Fenix (43 page)

──── 51
────

“F
riendlies inbound!” Vikram announced over team comms from his position up in the tree. Down below, Pathanya turned to Kamidalla: “deploy red smoke.”

“You got it.” 

Pathanya watched as Kamidalla took out the smoke canister from his backpack, armed it and tossed it past the trees and into the farms beyond it. Within seconds the red smoke was climbing past the height of the plants and gathering volume. By then the sounds of the helicopter rotors were increasing. Pathanya turned to Grewal as he limped over with the medic: “you ready to go, sir?”

“Major,” Grewal replied, “I owe you and your men my life. I will never forget this.”

Pathanya smiled: “it’s our job, sir.”

Grewal nodded and limped over to the edge of the trees where Kamidalla waited for them. Pathanya shouted over the sounds of the helicopter engines: “Kamidalla, deliver our guest to the birds! And then get to team-two!” He then turned to face the others around him: “the rest of you,
we
are leaving! Team-one with me. Team-two with Captain Kamidalla! Let’s
go!
”

By now the tree branches were swaying in the rotor downwash. The first of three Dhruv helicopters landed within the wet mud of the fields. Their landing skids sunk into the slush as they came to rest. Pathanya waved the pathfinders forward. Eight pathfinders advanced from the tree-line just as the red smoke was dissipated by the rotors. Kamidalla and the medic lifted Grewal by the arm and legs and ran with him to the third Dhruv helicopter. The crew-chief of the helicopter swiveled the side-mount machinegun out of the way as they loaded Grewal onboard.

Pathanya walked at a slower pace than the others. He had his rifle up at shoulder level and pointed away from the helicopters and towards the houses further west. He saw several occupants on the rooftops there observing the action. But so far no attacks. He wanted to keep it that way.

He looked at Vikram clambering down from his treetop observation post: “Vik! Get your butt down
fast!
Stop monkeying around!”

“Coming!” Vikram shouted over the noise. “Don’t
leave
without me!”

Vikram jumped on to the ground, picked up his rifle and hoisted his backpack. The Dhruv helicopter carrying Grewal lifted off the farm and headed southeast towards the Indian border. Pathanya saw the four
LCH
gunships flying in a large circle: they were looking for trouble and drawing attention away from the vulnerable Dhruv transports…

“Pathfinder-actual, this is panther-actual!” Pathanya pressed his comms earpiece closer into his ear as Jagat chimed in: “get your asses on board!
Now!
”   

“Roger!”

Pathanya waved to the others and patted Vikram as he ran past. Within seconds they were boarding. Jagat saw them from the cockpit glass and got the confirmation nod from his copilot that everyone was aboard. He increased power and the helicopter lifted off the ground and pitched forward as it picked up speed. The second helicopter did the same, moment later.

As the
LCH
s began taking position ahead and behind the transports, Pathanya saw the friendly face of Jagat’s copilot giving him a thumbs up sign from the cockpit.

“Nice to see you too,” Pathanya muttered and waved back. He changed comms to Kamidalla: “you remember the deal?”

“Roger,” Kamidalla responded from the other helicopter. “I remember you
leaving
me to guard some godforsaken piece of land with half of pathfinder while you and Vik go get some fun!
Thanks!
”

Pathanya shared a look with Vikram, who smiled. Pathanya responded: “if
you
don’t keep that
FARP
secure,
none
of us are going home. Just remember that.”

“
Yeah, yeah, yeah
. Team-two copies all!”

The pilots chimed in: “panther-actual, this is panther-two. Looks like this our stop. We are departing for the
D-Z.
See you on the way back. Over.”

“Wilco, panther-two,” Jagat responded. “Keep alert and radio-in
anything
that looks out of our playbooks. Out.”

As the second Dhruv and two of the
LCH
s peeled off, Pathanya moved up the cabin and poked his head between the two  pilots: “what’s our
E-T-A
to the
A-O
?”

Jagat checked his map displays: “fifteen minutes. Get your men ready. I will sound the warning when we are two minutes out!”

“Roger!” Pathanya said as he moved back from the cockpit. He found the crew-chief manning the side-mounted machine gun leaning out of the entrance into the wind to detect threats below them. It was an unenviable job. Especially in winter. The crew-chiefs had to be dressed in thick thermal gear, face-plate helmets with oxygen masks and a harness to prevent them being thrown out by sudden turbulence. Add to that their helmet-mounted night-vision optics and they looked positively alien. Except for their arms, they showed no discernable human emotions behind all that paraphernalia…

As Pathanya watched, the crew-chief made some sudden motion and then aligned his machinegun against some target and let loose. The entire cabin reverberated with the vibration and noise of the heavy-caliber machinegun barrage. A few moments later they heard the deadly whizzing noises of tracer rounds flying close by…

As Jagat made violent evasive maneuvers, the copilot turned to the passengers: “we are taking fire from Pak army remnants below! Hang
tight!
We are evading!”

Vikram grabbed the side frame of the helicopter with both hands as he summarized the situation as understood by the pathfinders: “
Oh shit!
”

H
aider, Akram and the other officers looked up from their breakfast table as the distant sound of heavy machineguns echoed around them. It had come from the east. They got up from the wooden chairs they had been sitting on at the roadside restaurant and looked to the eastern hills. There was nothing much to see.

One of the captains nearby turned to Akram: “maybe it was just some jihadists doing what they…”

“
Quiet!
” Akram ordered. “
Listen!
”

Haider walked past Akram and waved to the drivers and other soldiers: “we are leavi…”

The new sounds of helicopter rotors echoed through the eastern hills and was persistent. All doubt was instantly gone. Akram began shouting orders for everyone to get on board the trucks and move. But Haider was smarter. He had already clambered into the back of his truck and had gathered his
G3
rifle, maps and other items. He jumped out of the vehicle as Akram ran past.

“Sir!” Akram said in surprise. “
What
are you doing?” 

“It’s too late, Akram!” Haider shouted. “They know we are here! Send the convoy on the road and follow me! We will use the trucks as decoy and make our way into the hills!”

Akram understood his commander’s intention instantly. He muttered an expletive and patted on the side of the truck cabin, ordering the driver to drive on. But the soldiers around them were no fools. Once they saw what the two senior officers were doing, they also began abandoning the trucks…

“You
fools!
” Haider shouted as he clicked the safety off his rifle and pointed it at the driver who was panicking in front of him. “Get
back
into the truck and
start
driving!” 

“
Sir!
” Akram shouted as he watched Haider point the rifle at his own soldiers. “What are you…!”

Akram’s shout was interrupted mid-sentence as a Nag anti-tank missile slammed into the rearmost
ambulance
in the convoy. The vehicle exploded into fragments. The shockwave ripped through the area and sent everyone around tumbling.

When Haider regained his composure, he found himself thrown into one of the wooden tables they had been using for breakfast just minutes before. As his vision moved alternatively between blurred and clear, he saw the rearmost truck in his five truck convoy burning and spewing black smoke. Cannon rounds were exploding within the other trucks as Indian
LCH
gunships streaked overhead, spewing flames from their chin-turrets…

He got himself up, only to have to take cover behind a small mud wall as another line of cannon rounds punctured the ground and headed towards two of his officers returning fire from their rifles. Both men were shredded by the impact of the cannon fire and died with agonizing shrieks in their throats. Further away, on the other side of the road, a single Dhruv helicopter landed and he saw Indian special-forces soldiers disembarking. The helicopter lifted again within seconds and flew off. He saw the Indian soldiers making their way to the trucks and knew time was running out.

Haider removed his sidearm from his thigh holster just as a few more of his surviving soldiers took up similar positions behind the same wall. They pointed their rifles over the top of the wall. Haider looked to see where Akram was but didn’t see him anywhere. Maybe he had been killed, he reasoned. In any case, it was too late now to matter.

He looked at the handful of remaining soldiers under his command: “
kill
these infidels invading our country! Show
no
mercy!”

The group opened fire just as the Indian soldiers took cover behind the trucks. The Pakistani defenders were returning a fusillade from behind the mud walls. The pathfinders, on the other hand, returned fire in single rounds or bursts. Within a few seconds, two of the five Pakistani soldiers fell backwards from bullet impacts to their heads. Haider scrambled to pick up the rifle of one of the dead soldiers and then considered making a break for it into the trees. But the gurgle of a dying soldier next to him, drowning in his own blood from a gunshot to the neck, convinced him otherwise…

By the time he picked up the rifle with the intention to return fire, two more of his defenders lay collapsed over the mud walls. And an explosion from an under-barrel rifle grenade against the outer side of the wall sent him and his last surviving colleague diving for the ground as concrete debris fell all around them. Haider put his arms above his head to protect himself from the falling concrete.

As the dust cleared, he heard clear chatter in Hindi as well as the moaning of his colleague. That moaning stopped with the crack of a single rifle round from one of the Indian soldiers. And
that
meant only one thing. As he rolled over in the debris, he saw silhouetted against the grey skies above, the camouflaged face of an Indian special-forces man wearing a boonie-hat.

As Haider squinted against the daylight, the special-forces man knelt down and smiled: “
well, well, well!
Look what
I
found!”

Haider watched in horror as the man stood up again and reversed his rifle butt: “oh, I have waited a
long
time to do this, you son of a bitch!”

“
No!
”

The rifle-butt came down on his stomach with enough force that Haider’s view instantly went dark.

T
he pathfinders turned away as Jagat landed the Dhruv in the farmland south of the road. The gunships continued to patrol near the hills. The grass and dust was being whipped around. Pathanya walked over to where Vikram and two others were standing. Haider lay on the ground, unconscious. He had been moved up against the tire of one of the trucks and his arms had been tied behind his back.

“We missing anything, Vik?” Pathanya looked around.

Vikram shook his head. “Negative. No others left alive. At least no one we care much for.”

“Fair enough,” Pathanya said and pressed the transmit button: “panther-actual, we
have
the target individual and are inbound.”

“Roger. Make it snappy. Out.”

Pathanya waved to the pathfinders: “we are egressing.” He patted Vikram on the shoulder: “Vik, you carry the asshole here. I have the rear.”

Vikram shifted his rifle over to his back and then leaned down to hoist Haider’s body over his shoulder. Pathanya picked up his rifle and hoisted it at shoulder level and moved backwards in short steps as they fell back to the helicopter. Vikram ran over to the side of the cabin and the crew-chief helped pull Haider’s body inside. Vikram then took position with his rifle.
That
was Pathanya’s cue to fall back. Within moments the pathfinders were all aboard.

Jagat powered up the helicopter engines. The Dhruv lifted off from the grassy farmland and turned east, leaving behind the charred remains of the truck convoy as well as the bodies of the soldiers and officers in Haider’s entourage. Within minutes the echo of the rotors dissipated away and calmness returned to the area.