“Air-to-ground?” Ramesh asked speculatively.
Grewal looked back at the screen and thought about that for several seconds. Their job was not air-to-ground on this one, but the opportunity could present itself. And it wouldn’t be good to be caught without options.
“That sounds reasonable. We may get some targets to mop up,” Grewal nodded. “Say, one bird each flight, two thousand-pounders with guidance kits and a offset-centerline designator each? Keep all other birds loaded for air-to-air and centerline tanks.”
“You read my mind, sir.”
“Okay,” Grewal sighed, “other questions?”
He looked around the room and didn’t see any other raised hands. So he walked over to the podium and sorted through his papers: “the usual suspects here for you to memorize. Call-signs, airborne radar and tanker coverage, friendly assets on the ground and in the air. Departure times and time-on-stations etcetera.” He then looked at his wristwatch and then back at his audience: “We are wheels-up at nineteen-hundred.” He waved the papers: “so get to it!”
28
The skyline in the eastern part of the city was already awash with black smoke. The sound of merciless artillery and tank fire was deafening. And as the sun began to set, casting long shadows over the war-torn city, the blazing fires were beginning to casting sickening hues of yellow and orange to the thick smoke clouds…
Haider stood on the rooftop of a former apartment complex near the center of the city. He could see the eastern parts of the city being torn asunder. A barrage of fireballs ripped into a section of buildings near the international airport, causing them to implode and collapse under a dark-brown dust cloud. The whump reached him in a few seconds.
Haider held on to the sidewall as the shockwave dissipated past the building. Akram, lowered his binoculars.
“Well?” Haider asked curtly.
“Precision rocket-artillery fire. Looks like they struck northeastern of the airport. 10TH Division territory.”
“Likely some battalion headquarters just got levelled,” Haider noted with disgust. The war was not going well. The Indians had made it to the edge of the city despite heavy losses. There just was no stopping the Indian juggernaut east of Lahore. Now the airport was almost inside mortar-fire range. And reinforcements weren’t making their way into the city as Haider had hoped. The loss of control in the skies above had been swift and decisive. The PAF had been swatted away, leaving this city and its defenses at the mercy of Indian airpower. And the latter had been decimating convoys of armor that were trying to fight its way into the city. Haider knew that organized resistance by the Pak army here was no longer an option. With mass exodus of the city’s civilians clogging every possible road, the logistics were crammed…
He sighed as he unstrapped his helmet chinstrap and wiped the sweat off his brow with his arms: “if this doesn’t work, we will to lose control of this city. Where are they?”
Akram waved over his radioman standing behind them and took the speaker. Haider waited patiently for news as the smoke clouds rose silently into the darkening, pink skies. The rumble of jets overhead caused him to look up and see white circular contrails: enemy jets looking for targets. He wondered whether they could see him. Maybe not. Could they instead home-in on his communications and hit this rooftop while he stood here? Would he even know if that happened in the very next instant? Would Allah be merciful and understanding of his actions against the kaffirs? Could he not take responsibility for the death of thousands of unbelievers in Mumbai as his contribution to the jihad? Had he done his duty to Allah?
“Sir,” Akram said forcefully to get his commander out of his reverie. Haider terminated his thoughts away and stared at Akram standing next to him with his palm over the radio speaker. He nodded to him to continue. “The Ghazi group is in play. They report a force of Indian armor vehicles approaching the road past one of the outskirt villages. They are about to move.”
“Get some eyes overhead,” Haider ordered.
Akram nodded and then removed his palm from the speaker and gave some terse orders. A few seconds later he handed the speaker back and looked at Haider: “done.”
“Let’s go then,” Haider walked past the men towards the staircase. He walked down the six flights of stairs and reached the bottom floor where several dozen officers and soldiers manned his field command post. This was now the beating heart of his defenses. What the rest of the army did outside the city was not his concern, but everything inside the city, was his jurisdiction. And this center was where he ran the show. The place was alive with chatter and men running back and forth. Chaos reigned.
Outside, the city was made to look as normal as possible. The streets were deliberately devoid of all military vehicles for one block in any direction. Haider had even forced the civilians to be made to stay visible in the streets to ensure the Indians continue to believe that this block of houses was nothing special. One block away, the field hospital was overflowing with casualties. A day ago it had been possible to fly in helicopters to the rooftops. But the swift demise of the PAF had meant that helicopter pilots were now no longer allowed to fly into the city. Haider himself had placed that order after he had seen an army liaison helicopter blasted out of the sky by a strafing Indian Su-30. The charred wreckage of that helicopter still lay inverted between the gaps of two buildings, a kilometer away…
“Sierra-two-two is active.” Captain Saadat said as Haider and Akram walked up. Saadat was in charge of the unit operating the short-range, unmanned-aerial-vehicles.
“You have the feed yet?” Akram asked.
“Hold on,” Saadat said as he spoke into his comms mouthpiece and then flipped open his battlefield computer. He talked through its boot-up process and then turned to the senior officers: “the boys just sent up a hand-held drone a kilometer away from the road that the Ghazi group is going after. It will have limited endurance so there might be down times when we recover the birds and rearm the batteries.”
“Understood,” Haider noted. “It will have to do.”
Saadat turned back to face the screen as it lit up with a birds-eye view in thermal monochrome lighting. They could see the road and what were dark, black blobs of tanks driving, turrets swiveling on either side: Indian T-90s. The screen also showed blobs on the marshy fields on either side of the road and much smaller heat blobs showing humans moving tactically alongside the tanks.
“Go white-hot,” Akram ordered.
Saadat pressed one of the buttons on the side of the screen marked “B/W-HT” and inverted the monochrome color. The thermals were now white. The coloration changed just as one of the leading blobs let loose a tank round and the screen flickered. Saadat zoomed out and saw a building sidewall blown to smithereens. A battle was on. The Indian soldiers were shepherding away civilians caught in it.
“Wait for it…” Akram said, holding his breath.
The screen flickered again as the group of Indian soldiers and civilians disappeared in a massive flash of white that faded to black. The battlefield turned into an instant chaos with surviving civilians running in all directions while other Indian soldiers ran towards the smoking remains of half-a-dozen of their comrades. In all the confusion and chaos, some of the civilians ran towards the Indian vehicles…