'I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier.'
'Hey, I was being stupid in talking about Abhi. It's cool. Really.'
They sat like that for some time, finally savouring some time alone, when there were not sharing a room with many others or on the watch for attackers. As it got a bit colder, they cuddled closer, and Mayukh reached down to raise Swati's face. He looked into her eyes, wondering how this girl had come to mean so much to him in such a short period of time. He was about to kiss her when he heard a loud boom.
He saw David rush out, his pistol in hand and his rifle slung across his back. He looked at Mayukh and shouted.
'That was a gunshot!'
***
Mayukh ran just steps behind David towards the main gate. He had asked Swati to lock the door and stay inside their villa with Hina and Abhi, not really sure what was going on. As they ran, they heard several more shots. Perched on a raised platform near the main gate, they saw Walter and Mikhail, and they both were firing at something, or someone outside the gates. David climbed up the platform, followed by Mayukh, who by now was having trouble keeping up with the soldier.
What David saw stopped him cold. Outside the gate, several Biters were burning, lying entangled in wires that had been strewn around the complex, and a few that were standing were being cut to ribbons by the withering shotgun blasts.
Mayukh looked at Walter and was instantly struck with a fear that he had never felt before, even when he had been trying to escape the Biters. Walter's lips were pursed back, his smile long gone, and his teeth bared, almost like an animal on the hunt. He was shouting as he fired.
'Burn, baby burn!'
David heard some of the Biters scream in defiance, but when all but a few were burnt or cut down, the others retreated into the shadows. Walter stood there panting heavily, and then realizing that he was not alone, his smile returned, his face transforming in an instant. The genteel, friendly Walter was back. Only his intense, focused eyes indicated the kind of violence he had just shown himself capable of.
'Captain, they come every night, and the same thing happens. Buggers don't learn.'
As they walked down, David wondered how to broach the subject and then decided that playing it straight was the only way he knew how to.
'Walter, I had something to ask you. Electrified perimeter fences, Mossberg shotguns that certainly aren't available for public sale in India, and the way you and your friend were shooting. You don't look and act like holidaying businessmen who were caught up in this.'
Walter paused in mid stride and turned to look at David. His cold, calculating expression at once told David that he had made a mistake in laying out his questions quite so bluntly.
'Captain, I do not know also how a fully armed US Navy SEAL ended up in downtown Delhi, nor do I care to know. We are where we are, and the more we focus on keeping those damn Biters away and not interrogating each other, the better off we will be.'
Walter was about to storm off when he turned.
'And it's no mystery as to how they can be killed. TV, phones and the Internet may be off, but ham radio operators are everywhere, and news spreads fast. We learnt early that they burn and that once you blow them up, they stay that way. That's why we use only shotguns. Of course, with useful intelligence comes useless rumour and chatter, like the talk about Muslims spreading the infection that Sharma and some of his friends have taken to heart.'
Walter and Mikhail walked off, and Mayukh looked at David, whose face was an inscrutable mask.
'David, what happened? He pissed you off that much, did he?'
David leaned against the platform and looked at Mayukh, his eyes filled with concern.
'Mayukh, we may be in bigger trouble than we thought. I never told him or the Swami that I ended up in Delhi. If they have learnt so much about the Biters and perhaps us from radio operators, what have they learnt about Abhi?'
Mayukh returned to their villa, while David said that he would stay by the gate. Mayukh was worried sick by what David had just said, and it brought home to him just how important it was for him to deliver Abhi and Swati to safety. For much of his life, he had been told, perhaps fairly enough, by his parents, that he was not taking any of his responsibilities seriously enough. But now, he had a very real responsibility towards the girl he thought he was beginning to fall in love with and the little bundle of energy that was Abhi. Knowing that they depended on him made the burden of his responsibility almost too much for him to bear. Yes, David was there, but at the end of the day, he knew that he was the one who would be most gutted if anything at all happened to Swati or Abhi. And he was not at all sure he would be able to protect them.
When he saw Swami Vinesh outside Swati and Hina's villa, Mayukh broke into a run and caught up with the Swami just as he was coming out of the gate leading to the main door. In the light of the torch that was lit nearby, Mayukh saw that the Swami seemed startled when he reached him, panting slightly from the sprint.
'Hello. What brings you here this late?'
Mayukh realized that perhaps he was imagining things, being paranoid, or quite possibly both, but the Swami seemed a bit irritated at his question. His suspicion was confirmed when the Swami snapped back.
'Do I need permission to visit them?'
Mayukh almost lost it, and had to keep himself calm, realizing that there was nothing to be gained by seeking out a confrontation this late at night, when there was no way they could survive outside the Swami's complex. Yet, he wanted to tell the Swami that he was not just a boy to be brushed off. The Swami was lean and wiry, much like Mayukh, but Mayukh had at least three to four inches of height over him. So he stepped closer, towering over the Swami.
'No, you don't need my permission. This is your complex, but we are together, so it is most certainly my business if someone lurks outside their villa this late at night.'
He looked straight into the Swami's eyes, not blinking or flinching, till the Swami averted his eyes, and walked off, without a word. Something told Mayukh that the Swami was a dangerous man to humiliate, but he was now beyond caring. He walked to the door of the villa and knocked on it gently. Swati opened the door and both she and Hina came out.
'Abhi's fast asleep. Only a toddler could sleep through gunfire', Hina said with a smile. Mayukh updated them on what had happened and asked if the Swami had met them. They both looked puzzled, and finally Hina replied.
'That is weird. He never even knocked on the door. What the hell was he doing here snooping around this late?'
They all sat down on the balcony and Swati held Mayukh's hand.
'How do we even get out of here and reach Ladakh? We don't have a car and I doubt the Swami will lend us one.'
'Maybe he will', Mayukh said, with more optimism than he felt.
'Mayukh, I don't like the feel of this place at all. The Swami has always had a bad reputation, and Walter and his friends are clearly not who they claim they are. Also, the reaction that Sharma character had to my being Muslim was horrible. It all feels very creepy.'
Mayukh could not agree more with Hina, but he was also feeling very frustrated since he had no real solution to offer. Swati had been quiet till now, but now she spoke, her uncertain tone giving away just how worried she was.
'I would love to believe that we're safe here, but I'm really freaked out. I spoke to a few of the other people there when the Swami was having his lecture. Most are his die-hard followers, and believe in him blindly, like a cult. The others are poor villagers from nearby who are just happy to be alive.'
Mayukh was about to get up and go back to his own villa when he suddenly heard what sounded like a large number of firecrackers going off all at once.
'What's that?' exclaimed Hina.
'That's automatic weapon fire, and it's coming from the main gate. David's there all alone, and all he has is his pistol!'
With that, Mayukh ran towards the main gate at full tilt.
