“But why Lahore?” Ansari asked. “The city’s value to the Paki Punjabis is immense, symbolically and otherwise. Why not lash out in the desert somewhere? Or in Kashmir?”
“Because it had to be a city,” Basu noted. “With the rapid successes of our military forces on all fronts except for Lahore, there would be no way to sell this as an Indian strike to the world. No one would buy it. It would make no sense. But Lahore, a city held stubbornly and bitterly by jihadists and Pak forces? An Indian strike to break that resistance makes sense. Couple that with the equality that our own people impose between us and the Pakistanis, and the world is able to believe that we struck Lahore as retaliation for Mumbai. Only later will the contents of the nuclear explosion reveal their source. But the Pakistanis will make sure no one gets any access over there. Ever.”
“And even if they do,” Ansari said as he tossed the papers on to the table, “it will be far too late by then.”
“Exactly.”
“So we are still going after Haider?” Ansari asked.
“We are.” Basu replied. “If we can take him alive, we can put that bastard on trial. Maybe even get him to confess everything.”
“Will he?” Ansari asked dubiously.
“He is intelligent. He knows when his cards are gone. He will fold to prevent himself any harm.”
“And what if we can’t take him alive?”
Basu’s face turned grim: “then he will answer to Allah, and we will take him off our target list and move on to the next one above him.”
Ansari unbuckled his seatbelt and got up just as the other passengers did the same. The whining noise from the four turboprop engines outside became visibly lower and changed pitch as they wound down. The air-force warrant-officer walked past them wearing his headphone. Towards the rear of the cabin he activated the controls and the hydraulics went into action, lowering the ramp. Ansari was the first one outside as he jumped off and hoisted his personal baggage over the shoulders.
He smiled as he saw Gephel walking over from his parked Axe vehicle: “how long have you been waiting?”
He had to shout over the noise of the C-130J. The background chaos of Chandigarh airbase didn’t help either. All aircraft were flying without their navigation lights. The airbase was shrouded in darkness except for whatever lights the ground vehicles had on.
“Not long,” Gephel shouted just as an IL-76 lifted off the runway and disappeared into the darkness. “we arrived an hour back. The other birds landed fifteen minutes ago and are being offloaded. We should be ready to leave in another half-hour.”
“Excellent.” Ansari replied as Gephel waved him to the parked vehicle. “I want us up and away as soon as we can arrange it. We are extremely time critical on this one.” He hoisted his baggage into the vehicle and jumped in the rear. Gephel took the seat next to the driver, who took the cue and drove on.
“Where are we going?” Ansari asked.
“Other end of the airbase, next to those C-17s over there,” Gephel pointed. Ansari looked through the front glass and saw two parked C-17s with a lot of activity around them. He made out the silhouettes of two LCH gunships being offloaded. Two other helicopters were parked behind the aircraft and ground crews were busy installing their main rotor blades and stub wings. Ansari also saw several parked Dhruv utility helicopters in the grass beyond the tarmac.
“Those are our guys?” Ansari pointed at the choppers.
Gephel nodded: “Jagat and his panther boys. Our ride from here back to our forward operations center.”
“Who’s leading the gunships?”
“Our old friends,” Gephel smiled. “Group-captain Dutt. They just got airlifted in from Leh.”
“What?” Ansari blurted out as the driver brought the vehicle to a stop some distance away from the nearest C-17. “Why are they being airlifted in? Aren’t they needed for Ladakh? What if the Chinese step in?”
“Didn’t you hear?” Gephel asked as they disembarked the vehicle. “Our boys are clobbering the Pakis on the Siachen glacier. They always held dominant positions there and don’t need much help. The reasoning is that if the Chinese do step in, Dutt and his crews will get airlifted back. The twenty-odd Apaches and the two-dozen LCHs we have are stretched far too thin. This was the only way.”
Ansari was not satisfied, but nodded anyway. Wartime decision-making was always ad-hoc. The Indian military was just not prepared to fight intensive wars on two fronts simultaneously. One front had to be cannibalized to beef up the other. Just the nature of things.
The two men walked over to where Dutt and Jagat were conferring with maps. They turned to see the two special-forces guys approaching but otherwise kept going. Ansari shared a look with Gephel and spotted what he thought was a brief smile. All services of the armed forces share a common trait: the shared mistrust of the black-ops guys…
“Gentlemen, how’s it looking?” Ansari asked the pilots.
“Proceeding.” Dutt said flatly. “We will be dusting off within minutes. My boys and I are just making sure we know precisely where we need to be. Jagat and his pilots are far more acquainted with the geography here than we are.”
“Good.” Ansari replied and turned to Jagat: “are we flying with you?”
Jagat nodded and gestured to the parked Dhruv nearest to them: “right. That bird there. We are fueled and ready to leave just as soon Dutt and his pilots are briefed and their choppers loaded with fuel and weapons.”
Dutt folded the maps and shook his head: “no. We are all set. Don’t wait up for us. Considering the conditions of this war, it is not safe for all of us to be sitting here, clustered like this. I suggest you get your birds in the air. We will depart soon enough behind you. The C-130 airdrops for the FARP will go ahead as planned, so we will bring our own gear.”
“Fair enough,” Jagat replied with a single nod and then began walking to his parked helicopters. His crews saw him coming and he rotated his lead finger in the sign of start-them-up. The pilots and crews dispersed. Ansari and Gephel followed behind Jagat. Ansari saw that the other two Dhruv helicopters were loaded with what looked like Nag anti-tank missiles and crates of equipment. He could only surmise how much the Indian government had staked on this operation. Basu and SOCOM had pulled out all the stops.
Several minutes later, Jagat’s Dhruv lifted off the grassy field and dove to the southwest, flying fast and low over the airbase. The other two helicopters took position behind Jagat. The three helicopters disappeared into the darkness within moments, but left the lingering rotor noise echoing at the airbase. Dutt crossed his arms as he and his pilots watched the last of the four LCHs being offloaded on to the tarmac.
42
Haider looked at the sky above to see white contrails of jet fighters. The rumble of their engines was all around. Two black columns of smoke to the west indicated some Al-Khalid tanks from the 6TH Armored Division that had just been struck by bombs dropped by these aircraft. He turned to see the swishing trail of a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile as it leapt into the sky. It would never get that far up. Haider interpreted it as a sign of frustration by the anti-air troops. Having struck down the long-range missile batteries with Brahmos missiles, the high-flying Indian fighters and bombers were under no real threat from below. The days of flying low with unguided munitions were long past. Even helicopters these days had the range and common sense to stay away and launch attacks using guided-missiles. Both the sides of this war were learning this the hard way…