by M J Anand
Abhimanyu started his dive in multiple rounds at an angle to locate any hostiles before they landed. He knew it was better to take them out from the air using these angles rather than on ground with his body in the firing line. He focused the backup light machinegun recalibrated to have just enough firepower to kill a human but not harm the nuke. The hostiles should have fired by now. The continuous hovering motion would have created panic if there was indeed anyone underneath. Abhimanyu concluded they were not here. He scanned the horizon. Even at night, the hills were undoubtedly beautiful.
‘Nature has perfectly curated these plains that the hills guard,’ Akram said, referring to the inherent symmetry of the forestlands.
‘It’s difficult to believe these plains and hills are so symmetrical,’ Abhimanyu remarked.
Siddhartha recalled his mountain warfare manuals. ‘The rivulets decide the symmetry here. Lines of trees grow along the rivulets. You can’t see the rivulets, but you can make out where they flow. The density thins out as you move from the rivulets. Along the rivulet, it’s almost a parallel line.’ But with the night goggles, they could see at least some of the rivulets.
‘All but one place. Nine o’clock,’ Abhimanyu retorted as the helicopter turned with his eyeline. Abhimanyu curiously flew over the location and noticed something wrong with the trees—perhaps a path underneath. It would be very unnatural here. But they couldn't see much else under the dark sky, so Abhimanyu took another wide angle cut from the right to have better visibility. At the lowest point, he activated the flashlights and saw a sudden movement in the trees, and one of the army commandos instinctively opened fire. ‘Stop! Stop! I see antelopes! No hostiles!’
‘I see something more,’ Akram said.
Abhimanyu lowered the chopper, and they were shocked as he controlled the fan blades from chopping the tree branches, leaves flying off. ‘A storage tank.’ As the helicopter neared the tank, the antelopes ran from the storage tank into the woods. It was large enough to store a miniaturized nuke and small enough to hide it from the satellites under this thick tree cover. The storage tank was exactly where Abhimanyu would have hidden it if it were him. ‘Go! Go! go!’ His fingers gave the cue to unload.
Akram, Siddhartha, and two other army commandos got in line to repel the ropes. The tree covers made it hard to locate the ground exactly. If they went in with the rope without a target landing site, the rope could get stuck in the branches, risking everyone’s life on the helicopter.
Akram decided to land where he could see—on top of the tree itself. He descended first. There was more noise as he landed on the trees.
Siddhartha surveyed with his night binoculars. The antelopes were now standing far away and just observing. ‘It’s the antelopes. They’re scared. No other movement yet.’
The commandos held back to give Akram the air cover as he climbed down the tree. Akram landed on the ground, focused on the tank. He did a three-sixty-degree recce and signaled others to climb down. In less than two minutes, three commandos had descended the rope then climbed down the tree one by one.
Army commandos quickly established a perimeter around the area, and the MARCOS carefully approached the oval green storage tank. The antelopes had gone now.
Akram saw a broken antelope carcass. The flesh was rotting but not too old. ‘It’s not been killed by an animal.’ The muscles were shredded, as if hit by a mine. Akram noticed the lack of any teeth marks or muscle tear one would expect if a wild animal had killed it. Perhaps the antelopes had triggered a mine. Akram approached the dome with ducked steps and noticed a lot of damage to the ground. Broken stones and tree parts lay all around the tank. ‘It was indeed hit by a mine.’ He soon found the mine crater. It also meant this was no ordinary storage tank.
‘That’s the reason the trees are bent here—a rope mine. The antelopes triggered it, and now we have a crater around the dome,’ Siddhartha said.
‘And a dead animal that died for no fault of his own.’ Akram was pained, but there was no time to lose.
Akram and Siddhartha circled the storage tank a few times, and after ensuring no more mines existed, they crossed over.
‘Careful,’ Akram warned Siddhartha, pointing toward a snapped mine wire. ’Of course, a dead wire now.’
Siddhartha moved the radiation meter in a circular motion above the tank. It immediately showed a spike up to five hundred rems—almost as much as a normal human body would receive in ten years—high enough to suggest the presence of a nuke here but low enough the satellites wouldn’t have detected it. ‘The satellites must have detected the spikes only when the shield was being recalibrated.’
Even with their suits, they couldn’t stay here long. Akram hovered his scanner over the tank to pick its elemental composition. This was a graphene uranium shield.
The data appeared on the screen at the Guwahati command center. ‘Exactly what I was talking about,’ Arup said. ‘Ninety-nine percent carbon and one percent uranium isotope. That’s what the Chinese have been working on.’
‘But where are the terrorists?’ Amjad asked.
Akram opened the tank to find it empty. However, a hot wave hit him, and the meter spiked immediately. He instinctively closed the tank. ‘That’s the heat blast from uranium traces. The bomb was definitely here.’
It also meant they had narrowly missed it. Abhimanyu swore to himself in frustration.
‘I can see some tyre marks here. They look quite fresh,’ an army commando guarding the perimeter said.
Akram rushed to the spot and dipped his fingers into it. The soil was still not settled. The commando was right. He patted the commando and announced on the coms, ‘The marks are fresh. Not more than a few hours old. They shouldn’t have gone far.’
‘Scan the area. Look for any more marks,’ Amjad said through the earbuds.
‘They’ve cleaned the area well, sir. The mine may have destroyed any evidence left anyway. However, the tank structure looks sturdy. Should find something there if we get lucky.’ Akram was acknowledging these terrorists’ professionalism. Transporting a nuke without state support was no joke, and they had done well so far.
The team scanned the area with laser swipes and fed the data to the Guwahati control room where a lab team ran a live check on the fingerprint database in real time, something Abhimanyu didn’t see even during the Chennai attack. But technology fell short to close the last mile on such missions, and each time, it was the men on the ground who helped them get closer to the bomb. Abhimanyu understood it well and knew they had to close in on the terrorists as soon as possible.
Akram noticed a thick wire disappearing underground. It was not a mine wire; that would be thinner. He slowly followed the wire, and it led him to a tree fifty meters from the dome. The wire went up the tree along the trunk, but nothing was on top of the tree. They slowly pulled down the wire with ease, for nothing was obstructing it at the other end—none of the usual communication equipment or transistor or even a hook. He noticed some markings and cuts on the wire’s end though. Something from training struck him. ‘It’s a World War-era antenna used to transmit codes. It has a copper bolt. Not very clear but has a long range. They must have used it because it is impossible to detect these.’
‘Why?’
‘No one tracks these frequencies anymore,’ Akram said into the coms.
It made sense to use them. Abhimanyu had a glimmer of hope. They had a tail now.
‘Get the bolt’s basic elemental composition. Sonia, map the frequencies for it,’ Amjad said, and Sonia nodded in affirmation.
If they found the frequencies the terrorists used, they could interfere in their communications, even eavesdrop on them. Siddhartha rushed to the spot with his laser sweeper.
‘Sonia, scan all the messages at all frequencies compatible with these antennas. I doubt if our satellites can still track them, but some of the older satellites might work.’
Siddhartha’s laser sweep data helped Sonia zero in on the frequencies in less
than a minute. Akram was right. It could transit very low frequencies, also known as VLF. These frequencies had lost all favor by the 1970s. Even third-world armies considered them outdated.
Amjad, for once, was lost as he tried to make sense of it. Surely, a nuclear mission had to rely on more than a mere copper antenna. ‘Not if you tune it beforehand.’
Copper was one of the most common material used to transmit shortwaves at set frequencies. For many decades, international spies had used shortwave stations, but it lost to newer technologies. It was an efficient way to transmit encrypted messages on set frequencies with set protocols. They could be silent all day and still come alive with seemingly incorrigible tones or voices or even songs. They could include Morse codes, nursery rhymes, or even a musical that would hardly make any sense to sane people but carry lot of encrypted information. It could still deploy language ciphers, sequences, encryption, decryption, and other statecrafts of international espionage. Amjad realized its ingenuity lay in its simplicity. Most countries had stopped using them, owing to availability of more sophisticated and cheaper technologies. Resource constraints and algorithmic optimizations only meant lesser people were dedicated to track these lines. Gradually, most countries stopped tracking it altogether. These fedayeen were trained by old-fashioned techniques.
Amjad could feel the game levelling up further and decided to return to pure basics. ‘We’ll have to track all the frequencies. That will require a lot of bandwidth.’ Amjad wiped some sweat off his forehead.
Sonia knew this could only be done manually. They’d need to check all the radio frequencies to the second decimal.
‘Checking all the frequencies at all times would require a lot, a lot of people,’ Amjad muttered, internalizing his own thoughts.
‘Even if we do this, it will work only if they use these frequencies again,’ Abhimanyu said.
‘They haven’t left too long ago, so we still have some time to track them through these signals. The detonator would still need to connect with them in Guwahati. They will use it,’ Akram said while following the trail of tyre marks as far as they went.
Only one institution had that kind of a bandwidth, and Amjad glanced at Arup.
‘You don’t need to give me that look. I’ll ask my communication specialists to track as many frequencies as they can,’ he said, still unsure if it would really help.
All army units had at least one communication specialist by design. Their task was to scan the locally active frequencies, gather intelligence, and keep the base safe. One of the most mundane jobs in the army, communication specialists had to beat the monotony of radio channels over many months, sometimes even years, to catch the one signal which could make all the difference. In the best-case scenario, their jobs would lead them to preempt a terrorist attack or a local rebellion. Today was different though. In the best-case scenario, they could prevent a nuclear war. His boys would be thrilled to hunt it down.
Amjad raised his hand, acknowledging Arup’s support. It wouldn’t be easy to align so many army bases in such short notice, but at least they were ready to try.
Chapter 18 - Heart Strike
ISI Safehouse, Pakistan
A handmade cigar had much better texture and was more effective than any branded product. Bilal Masoud picked up his cigar filled with premium Afghani weed called Garda Kush and gently lit it. It was prepared from the Afghan Kush, found only in the Hindu Kush mountains and famous for its high resin content. Owing to its rarity and powerful sedating effects, it was accessible only to the most discerning elites. It required both a well-developed taste and well-built connections to cut corners and source it. Bilal had received a pack of these cigars from one Afghani warlord after ISI had rewarded them with a million-dollar assistance. Thanks to his diplomatic skills, Bilal had brokered many such deals in the region. His exploits as a young spy in India had earned him the respect needed to transverse effectively through these networks. Everyone was more than happy to lend him an ear, even on topics the generals and warlords despised.
Bilal had done well for himself so far, but this was a moment of crisis. A meticulously planned mission had gone wrong. After he was compromised in New York, the people who had placed heavy bets on him had reprimanded him. This mission couldn’t have gone wrong at any cost. The infidels had to pay. God’s wrath had to be brought upon the negligent and hopeless people who worked tirelessly against the well-being of Bilal and his community. Unfortunately, the infidels had managed to stay ahead despite the head start Bilal had got them.
Bilal’s lieutenants entered with some more bad news. ‘They’ve caught the first truck and perhaps all three of our men. We can’t connect to any one of them.’
Five years of planning and millions in investments had resulted in an arrest. It was not a temporary setback but a failure with several long-term implications. His sponsors weren’t kind to failure. Further, any evidence linking it to them would be a diplomatic catastrophe. Bilal needed to calm himself. He huffed and puffed quick ones to rest his mind as Russel, an Uzbek recruit, and Shaheen, a Syrian ex-army commando, watched him nervously. Bilal had recruited and trained them personally, and they were his trusted aides, just like the ones before them whom Bilal had to gun down as a punishment for a failure. Bilal ruled by fear. He had a notorious reputation but working under him was still an honor. If one failed his honor, they deserved to die, but if one passed it, they would go places due to his connections.
‘How did the Indians get to know about the truck? Didn’t we disable the disk completely?’
‘We did, Janaab. Our source confirmed it had been completely deleted.’
‘Our source lied to us,’ Bilal said and puffed a few more. ‘Bloody Indians. Bunch of incompetent fools.’ Ever since the Indians had compromised him, the sword was hanging over his head. Then they took away Khalid. Bilal had to activate a hibernating agent long before his due time just to delete the contents of the hard disk. It was a risk reserved for more opportune circumstances, for compromising the mole’s cover could jeopardize the whole operation. Bilal’s mistake had also kept Russel and Shaheen alive so far. Thankfully, no one could attribute the setbacks to them completely, yet.
Russell and Shaheen tried to speak, but Bilal continued, ‘What will I answer to, Al Malik? First, it was the nuisance in New York, then at the border, and now they catch the truck.’
‘If I may say, sir, we still have a hibernating module. By God’s grace, they will be successful and bring down God’s wrath on the Indians,’ Russel said with a trembling voice.
Bilal knew he was scared but right. Al Malik never took chances with his investments, so the backup had been in place long before needed. All they had to do was to wait, because the backup was foolproof. ‘We needn’t worry. Indians have no inkling who’s coming their way. Aaleyah will bring us glory.’
‘Aaleyah is in the field on this, Janaab?’ Shaheen asked, pleasantly surprised.
Bilal nodded.
Shaheen’s confidence was back and so was his smile. Aaleyah was a title given to only the best of the agents. It was earned through great sacrifice and skill. ‘That’s right. It’s Aaleyah’s game now. We need to provide every help we can to Aaleyah. Else, this will be our end.’ Shaheen’s smile shrunk.
‘This will be my end,’ Bilal said slowly. The stakes were very high for him as well. If they failed, the axe could fall on him. The clocks chimed, and the orbs circled over him. Bilal finished his cigar just in time, as his master awaited him. He carefully gathered his thoughts. Still under the influence of the cigar, he was convinced he had a safe way out. He stood from his chair and walked to the basement.
Shaheen and Russel stayed back.
Al Malik operated behind the veil of anonymity, for he was truly serving only the God himself. Public adulation was not what he yearned, so very few knew his true identity.
Bilal had met Al Malik twenty-five years ago. Back then, Abdullah Bahri had been an oil billionaire’s reclusive young son who moved
effortlessly amongst the billionaires of America, royals of the Middle East, and heads of the governments for his business enterprise. No one figured Bahri’s inclinations to connect with the underworld and his tendency to give dole outs to who he called, “the real downtrodden.” To this end, he looted the governments and corporations alike. As per him, nation governments were corrupt on their own—ethically, morally, and religiously by design. These nation’s governments had become a machine for making the rich richer. The downtrodden were used as raw material keep, feeding their production lines. This narrative helped him build a network of underworld entities across the globe. They funded anyone who supported them, be it dictators, military leaders, or ragtag democratic governments. Bahri funded them and derived extreme pleasure from their corruptibility. They were a shame on humanity and had to be eliminated one by one. They didn’t stand true to their own religious identities and rituals and succumbed to the temptations of sex, alcohol, and money. They were all infidels.
On the other hand, Bilal Masoud had been a rising spy twenty-five years ago. He accidentally landed on information that led him to Abdullah’s linkages to fedayeen networks in the Middle East. After understanding the true intentions of his work, Bilal knew Abdullah was a friend to have for the long term. But he was very hard to spot or contact, for he ensured all his meetings were out of public eye. It took Bilal five years to plot his chance meeting with Abdullah at a billionaire’s afterparty in Las Vegas. Bilal made his move and introduced himself to Abdullah. To gain Abdullah’s trust, he shared the information he had landed upon five years ago. Abdullah took kindly that Bilal had sat on the information for five years just to meet him. To test Bilal, Abdullah gave him a tougher task.