Kulkarni opened comms: “rhino-actual to all rhino-one tanks: mark targets and status! Out.”
He turned back to the screen and saw that the status was reiterated as before, but of the five remaining enemy tanks, only three got marked. It was clear as day now: they had destroyed this enemy armor force.
There was another battalion of the 1ST Pakistani Armored Division to his east. And they had no clue what had knifed through their sister battalion on their left flank. Could he now dig into this second enemy battalion from their rear by cutting north? Maybe. But first, he needed to extricate rhino-one from this mess.
“Driver, traverse north. Get us out of here!”
He felt his tank shudder to a halt and then swivel north, raking up sand all around. He switched comms: “rhino-actual to all rhino-one tanks: follow my lead. Those that are mobility-killed will hold positions. All others, form up! Rhino-three: bring yourself up. Rhino-actual is taking over — one and — three. Over.”
“Rhino-three copies all, leader. All yours.”
25
Ravoof muttered an expletive as he watched the video feed from the Pakistani news channels showing massive clouds of dust rising from Indian missile strikes near Rahim Yar Khan and other places near Lahore. The Indian military was at work dismantling the Pakistani armed forces…
The one thing that was always a card with the Pakistanis was the nuclear one. If nuclear weapons would be used was not really a question. When and how will they be used? The how was not on Ravoof’s mind. The when was.
What would be the trigger? The threshold? The invisible line in the sand beyond which there was no turning back?
Could this be one? He thought as he watched the Pakistani media channels fixated on the largish mushroom clouds that had flattened the outskirts of a village east of Rahim Yar Khan. Some of his army contacts had confirmed these as tactical missile strikes inside Pakistan by forces in Rajasthan. But that was the point. They were large conventional tactical missiles. Not nuclear ones. The Pakistani news channels, however, were whipping up a frenzy calling these as nuclear detonations…
And that, Ravoof reasoned, was fucking dangerous! Not least because there was as yet no sign of the Pakistani prime-minister. There were rumors that the Pakistani military had taken over and had detained him. Perhaps he had been killed in one of the Indian air-force strikes in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Perhaps he was choosing to stay low and keep his head down. Either way, he was out of the picture. Hussein was now the man to watch. And he was shrewd and ruthless. What was his nuclear trigger?
Ravoof walked over to the phone on the desk and dialed a number from memory. The number rang two times before going through the secure encryption tag noises. Few seconds later a familiar voice came on the line.
“Basu, are your people watching what the Pakistani media is spewing?” Ravoof asked calmly.
“We are,” Basu noted and then let out a deep breath. “It’s not good. They are whipping up a lot of rabid jihadis across the streets of Pakistan with this stuff. The demand for the deployment of nuclear warheads against us is growing on the streets there.”
“Well, can’t you shut them down?” Ravoof asked incredulously.
“Not with express orders to do so, no…” Basu’s voice trailed off and got replaced with background chatter.
“You there?” Ravoof asked impatiently.
“Yes, I am here. Look, I got things to do over here, so unless you have something specific for me in mind…”
“Look,” Ravoof asked, rubbing his forehead above the phone as he put his other arm on the desk., “assume for a second that we get you the authorization to shut these channels down, can you do it?”
“Maybe,” Basu replied after consideration. “These guys are using commercial satellites and other towers too numerous or risky to take down. But take down the power and we take down everything. Communications, television and the internet.”
Dear god! Ravoof thought. “Can’t we do anything short of shutting their entire country down?”
“Not really,” Basu stated as matter of fact. “Maybe you should talk to the army brass and see if they have any ideas. I sure as hell don’t! What is your hesitation anyway? The Pakistanis are already used to having only few hours of electricity a day. Shut them down completely or not is not really that much of a stretch! The power grid takedown is an economic target which has direct military relevance. I suggest you consider it.”
“I will.” Ravoof nodded and made a mental note to do that via the prime-minister and General Potgam as soon as he was done here. “Now, what about this Hussein fellow? How’s he going to respond?”
“With everything,” Basu replied, “that we have been able to gather about the strike on Mumbai points to the complicity of that son of a bitch. He was involved. He knew. In what capacity? We have no idea. But his hands have felt the feel of nuclear warheads deployed against the infidels. He will not hesitate to use them again to stop us. Not when we are at the outskirts of Lahore.”
“So why wait? Why haven’t they used them already?”
“No idea. Maybe they thought they could keep us in check without resorting to nuclear weapons. Maybe they are struggling to maintain command-and-control. But now that these strikes by the army are progressing deep into Pakistani soil on all fronts, the timer has started.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Ravoof asked as a chill went down his spine.
“It means,” Basu said patiently, “get your people out of New-Delhi. Now!”
26
“Sparrow-two-two, this is pathfinder. Target is lit. You have the ball.”
Pathanya turned to see Vikram talking on the radio as he operated the laser-designator pod. The sounds of jets above was now nothing more than background noise over Lahore. Along with the brutal artillery detonations to the east and the tank fire now easily heard from the city, the place was a blistering cacophony of military noises. Pathanya rubbed his eyes with his gloved hand to remove the sweat and then watched as columns of smoke rose from what had been the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore. Now it was nothing more than smoldering wreckage following the Indian air and missile strikes. He could see the black and brown pillars of smoke on the horizon.
The battle for Lahore was in full swing. Indian army units were pushing gradually towards the city. Although he couldn’t see any of that action from where he was, Pathanya and his men could swear that they could see the battle between armored vehicles raging on the horizon. He was out southwest of the city and west of the important N5 highway that ran to Lahore from the south. The Jhok forestry reserve was an obvious vantage for the pathfinders. It was west of what the Pakistanis were focused on, had large vegetation and relatively less urbanization. All of which meant lesser chances of discovery. Additionally, it allowed Pathfinder to stay in sight of the N5 and also to be in a vantage point to whack any high-value targets that came this way.
“Pathfinder, this is sparrow-two-two,” the radio crackled in his ears. “I have your marker. Stand by.”
Pathanya brought up his binoculars and focused on the N5. The highway was a mass of clogged cars heading southwest, away from the city, as civilians were leaving in droves. But the other side of the road was cleared and was a highway filled with incoming convoys of military vehicles: trucks, jeeps, tanks and artillery. The Pakistani army was throwing everything at the Indian army in this sector. Striking any of these military targets would kill civilians in their hundreds on the other lanes of the highway. But that couldn’t be helped. There was a war on. And right now Pathanya’s sights were fixed on the convoy of twelve T-80 tanks rolling up the highway…