Whisper

by Tal Bauer

He couldn’t go back. Not now. Physically, he couldn’t make the journey. But beyond the physical, there was something else, something deeper. A yank in his soul, a pull to remain. To return to his faith, a life he could have lived. The allure of a father’s love, days spent in prayer, drenched in the faith and love of Allah.

Lines from the Quran, words on his father’s lips, rose like bubbles in his memories. Even if you but whisper, Allah will hear you, always.

Bin Laden, dead.

But, the easiest way to get over someone was to get under someone else, or so the saying went. He couldn’t fall for Dan. But he could fuck his way through DC and feel nothing at all.

“A Muslim is a Muslim no matter where he is or what the world does. As long as he is close to Allah. The more difficult the world, the more a person’s closeness to Allah is tested.” Dawood swallowed. If he could boil his life down to one statement, that would be it. His words tasted empty, though.

Allah was subtle and hidden, found in the whispers of the world, but only if one could listen.

Finding Allah was like spotting a firefly in the corner of your eye. Like seeing the sun break the horizon, and that first beam of light stretch into the night sky and touch a star. Gone so fast, but for the moment, perfect.

There was nothing in the Quran that required women to don anything close to the burqa. The requirement for modesty in the Quran spoke to men first, admonishing men to dress modestly as well, and to lower their gazes, to respect, to the ends of the earth, all women. Where had this come from, the imprisonment of half of humanity behind silence and cotton?

The first three generations that follow the Prophet will be blessed. And following that, the Muslims will lose their way. They will be confused, and take hold of evil things, and wickedness. The human soul is prone to darkness in the absence of Allah. Man will lose his balance between the good of Allah and the darkness.

“I told you,” Dawood whispered. “He is dead. Maa shaa Allah, everything that he was, Allah remade. The stranger—to Allah, to the brothers—no longer exists. I swear it.”

His breath faltered, his whispers dying on Afghanistan’s harsh wind.

Candlelight threw shadows and whispers of light on the walls.

“Look—” Kris grabbed his drink and twisted. God help this man, interrupting his soul searching, his goodbye to David, on this night. He glared, his eyes sharpened to daggers. “I’m not—” David gazed back serenely. David blinked. Once. Twice. The Martini glass hit the floor. Shattered, splintering into a billion fractional pieces, as many pieces as Kris’s heart had broken into, his soul.

“Answer me!” Kris shrieked. “Are you here for me? Did you claw your way back from the dead, across the entire world, to come back to me? I fucking would have for you!”

But… David had pushed him away. Had shoved him away and then fled. What did that mean? Did David not want him anymore? What had ten years apart done to David?

“Yes, David, yes. Make love to me,” Kris whispered.

“The truth is complicated,” Dawood whispered again. His eyes were lost in darkness, only the shadow of the moon reflecting in slivers off his dark irises. “But there are objective evils in the world. Death, before someone’s time. Murder. Torture. Oppression. Betrayal. Some things are just wrong. I put my faith in Allah to help me find my center, as my baba did.”

Ten years had changed Dawood. The dead weight of his past, the silent scream he’d carried inside of himself, was gone. Something else was in its place, something Kris couldn’t quite put his finger on yet. Certainty? Or something else?

“Ya rouhi, I always have,” Dawood whispered. He slid inside Kris, into his soul, and shuddered. Kisses whispered over skin, hands, fingers, caressed. “Ana bahibak, my love. I always will.”

His bag, his laptop, everything he’d brought home from the CIA, was gone. And so was Dawood.

Dawood had robbed him. Dawood had used him. And he was gone. Again.

“Thanks.” Slowly, Kris reached out with his fingers, spreading them across the cheap plastic of the exam bed, inch by inch, until his index finger grazed the side of Dan’s hand. For a moment, it seemed like Dan was going to break down, was going to split in half and sob, let out every ounce of agony Kris knew he was holding on to. Agony Kris had given him, had dropped into his lap, a giant ball of twisted anguish straight through the heart. He tried to pull his fingers back. What right did he have, reaching for Dan and his care? What right did he have asking for help, for comfort, when all he did was hurt Dan in return? Dan grabbed his fingers, linked two of his through two of Kris’s, holding on like their fingers held the universe together. Kris could feel Dan shaking, trembling, his entire soul quaking within him.

Dan’s face twisted, heartache and rage battling for dominance as Kris spoke. His hands made fists on the tabletop.

“It’s him,” Kris said. “Al Dakhil Al-Khorasani is Dawood. And he’s here to attack America.”

A dead ambassador in Afghanistan leads to the Soviet invasion, which leads to the CIA supporting the mujahedeen. Which leads to the collapse of Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban, of al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. Which leads to September 11, and the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. Justifications for war build up a terrorist who unleashes an army in the lawlessness that follows. His children, drenched in war, raised on hatred, build an apocalyptic Islamic State, try to bring about the end times. Destroy the entire world. Promises of retribution on both sides, blood for blood, an endless, agonizing war without end.

“If I believe Dawood told the truth, then I’m hoping someone has betrayed us. Someone at the heart of the CIA. Someone who knew Dawood was alive and who kept that secret from all of us. From me.

If he’s still playing me, then I’ll know for sure the man I loved is dead. That there’s nothing left of him.

But someone had broken. Someone had fallen. Someone had switched sides. Was it his husband?

Your partner is here. You’ll get your mission together. ]

[ If you can keep your head down. If you can make it to the safe house. If you’re caught, you’ll be shot in the face. And this will go on without you. ]

I’ll make it. I swear to Allah I will. Nothing will stop me now. In shaa Allah.

But these memories, the last touch of his love, would be enough to sustain him for eternity. Goodbye, ya rouhi.

He couldn’t breathe. Dan spun in and out of focus, Dawood’s vision fracturing into a billion shards, the world collapsing all around him as he struggled to hold on to reality. What had happened to the world? To the man he’d known, the soft-spoken, gentle analyst, Kris’s friend… and lover? Dan was supposed to be the happy ending he couldn’t give Kris. The safe harbor for Kris’s heart, the arms that cradled him close after.

Dawood blinked. Tried to inhale. Tried to form a thought, a prayer. Allah, what is this? What path is this? He’d put his faith in Allah, in the path he had to walk, had clung to his determination in the face of everything. In the face of Kris, the other half of his soul. His jihad had always been about the soul, about keeping to the path of his life, holding fast to Allah, like his father had begged him to so many years ago.

Was this what clinging to the path led to? What faith delivered? Was this, in the end, all that was left? He’d run his race, fought his wars, lived more lives packed into one lifetime than any man had any right to feel in his heart. And for what? Wha...

Like father, like son, the proverbs always said. The apple does not fall far from the tree. His father had been murdered for his faith. So too, it seemed, would he. What did he have to show for this life, this dedication to his faith? His father had, at least, had him, his mother, a happy home, a life of love and...

Dawood had a pit in his soul, a hole carved in his heart in the shape of Kris’s smile. A void, dead space within him that hummed, that threatened to overtake his mind, his soul. And he had a husband who had thrown him aside, who had lain in the arms of another man. A traitor. Allah, what am I supposed to do? I thought t...

His heart folded inward, collapsed on itself like a star surrendering to the last shudders of its inevitable descent into darkness. Shame pulsed from him, waves and waves of shame thrown off like a dying star shedding its corona. Shame warred with rage, wrestled with the sting of failure, of self-recrimination. Self-wrath. He hadn’t done enough, he hadn’t. Not if this was the end. Not if Kris was still in danger. Dan was right about one thing. He did not fear death. He welcomed it. Welcomed the release, the shedding of this terrible life...

you’re all going to fall. You’re all going to die. You will always fall to us. To me!” Dan hissed.

“It’s so fucking poetic, don’t you think? I will beat you, and I will kill you, and I will take everything that is yours. Exactly like history is supposed to go.”

This is the record of CIA officer Dawood Haddad meeting with an unknown CIA officer who has been passing intelligence and information to al-Qaeda for over two years.

A recording of the meeting will be lodged within this phone’s voicemail.

“Haddad…” George’s throat clenched. “Well done.”

Kris screamed through clenched teeth, his arms shaking as he pulled and he pulled, and he felt Dan’s bones crunching, the delicate cartilage in his neck bending, snapping. Felt Dan’s body tremble and seize, watched his mouth gape open and close.

Crunch. The bone-shuddering crash of impact, the car slamming into tree trunks as it careened downhill. Airbags deployed with a bang. Glass shattered, showering Kris in a million tiny fragments.

Nothing. No movement. Dan’s head hung at an angle, twisted unnaturally to the left.

“CIA business. I need your car.”

“Just fucking take it. It’s insured.”

Kris jumped from the hood to the trunk of the next car. He jogged over the roof, jumped off the hood and onto the rear spoiler of a low-slung white sports car. It rocked, and he leaped sideways into the bed of a pickup before running forward, jumping to the hood of a sedan. Horns blared, following his every move.

Kris raised his gun. Took aim. The wind shifted, blew his trench to the side.