Chimera (32 page)

He saw the sunlight glistening off the Mig-27’s forward-swept wings flash directly above his head at murderously low altitude followed by a sunlight sparkling distribution of sub-munitions in its wake.

A moment later the ground shook with explosions and a blast of sand, dust and smoke rushed above and through the trenches like a wave. Kwatra, Iyanpo and the other soldiers were knocked down where they stood…

WESTERN TIBET-BHUTAN BORDER

DAY 4 + 0950 HRS

By the time the four Mig-27s reengaged afterburners and were streaking away to the south with empty weapons pylons, the cloud of dust and smoke was settling near the three-lake region. The sounds of gunfire had died down. The rumbling of aircraft engines echoed for a bit and then faded away as well.

Soon the only sounds were that of furiously raging fires out of the Chinese ZBDs a few yards away from the now silent trenches...

For more than an hour the sector remained silent as the fires died down in the freezing cold.

The first Mi-17 to touch down near the trenches raised a cloud of dust as it did. Other Mi-17s were flying overhead and Chinese soldiers were shouting at each other. By the time these soldiers were clearing the bodies of their dead comrades and moving through the silent Bhutanese trenches, a line of trucks and other utility vehicles were moving to the east towards the three lakes.

The Chinese soldiers were enraged by their heavy losses here.

Single shots rang out within the trenches as they cleared them with prejudice. No prisoners were taken alive.

By the time the Chinese flag was fluttering in the stiff winds near the three lakes region, the Bhutanese Government was already in contact with New-Delhi as both sides attempted to enact plans to prevent the fall of Bhutan.

NORTH OF TEZPUR

DAY 4 + 1200 HRS

“
The human tragedy continues to unfold today as streams of civilians made their way south from Tawang and other villages across Arunachal Pradesh in light of heavy and bitter fighting between Indian and Chinese armies at the border. War spread today to Bhutan as Chinese ground forces launched a preemptive strike into the tiny Himalayan Kingdom caught between the two Asian powers…
”

“You are hearing this?” Chakri asked from his airborne conference room above Madhya-Pradesh.

Yadav switched off the streaming media reports. He was sitting at the operations center for the IV Corps in Assam with Suman and Chatterjee. Yadav leaned back in his chair.

“General, I don’t need to remind you of the sensitivity of the media situation in this war! How on earth did they get this information about Bhutan so quickly?” Chakri asked angrily.

“Sir, we don’t know. Perhaps somebody on the Bhutanese side leaked it to the press. If you ask me, it was bound to come out anyway. So why does it matter?” Yadav responded.

“General, we
cannot allow
our own media to subvert our morale. But that’s not your job. Where are we at the moment?” Chakri said finally.

“We are putting the final pieces in play. The 5
TH
Mountain Division is in the field and elements of the 21
ST
Infantry Division are deployed around Tawang. Once the Chinese 13
TH
Group Army has finished breaking its teeth on our defenses, these two Divisions will lead the counteroffensive into Tibet!”

“That’s good news, General! What about Sikkim and Bhutan?” Chakri continued. Yadav took a deep breath and sighed.

“Not sure entirely what our options are over there at the moment. General Suman and I are about to head over to Siliguri to meet the Corps commander about the Bhutan question. We will know more about what’s going on over there. Operation Chimera was supposed to be moving already but the Chinese have frustrated our efforts by involving Bhutan. Now we have to divert resources to help the Bhutanese defend their kingdom!”

The Defense-Minister nodded his agreement.

“I agree! I was handed a request from the Bhutanese government before this meeting asking for helicopters to lift some three RBA Battalions from their bases to the northern border with Tibet. I am not sure where we are going to come up with the spare helicopters and crew! Something has to give in all this. I suppose the Chinese planned on this, didn’t they?”

Yadav grunted his response.

“The bastards are clever!”

“Noted. Anyway, I will be talking with the Bhutanese officials in an hour or so. We may need to provide some support to them, so make sure you do keep some of your forces earmarked for possible redeployment inside Bhutan,” Chakri said and then considered that for a bit more…

“Yadav, who is your point man in Bhutan?”

“That would be
Lef-
tenant-General Potgam, the current IMTRAT commander and military liaison to the King of Bhutan. Why?”

“If we have to defend Bhutan from the PLA, it would be good to combine our forces in there with the Bhutanese armed forces and place them under a unified command. This Potgam: is he your choice for the unified commander for Bhutan?” Chakri asked speculatively. Yadav considered that and then looked back at the Defense-Minister:

“Yes sir. He’s the man for that job!”

OVER THE NUBRA VALLEY

LADAKH

DAY 4 + 1230 HRS

The pilots were not comfortable with this mission. The silence in the cockpit was broken only by the large high-frequency rumble of the two turboprop engines running on full power outside.

The two An-32s were from the No. 48 ‘
Camels
’ Squadron. The pilots knew this terrain by heart. This unit had been doing this job for decades with different types of aircraft. But wartime missions had an additional manmade risk built into them.

Their job description was simple enough:

Haul the special cargo on board at Leh.

Head to Saser.

Make the drop.

Return.

Its execution was somewhat more complex. Saser lies in a deep valley. The two pilots had to fly their lumbering aircraft within this valley to be low enough to make the drop without scattering the cargo. The south-eastern tip of this approach was less than eighteen kilometers from the LAC. That was far too close to the liking of the two crews involved.

Battles between the Chinese and Indian fighters were still raging all over Ladakh and southern Tibet that nobody was laying claim to any real estate in the skies just yet. One thing was clear: they were no place for lumbering transports.

But this mission was necessary.

Perhaps even vital. 

The only road link from Leh via Shyok was crammed with military vehicles and was fast becoming a choke point for the two Indian Corps fighting the Chinese in Ladakh. The same was not true for the Chinese. The relatively easy terrain on their side meant that they had a larger number of tactical roads heading into the mountains from their arterial roads through the Aksai Chin.

This operation was the brainchild of the Air-Marshal Bhosale and Lieutenant-General Gupta at Leh and was designed to get the equipment and supplies to build and maintain a forward-area-rearming-point or FARP at Saser. Once established, it would take over the role that the airstrip at DBO played before it had been destroyed by Chinese artillery fire three days ago. It would turn Saser as the heart of the DBO sector pumping vital lifeblood to all Indian army units nearby… 

The radio inside the cockpit chirped:

“Eagle-Eye-One to Switchblade-One. You are approaching enemy detection range. Keep your eyes open. Out.”

The pilot and co-pilot shared a look.

“Okay. What’s our exact location?” the pilot asked.

“Twenty kilometers east of Saser entry point,” the navigator replied after consulting his charts the old fashioned way. 

“Okay then. Go time!” the pilot said to his crew.

He changed radio frequencies:

“Switchblade-One to all Switchblade elements, align your approach!”

The two Mig-29s providing top cover continued on their path but the two An-32s began their steep spiraling descent. So far they had been high enough to stay out of the range of man portable anti-air weapons. That would now change…

“Keep your hand on those flares...” the pilot suggested to his co-pilot as they watched the mountains around them becoming larger.

“I got my hand right on the button!”

The two transport aircraft were making what was in effect the Afghan-Tactical-Approach. It was a technique used by the soviet pilots during their war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s when the threat from Stinger missiles fired by the Mujahedeen against soviet transport aircraft near their bases was very high.

The idea was that arriving or departing aircraft would approach the airbase from high enough altitude to be safe from these missiles. Once over the airbase, they entered a spiraling descent within the security zone around the airbase while dispensing flares to ward off missile threats. This tactic worked. Within limits.

“Approaching eighteen-thousand feet!” the co-pilot said. 

“Roger. Leveling!” the pilot replied.

He stabilized the aircraft and spotted Saser just as the aircraft recovered from the spiral descent.

“Approaching Saser! Visual acquisition and signal flares sighted! Go Red!” the pilot shouted.

The co-pilot pressed the button that opened the cargo doors in the back where two airmen were waiting for the order to start pushing the cargo out. The lights next to them on the ramp now went red and they began pushing the equipment to the edge of the cargo-hold…

“Drop on my mark! Three! Two! One! Go Green!” the pilot ordered.

The two airmen saw the light switch turn green and began pushing the cargo. The pallets slid out the back of the aircraft ramp and deployed under large white parachutes. Several seconds later they were clear and the second An-32 was making its approach behind them.

The flight-crew anxiously scanned the peaks around them as their aircraft flew down the valley. They could see no activity but that meant nothing. They were just waiting for the all-clear from the loadmaster in the cargo hold…

“We are clean! All cargo deployed under open canopies!” the loadmaster’s voice came on the radio. The pilot turned to his right:

“Close the cargo doors! And launch a flare barrage as we pull out!”

While the co-pilot did this, the pilot was already pushing the throttle for both engines forward and the engines groaned under the strain. The aircraft picked up speed…

Both aircraft were now climbing out of Saser, dropping flares all the way until they were well on their way to the southwest. When the aircraft had gone beyond thirty-thousand feet, they leveled out and reduced power.

“I wouldn’t want to do that very often!” the navigator said over the cockpit intercom.

“Get used to it, old boy! We will be doing a lot more of those in the days to come,” the pilot said as he loosened his tight grip on the controls…

LEH AIRBASE

DAY 4 + 1345 HRS

Wing-Commander Dutt saw a utility-vehicle racing down the tarmac from the base operations center. He and his pilots were standing next to their helicopters on the tarmac. There were two LCHs, a single Dhruv and two Mi-17 helicopters parked nearby with pilots in their flight-suits waiting for the all-clear from Dutt.

The other four LCHs under his command were parked further away under camouflaged netting where they were being assembled after having arrived recently. His entire force of helicopters was in now in the area of operations…

The rumble of the jeep’s engine became louder.

Dutt turned to see the base commander for Leh jump of the front seat. Dutt walked over to him.

“Dutt, recovery teams at Saser report ninety-percent on all equipment dropped to them by the boys from the Himalayan-Eagles. They had a few failed canopies but otherwise are good to go,” the base-commander said.

“So we are good to deploy?” Dutt asked.

“Right away! Go!”

“Yes sir!” Dutt said and saluted. He then turned to his pilots and gave them a thumbs-up. All of them began running over to their helicopters.

A couple minutes later the rotor blades of the first LCH began to rotate slowly as Dutt and his WSO activated other instruments. No weapons other than pod mounted FFARs and cannon rounds were being carried on the attack helicopters. But the Mi-17s were taking live missile rounds in their cargo hold to FARP-Saser and a ground convoy via Shyok was doing the bulk of that resupply. 

Dutt’s LCH lifted off the tarmac at Leh under its own power and was followed by his wingman. Behind them the two Mi-17s and one Dhruv SAR helicopter also began climbing out of Leh to begin their flight to the highest battlefield on earth.

YUMTHANG VALLEY

SIKKIM

DAY 4 + 1405 HRS