Fenix (9 page)

              But as much as Ravoof would have liked to deliver on that, he feared that Beijing would not be so cooperative. They may not go all out, but they would keep India under pressure along its Tibetan border. The Chinese 81
ST
Airborne army and it’s three divisions were already piling into Lhasa and surrounding airbases. One division and its convoy of vehicles had already been spotted heading west from Lhasa towards the Tibetan border with Ladakh. These units were forcing the Indian military to keep a wary eye on their Chinese front and in doing so, were beginning to sap New-Delhi’s determination to see the issue through to the sticky end.

              As Ravoof wished the Chinese diplomat a good trip and walked back to his office, he sensed that Beijing was using the current standoff with Pakistan to good effect. The window for action was fast closing. He made a mental note to call on Basu and impress the same upon him. Ravoof understood that his main job was to buy time for Basu and the military brass to get the job done. He was willing to pay the price to buy this precious entity.

              But soon there would be none left to buy.

──── 8
────

A
s the tires touched the concrete, a puff of smoke rose to the air and was sucked up into the trailing vortices behind. The engine roared as the F-16 pair thundered down the runway. In the cloudy skies above Skardu in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, more white contrails made circles in the freezing air as other aircraft prepared to land. While the two F-16s were escorted off the runway into the empty hardened shelters, the engine noise echoed in the valley in dampened thunder. The second F-16 pair was barely rolling off the runway when the next pair began their approach. The aircraft were quickly pulled into the shelters to bring the detachment at Skardu up to its predetermined wartime allocation. These F-16s of the Pakistani air-force were the advanced Block-52 versions of the venerable F-16 fighter design. And as such, their arrival at Skardu to compliment the older generation detachment was as much a signal as was the arrival of many Su-30 and Mig-29 detachments to forward airfields on the Indian side of Kashmir.

              Darkness enveloped the valley and the fading sunlight began to silhouette the western Himalayan peaks against the reddish-orange sky. By this time, ten F-16s of the
PAF
filled up all of the hardened shelters at the base. Inside the shelters, yellow lighting illuminated the aircraft and allowed the ground crews to help the pilots unstrap themselves from the cockpits. These aircraft were quickly refueled and the underwing pylons were fitted with live
AMRAAM
beyond-visual-range missiles.

              Jeeps took the pilots to their ready rooms and the next sorties of transports began arriving. Two C-130 transports landed in quick succession, bringing the requisite backup flight crews and ground crews as well as auxiliary equipment needed to support the much more modern Block-52 F-16s. Two of the PAF’s highly precious IL-78 tankers, purchased from Ukraine, as well as a
SAAB
turboprop airborne early warning aircraft diverted to Gilgit airport, further north of Skardu and away from the Indian airbases to the south.

              Hours later the first of the Indian
RISAT
satellites confirmed the arrival of the
PAF
in force. The imagery was enhanced and analyzed. The presence of the two advanced F-16s on the readiness platform as well as the two C-130s disgorging crews and equipment was easily spotted. Rawalpindi had just provided its rebuttal to the Indian government’s threats to strike terrorist targets inside Kashmir. Far from letting the Indians push their aerial strike packages through, the
PAF
had instead staked its claim to the airspace above its side of Kashmir.

Further satellite passes confirmed more of the same. Endless ground convoys were now beginning to move troops and artillery into forward positions all along the line-of-control. With the mountain passes barely allowing either the Pakistanis or the Indians to surge ground-based logistics and with the Pakistanis now on the alert, Bafna’s plan to release Indian plans before acting on them had cost the Indian military dearly. The element of strategic surprise had now been lost.

T
he crowd of Pashtun tribesmen got up on their feet and cheered his speech. Muzammil smiled and waved his AK-47 in the air. The stunning mountain backdrop of Skardu added the backdrop for his rifle. Following the Indian government’s warning to Pakistan to hand over the culprits or face massive aerial bombardment, Muzammil and his followers had responded with a call to jihad from all cadres of the mujahedeen devoted to a free Kashmir. As one of his colleagues standing next to him pointed out the circular contours of the Pakistani air force fighters patrolling the blue skies above, he smiled and recognized that his back was against a very supportive wall. The Indians would be foolish to wage all-out war in their weakened state against a Pakistani military armed to the teeth like never before in history. And if they did, his cadres would wage relentless warfare in the Indian rear lines forcing them to divert troops from the line-of-control. In fact, should they
do
such a foolish act, they may very well lose Kashmir altogether.

              And
that
was a vision worth fighting
and
dying for!

              Muzammil knew he was under watch, and he used it to his advantage. He spotted several of the local Pakistan news crews filming his moves from the perimeter of the grounds. He wanted them seeing his speech. After all, he was calling New-Delhi’s bluff right on their faces and declaring jihad against the infidel occupiers of Kashmir. He wanted the viewership from South Block to see this…and fear it.

“C
heerful bastard, isn’t he?” Basu said as he took the remote and switched off the television screen. He turned to see a dozen faces of young and tough special-forces operators standing casually without a word. All of them were outfitted in white combat smocks designed for winter combat. Their faces remained stoic, as though chiseled in stone. If any of them felt any emotions at all from seeing Muzammil declaring jihad against their country, they kept it to themselves. Basu reminded himself that these warfighters were not known for being verbose.

              “Indeed he is,” Ansari said for his group and got up from his seat. “That son of a bitch was a key player in the strike on Mumbai. He doesn’t know it yet, but
his
days are numbered!”

Gephel kept his peace and stared at the television screen. They had ‘requisitioned’ the officer’s mess at the Ladakh Scouts base for the time being despite the growing
SOCOM
base in Leh. The main detachment of Paras at Leh was drawing too much attention to themselves. And attention was something Ansari and Gephel could do without. However, the more attention the others drew to themselves, the less attention would be given to the two dozen men working with Ansari…

“So Muzammil is our main target?” Pathanya asked.

“Yes.” Ansari stated flatly. “He is currently in the Deosai valley in occupied Kashmir, organizing his jihad army for operations against us. It won’t succeed. These rag-tag buggers are going to disperse like cockroaches when we deliver steel rain on them. However, that’s not your main concern. Leave the bearded foot-soldiers to the rest of the army and your buddies in
SOCOM
.
We
are going after this bugger and his field commanders!”

“So we are to take him alive?” Kamidalla asked.

“If we can, we will.” Ansari looked at the others. “But if there is
any
risk of him getting away, you nail his ass! Understood?”

“Yes
sir!
” The group responded in near unison. Their actual body language said: “With pleasure!” Ansari smiled and turned to Gephel: “You have the floor, colonel.”

Gephel nodded and got up from his seat. He then paced for a few steps and faced the group of men: “As you are aware, from painful experiences, the biggest issue for any such operation is intelligence and timing. We need
both
if we are to arrive at the target and take him out when it is of maximum advantage to us and minimum advantage to the enemy.” Gephel then walked to the wall that had now been covered with maps of regions north of the line of control. He took the wooden pointer and poked at a point called Deosai on the map. “This region is where our target individual is spending most of his time these days. We know where he is and he doesn’t seem to mind us watching him all that much. The bugger feels very secure within his army of mujahedeen and the Paki air-force that’s protecting them. For now. South of there, you have the line-of-control and it is heavily fortified with layers of sensors, battlefield radars and observation posts. Very similar to
our
defensive line south from there. Mr. Basu here,” Gephel nodded to the
RAW
director, “assures us that when the time comes we will have the location of the target down to a few hundred meters. However, the issue at the moment,” he wave his hand at the maps of occupied Kashmir, “…is to find an ingress and egress route through these massive defenses.”

“Rest assured,” Ansari interjected, “we
will
figure that out. In the meantime, I want you all to get acquainted with every detail of the target, the terrain and all relevant locations of interest to us. Our
RAW
friends here are proving very cooperative in helping us orient to the multi-dimensional problem.
Use
them
effectively
.
Ask
questions!”

“And
now
would be a good time to start,” Basu added with a smile. Pathanya and his men were already spreading out in smaller groups. A few were by the map, others were looking at the profile pictures of Muzammil from the files Basu and his men had brought over. Pathanya walked over to the map, lay his fingers on it and glanced up at the map scale. He frowned.

“Yes, major?” Basu noted the look.

“Sir,” Pathanya turned to face Basu, “putting aside the actual takedown of the target and his entourage, it is going to be near impossible for us to walk in or out for such a distance from the border.
Even
if we could sneak in undetected, we are going to have every jihadi in Deosai on our heels within an hour after we conduct our strike.” Pathanya looked at Ansari, who in turn looked at Gephel. The latter crossed his arms and nodded: “The thought
has
occurred to us as well. Rest assured, your team will not be
walking
into the A-O.”

“Helicopters, sir?” Kamidalla said as he turned away from the map. Gephel nodded. Kamidalla shared a look with Pathanya that said more than they actually needed to. Ansari understood.

“Gentlemen, rest easy,” he said soothingly. “We
will
find the ingress and egress routes. Count on it. We are not going to send you in without a viable plan here. But as you can expect, all this is being put together faster than we would normally like. Which is why you are all here. Most of you have had extensive combat experience in special-warfare operations against the Chinese in the Himalayas. For all practical purposes, this operation is just more of the same. These new enemies have beards, lack training and battlefield competency, but they make up for it with zeal and determination. But they are
no
different
from any other enemy you have faced before.”

“Sir, what is the timeline on this?” Pathanya asked. “When do we go?”

              Ansari crossed his arms, leaned back against the sofa and frowned: “Well, major, that’s the tricky question, isn’t it? Our ingress and egress depends a lot on what the rest of the military does to, shall we say, ‘light-up-the-sky’. When
they
go,
we
go. And
they
may go within hours. So time is a no-shit entity for us right now. Expect to go with little warning.”

              “Yes sir.” Pathanya replied, understanding the general operational constraints on this mission. Ansari looked at his wristwatch and nodded to Gephel, who also got up from his seat. The Pathfinders came to attention as the two colonels and Basu left the room. Behind them they left a room full of maps, files and several
RAW
officers to help Pathanya and his men in putting the meat on the bare bones objective that had now been handed to them.

──── 9
────

“W
e have inbounds!”

The young air-force officer sitting at his console didn’t flinch as he noted the two popups on his screen. The onboard computer within the belly of the Indian ERJ-145 airborne-radar aircraft went to work. It classed the inbounds as two southbound fighters and provided the estimated speed and altitude in abbreviations next to the inverted “Vee” on the operator consoles. The officer staring at the screen simply had to read off the data into his comms mouthpiece to relay the same to his boss, overseeing the half dozen people onboard over their shoulders.

              “What do we have?” the mission-controller said as he walked up behind the operator, looking at the screen over his right shoulder. The operator moved his eyes to the side panel of the screen to see the radar auto-classification for the aircraft type.

              “
PAF
F-16s, scrambled out of Skardu.”

              “Well, that didn’t take them long,” the
MC
said and then straightened himself. After a second he turned to his right to another operator: “Rambler flight still on station?”

              “Roger that, sir!” Rambler was a flight of three Mig-29s of No. 28 Squadron out of Leh.

              “How long before they are bingo on fuel?”

              “Twenty minutes.”

              “Good enough,” the
MC
noted. “Bring them up.”

              Rambler had been on station for very little time. But as with all Mig-29s, the Indian ones were very low on endurance. They left a nasty trail of smoke in their wake and had to be refueled often to maintain them on station. The current flight would not be making it home on their own fuel if they decided to go head-to-head with the Pakistani F-16s.

              Then next choice would have been a flight of four Mig-21 Bisons out of Pathankot airbase further south. But they were farther away and also less capable than the upgraded Mig-29s relative to the Block-52 F-16s armed with
AMRAAM
s. And if the long-range missile threat was replaced with combat “in the merge”, commonly known as dog-fighting, the Mig-29s would run circles around the F-16 of any Block model. Despite its fuel-guzzling nature, the Fulcrum was a bruiser of a fighter. Besides, the Bisons would be running into their own fuel and endurance problems. At least the Mog-29s could refuel mid-air…

              “Do we have a tanker up here?” The
MC
asked over his comms, as he carefully made his way further up the cabin. The operators and the consoles inside the Embraer ERJ-145 aircraft took up a lot of space. And the aircraft was small to begin with. The Indian modification to this aircraft had basically taken a standard ERJ-145 and fitted it out with some of the most advanced homegrown radar and electronic-warfare systems. The result was an aircraft bristling with antennae, empennages and bulges. And a cabin that was crowded, to say the least.

              “No sir.” A voice on his comms said. “But we do have one on the ground at Srinagar.”

              “Then scramble it! Our Fulcrum boys are going to get
really
thirsty soon enough.”

              “Roger!”

              The tanker in question was an IL-78 from the No. 78 Mid-Air-Refueling Squadron or
MARS
. It was the air-force’s only mid-air refueling squadron and was equipped with half a dozen IL-78s. These aircraft were basically modifications of the IL-78 platform that carried Israeli refueling pods. The air-force was extremely short-handed on tankers and it was something that had been glaringly visible for the last decade. But because the situation had not been rectified, the air-force was left very short on tankers. The result was that the controllers onboard the airborne-radar aircraft had to stage-manage the deployment of tankers and decide which aircraft had priority over others for refueling. And not all refueling needs could be met. Those that didn’t get their requirements met were forced to break station and head home, regardless of how bad the threat situation in the skies might be.

              The
MC
made his way into the cockpit cabin where he found the two pilots and the flight engineer scanning the skies. Compared with the cramped, hot and relatively windowless interiors of the main cabin, the cockpit was very comfortable and offered a bright panoramic view of the snowcapped and sunlit Himalayas.

              “You guys aware of the situation?” He asked. The pilots turned to face him momentarily and then went back to scanning the skies for activity. He knew they were informed. The data fusion between the radar computer and the cockpits of all Indian aircraft in the skies here, was complete. If something could not be sent via datalink, it was made available via voice comms.

              “We are,” the pilot said without looking away.

              “So what’s our exit strategy?” The
MC
asked.

              “If the buggers make a beeline for us, I am breaking pattern and diving for the south. Pike flight with their Sukhois are tagged to run interference.”

              The
MC
nodded agreement. There was precedence for this. The air-force had lost one of its ERJ-145s over the border between Sikkim and Tibet during the last days of the China war. A regiment of Chinese Su-27s had decided to make mincemeat out of the Indian early-warning aircraft. In that they had been successful, despite the Indian air-force surging as many fighters it could to get into that fight. The aircraft had been shot down in exchange for large Flanker losses for the Chinese. But it had underscored the point for the surviving Indian crews who manned these early warning aircraft: they were
always
the main target for the enemy.

              Indeed, the air-force had done the same to the Chinese 76
TH
Airborne Command and Control Regiment during the war. And it was expected that the Pakistanis had learnt from it as well. They had operated closely with their Chinese brethren, flying the ZDK-03 ‘Karakoram Eagle’ early-warning aircraft over the skies of occupied Kashmir. So it was impossible for them not have paid attention to the losses incurred by their allies during the war.

             
Which begs the question: where
is
that airborne radar aircraft of theirs?
The
MC
thought. A moment later he got his answer: “Detecting atmospheric bounced signals from a long-range radar!”

             
Speak of the devil
…he brought up the headset from around his neck and put it over his ears. Simultaneously he turned away from the cockpit and headed back in.

              “Range?” He walked past the operators to the console where the electronic-warfare officer was sitting.

              “Over the horizon. But southbound.” One look at the screen info gave him what the source azimuth.

“Our Gilgit bird?” The
EW
officer turned over his shoulder to face the
MC
. It was like a game of chess. These were all set-piece moves in three-dimensional space. The chessboard was the Himalayas.

              “Of course,” he replied. “Both sides are setting up their chess pieces on the board. And
that
,” he jabbed his finger on the screen showing the source azimuth of the
PAF
radar aircraft, “is the enemy queen taking her place on the board!”

              “Rambler is taking position on
BARCAP
, sir!” another operator said nearby. The
MC
turned to face the man as the
EW
operator went back to his tasks.

              “They have the two Pak birds acquired?”

              “Roger!” The operator replied sharply after a moment.

              “Good. Tell rambler-leader to keep his flight on a short leash. No need for antics here that may snowball on us. He is
not
weapons-free until
I
say so! Understood?”

              “Wilco!”

              As the operators went to work, the
MC
wondered how he was supposed to take the initiative in an air-war where the other side was being handed the initiative by the Indian government. Until twenty-four hours ago there had been very little
PAF
presence hard-deployed inside occupied Kashmir. Sure, there
were
constant flights of Mirage-IIIs and even some older-model F-16s over the line-of-control, but these were being staged from airbases inside Pakistan. The amount of time it took to fly from these airbases into Kashmir meant that a proper window of opportunity existed for the Indians to strike from their airbases located much closer to the area. By the time the Pakistanis could have reacted, it would have been all over.

But because New-Delhi had stated its intentions prematurely, the
PAF
had responded within hours and had deployed fighters to temporary airbases at Skardu and Gilgit. And now this is where they would stay until the threat of Indian action dissipated.               As such, these
PAF
fighters and support aircraft now represented a blocking force that would have to be swept aside
before
the strike could go through.

             
If they ever do!
The
MC
reminded himself. He was not privy to what the brass were telling the civilian leaders at the moment. But he shuddered to think of what the civilian leaders might do in light of these new developments. The Chinese were making a lot of military noise now. All in all, the stage was being set to force India into inaction.

              Like most men in the unit, he knew people and relatives in Mumbai who had been forced to leave the city as a result of the chaos there. He had been forced to relieve some of his men from operations as a result of their mental anguish. The post-attack devastation had gripped the soul of the nation over the past week and morale had sagged. As commander, the morale of his men was a factor that he never swept aside.

              But
if
the Indian military was forced to sit this one out, as it had been forced to do in the past after
every
major terrorist attack, he feared the stress would break his men. And
that
worried him more than anything the Pakistanis and the Chinese could muster against him on the battlefield.

T
he massive Mi-26 helicopter touched down on the tarmac at Pune airbase. As the undercarriage wheels touched the tarmac and pressed down against it, the rotor-wash threw up a grass and dust cloud that enveloped the tarmac. Ambulances and fire-trucks were already heading towards it. These vehicles came to a screeching halt next to the helicopter and men dressed in
NBC
protection coveralls and masks rushed to the ramp and the cockpit side door, carrying stretchers and other emergency equipment…

              Verma was standing in his flight-suit inside the control tower, watching the poignant sight. From here, he had a bird’s view of the tarmac. He saw a half-dozen men carry a badly shaking loadmaster on a stretcher off the rear cargo ramp of the helicopter. Medical officers were checking his body for radiation exposure as the closed the door of the ambulance. Another casualty in the tremendous operations to evacuate civilians from the radiation affected zones…

             
God damn it!
Verma swore at the ambulance as its loud sirens died away. He saw the flight-crew of the helicopter disembarking and being scrubbed by the
NBC
crews, who were taking no chances. Already several vehicles had arrived that would wash off any lingering radioactive material from the helicopter before it would be declared safe to fly again. Another ambulance rapidly sped off with the flight crew.

              Finally Verma turned away from the windows and faced the other officers from his staff that had accompanied him here. He nodded for them to get going. Within minutes he was downstairs and on the tarmac walking towards the three Gypsy vehicles. He turned around as they heard one of the tower control officers running to him: “Sir! Urgent call from air-headquarters!”

              “I will take it in the tower. Route it via base ops comms for me.”

              “Wilco, sir!” The tower officer waved Verma in. A minute later Verma took the speaker: “guardian-operations, guardian-actual speaking!”

              “Verma, how are things looking at your end?” Verma recognized the Bhosale’s voice.

              “We are holding, sir.” Verma said with after a heavy sigh. “I am taking casualties as we speak, but my boys are getting the job done.”

              “Sorry to hear about your boys, Verma. Dirty situation overall, but by every account I have heard, your men have handled it well. Keep it up!”