Chimera (11 page)

The PM suddenly realized the severity of it all. But it hit him more as a shock than anger:

“
My god!
But why are they attacking? We have done nothing but been friendly with them. I...” he continued almost to himself.

The SPG team-leader watched in silence as his country’s leader was floundering in front of his eyes even as the country was faced with the threat of nuclear annihilation. He read the newspapers too, and knew that if there was one member in this government that should be saved at all costs tonight, it should be Chakri. The panicking man he saw standing in front of him was clearly in no position to take on China...

“Are they launching nuclear weapons?” the PM asked him, not realizing that the SPG team-leader was not privy to those details beyond what his immediate orders were. The latter man realized that panic had gripped the man in his charge. He forced himself to remain calm.

“We don’t know, sir. That’s why it is extremely important to get you out of here, right now.”

“How much time do we have before the warheads hit Delhi?” the PM continued. Before he could get a response, the AW-101 helicopter was on the ground and the doors had been opened. He pushed the Prime-Minister along and ran over to the open doors of the helicopter. The PM and his family were bundled aboard and the SPG group got in behind them, leaving a contingent around the perimeter to maintain security of the residence. As the air-force sergeant closed the door of the helicopter, the pilot of the helicopter looked back and saw the crucial people on board. He nodded and spoke into his comms mouthpiece as the helicopter lifted off the ground and headed towards Palam airport, gathering speed quickly. The SPG team-leader looked at his watch and nodded. They had just enough time to get the PM out.

Probably…
he corrected himself.

THE INDIAN NORTH-EAST

DAY 1 + 0025 HRS

The Chinese had achieved initiative, but had lost surprise. When the Indian Aerospace Command had detected the launches, everybody in that command down from AVM Malhotra knew just how lucky it had been for them to have detected the launches in time. Had they not re-adjusted that satellite’s orbit just a few hours before, they would have completely missed the Chinese launches until
after
it was too late. The Chinese had timed the launches to correspond to the black-out period of the Indian satellite coverage along orbit paths that they had been using for the last two months. But they hadn’t counted on a change to that path within hours of their planned attack.

So luck had sided with the Indians on that one. But the missiles were still flying their way south…

The klaxons were sounding off on all Indian airbases in the Eastern, Central and Western Air-Commands of the Indian Air-Force. The Chinese cruise-missile tally had been done by the various ISR systems. The final number of detected launches was a staggering one-hundred-seventy-five, including both the Long-Sword missiles and the YJ-62s. The expended Long-Sword TEL vehicles were dispersing already, having no reloads to fire. However the YJ-62 TEL vehicles were moving for a second reload…

For the IAF, the threat was different than the Army. The Chinese cruise-missiles had been launched far to the north of the border with India and this meant that even with the Long-Swords in the mix, chances of hitting southern Indian airbases was low. But preserving aircraft was not the whole picture. An air-force is measured as a system including infrastructure, weapons, aircraft, personnel and morale rather than just aircraft alone. If the northern airbases were lost, the ability of the IAF to preserve aerial density over the battlefield would dissipate down to the level of the PLAAF over Tibet, and
that
was bad news.

The only thing standing between that and the Chinese missiles was the IAF’s integrated Air-Defense-Ground-Environment-system or ADGES, which was now swinging into action. Surface-to-air missile launchers were now adjusting azimuth towards the likely ingress areas for the Chinese cruise-missiles. Tracking and guidance radars were coming online from Ladakh to Arunachal-Pradesh. Soon enough, they were primed and ready as they looked towards the Himalayan peaks to the north for the threat to pop up into view.

Above New-Delhi, a single Phalcon AWACS continued to climb above the clouds to reach its patrol height while the airborne radar went active. On the ground at Agra, another Phalcon flight-crew from the No. 50 Squadron spooled up the engines of their aircraft for immediate departure. At Kalaikunda airbase far to the east, another No. 50 Squadron Phalcon detachment also took up position at the end of the runway for immediate departure while one indigenous CABS AEW aircraft from the newly organized No. 51 Squadron took to the air in front of them…

HILLS NORTH OF WALONG

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

INDIA

DAY 1 + 0030 HRS

“Awfully quiet,” Colonel Malik said. The peace and serenity in the hills was momentarily broken as two Dhruv helicopters flew overhead and disappeared into the darkness of the valley to the south.

“Yes sir, it is,” Krishnan said as he lowered his binoculars after scanning the peaks to the north.
No activity there...

Krishnan looked at his palm and moved his fingers to maintain circulation in the freezing cold weather.

He remembered the day two months ago when he had ambushed the Chinese squad not too far from where he was now. With the warning order having come through a few minutes before, he wondered if today was the day the Chinese would come after his blood. He wondered whether his actions had precipitated the flow of history in any way similar to the way the Chinese ambush of the Indian policemen near Kongka-La in Ladakh, 1959. That event laid the path for a war three years later. Now he wondered if the same was happening again…  

The last two months had been filled with vitriolic conversations between Beijing and New-Delhi in light of several border air and ground skirmishes. Tibet was still burning under the armed revolts that Beijing was convinced were being launched from India with tacit support. Krishnan and his men could not tell whether this was true or not. Not that they cared if it was true. Posted to this region, they had seen firsthand the suffering of the Tibetan people under Beijing’s oppressive rule. They had heard the firsthand reports of torture and genocide being perpetrated in and around Lhasa as the PLA attempted to regain control.

And now the Indian military had been put on full alert in the last half hour…  

This is exactly what makes their silence so scary.

More so than their guns, as a matter of fact. What the hell are they thinking?”

Krishnan collected his thoughts and turned to his CO:

“Sir, what do you think is going on?” Malik grunted.

“Whatever it is Krishnan, we can be sure of one thing: we won’t like it. All I know is that Division HQ is scrambling to find out what’s going on with New-Delhi. Somebody must know what’s going on, but we sure as hell don’t. I was told by our air-force liaison that they are withdrawing our UAV support for right now because that squadron has to be relocated immediately. That sounds downright ominous to me. Division commander thinks so as well. This is why I want you to cover all the approaches to Walong. If the Chinese move a muscle, I want to know it. In the meantime I will try and figure out what on earth is happening,” Malik said as he wore his gloves back on.

Colonel Malik commanded a reinforced Battalion within the 2
ND
Mountain Division (MD), responsible for the defense of Walong. It was a large sector, but the 2
ND
MD was a large force with lot of independent firepower under its direct command. 

It had taken a humiliating defeat fifty years ago at the hands of the Chinese during the cold winter of 1962-63 to hammer home the lesson on the need for flexible defense and dedicated Mountain Divisions. Napoleon had once asked his commanders if his army units spread evenly along the border were meant for defending against smugglers, for that was exactly what the result was. A military force however large, if dissipated along the border, ceases to be a coherent force. This was especially true in mountainous terrain of the Himalayas.

Malik knew it all too well, and his first plan of action in any major conflict with China was to pull his Battalion task force back towards a common defensive line to the south, codenamed “Romeo”. Here he would ensure his force regained the coherency required to fight the Chinese. After that they would advance to some of the several choke points within the passes in the region depending on where the Chinese were headed. Each of these locations was named with code name “Juliet” followed by a numeral. If the Chinese pushed them off these locations then all forces were to fall back to Romeo for regroup and counter-attack. If even this line fell, the last battalion line of defense north of Walong was the “Ragnar” line.

After that, if need be, we will fight them house to house in Walong...

Malik thought as he walked down the bank of the river towards the Dhruv helicopter parked nearby, waiting to take him back to Battalion HQ. Krishnan walked with him along with several of Malik’s staff officers.

The two man flight-crew of the parked Dhruv saw them approaching and immediately climbed back into the cockpit. Moments later the sounds of the turbines spooling up filled the ever darkening valley. The army-aviation Captain flying the helicopter lowered his helmet mounted NVGs to help see the valley more clearly. As Malik climbed back into the cabin and took his seat, he turned to face Krishnan standing outside:

“Stay vigilant tonight. We will give whatever support we can muster regardless of whatever is happening right now. Report anything suspicious directly to me. Understood?”

“Yes sir! We will hold the line!” Krishnan said even as he snapped off the salute and walked away from the helicopter. The chilling high winds from the helicopter downwash were breaking through his clothing. Thirty seconds later he watched as the helicopter flew down the valley and headed south, disappearing in the darkness. The sounds of the helicopter still echoed in the valley for several minutes before silence ensued. Krishnan stood there and glanced back at the imposing black silhouettes of the peaks to the north. He watched his breath as a small visible puff in the cold air before walking away to where his temporary command post lay on the southern slope of the peak nearby. His two-hundred men were now settled in for a long, cold night ahead...

NEW DELHI

DAY 1 + 0045 HRS

Chakri was just as abruptly interrupted from his sleep as the PM had been in his office a few minutes before, but his reaction was more composed. He immediately got up and walked along with the three men from his SPG and ordered for the phone. After he had ensured that the PM was already on the way to Palam for immediate evacuation, he picked up the phone and called up General Yadav. The latter was at Army-Headquarters where yet another frantic midnight evacuation was underway, so he was told that General Yadav and his staff were already on their way on board another air-force AW-101 towards Palam. Chakri put down the phone and walked out to see that for him there was no helicopter but rather a ground convoy of black SUVs waiting to whisk him away to safety.

Once inside the vehicles, he ordered for satellite comms to be opened between the AW-101 carrying General Yadav to Palam right away. It took a few minutes to set that up, but the vehicle was equipped for this kind of role. The comms opened up and Chakri heard Yadav’s voice above the background helicopter noises. He got to the point right away:

“General, what’s the final count?”

“One-hundred-seventy-five. We were damned lucky to have detected it all in time. We still have some time to react though, because at the current speed the missiles are still roughly an hour away,” Yadav said.

Chakri looked out at the empty midnight streets as his convoy of vehicles sped down the roads. He saw a sleeping New-Delhi populace that knew nothing of the threat.

Neither does the rest of India
…he realized.

“Yadav, do we know what their targets are?”

“We have a rough idea. Based on what Air-Vice-Marshal Malhotra from the Aerospace Command said when he phoned in the threat, mostly the targets are in the northeast and the Ladakh region. In addition roughly thirty-six missiles were seen heading in the rough direction of Delhi, Bareilly and Agra. It is a safe bet that Beijing is attempting a decapitating strike against us. But like I said, we have been lucky and should be able to evacuate almost everybody out of here in time.”

“That’s good to hear, Yadav, but what about civilian casualties?” Chakri asked, and half expected the reply before it came:

“There are going to be some casualties. The air-force is getting ready for a maximum level effort to take down as many of the missiles as they can as soon as the latter come cross the Himalayas. But some are bound to get through. The Chinese guidance systems are not accurate enough for precision strikes. We are attempting to get as many people away from what we think are the major targets but an overall city level warning will have to come from the government. And that, sir, is your decision to make...”

Chakri looked out of the windows yet again and collected his thoughts. The Chinese had launched an all-out attack on this country which, even if conventional, was massive. They had hundreds of thousands of fully acclimatized soldiers in Tibet as a result of the ongoing Tibetan revolts for the past half year. They had been planning this for quite some time.