“Leopard copies all,” Dutt added. “Watching for your ingress to primary A-O. Will advise on threat vectors.”
Good… Jagat thought. They would need Leopard to help orient to the terrain. The area-of-operations was just beyond the valley that they had been parked in. They had heard all the explosions and seen the orange-yellow glow silhouetting the mountains. They had even seen random tracers flying upwards from time to time. But the actual positions of Pathfinder was unknown to them. Inside the Dhruv cockpit, Jagat and his pilots could not see the video output from the Searcher-II drones that Ansari and Gephel had access to. So Jagat would rely on the infrared strobes deployed by Pathanya and his men to mark the pickup point.
The Dhruv leapt off the grassy area and climbed out of the valley. Less than a minute later, Jagat was already climbing past the hills. Instantly he and his crews had to readjust their night-optics sensitivity to account for the blazing fires raging all around. The LCH gunships were roving in the valley looking for targets…
“Oh shit!” Jagat’s co-pilot exclaimed.
Jagat lowered the pitch of his helicopter and brought it into hover. “Panther here. We are going to need some visual reference on pathfinder’s location. Are your strobes flashing?”
“Uh… roger, panther.” Pathanya responded.
“Well, I have no visual. Too much thermal interference here from the fires.”
“Leopard here: do you see the burning convoy on the east-west road?”
Jagat looked up to see the blazing fires from the dozen pickup trucks and lorries on the road. “Roger. We see it.”
“Do you see the hilltop north of it?”
“I have it, leopard. Panther is inbound.” Jagat responded and then pushed the throttle and cyclic to bring the helicopter into forward-flight towards the silhouetted hilltop north of them. “Give me a sit-rep on the D-Z!”
“Secure and holding, panther.” Pathanya chimed in. “But we have an inbound convoy of Pakistani troops heading down the road from the west.”
Jagat and his co-pilot saw the burning trucks spewing smoke as the overflew the road and the two mud houses. The view then changed to dark, alpine trees on the slope of the hill all the way to the top. Up on the crest of the hill, they saw a dozen or so heavily-armed men. Jagat adjusted the cyclic control and turned the orientation of the helicopter to the south before lowering collective and altitude. He was now hovering a few feet above the hilltop. He could clearly see Pathanya standing on the ground next to another man. This other man was wearing a jacket above his salwar-kameez and had his hands tied and his mouth taped over. Jagat smiled as he brought his helicopter in for a landing…
Pathanya grabbed Muzammil by his sleeves and pulled him to his feet before shoving him towards the helicopter. Behind him, another of the pathfinders helped his limping comrade towards the helicopter. The commotion in the cabin caused Jagat and his co-pilot to turn back and see Pathanya shoving Muzammil into a seat before helping his wounded man aboard. He then looked to Jagat: “one high-value-individual at your disposal, sir!”
“Well done, major.” Jagat replied. “Get your men aboard the rest of the helicopters. I…”
“Leopard here!” Dutt interrupted on the radio. “We are detecting one Mi-17 helicopter approaching the valley from the northeast! Not friendly!”
Jagat immediately turned to his left to try and see the incoming Pakistani helicopter. He could see the black speck on his night optics against the greenish night sky. He also saw two of Dutt’s LCHs passing over their heads…
“Leopard, take that bastard down before he ruins our whole day!”
“Wilco Panther. Leopard is engaging!”
Jagat saw tracers from the chin-turret cannons of the two LCHs as they laced through the sky towards the evading Pakistani Mi-17. The crew of that helicopter had obviously been taken by surprise. Certainly they were not aware of Indian gunships prowling the valley ahead of them.
Jagat saw the small flash and then heard the crumbling noise as the Pakistani helicopter went down into the silhouetted mountains, trailing smoke. The two LCHs broke off and began turning south. Jagat turned to his co-pilot and Pathanya: “We just lost the element of surprise. That Pakistani crew must have relayed our presence. We are out of time. Get your men aboard ASAP. We are leaving!”
Pathanya nodded and jumped out of the helicopter to organize his men. Jagat saw the other pathfinders clambering aboard and then got a thumbs up from Pathanya outside his cockpit. He nodded and the Dhruv leapt off the hilltop, making way for the next Dhruv to land and pick up the rest of the pathfinders.
A few minutes later the last Dhruv lifted off the hilltop. Dutt’s LCHs also broke off and headed south, covering panther’s back. Jagat saw the fires of the trucks below him in the valley and took a deep breath of relief as they passed the southern mountains. He turned to see the soot and grime covered faces of the pathfinders in his cabin, also tired. Finally he saw Muzammil, his eyes full of fear, unsure of what his future held. The man who had carried out the strike on Mumbai.
Jagat keyed his comms to Ansari: “panther and leopard are clear and we are returning to base. Over.”
“Do you have the package?”
Jagat nodded to himself. “We have him.”
There was one last thing that was left to be done. Verma looked at the digital clock console in front of him patted the operator sitting in front of him. The lead radar-systems officer went to work: “mongol-two to sword-leader. You are cleared to splash Skardu! Execute when ready.”
The response came in a few seconds later, trailing radio static. “Roger. Sword is executing.”
The Pakistani F-16s blocked on the ground at Skardu were one of the most advanced aircraft in the PAF arsenal. And for now they were at the Indian mercy while their airbase runway was still damaged from the Brahmos missile strikes. Verma and Bhosale had agreed long ago that this force of F-16s could not be allowed to survive the night. The goal of these strikes was to prevent punish the terrorists harbored by Pakistan. But if that failed and Pakistan upped the ante, it would be much safer for the Indian pilots if these twelve enemy aircraft were turned to scrap metal tonight.
It was a long fifteen minutes of pacing inside the cabin of the cramped aircraft before the leader of the group of Mirage-2000s chimed in: “sword-leader here. We confirm seven buried bandits inside their shelters. Direct hits from multiple precision munitions. Two more unconfirmed. Hell of a party you have going here, mongol-two. Sword, out!”
Verma cocked an eyebrow and smiled. He straightened his back. It was time to pull his thinly strung forces back to tighter control over Indian territory. The enemy air-force would not pursue. They couldn’t. The shock delivered to them tonight would take hours, if not days, to heal.
16
“Do you know what they have done?” Bafna said sharply as he walked into Ravoof’s office.
“Who?” Ravoof looked up from the desk and waved for his orderly to close the door that Bafna had burst open.
Bafna saw the gesture and waited until the door had been closed before he faced Ravoof again: “The service chiefs! Who else?!”
Ravoof removed his reading glasses and leaned back in his chair. He stared into Bafna’s eyes and saw… what? Anger? Certainly. But fear too?
“You are over-reacting,” Ravoof said finally. “They did exactly what we asked them to do. If the Pakistanis are riled up about it, it is exactly because of the pain we delivered to them.”