Fenix Read online

  Verma had his job full alongside his army and navy colleagues. The latter two were already heavily involved in the evacuation of people from northern Mumbai into safe sectors to the south. Verma shuddered at the very thought of the magnitude of that task. Anybody who had been to Mumbai could testify to the impossibility of a chaotic evacuation.

  Out in the northeast of Mumbai, the air-force and army were working in close conjunction under nuclear conditions. The first of the army’s unmanned nuclear reconnaissance vehicles had just been airlifted into the northeastern sector by the “Featherweights” Mi-26 helicopter. Verma had also deployed several high-altitude Heron unmanned-aerial-drones to provide real time intelligence on the ground situation. Through the enhanced black-and-white view of the Heron’s electro-optical pods, they could see the Mi-26 parked on the ground with a mass of civilians flooding the rear of the helicopter. They could also see the “Muntra-N” nuclear recon vehicle beginning to roll under its own power with a puff of engine exhaust and a slight jerk forward…

  “Looks like the NBC recon vehicle is operational and moving,” one of Verma’s staff members noted. Verma looked at the man: “fair enough. But how the hell do we get the civilians out from there in time? This recon vehicle is only going to confirm what we already expect to happen!”

  “Sir!” Verma turned to see one of his operations people calling from his station outside the conference room. Verma left the room and walked over.

  “What is it?”

  “Sir, griffon-one-actual is asking permission to see if he can make a landing approach in sector two-bravo to evac civilians out of there.”

  Verma raised an eyebrow: “What’s available in two-bravo to land on?”

  The officer waved Verma over to the wall screen showing the drone feed from the Heron overhead. The view was centered on a straight stretch of tar road about three-quarters of a kilometer in length and about half kilometer away east of the parked Mi-26 on the ground. The road had apparently been scouted by the army folks there. He could see some of their trucks parked on the grassy fields nearby. Verma immediately understood the play his pilots were requesting for.

  “Can he make it?” He asked and saw that his men have him a “we-are-going-to-find-out” shrug. Verma looked back at the screen and evaluated the width and flatness of the tar road. He then turned to face his operations officer:

  “Do it!”

  The officer nodded and brought his comms mouthpiece up to his mouth: “griffon-one-actual, this is guardian-operations. Guardian-one has authorized your request and wishes you best of luck! We have you on visual from guardian-angel’s eyes and will follow you in. Out!”

  Verma heard the static-laced response from the flight-crew of the C-130J as they began their approach. He turned to see the wall screen along with everybody in the room and saw the black-and-white screen showing the flat-winged, multi-engine aircraft make its approach on the tar road. The video was without audio except from the incoming radio traffic from the pilots of the aircraft and the Heron operators overhead.

  Several minutes later there was a large dust cloud behind the aircraft as it made contact with the field and began slowing down. The whitish cloud on the screen enveloped the aircraft for several seconds. The entire room held its breath as they scrutinized the video feed.

  Seconds later the lumbering transport emerged from the dust cloud and began rolling forward. Verma let out a very loud breath along with several of his people around him. As they watched, a crowd of civilians were herded towards the waiting aircraft by soldiers. Verma turned to his people: “Scramble griffon-two and -three as well. Griffon-one has blazed a trail for us to follow! Tell them to get in as soon as Griffon-one is off the ground and keep doing it till we get all those civilians out! Move!”

  As everybody around him scrambled to the task and the radios went alive with chatter, Verma turned to see the silent video of the parked C-130J on the road with a mass of people boarding it.

  Damn heroes!

  And yes, you will get a bottle of scotch from me for your actions today!

  ──── 4 ────

  “Sir, we must act! Now!”

  “But there is no proof they are involved!” The Prime-Minister reiterated yet again. Ravoof watched in silence as the members of the PM’s cabinet fought each other. Half the group advocated declaration of war against Pakistan. Another half fought against it citing lack of evidence on Islamabad’s involvement. Ravoof had heard both arguments enough times. He knew the pros and cons. As the minister of external affairs for the Indian government, he had held this position and served this PM through the war with China and the fluid geo-political turmoil thence. He was a seasoned practitioner of realpolitik.

  He did notice one major difference between this time around: the former defense-minister Chakri’s absence was conspicuous here. Chakri’s voice had been one of solid action during the China war and of stoic patience in the face of near-death and chaos. All these characteristics had made the man a legend within the senior members of the government.

  He was probably more responsible for us surviving the war than perhaps any other single person…Ravoof thought as he maintained his silent glance in the chaos of the room. Of course, Chakri had not been a legend just for his wartime actions…

  There were many in the government who had stated after the war that Chakri had far exceeded his stated mandate as defense-minister. When the realities of the pre-war Indian involvement in the Tibetan rebellion had surfaced, Chakri had become the focal point of those that looked to find a scapegoat. Special-warfare teams built around soldiers of Tibetan ethnicity had been infiltrated into Tibet during the rebellion to help bring down Chinese control over the region. They had succeeded enough to scare the Chinese into conducting a desperate and precipitated military response…

  And what followed was the most brutal war between the two Asian giants…Ravoof leaned back in his chair. The man had exceeded his stated mandate…but not his personal one!

  After watching his country slide towards impotence under past governments, Ravoof could never bring himself to blame Chakri for what he had done. It had been three years now and he still could not bring himself to do blame Chakri.

  But others had. Leading the charge for his removal had been the PM himself, who saw Chakri as an affront to his own authority and as a convenient scapegoat to offer to those in the government and the media who demanded someone’s head for the Tibetan covert operations. And so Chakri had resigned under unbearable pressure and returned to his house in the outskirts of the city. He had moved there to hide from the media floodlights. He had been forced to become a relative nobody on the political scene despite his accomplishments and sacrifices for the country.

  The PM had survived the war in a condition better than when it had started. Having taken credit for Chakri’s successes, whilst passing the blame for failures, he had conveniently buried his own glaring deficiencies on matters of national security. Deficiencies that had almost cost India the war. Riding on popular belief that he had led the country to victory, he had been reelected to office with sound popular majority. He had broad authority as PM like which his predecessors had dared not dream about.

  And yet at the core of it lay a weak man. A man who had shown time and again to falter under chaos, to stick to ideology when the time required pragmatism. And one who offered flowers when the situation demanded the stick. As one of the most senior members of the government, Ravoof had a front seat to this man over the years. And for that very reason Ravoof had used his skills to ensure that a situation never arose that would put this PM to a test he could not pass…

  Well, the Pakistanis put paid to that effort today!

  And with Chakri no longer present…

  “Sir, if we do not act in response to his massive attack, neither we nor this party will survive in government for even a month!” Bafna, the new politically-appointed defense-minister, knew which side of the bread to butter, even when his country’s lif
e hanged in the balance.

  “Not to mention invite additional such strikes against other cities,” Basu added from the side of the conference table occupied by the Intelligence experts. Unlike Bafna, Basu had no time or space for politics. His mandate was clear: country first.

  The PM rubbed his eyes and looked at Basu: “Do we have any proof that the Pakistani government is involved in the attack? Any proof at all? I can’t very well declare war on that country just because the terrorists who are based there carried out an attack, insidious as the attack may be!”

  “Depends really,” Basu replied, keeping his calm.

  “Depends on what?” Bafna asked testily.

  “It depends,” Basu replied sharply, “on what you consider the government over there to be! You want proof that their government made this attack a part of their five-year plan? That’s not how covert operations work! What did you think? That they were going to come up and own this attack as theirs? They are cunning, not stupid!”

  “You watch your insinuations, Basu!” Bafna shouted back with pointed fingers. He had always seen Basu as another one of Chakri’s leftover people in the national-security establishment. As such, Bafna thought of Basu as someone who was not on ‘his side’. Bafna, like the Prime-Minister, was not one to think of their country as the side that mattered.

  “Enough!” Ravoof entered the fray, silencing both parties. He then turned to Basu: “We know that this operation was probably handled by lower level operatives on the ground and certain senior level individuals in the Pakistani military. There is no other way that these attackers could have gotten their hands on a nuclear device. So…” Basu leaned back in his chair, his arms folded, “what we need to understand is that this is not a court of law. We cannot and should not expect cut and dried evidence to appear that will make the hard decisions for us.”

  “So what exactly are you saying?” the PM’s tone bristled with irritation. Ravoof ignored the obvious condescension.

  “Simply that there are only three alternatives for us,” Ravoof said as he brought his fingers out. “One: we capture, arrest and bring to justice the people involved with the attack. This includes the capture of key militant leaders from within Pakistan. Two: we accept the fact that Pakistan will never acknowledge that the nuclear device used was their own. And hence will not hand over their military people involved in the attack, even if they were acting rogue. In this case we have to be prepared to punish Pakistan and its government as a whole. Or three: we count on Islamabad being reasonable and pursue the course of relative inaction while we try and convince them to come straight.”

  Bafna leaned forward for emphasis: “that third option will bring down this government! Make no mistake about it!” Bafna shot a glance to the other senior ministers in the room as Ravoof leaned back in his seat.

  The PM looked lost for words for several seconds and then looked to Basu and the National Security Advisor sitting next to him: “Do we know who did this attack? Can we go get them?”

  Basu leaned forward in his seat: “We know the group that carried out the actual attack, sir. It’s very clear that the Lashkar-e-Taiba is the group to which the attackers belonged. The attack itself was carried out by a team lead by one Anwar Afridi. Needless to say, he’s dead. Makki, who is the group leader, is in Pakistani custody and more of a figurehead than real. That leaves Muzammil as the real leader calling the shots. His group has already claimed responsibility for the attack and is warning of more if we do not immediately pull out of Kashmir.”

  “Needless to say, we cannot pull out of Kashmir!” Bafna interjected.

  “Anyway,” Basu continued, moving his glance back to the PM: “cutting past their religious and political rhetoric, we can expect that the Pakistanis will keep the LET employed in a conventional role only at the moment. More attacks in Kashmir to drive their points home to us, for example. But non-nuclear.”

  “Keep in mind,” the NSA added, “that LET is merely a proxy for the actions of the Pakistani intelligence agencies. In this case, General Haider and then ultimately, General Hussein in Rawalpindi. They are the ones keeping things in calibration. If we get our hands on Muzammil, we are likely to find out just how high up their food chain goes.”

  “And we may not like what we find out,” the PM said in conclusion. “But if the only other plan is to strike Pakistan as a whole, I will rather take the option of grabbing Muzammil and put him on trial for terrorism!”

  No surprises there…Ravoof shared a momentary glance with Basu. The PM then turned to Basu and the other intelligence officials: “Find out where that bastard lives and come up with a plan that we can act on!”

  “Sir,” Bafna interrupted, “I should warn you that such a plan is both risky politically as well as militarily. For one thing, carrying out this plan could take a long time, during which we will appear to be doing nothing. The public and the media will not accept it. By the time the plan is actually executed, we may not even be in Delhi to call the shots! Also, assuming that the operation goes off without a hitch, the Pakistanis will be crying bloody murder and that will trigger a war in itself!”

  The PM sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration.

  “So what do you suggest?” Ravoof asked.

  “I suggest that we act now! We inform Islamabad to either hand over the terrorists or we will begin air-strikes against their terror camps in occupied Kashmir.”

  “Are you serious?” Basu shouted. “You want to tell them in advance that we will be attacking the terror camps? You realize that if we do that, the camps will be nothing but deserted buildings by the time our missiles reach there? And of course the Pakis will allow it! Why not? They get to lay waste to northern Mumbai with a nuclear warhead and all we do is strike empty buildings in the mountains!”

  “At least it will show the public we are doing something!” Bafna shouted back. “And if Islamabad knows about it then the chances of the strikes spilling over into open war are nullified.”

  Basu rubbed his forehead with his right hand as he spoke: “Is that really what you want to do? Pretend to be doing something as opposed to doing something real?”

  “It’s better than the iffy plan of grabbing Muzammil from his residence near Lahore!”

  “I would prefer,” the PM added, “to not put the democratic government of Pakistan in a situation where their only recourse is to shelve our peace initiatives in order to pacify their populace. The same way I would not like to be led into a war by my militaristic ministers! A second time!”

  The room went silent on that last note. Ravoof noted that last phrase and it revealed to him the level of distrust the PM had developed for those in his government who advocated military response to national security problems. Even when the latter were correct to demand such action, it put them at a disadvantage and in disfavor with this Prime-Minister. A man could burst an artery in frustration but would be unlikely to budge this man to take solid military action when offered a flimsy offer of a peaceful alternative. And as such, Ravoof did not envy Basu and the NSA at all…

  The strategic course of action now decided, the PM ended the meeting to let his ministers and military officials start working on the details. Ravoof grabbed Basu by the arm as they left the room into the corridor. Despite Basu’s curious looks, Ravoof said nothing until they were out of earshot of the departing people, most of whom were too busy to notice the two stragglers…

  “You know, as well as I do, that these strikes against the terror camps will not yield anything worth a damn,” Ravoof said dryly.

  “So?” Basu replied, almost having accepted the sad truth of the matter.

  “So,” Ravoof responded, his voice calm, “this matter is more important than to be left to politicians looking after their own skin. Just how realistic are our chances for grabbing Muzammil?”

  Basu took a breath and considered his response: “If we can nail his position while he is on the move, then we should be able to do it. But the government will never author
ize it.”

  “Not if it fails, of course!” Ravoof added with a dry smile. “Come on, Basu! This is right up your sleeve. Think it through. You are being offered a virtual blanket of ‘clean-and-surgical’ to do what you and your boys do best.”

  Basu smiled as he caught on. He could not even think of such action without senior members of the government supporting him. That was what Chakri had done for him in Tibet three years ago. The two men had shared a common vision about China and Tibet and the intersection of the two visions had made possible everything that had followed. Basu had never been officially named in the investigations, though only for lack of proof. He wasn’t the country’s external intelligence chief for lack of skills.

  Ravoof was certainly no Chakri, Basu knew. But he only needed him to be close enough.

  “One other thing,” Ravoof added as he turned to head his way: “Make it quick and dirty! We owe this one to the citizens of Mumbai.”

  Basu took a deep breath as he got out of the car and picked up his suitcase on the seat next to him. Thanking his driver for being with him all day, he walked back into the office building. The place was still bustling with people, although the crowd was certainly lighter than before. Basu made the usual pleasantries to his subordinates working past their usual time collating the massive amounts of data coming in from Mumbai, Pakistan occupied Kashmir and from within Pakistan itself. He asked to be kept informed of all important material and then made his way back to his office down the corridor, loosening his tie as he walked.

  He saw a man sitting on the seat across his assistant’s desk, which was now deserted. Basu saw that the man was sitting casually with his legs folded and reading some papers. His coat was on the backrest of an adjacent chair, the medals and other military insignia glistening in the lights of the corridor. Walking closer, Basu saw the man clearer.