‘We are going to Kathmandu, so relax, have some dried fruit and water,’ the Doctor told the boys.

Nine hours later, the six reached Thamel in Kathmandu. It was 11 p.m., but the locality was waking up to life. Classy discotheques and bars, restaurants and street hawkers dotted Thamel, the shopping-cum-nightlife district of the capital of Nepal. Its streets and warren-like alleys throbbed with foreign tourists, shoppers, knick-knack sellers and street musicians looking for appreciation and American dollars. Deals were being made with hawkers, funky music blared out of bars, a few junkies could be seen keeping a sharp look out for their next hit of dope.

The Land Rover stopped outside a hotel, the Kathmandu Guest House. Of all the hotels in Thamel, with their fancy architectural and decorative features, this one was the most inconspicuous. There was a lone guard at the entrance. The hotel seemed deserted. The guard knew who the Doctor had come to meet and gestured to the men to follow him.

He took the six visitors to the third floor, to a room at the end of the corridor, and knocked twice on the door.

‘Come in,’ said a voice from within.

The guard opened the door and ushered the six men inside. He then gave a stiff salute to two men seated inside the room. They were dressed in identical dark grey suits and pointed, black leather shoes.

‘Zaheer! So, these are the three Indians you had mentioned,’ said one of the men, who was dark and mustachioed.

‘Yes, janaab, I have brought them here to meet you. Please do the needful to your satisfaction,’ the Doctor said.

‘Show me their forms,’ the man said. He looked at Atharv and his brothers and asked, ‘What are your names? And what do you want to do?’

Atharv spoke first. ‘I am Imran, a lawyer. These are my brothers, Sadiq and Tahir. We are businessmen, based in Bihar’s Kishanganj, with family roots in Thrissur, Kerala.’

He continued, ‘My father became a victim of a communal outbreak, and we have joined for jihad, under the guidance of Doctor bhai, to avenge our father’s murder and the atrocities against our people.’

The two men in suits listened to Imran intently. They then read carefully through the forms that the three boys had filled up.

Finally, the mustachioed man spoke. ‘Fine, we believe you. You will get a chance to pay your debt as a faithful and redeem your community. But be warned – if you turn out to be agents or spies, your real families will get only pieces of you, while your souls will turn into ghosts looking for your bodies.’

The three boys merely nodded.

‘We will provide you with Pakistani passports, under false names, in an hour. Get ready to join Zaheer’s training camps in Karachi and elsewhere. In a few weeks, you three will turn into able soldiers of the ummat, ready for LeT’s jihad in India,’ he told them.