falling like glitter over the city. Music blared from the radio, the National Anthem and God Bless America. It was the first Independence Day since September 11. Patriotism was in the air, so thick Kris could taste it.

  Every boom sounded like a mortar blast, a dropped bomb in Afghanistan, an explosion blooming over the Shomali Plain, Bagram Airfield, Tora Bora. Every fizzle of firework was a scream, every hiss of a rocket rising into the air a wail. Kris had closed his blinds, shuttered his windows, as soon as the fireworks started.

  David flinched in Kris’s arms as a massive shower of ruby sparks burst above their heads, sizzling into streamers that fell like tracer rounds.

  They huddled in Kris’s apartment through the long weekend, not coming up for air until Kris had to report back to CTC.

  David spent all but two days of his stabilization time with Kris. They made love until they couldn’t, laid in each other’s arms until they started and finished each other’s thoughts, each other’s sentences. Kris took David into DC, to the National Mall and the Smithsonian, to museums and restaurants. They were as careful in DC as they were in Kabul and Islamabad about being seen together, about being physically affectionate in public. Furtive handholds hidden in close bodies, quick clasps of fingers beneath tables. Some nights they slipped out to one of the handful of gay bars in DC, where they could sit side by side, kiss, dance together. Make out in the bathroom until they had to slide into a bathroom stall and relieve the pressure before making out in a taxi all the way back to Kris’s apartment.

  David had jeans and t-shirts in his duffel, and nothing else. Kris took him shopping, opening up his wardrobe to shorts and chinos, breezy tees and linen button-downs, casual cutoffs and fitted polos. Low-cut flats and airy sandals squatted side by side with tan work boots and boat shoes, and David’s cracked combat boots, still gray from Afghanistan’s dust. David got a corner of his closet, then a bar, then one entire half. David’s toiletries cluttered one side of Kris’s sink. For three weeks, they lived together in all the ways they’d wanted to and hadn’t admitted out loud.

  Two days before he was due back, David kissed Kris and made love to him for hours, until he thought he’d die. After, he drove away, heading for Richmond, Virginia, and his mother. He spent hours on the phone with Kris that night, lying in his teenage bed in his mother’s home.

  “Does she know?” Kris asked.

  “No. She asks me every time I come when I’m going to make her a grandmother. When I’m going to bring home a nice girl for her to meet.”

  “Think you’ll ever tell her?”

  David sighed. “My mother wears the veil and goes to the mosque three times a week. She’s one of the masjid’s main sisters. I used to think it was just my father who believed so strongly, but…”

  Kris kept his mouth shut. He didn’t say any of the false platitudes, like, “You’re her son,” or “Her love for you will be stronger than anything.” Because that wasn’t true, not most of the time. Passive avoidance was better than the explosion, lies that were kept in the head and the heart better than the certainty of banishment. Kris and his mother had never said the words. Did she know? Or did Kris delude himself into thinking he would still have her love if he told her the truth?

  “Come back next weekend, if you can?”

  “Of course.”

  Summer turned to fall. On September 12, the president, speaking to the UN General Assembly, announced his intention to go to war in Iraq.

  In October, Congress passed the Iraq Resolution, giving the president the authority to use any means necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

  At CTC, Iraq was the word on everyone’s lips, a hum that started softly, whispers in dark corners that grew to a dull roar, a headache that couldn’t be ignored. Pressure mounted from the White House, demanding a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Kris was pulled into the special working group, ricocheting between the White House and Langley.

  “Find the connection,” he was ordered. “Find it now.”

  All he could think was Zahawi. Zahawi and his certainty America would invade. Zahawi muttering the hadith.

  It’s next, in the prophecies. To fall. The armies of Khorasan will come through Iraq. The battle with the West will be there. America is going to invade.

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  November 2002

  “Haddad, you have new orders. You are joining Detachment 391. Their linguist is out and you’ve been tapped as their replacement. They’re already in training. Report immediately to Captain Diaz.” His colonel, bright and early in the morning, pulled him and Captain Palmer into his office.

  “Colonel, what is 391’s mission?” David’s stomach sank as Palmer went unnaturally still, his legs and jaw locking.

  “Don’t be a moron, Haddad. You know exactly where 391 is going.”

  CIA Director’s Conference Room

  Langley, Virginia

  December 2002

  “I have to say, I am incredibly disappointed.” The vice president scowled across the table. “I expected more from the CIA.”

  Kris, sitting to the right of Director Thatcher, stiffened. The vice president, in a shockingly unusual visit, had come to the CIA. He’d walked into headquarters, strode through the halls, and had sat with Director Thatcher’s handpicked team in the strategic heart of the CIA, where every major operation had been decided for decades.

  “I cannot understand why the CIA hasn’t uncovered the intelligence the Pentagon has.” The vice president stared at Director Thatcher. “There are mountains of information proving a link between al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. Why don’t you people see the connections?” He shook his head. “The CIA has got some real problems.”

  “Sir, we’d like to go over the intelligence your office has developed, step-by-step, and compare it to the sourcing and analysis our office has collected,” Thatcher rumbled.

  From behind, Kris saw the director’s hands clench, his fingers lace together until his knuckles went white. The Pentagon’s intelligence office had been micromanaged by the vice president, twisted and twisted until it put out exactly what the White House wanted to hear.

  “I hoped you would say that, Geoff.” The vice president flicked open his padfolio. Top Secret folders lay inside, and a classified memo rested on top. “What about the Iraqi intelligence officer’s meeting with Bin Laden in Sudan in 1996? Or the meeting between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence office in Prague? Al-Qaeda and Iraq’s discussions about explosives and chemical weapons training? The Salman Pak terrorist training facility in southern Iraq? I mean, Jesus, Geoff, this is just the tip of the iceberg!” The vice president tossed his pen onto his folders and sat back. “Can your people provide any credible intelligence?”

  Silence.

  Throughout the conference room, Kris heard the inhalation of breaths, and the sudden quiet of air being held inside lungs. All eyes slid to Director Thatcher.

  “My people have been working extremely diligently—”

  “Where’s the proof?” the vice president cried. He spread his arms wide, scoffing. “Where is your intelligence?”

  “Mr. Vice President.” Kris leaned
forward. “Regarding your claim that an Iraqi Intelligence Services agent met with Bin Laden in Sudan in 1996. We’ve also seen that intelligence report. It was passed to a foreign government’s intelligence service from a thirdhand source through an unverified network of informants. In the vernacular, Mr. Vice President, it’s a rumor. Furthermore, this rumor states that the Iraqi agent met with Bin Laden in July 1996. That’s a problem.”

  All eyeballs in the conference room snapped to Kris. The air vibrated, almost enough to make the water glasses sing.

  The vice president stared. “Why is that a problem?”

  “Bin Laden left Sudan in May 1996. By July, nothing of al-Qaeda was left there.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “I personally interrogated the individual responsible for transporting Bin Laden and his men from Sudan to Afghanistan: Abu Zahawi.”

  The vice president’s eyes narrowed, dangerous slits. “What’s your name?”

  “Kris Caldera, sir.”

  “Mr. Caldera is one of our foremost targeteers and al-Qaeda experts—” Thatcher said, his voice rumbling.

  The vice president interrupted. “I know who he is.”

  Silence.

  Kris barreled ahead. “Furthermore, allegations that there is a ‘terrorist training camp’ at Salman Pak in Iraq are erroneous.”

  “The Iraqi Intelligence Service is running a state-sanctioned terror training facility at Salman Pak,” the vice president insisted, speaking over Kris. “Two airplanes were spotted at the facility. A Boeing 707 and a Tupolev Tu-154. Both were used to train foreign terrorists in how to hijack airplanes. This report has been confirmed by three Iraqi sources.”

  “Yes, I know the sources.” Kris read off the names from his own notes. He heard Director Thatcher’s quick inhale, a hiss of breath, beside him. “Two of the men are associated with the Iraqi National Congress, a political lobbying group that has for years peddled misinformation in an attempt to foment political support for regime change within Iraq. Their claims, up until this year, have been roundly debunked. There is no proof that their claims of a terrorist training facility at Salman Pak are anything other than fiction this time around. They are opportunists, manipulating information and outright faking intelligence.”

  “And the third source?”

  “The third source, a former captain seeking asylum in a foreign nation, stated in his debrief that Salman Pak was a counter terrorist training camp for the Iraqi military. But the counter portion of that phrase seems to have gotten lost in translation. I have the original debrief from his petition for asylum here.” Kris tossed a folder onto the conference table.

  The vice president did not reach for it.

  “Reports of a plane in the desert south of Baghdad have been confirmed,” Kris continued, his voice softer. “It was a plane crash out of Baghdad Airport. The plane is a wreck. It’s not a training facility. Satellite photos show it has mostly been picked apart by civilians desperate to sell the metal and the wiring for a few bucks.”

  “Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent at the Iraq Embassy in Prague in April 2001.” The vice president stated the information like it was fact, chiseled in stone.

  “That intelligence was provided by the Czech intelligence service. They refuse to give up their source for this report, so we cannot verify the credibility of the reporting. However—” Kris took a breath, folding his hands together. The pressure in the conference room had increased a thousandfold. It was as if only the vice president and himself were there. Even Director Thatcher seemed to have faded away.

  “However,” Kris continued. “We have worked backward and created a day-by-day profile of Mohamed Atta’s movements in the year before the hijacking. Atta was photographed at an ATM in Virginia Beach on April fourth. On April sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and eleventh, cell phone records place him in Coral Springs, Florida, where he and Marwan al-Shehhi had an apartment together. We’ve checked every airline. Every route into and out of the US. Every passenger manifest. Every passport entry recorded for the first fifteen days of April. There is no sign of him ever leaving the United States, entering the Czech Republic, or returning to the United States.”

  “There are no records of Atta’s movements on the ninth of April.”

  Kris licked his lips. “That’s true. We don’t have any cell phone activity on the ninth. No email activity. No images of him captured at any bank or closed-circuit TV in the Coral Springs area.”

  “Then that’s the day he was in Prague.”

  “We also have no evidence of him leaving the United States.”

  “He most likely traveled under a false passport.”

  “A false passport we have never uncovered, using an alias we have never discovered, despite a year of turning this man’s life upside down, investigating every part of his existence? I can tell you what food he bought three times a week at the grocery store and how often he bought toilet paper, Mr. Vice President. I can tell you what movies he watched repeatedly and what his favorite drinks at his favorite strip club were. The brand of toothpaste he used and how often he brushed his teeth.”

  “But you cannot say where Atta was on April ninth, 2001. Can you?”

  Kris exhaled. “It was a Monday. The pilots responsible for the hijacking had completed most of their training. Their funds were fine. No one was experiencing money problems. The so-called muscle hijackers were about to enter the United States. There had been no issues with their plans so far. Everything had gone perfectly for a strictly compartmented mission that only a few members in the senior al-Qaeda leadership knew anything about.

  “Mr. Vice President, there simply is no reason for this meeting to have taken place. And Atta hated Saddam Hussein. His journals show that he hated the secular dictatorship, as most members of al-Qaeda, Bin Laden included, hated Iraq. Saddam Hussein was, to them, an apostate. They wanted him destroyed. They didn’t want him as an ally. There is no reason for Atta to have flown to Prague or to have met with an Iraqi intelligence agent. There is no proof, none, that it happened.”

  “If Bin Laden and his followers hated Saddam, then why did Saddam order his military to Alert G, the highest military readiness level, two weeks before nine-eleven? Why did he move his wives to the most protected compound in Iraq? Why did he seem to know, ahead of time, that a major attack was imminent?”

  Kris swallowed. “I don’t know, Mr. Vice President.”

  The vice president swooped forward, hovering over his padfolio. “You don’t think it’s strange at all that in August 2001, one of the United States’ main opponents was expecting a massive attack to occur?”

  “I do think that’s strange, sir.”

  “Iraq was the only nation to not offer condolences to the United States after nine-eleven. Every other nation on the planet offered their sympathy to us. Even tribesmen in Kenya, who didn’t hear the news for months, responded to the attacks. They gave us cows. Fourteen cows. And the Iraqis said we got what we deserved.” The vice president spoke quickly, his words like rapid-fire bullets aimed straight at Kris.

  “Saddam Hussein is an incredibly paranoid and monstrous human being,” Kris said slowly. “No one disputes that. But to use his psychopathic tendencies and his hatred of the US in an attempt to force a connection to al-Qaeda…” Kris trailed off. “Mr. Vice President, I can’t support these findings.”

  Director Thatcher spoke up, clearing his throat. “We have human source reporting from within the Iraqi government, Mr. Vice President. A source claims that after nine-eleven, there were fierce debates within Saddam’s inner circle. All of Saddam’s officials were counseling him to reach out to the US to make it clear that Iraq had no connections to the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks.”

  “But they didn’t,” the vice president spat. “They didn’t.”

  “Saddam Hussein has been opposed to Islamic fundamentalism for decades. When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, he refused to open
an Iraq Embassy in Kabul. Whenever Saddam discovered elements of Salafi or Wahhabi Islam sprouting in Iraq, he ruthlessly executed anyone associated with the fundamentalist sects.”

  The vice president stared at Kris. “Caldera,” he said slowly. “Kris Caldera.” He nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “I doubt you’ve reviewed our other intelligence linking Saddam to al-Qaeda.”

  He couldn’t get into an argument with the vice president of the United States, no matter the dig, the potshots that the vice president might take. He lifted his chin. “I have, Mr. Vice President. In fact, I took a special interest in the report, chiefly because of its origins.”

  The vice president arched a single eyebrow. He sat back, holding his pen in both hands, spinning it in front of his chest. “You cannot dispute this intelligence.”

  I absolutely can. I can and I will. I’ll scream and shout and dance on this table, call the newspapers, go public–

  Kris kept his shoulders still. Didn’t move a muscle. Stared at the vice president. Director Thatcher’s foot nudged his, under the table.

  “You’re talking about the torture of al-Shayk.”

  “The questioning,” the vice president snapped. “Under enhanced interrogation techniques.”

  “Al-Shayk was captured in Pakistan in November 2001. He was questioned at Camp Cobalt in Afghanistan, but someone thought he wasn’t giving up enough information. Despite him detailing plans to attack naval infrastructure in Yemen and Bahrain, and despite providing information that helped point to Zahawi’s capture.”

  “Kris,” Director Thatcher said softly.

  “Al-Shayk was rendered to Egypt, where the Egyptians took over questioning. I’ve reviewed the cables. It’s astounding how, in early 2002, months after September eleventh, just after the war in Afghanistan, al-Shayk was questioned about al-Qaeda’s ties to Iraq. The focus of his interrogation changed completely. The questions weren’t about protecting the homeland anymore. They were exclusively focused on determining what connections al-Qaeda had to Saddam Hussein.”