“My god…” the prime-minister muttered under his breath as he rubbed his hands on his face. Bafna looked at him and then to the service chiefs: “what are our nuclear contingency plans in case this entire thing goes south?”
“The usual,” Potgam stated. He had been through all this before. He still remembered the dusty mushroom clouds over the snowcapped mountains of Bhutan…
“All missile-defense batteries went live around the major cities ever since the strike on Mumbai. StratForCom is online and the aerospace command is monitoring missile sites in Pakistan. On the defensive side,” Potgam turned to the navy commander: “admiral?”
The latter looked at the prime-minister, who was still holding his face in his hands: “the Arihant nuclear-ballistic-missile-submarine left its dock weeks ago. It is now in the Bay-of-Bengal, armed with long-range ballistic missiles capable of targeting both Pakistani and Chinese mainland cities from its launch positions in the bay. I…”
“Wait!” The prime-minister looked up abruptly: “why the hell are we talking about China now?!”
“Well,” Potgam replied, “considering their massing troops in the Tibetan plains, we have to assume that they are going to side with their Pakistani allies in all this.”
“But why?” The prime-minister pressed. “Islamabad left their Chinese allies hanging high and dry during the Tibet war. Why would Beijing come to their aid now?”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Basu said to no-one in particular, but all heads turned to him, so he continued: “Wencang and his crony Chen are no fools. They know which side of the bread to butter. They are already sending much-needed arms and ammunition to the Pak army via the northern mountains. They are almost certainly sharing electronic and satellite intel with Rawalpindi. How else do you explain the precision strikes the Pakistanis are launching against our airbases? Beijing is deploying its fleet to the Arabian sea to protect their merchant shipping assets. But if push comes to shove, they won’t hesitate to attack our ships blockading Pakistani ports. The port of Gwadar is a good example. One strike there from us and that is all the provocation Wencang will need to pile into this war. But whether he will join the nuclear fight? We don’t know.”
“But we have to be prepared,” Potgam stated. “Hence the defensive measures by the navy to provide Beijing some pause should they consider some nasty plans.”
“A cheerful thought.” Ravoof said as he leaned back into his seat.
“What can we do to prevent Chinese help to the Pakistanis?” Bafna asked.
“Short of declaring war on China?” Potgam replied. “Not much. We just have to roll with the punches on that one. We just don’t have the capability to take on both countries at the same time.”
“We should put some strongly-worded statements to the media, warning Beijing to stay away.” Ravoof suggested.
“I agree.” Potgam replied with a nod.
“Will it do any good?” The prime-minister asked.
Ravoof grunted: “not in the least. Wencang will ask for peace and yet continue to arm the Pakistanis. But we should at least make them uncomfortable.”
“What about us here in New-Delhi?” Bafna asked, his self-preservation kicking in.
“We should consider evacuating all of the senior government officials. Nuclear command protocol needs to be invoked,” Potgam stated, looked around, and then faced the prime-minister: “and that’s a decision that needs to be made now.”
The prime-minister pushed back his chair as he got up: “We are leaving.”
31
A ball of white light disappeared into the green background. The thunderclap passed through the tank seconds later.
“Hit!” Kulkarni’s gunner exclaimed.
“Target destroyed, rhino-one! Good kill!”
Kulkarni was lost in other thoughts. He eyes were away from his commander’s sights and focused intently on the paper map unfolded on his thigh. The scribbled comments and highlighted routes were visible in the dim interior lights of the turret. He compared the ABAMS moving-map coordinates and followed it through on his paper map, traversing the route they had taken so far.
Islamgarh road from the breach point till here. His marker followed up the road on the map. Now coming up… Rahim Yar Khan road. He jabbed the center of the circle with the pencil and then folded the map and stuffed it to the side of the seat. He then pulled himself up to the optics, rotating a full azimuth…
His tanks were staggered in a wide area on either side of the Islamgarh road, visible as manmade silhouettes against the flickering green horizon. Their turrets moved slowly, deliberately and menacingly. To the east, behind them, he could see columns of vehicles making their way to and fro on the road. These were the engineers from trishul. They were bringing up supplies and evacuating the wounded from his tanks.
As he shifted the sights to the west, the view changed and he could see columns of smoke rising into the sky. Flashes of white flickered in and out of existence as the air-force pounded a Pakistani column on their way to meet Kulkarni in battle. The way he saw it, the more vehicles destroyed by the air-force, the less there would be for him to fight through…
“Rhino-actual, this is steel-central. Over.”
“Rhino-actual reading you five-by-five. Over.”
“Rhino, what is your status?” Kulkarni recognized Sudarshan’s voice straightaway. His demeanor stiffened instinctively.
“We are refocusing our forces at waypoint purple. Preparing to move once trishul catches up.”
“I see that, rhino-actual! I have you on visual!” Sudarshan had his unmanned drones in the skies above. “If I can see you, the enemy can too. They have drones up here. Count on it. And our anti-air boys haven’t delivered on clearing the skies as they were supposed to. I don’t want our tanks sitting in the open if the enemy starts lobbing cruise-missiles. Refocus your fighting elements and push on!”
“Roger. Rhino-actual copies all! Proceeding with all due haste!” Kulkarni said and the link chimed off.
Okay… Kulkarni peered through his sights. The town of Rahim Yar Khan was visible on the horizon. The main issue now, though, was what to do with this town?
It was a question that had plagued planners in army headquarters ever since offensive had been planned. Assuming they got to the outskirts of the town, then what? The assumption had always been that the battles here would be one of attrition, designed to bleed the Pakistani army before advancing to the highway and cutting it off. Either the war would be over by then, or the capture of the town would become insignificant once nuclear weapons were deployed. Nobody had anticipated Kulkarni’s tanks reaching the town before any of those two events…
Taking the town by force would require the kind of infantry support that was not available this deep inside enemy territory. Same for the artillery. The artillery that was available was the precision kind, designed to strike specific military targets and command centers with missiles. To level each house and building in order to take this town would require immense blunt force firepower delivered by guns that weren’t available. It was at times like this that Kulkarni lamented the lack of self-propelled artillery guns in the armored forces. While even the Pakistanis had these, the Indian forces did not.