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  His mobile phone beeped and he picked it up. It was his best friend, Shiv.

  'Dude, are we on for our session tomorrow?'

  'Of course!'

  Then, Mayukh remembered the mood his mother had been in, and added.

  'Hey Shiv, is it okay if we meet at your place instead?'

  Many things brought the two boys together-a love for cars, a fair distaste for studies and above all else, a passion for gaming. They could spend hours in front of their PS3s, joining forces in myriad online battlegrounds, blasting away at whatever villains it threw at them. With the mood his mother was in, Mayukh figured this time, it might be more prudent to go over to Shiv's place instead of sitting in front of the PS3 in his room.

  Mayukh noticed the TV playing in a corner of the shop. There was a banner scrolling across the bottom of the screen. One or two other people who had come to buy cigarettes at the shop had stopped to watch. One of them said aloud what was on all their minds.

  'That is one screwed up country, isn't it? First the Taliban, then bloody Osama, then the American war, and now this. They should just nuke it and end the misery.'

  Mayukh never spent too much time in front of the TV, least of all watching news, but over the last twenty-four hours, there was no avoiding the news that had been coming out of Afghanistan. It was all over the Net, and all over every news channel. He could hear the newscaster read out her lines.

  'The US military has repeated that the sudden upsurge in violence following the reported deaths of Mullah Omar and Ayam Al-Zawahiri is not a cause for concern and represents the death throes of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.'

  The screen cut away to a balding, white man in a military uniform.

  'We won a major battle in our ongoing war on terror two days ago with the strike that took out the top leadership of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The Taliban are now little more than disorganized rabble and the spate of suicide bombings yesterday just show how desperate they are getting in their attempts to destabilize Afghanistan and the progress the democratically elected government has achieved. Our mission is on track and I am confident that the day is not far when peace returns to Afghanistan.'

  Mayukh's phone rang again. It was Shiv.

  'Dude, what do you want to play-Medal of Honor or Dead Rising?'

  Mayukh sniggered.

  'Come on, Shiv, don't try and change the game just because I keep wasting you on Medal of Honor.'

  There was a pause before Shiv responded.

  'But I want to kill some zombies. I was reading this amazing book in which zombies come to life. Wouldn't that be cool?'

  Mayukh took a deep breath. Shiv was cool, but sometimes he just took everything too literally.

  'Shiv, zombies exist only in frigging video games. Speaking of which, we are on for tomorrow and I am going to whip your ass.'

  ***

  Abu Jindal, who had once been known as Nadir Dedoune, felt like crap. His head hurt, he kept throwing up every hour or so, and his skin had taken on a strange yellow complexion. As he looked at his reflection in the window of a Duty Free shop at Karachi airport, he wondered what bug he had picked up. Perhaps this had all been a stupid idea after all. Growing up as an Algerian immigrant in a poor ghetto outside Paris, he had never known anything other than grinding poverty. There were no jobs, no opportunities, only the condescending and spiteful looks of the rich white French. That was till he met Mullah Amir, who preached to small groups of young men at the local mosque, and had opened Nadir's eyes to the atrocities being committed against Muslims around the world. He had found a new meaning and purpose to his life-to wage Jihad against these infidels. He had made the trip to Afghanistan to take part in some mission that he had supposedly been chosen for. The running around and firing of guns in a camp inside Pakistan had been fun enough, but then he had been totally terrified by what he had seen after the Predator strike that had killed Mullah Omar, Al-Zawahiri and the others. His mission on hold, he had been told to leave immediately.

  'Emirates Flight 605 to Paris via Dubai is now ready for boarding.'

  It was 5:30 in the morning, and Nadir bought a cup of coffee. No sooner had he taken a sip than he rushed to the bathroom, emptying the contents of his stomach into the sink. When he had retched himself dry, he washed his face, and then looked down to see clumps of hair in his hand. There were a couple of bald patches on his head where the hair seemed to have just come off.

  What was happening to him?

  All he wanted to do now was to somehow get home and see a doctor. He took out a cap and put it on to cover his hair. He tried sleeping through the flight, though he had to get up three times even before the flight reached Dubai to throw up. On the third occasion he saw blood in the sink. The flight was delayed in Dubai by several hours, which made his life even more miserable. A couple of hours after the flight had left Dubai, the woman sitting next to him, bored of watching the Sun gradually set over the horizon, turned to order a drink. She saw him start to shake, as if having a fit.

  'Sir, are you okay?'

  Nadir couldn't hear her. His eyes were glazed over and as he shook even more violently, his cap fell off. He was now nearly hairless, his hair lying in clumps all over his seat. As she watched in horror, boils seemed to break out all over his body, oozing pus and blood. He then retched all over the seat in front of him. Passengers screamed, and a Flight Attendant shouted out whether there was a doctor on board. By the time a doctor got to him, Nadir was lying lifeless, a ghastly apparition, covered in his own vomit, pus and blood, a deformed, hairless yellowed being where there had once been a handsome young man. The French doctor felt for his pulse and then shook his head sadly at the Flight Attendant.

  'Il est mort.'

  There were horrified gasps from several of the passengers who had gathered around to see what was happening. They all began to move back to their seats as the Flight Attendant wondered what to do with the body. Suddenly one of the passengers exclaimed to the doctor.

  'Doctor, he's speaking.'

  'C'est impossible!'

  The doctor leaned over near Nadir and saw that indeed his lips were moving. There was still no pulse. He leaned closer to hear what he was saying. He jerked back when he heard one word.

  'Jihad.'

  Then Nadir's eyes snapped open.

  He sat up calmly, as if nothing had happened, looked around, and grabbed the black scarf from the Flight Attendant's neck. He then proceeded to calmly tie it around his head, as everyone around looked on, speechless.

  Then he leapt out to bite the screaming doctor's hand.

  On three other flights headed for New York, London and Washington, the men who had accompanied Nadir to the camp in Afghanistan similarly transformed as the Sun set.

  David Bremsak knew nothing of this, sleeping his first full night's sleep in close to a month. His bunk at Camp Delta just outside the town of Gardez was hardly luxurious, but it beat humping up and down the Shahikot Mountains wondering if he was in some Taliban sniper's sights. He was dreaming of Rose, her long, blond hair, her smell, her touch, when he was woken up. He looked up to see Dan, his M82 in hand.

  'Captain, sorry to wake you up.'

  David looked as if he was ready to murder Dan.

  'This better be good.'

  Dan reached over and handed over David's M4 and vest.

  'We're under attack.'

  That got David's attention, and he grabbed his gear and rushed out of his cabin. Mike had also just come out of his cabin next door, wearing a Kevlar vest over his t-shirt, carrying an M4 as well. The CIA officer shouted out at David as he saw him.

  'The Taliban must have gone nuts. Trying to attack us here is suicide!'

  There were soldiers milling around everywhere. The members of the small TF121 detachment were `guests' here, sharing the base with its usual occupants, an Army Ranger unit. Given the secretive nature of their HVT hunts, and the time they spent outside in the mountains, David and his men had never really got to know
the Rangers too well. But now David saw their Commanding Officer, Major James Lafferty, roaring orders to his men.

  'You there, reinforce the western side! I want snipers covering every angle.'

  David jogged over to him. Compared to the lean, wiry SEAL, the Ranger Major looked like a giant pitbull.

  'What's up?'

  'Two of my boys are down. Some Taliban must have sneaked in and attacked our sentries.'

  David considered that for a minute. He had been fast asleep but there was no way he could have slept through gunfire. James must have read his mind.

  'They bit them. We never picked them up till they were too close.'

  David took in the bizarre details.

  'Did we get them?'

  James looked down straight at his eyes, and David thought that he saw fear in the giant man's eyes.

  'The boys pumped them full of bullets, but get this, the two of them fell down, then got back up and ran away.'

  'All clear!'

  The Ranger who had shouted sounded scared, and David could sense that as word of the raid got around, everyone was spooked. It was one thing to deal with an enemy who shot at you, and reassuringly stayed dead when you shot back. What did you do with enemies who bit you and then got back up when you shot them? He saw Mike a few feet away. The CIA officer had seen his share of crazy stuff, but this was something too weird even for him. The Rangers were now busy tending to the two wounded men, who were bleeding profusely from bites to their hands and necks.

  'Get them Medevaced now!'

  The next morning, they were airlifted to Kabul and then were on a flight to Ramstein airbase in Germany, when doctors at the base in Kabul said they just could not deal with the strange symptoms they were seeing. When the flights landed, horrified medics found everyone on board bit and scratched by their patients.

  David and his team were out on the road again. He had heard that he was being recommended for a Navy Cross for the mission that had taken out Mullah Omar and Al-Zawahiri. Medals were always nice, but the biggest thing on his mind was the fact that he was finally doing something that mattered. His father, a New York firefighter, had perished in the rubble of the World Trade Center, and David had dedicated every single moment of his life since that day to avenging his father, and the thousands of others who had died on 9/11. He didn't look like much a warrior, standing five feet eight, and with a lean body, but what he lacked in size, he more than made up in determination and speed. He had hung in there when stronger and more experienced men had quit all around him at SEAL training in Coronado, and then he had taken his revenge in missions around the world-from Iraq to Afghanistan.

  Mike was right by his side.

  'Do you reckon there's any truth to this at all?'

  'Mike, I've seen all kinds of terrorists and tough guys. They all like to talk it up but believe me, when you shoot them, they all stay down. Our boys must have been just panicked. Most of them are just kids on their first combat tour. I bet they never even hit those Taliban once.'

  Rumours had been spreading like wildfire all over Afghanistan. Tales of black-turbaned Taliban who had come back from the dead, and who could not be killed. Monsters who had superhuman strength and speed, and were rampaging through whole villages at night, biting and scratching people and then disappearing into the mountains. David and his team were to check out the last reported sighting. Their brief was simple. Find out if these mythical `undead' Taliban existed, and if they did, then to shoot a few of them dead to prove to the Afghan people that they were just a figment of someone's imagination, or as David suspected, the Taliban propaganda machine in overdrive.

  They were an hour into their hike through the hills when Rob spotted some movement behind them in the dark. David turned around to see a black turbaned man standing on a small hillock just fifty feet behind them.

  How the hell had anyone got on their tail without their noticing it?

  David brought his M4's scope to his eyes. With his night vision optics on, what he saw was bathed in a ghostly green light. Their stalker had a black turban tied around his head in the fashion the Taliban favoured, but the rest of him scarcely looked human. Despite the cold, he was wearing tattered clothes, revealing a body covered in boils, pus and blood. His skin was a sickly yellow and his mouth was open, revealing teeth with jagged, sharp edges.

  'Dan, drop the bastard!'

  Dan brought up his M82 to his shoulder but even before he could take aim, the man had disappeared from sight, moving faster than David had seen any man move. Just then Rob screamed, an ugly, keening sound. David turned to see him on the ground, a black-turbaned man on his chest, leaning over and biting his shoulders and chest. David's M4 was up in a flash and he fired a three round burst into the man. The shots sent the man sprawling against the rock face, but then to David's horror, the man got up. Close up, he looked even more horrible than the other man David had seen through his scope. He smelt like a cross between a dead mouse and a toilet that has not been flushed or cleaned for some time. His eyes were focused on David, and his lips were pursed back, revealing the sharp, blood-covered teeth.

  Then, he leapt at Mike with surprising speed and bit him in the arm. The CIA officer had his handgun out and fired three 9MM rounds at point blank range even as the man's teeth sank into his left hand. The black turbaned man fell to the ground, and then seemingly jumped off the edge. David peered over to see him climbing down the sheer rock face. He then saw the two wounded men on the ground, blood oozing from their wounds. David had never been a particularly religious man, but he crossed himself, shuddering at the horror of what he had just seen with his own eyes.

  TWO

  Hina Rahman got up to get a cup of coffee, her creaking joints reminding her that she had come a long way from the days when she had been the heartthrob of every boy in college. Now she was just the crotchety old Professor who nagged them to do their assignments. Nobody would have told her that to her face, but while her joints may have weakened with age, her hearing was still sharp, and as she briefly looked in the mirror, her features were still sharp and the greying hair looked good on her. She savoured the hot liquid as she turned on the TV. Every news channel seemed to have only one item to report, the so-called Afghan Flu. She left CNN on as she set the dinner table. Over the clinking of glasses and plates, she heard the somber voice of the newscaster.

  'In less than three days since it's first appearance, what doctors are calling the Afghan Flu is spreading like wildfire. Medical authorities are saying that there is still no cause for panic, but have warned against any travel to Afghanistan or Pakistan.'

  Hina sniggered to herself with the thought that there wasn't exactly a long queue of tourists waiting to brave roadside bombs and drone attacks in India's two dysfunctional Islamic neighbours. Her father, a devout Muslim born in Lahore, would have probably hit her for such thoughts, but her home was Delhi, not Pakistan, which she had left at the age of one during the Partition in 1947. And while she considered herself a devout Muslim, she found nothing in common with the hateful radicals who seemed to hold sway nowadays in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She put the last plate in its place and then turned to the TV, planning to finish her coffee before she heated dinner. She flipped the channel to BBC, where they were interviewing the American President, who was in London for a summit. She had welcomed his election, not because of any other reason but because she found him strikingly handsome. She took comfort in the fact that sixty-five summers had still not entirely robbed her of the feelings and emotions that had once made her a vivacious young woman.

  Those eyes that she had admired now looked filled with trepidation as the American President spoke.

  'Ladies and gentlemen, we have been through a number of outbreaks before. Swine Flu, Bird Flu, SARS and many others. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this latest outbreak and their families, but I do want to reassure all of you that medical science is now at such a level that we can contain and eventually turn back such outbreaks.'
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  One of the reporters asked a question.

  'Mr. President, could you update us on the latest number of confirmed cases in the US and Great Britain?'

  The President turned to ask one of his advisors and then, for a brief moment, shook his head as if in disbelief, as he responded.

  'We now have four thousand people in quarantine in the United States and two thousand here. Total confirmed cases worldwide stand at just under fifteen thousand.'

  There was a collective gasp from the gathered reporters. Hina found herself mumbling a prayer. Fifteen thousand in just over two days? What disease was this that turned people so crazed that they bit anyone who came near them, and one bite was enough to infect a victim? And what about those rumours about them dying and coming back to life? How did medical science explain that?

  Before the reporters could ask any more questions, the American President had left. Hina changed the channel to NDTV India, which was reporting the first confirmed cases in India. One of the `experts' was responding to a question on how the disease could have spread so fast.

  'As far as it's known today, the infection was first spotted in a few young men flying out of Afghanistan through Pakistan. Hence the name. Then there are the American soldiers who developed the symptoms while being flown to Germany and infected dozens of others. Consider this simple fact. There are an estimated four million people traveling by air every single day across the world. Add people meeting them at airports, their families, staff on the planes and at airports, the taxi drivers who ferry them and so on. Literally each traveller could be in close contact with hundreds of people each day. So it's not surprising that the number of infections outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan has exploded so fast.'

  Hina turned off the TV. It was a depressing enough day without having to worry about an exotic virus and it's bizarre effects. She brought the small cake she had baked to the table and sat down on the same chair that she had sat on at mealtime for the last thirty years. To her right was the head of the table, where Imran once sat. She stifled a sob at the memory. No, today was a day for celebration, not for sorrow.