"What's the op?" I asked.

Church handed me the file. "This came in as an email attachment. Two photos, two separate sources."

I flipped open the folder and looked at two photos of an incredibly beautiful woman. Iraqi, probably. Black hair, full lips, and the most arresting eyes I'd ever seen. Eyes so powerful that despite the low res of the photos and graininess of the printout, they radiated heat. Her face was streaked with dirt and there was some blood crusted around her nose and the corner of her mouth.

I looked at him.

"These were relayed to us by the people we have seeded into a Swiss seismology team studying an underground explosion in the Helmand River Valley. We ran facial recognition on them and MindReader kicked out a ninety-seven percent confidence that this is Amirah."

My mouth went dry as dust.

Holy s.h.i.t.

When I was brought into the DMS a month ago my first gig was to stop a team of terrorists who had a bioweapon that still gives me nightmares. I'm not kidding. Couple times a week I wake up with the shivers, cold sweat running down my skin, and clenched teeth that are the only things between a silent room and a gut-buster of a scream.

There were three people behind that scheme. A British pharmaceutical mogul named Gault, a religious fanatic from Yemen called El Mujahid, and his wife, Amirah. She was the molecular biologist who conceived and created the Seif al Din Seif al Din pathogen. The Sword of the Faithful. They test-drove the pathogen with limited release in remote Afghani villages, trying out different strains until they had one that couldn't be stopped. pathogen. The Sword of the Faithful. They test-drove the pathogen with limited release in remote Afghani villages, trying out different strains until they had one that couldn't be stopped. Seif al Din. Seif al Din. An actual doomsday plague. El Mujahid brought it here, and Echo Team stopped him. But only just. If you factor in the dead Afghani villagers and the people killed here, the body count was north of twelve hundred. Even so, Mr. Church and his science geeks figured we caught a break. It could have been more. Could have been millions, even billions. It came down to that kind of a photo finish. An actual doomsday plague. El Mujahid brought it here, and Echo Team stopped him. But only just. If you factor in the dead Afghani villagers and the people killed here, the body count was north of twelve hundred. Even so, Mr. Church and his science geeks figured we caught a break. It could have been more. Could have been millions, even billions. It came down to that kind of a photo finish.

Most of the victims turned into mindless killers whose metabolism had been so drastically altered by the plague that they could not think, had no personalities, didn't react to pain, and were hard as b.a.l.l.s to kill. The pathogen reduced most organ functions to such a minimal level that they appeared to be dead. Or...maybe they were were dead. The scientists are still sorting it out. We called them "walkers." A bad pun, short for "dead men walking." The DMS science chief is a pop culture geek. My guys in Echo Team called the infected by another name. Yeah. The "Z" word. dead. The scientists are still sorting it out. We called them "walkers." A bad pun, short for "dead men walking." The DMS science chief is a pop culture geek. My guys in Echo Team called the infected by another name. Yeah. The "Z" word.

And you wonder why I get night terrors. Six weeks ago I was a Baltimore cop doing scut work for Homeland. Sitting wiretaps, that sort of thing. Now I was top dog for a crew of first-team shooters. Do not ask me how one thing led to another, but here I am.

I looked at the photos.

Amirah.

"The rumors of her demise have been greatly exaggerated," I said.

Church managed not to smile.

"If you're sending us, then she hasn't been apprehended."

"No," he said. "Spotted only. I arranged for two Marine Recon squads to locate and detain."

"What if Amirah's infected?"

"I shared a limited amount of information with the appropriate officers in the chain of command. If anyone reports certain kinds of activity-from Amirah or anyone-then the whole area gets lit up."

"Lit up as in-?"

"A nuclear option falls within the parameters of 'acceptable losses.'"

"Can you at least wait until me and my guys reach minimum safe distance?"

He didn't smile. Neither did I.

"You'll be operating with an Executive Order, so you'll have complete freedom of movement."

"You got the president to sign an order that fast?"

He just looked at me.

"What are my orders?"

"Our primary concern is to determine if anyone infected with the Seif al Din Seif al Din pathogen is loose in Afghanistan." pathogen is loose in Afghanistan."

"Yeah, that'll be about as easy to establish as bin Laden's zip code."

"Do your best. We'll be monitoring all news coming out of the area, military, civilian and other. If there is even a peep, that intel will be routed to you and the clock will start."

"If I don't come back, make sure somebody feeds my cat."

"Noted."

"What about Amirah? You want her brought back here?"

"Amirah would be a prize catch. There's a laundry list of people who want her. The vice president thinks she would be a great a.s.set to our own bio-weapons programs."

"And is that what you want?" I asked, and then he told me.

-3-.

The Helmand River Valley Sixty-one Hours Ago

We hit the ground running. When Church wants to clear a path, he steamrolls it flat. Our cover was that of a Marine SKT-Small Kill Team-operating on special orders. Need to know. Everybody figured we were probably Delta, and you don't ask them for papers unless you want to get a ration of s.h.i.t from everyone higher up the food chain. And when we did have to show papers, we had real ones. As real as the situation required.

Just as the helo was about to set us down near the blast site, Church radioed: "Be advised, I ordered the two Marine squads to pull out of the area. One has confirmed and is heading to a pick-up point now. The other has not responded. Make no a.s.sumptions in those hills."

He signed off without explanation, but I didn't need any.

The six of us went out into the desert, split into two teams and headed into Indian country. We ran with combat names only. I was Cowboy.

Twilight draped the desert with purple shadows. As soon as the sun dropped behind the mountains the furnace heat shut off and the wind turned cool. Not pleasantly cool: This breeze was clammy and it smelled wrong. There was a scent on the wind-sweet and sour. An ugly smell that triggered an atavistic repulsion. Bunny sniffed it and turned to me.

"Yeah," I said, "I smell it, too."

Bob Faraday-a big moose of a guy whose call-sign was Slim-ran point. It was getting dark fast and the moon wouldn't be up for nearly an hour. In ten minutes we'd have to switch to night-vision. Slim vanished into the distance. Bunny and I followed behind, slower, watching as darkness seemed to melt out from under rocks and rise up from sand dunes as the spa.r.s.e islands of daytime shadows spread out to join the ocean of shadows that was night.

Slim broke squelch twice, the signal to close on him quick and quiet.

As we ran up behind him I saw that he'd stopped by a series of gray finger rocks that rose from the troubled sands at the edge of the blast area. But as I drew closer I saw that the rocks weren't rocks at all.

I followed my gun barrel all the way to Slim's side.

The dark objects were people.

Eleven of them, sticking out of the sand like statues from some ancient ruins. Dead. Charred beyond recognition. Fourth-, fifth- and sixth-degree burns. You couldn't tell race or even s.e.x with most of them. They were like mummies, and they were still too hot to touch.

"There was supposed to be some kind of underground lab," murmured Slim. "Looks like the blast charbroiled these poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and the force drove them up through the sand."

"Hope it was quick," said Bunny.

Slim glanced at him. "If they were in that lab then they were the bad guys."

"Even so," said Bunny.

We went into the foothills, onto some rocks that were cooler than the sands.

The other team called in. The Marine was on point. "Jukebox to Cowboy, be advised we have more bodies up here. Five DOA. Three men and two women. Third-degree burns, cuts and blunt force injuries. Looks like they might have walked out of the hot zone and died up here in the rocks." He paused. "They're a mess. Vultures and wild dogs been at them."

"Verify that what you are seeing are animal bites," I said.

There was a long pause.

And it got longer.

I keyed the radio. "Cowboy to Jukebox, copy?"

Two long d.a.m.n seconds.

"Cowboy to Jukebox, do you copy?"

That's when we heard the distant rattle of automatic gunfire. And the screams.

We ran.

"Night-vision!" I snapped, and we flipped the units into place as the black landscape suddenly transformed into a thousand shades of luminescent green. We were all carrying ALICE packs with about fifty pounds of gear-most of it stuff that'll blow up, M4 combat rifles, AMT .22 caliber auto mags on our hips, and combat S.I. a.s.sault boots. It's all heavy and it can slow you down...except when your own brothers in arms are under fire. Then it feels like wings that carry you over the ground at the speed of a racing tiger. That's the illusion, and that's how it felt as we tore up the slopes toward the path Second Squad had taken.

The gunfire was continuous.

As we hit the ridge, I signaled the others to get low and slow. Bunny came up beside me. "Those are M5s, boss."

He was right. Our guns have their own distinctive sound, and it doesn't sound much like the Kalashnikovs the Taliban favored.

The gunfire stopped abruptly.

We froze, letting the night tell us its story.

The last of the gunfire echoes bounced back to us from the distant peaks. I could hear loose rocks clattering down the slope, probably debris knocked loose by stray bullets. In the distance the wind was beginning to howl through some of the mountain pa.s.ses.

I keyed the radio.

"Cowboy to Jukebox. Respond."

Nothing.

We moved forward, moving as silently as trained men can do when any misstep could draw fire. The tone of the wind changed as we edged toward the rock wall that would spill us into the pa.s.s where Second Squad had gone. A heavier breeze, perhaps? Moving through one of the deeper canyons?

A month ago I'd have believed that. Too much has happened since.

I tapped Bunny and then used the hand signal to listen.

He heard the sound, then, and I could feel him stiffen beside me. He pulled Slim close and used two fingers to mime walking.

Slim had been fully briefed on the trip. He understood. The low sigh wasn't the wind. It was the unendingly hungry moan of a walker.

I finger-counted down from three and we rounded the bend.

Jukebox had said that they'd found five bodies. Second Squad made eight.

As we rounded the wall we saw that the count was wrong. There weren't eight people in the pa.s.s. There were fifteen. All of them were dead. Most of them moving.

Second Squad lay sprawled in the dust. The night-vision made it look like they were covered in black oil. Jukebox still held his M4, finger curled through the trigger guard, barrel smoking. A man dressed in a white lab coat knelt over him, head bowed as if weeping for the fallen soldier, but as we stepped into the pa.s.s the kneeling man raised his head and turned toward us. His mouth and cheeks glistened with black wetness and his eyes were lightless windows that looked into a world in which there was no thought, no emotion, no anything except hunger.

Spider and Zorro-the L.A. SWAT kid and the other Ranger-were almost invisible beneath the seething ma.s.s of bodies that crouched over them, tearing at clothing with wax-white fingers and at skin with gray teeth.

"Holy Mother of G.o.d," whispered Slim.

"G.o.d's not here," I said as I put the pinpoint of the laser sight on the kneeling zombie. It was a stupid thing to say. Glib and macho. But I think it was also the truth.

The creature bared its teeth and hissed like a jungle cat. Then he lunged, pale fingers reaching for me.

I put the first round in his breastbone and that froze him in place for a fragment of a second, and then put the next round through his forehead. The impact snapped his neck, the round blew out the back of his skull, and the force flung him against the rock wall.

The other walkers surged up off the ground with awful cries that I will never be able to forget. Bunny, Slim and I stood our ground in a shooting line, and we chopped them back and down and dead. Dead for good and all. Painting the walls with the same dripping black. The narrow confines of the pa.s.s roared with thunder, the waves of echoes striking us in the chest, the ejected bra.s.s tinkling with improbable delicacy.

Then silence.

I looked down at the three men. They'd been part of Echo Team for a day. Less. They'd been briefed on the nature of the enemy. They were highly trained men, the best of the best. But really, what kind of training prepares you for this? The first time the DMS encountered the walkers they'd lost two whole teams. Twenty-four seasoned agents.

Even so, the deaths of these good, brave men was like a spear in my heart. It was hard to take a breath. I forced myself to be in the moment, and I slung my M4 and drew my .22 and shot each of the corpses in the head. To be sure. We carried the .22s because the low ma.s.s of the bullet will penetrate the skull but lacks the power to exit, and so the bullet bounces around inside the skull and tears the brain apart. a.s.sa.s.sins use it, and so does anyone who has to deal with things like walkers.

"Bunny, drop a beacon and let's haul a.s.s."

Bunny dug a small device from a thigh pocket, thumbed the switch and tucked it under the leg of one of the dead walkers, making sure not to touch blood or exposed skin. The beacon's signal would be picked up by satellite. Once we were clear of the area, an MQ-Reaper would be guided into the pa.s.s to deliver an air-to-surface h.e.l.lfire missile. Fuel-air bombs are handy for cleanup jobs like this. When you don't want a single f.u.c.king trace left.

We didn't take dog tags because the DMS doesn't wear them. We try to have a "leave no one behind policy," but that doesn't always play out.

We moved on.

The night was vast. Knowing that helicopters and armed drones and troops were a phone call away didn't make the shadows less threatening. It didn't make the nature of what we were doing easier to accept: hunting monsters in a region of the Afghan mountains dominated by the Taliban. Yeah, find a comfortable s.p.a.ce in your head for that thought to curl up in.