“No V–I-D on the second bandit, leader. Mongol-two speculates he was shot down by our long-range volley.”
“Right. Our losses? Who hasn’t checked in?”
“Pike-three is down. Took a direct hit from one of the AMRAAMs. Pike-five is trailing smoke and bugging south with pike-six as escort.”
Oberoi looked around and saw the other four Fulcrums apart accounted for. He switched comms to Verma: “this is pike-leader. Skies are clear of the two bandits. We are bingo fuel and egressing south. Over.”
“Mongol-two copies all. Good work. Scabbard is on station and will reinforce. Pike is cleared to egress. Out.”
Oberoi switched off the comms and flipped the aircraft to the side as the five Mig-29s of his flight headed south in an arrow formation. As they cleared the line-of-control, they saw an entire line of flashes on the peaks and tracers and explosions moving back and forth. The muffled thunder from the explosions could be heard even above the rumble of the two engines inside his cockpit.
“You seeing this?” Oberoi asked his wingman and waved down with his hand. The wingman nodded from his cockpit but otherwise said nothing.
Oberoi turned his attention forward and allowed himself to relax his grip as scabbard flight and its massive force of sixteen Su-30s streaked to their side, heading north into Pakistani-occupied-Kashmir.
The realization struck Oberoi yet again: it had begun.
12
The six army pilots looked up as the two-truck convoy roared on to the tarmac and accelerated towards them. Lt-colonel Jagat flicked the small red flashlight off and folded the maps. As the heavily armed soldiers began offloading from the back of the two trucks, Jagat stuffed the maps into his chest pocket and zipped up the leather flight jacket.
“Here we go, boys.” He nodded to the other five pilots. They saluted and walked off, leaving Jagat and his co-pilot near the open cockpit of the Dhruv helicopter. Jagat noticed the leader of the special-warfare team heading towards him, with his team in tow. The click-snap noise of the crew-chief checking the side-door mounted machine-gun caused them to jerk their head. Jagat checked his wristwatch and looked at the crew-chief: “Start pre-flight.”
“Yes, sir.”
The co-pilot walked away and opened the side-door of glass cockpit and clambered aboard. Jagat saw Pathanya walk up to him.
“Major Pathanya, reporting as ordered, sir.” Jagat sized the man up. He had never met him before and had never heard about his specific deeds in Bhutan. For Jagat, this young major was like so many others he had taken on dangerous heliborne operations in the Kashmir valley. He conceded that today’s mission was right up “insane creek”, as he liked to call it. And certainly these men in front of him with their faces painted in winter highland camo weren’t his regular customers. But hell, when the mission demanded a quick and dirty airborne insertion, they called on him. This major and his team were just along for the ride.
“Very good, major,” Jagat said as he returned Pathanya’s salute. “Right on time. Get your men and equipment onboard this helicopter and the two others you see there.” He motioned to the two other Dhruv helicopters parked nearby, their fuselages visible only against the bluish moonlight and the main rotor blades oscillating slightly in the chilly winds at Leh.
“Yes, sir.” Pathanya looked back at his team who immediately split into three groups and began carrying their backpacks and personal weapons to the respective birds. Pathanya would fly with Jagat. He walked over and slung his backpack on to the floor of the helicopter as his other team-mates entered through the rear cargo entrance. The distant thunder on the horizon caught his attention. He stepped back from the door and heard the rumble coming from the northwest…
“They have opened up on both sides,” Jagat noted as he walked around the cockpit to the other side. “The line-of-control is lit up nice and heavy by artillery from both sides.”
“It’s all good, though.” Jagat’s co-pilot offered as he put on his flight-helmet and lowered the night-vision goggles. “For us, anyway. Provides a nice little distraction on the frontlines for us to sneak through.”
Pathanya shook his head. It was always the same. Everybody had their own little corner of the war to handle. So it was here. He could only imagine what the soldiers underneath that bombardment were facing. After all, he had endured the same during the battle of Wang-Chu bridge in Bhutan. Was Pakistani artillery any better or heavier than what the Chinese division had thrown at him and his team? He was certainly under no rush to find out! Of course, there was nothing like being knocked over by the shockwave from a nuclear blast…
The pain in his thigh shot up as though to remind him that this was no game. As if he needed any such reminders. There was a small glow of orange to the northeast that silhouetted the Ladakh mountains for a few seconds before the inky black night took over again. The muffled rumbling followed several seconds later. He could feel the first signs of fear somewhere in his otherwise hard outer core. It had to be suppressed if he was going to be effective tonight.
“Sir, what’s our flight look like?” He asked Jagat as the latter flicked on his night-vision goggles. A small green glow reflected back on the visor of his helmet. Pathanya noticed the cockpit was all darkened. There were no lights inside the helicopter except for extremely dimmed ones in the cockpit designed for use with low-light helmet optics. It was certainly eerie to him to see the helicopter turbines coming to life but nothing in the cockpit lighting up to accompany that operation. This was not a cockpit for the uninitiated…
“Standard S-H-B-O, major.” Jagat noted without turning away from his tasks. “We are leaving Leh in a few minutes and will be heading to our FARP, west of Kargil. We will refuel there, meet with our escorts and fly you and your team into the A-O. Once there, we will hold position and let you and your boys do your thing. After that we are to pick you up and be back to our jump-off point within an hour.”
The co-pilot turned back to face Pathanya: “We will be going in hard and fast. Low-level nap-of-the-earth flight in the mountains with only low-light optics and no visual landmarks other than our trusty nav system here.” Pathanya could make out the shining white teeth of the grinning co-pilot underneath the helmet and the visor.
Damned SOCOM pilots! Pathanya moved back into the cockpit and grabbed his backpack and rifle as the turbines spooled up and the rotors were spinning at full RPM. He looked at the three other team-members inside the cabin: “Hold on to your seats, men. And I do mean hold hard! We have some real aggressive pilots up front!”
One of the Lieutenants tucked his backpack closer to his chest: “aggressive special-forces pilots? Oh good god! That’s all we needed!”
Pathanya smiled and pulled his backpack into his chest just as the helicopter leapt off the ground like a panther leaping on its prey. An apt analogy considering Jagat was always assigned the call-sign “panther” by the operations people. Something to do with his past, if the rumors were to be believed. And with what Pathanya had seen of the man so far, he was ready to believe anything the rumors said.
The crew-chief on board made sure their passengers were still there after the violent lift-off and then went back to manning the machine-gun. Pathanya saw him speaking something into his helmet comms mouthpiece but it was inaudible over the rumble of the engines. But he did see a smile on the NCO’s face as he got the response from the cockpit. Probably Jagat had wanted to make sure his passengers were still on board after that liftoff.