by Rahul Badami
Armaan nodded looking at them. It was good to have the team back. He had missed them. It had been difficult to convince them, especially Baldev; but now they were all together. Their target was the National Cyber Security Centre, a little-known facility on the outskirts of Rawalpindi city, which Venera had shown to be the current location of Kabir Majid. It was known to harbour a cyber-team they were now sure were working to decrypt the data stolen from the Aadhaar database. Surely, someone in the building would have the keys to unlock the encryption. It was time to get in and stop the menace before it happened. He looked at his watch. The timer was unstoppable.
0:05:39:58
It was getting too close for comfort, but he hoped he would be able to reach their destination with time to spare.
“All right boys. Let’s go over the plan a final time. Hitesh?”
Hitesh brought forth his tablet. “The cyber attack was masterminded from Rawalpindi. Our job is to find the encryption unlock codes. For that, we have to get into Pakistan. Our plane’s flight plan is from Urumqi to Kabul. This route has been picked because it passes through Pakistan. We will have an eleven-minute window during which the plane would fly over Pakistani airspace before it enters Afghanistan. We will eject as south as possible before we hit the Af-Pak border. It’s night time so we won’t be seen by anyone. This will be a HAHO jump. Once we jump, we will pull the cords after fifteen seconds. We are currently flying at 31,000 feet. The prevailing winds and our altitude will help us glide south and east in the air.”
Hitesh pointed to a map on his tablet. “This is where we will land. This place is isolated for miles around. We will dump the parachutes. Armaan’s contact will be waiting for us there. He will take us to our destination.”
“Any questions, boys?” Armaan asked.
“We are good.” Baldev said.
“Alright, let’s do our checklist.” Armaan zipped up his combat pack after ensuring he had all the equipment he needed. Guns, grenades, knives, handcuffs, chocolate bars, Army uniforms, IDs, local currency, etc. Satisfied, he belted the combat pack to his chest. Then he attached the parachute bag to his back. He did last minute checks and double-checks. He didn’t want to make the slightest mistake.
“We are over Pakistani airspace.” Uday announced. “ETA to drop zone, seven minutes.”
Armaan looked at his team. They were all ready.
“A final word of warning, boys. This is an ill-advised mission with a high probability of failure. If anyone wants to bail out, now is the time. I won’t hold it against you. We can get captured, wounded or killed. Things could go horribly wrong.”
Hitesh said, “It’s nothing compared to what will happen if we fail.”
“I agree.” Roshan said. “The repercussions if we don’t do our job are staggering.”
Baldev said, “I still wish we had informed someone what we are doing. Hopefully, we will survive long enough to tell the tale.”
Armaan nodded. Staying alive would be tricky, but these were his boys, and he was responsible for everyone’s lives. If he hadn’t needed them, he wouldn’t have asked for their help. He would do everything he could to make sure his team weren’t hurt or killed. And he would eliminate anyone that stood in his way. The mission would be accomplished; no matter what.
But was he doing the right thing? The thought nagged at him. As a soldier, he had been trained to follow orders, and complete the mission. The challenge was that he was trying to accomplish the mission by no longer following orders. When Manohar had told him to go to Urumqi, he had hidden the fact that he was already there. Now he was flying out to Pakistan without informing anyone. It was a grave breach of protocol. If the General or Manohar found out, he would be severely castigated for insubordination.
The irony was that he couldn’t tell anyone. Armaan didn’t want to give a chance to the General to contact Kabir Majid and tell him about Armaan’s intentions. Armaan couldn’t afford the risk. He felt torn and angry at the way the situation had unfolded. He previously had great respect for the General. And now, he had nothing but contempt. His blood boiled just at the thought of the General's duplicity. Once this ordeal was over, he would have a long talk with the General at the end of his Glock.
Armaan strapped an oxygen mask over his face. He nodded to his team. They already had their masks on. Armaan walked over to the door and opened it. An icy-cold wind blasted through the cabin and whipped his body like a thousand lashes. The scream of the wind outside pierced through his ears. He shivered against the bitter cold gust. It was better to get used to it now, than on the way down. He glanced down from the open door. The view was pitch-black. He couldn’t even see the clouds. He estimated they were somewhere over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He trusted Uday and knew that he would tell them the exact spot from where they were to make the air drop. Even if he couldn’t see where they were at the moment with no lights to make a determination.
“We are at the drop zone. Go.” The metallic voice over the intercom declared.
“Let’s go, boys. Time’s ticking.” Armaan jumped out of the plane.
And immediately he was buffeted by gale force winds. He flipped in mid-air due to the force of the wind. Everything was going topsy-turvy. He caught a glimpse of the plane zoom ahead and momentarily saw his team jumping out one after another. Then he was spinning again, out of control. His visor had night vision, but still he couldn’t make out where he was going. He was seeing the greenish-white sky one moment, then the greenish-grey of the earth the next moment as he swivelled in mid-air. His heart thudded in his chest with anxiety. He held his arms straight at his side and spread his legs to steady himself in mid-air. The spinning stopped.
Armaan waited fifteen seconds and then pulled the cord. He braced himself for the inevitable jerk. The parachute opened and the straps dug hard into his shoulders and chest and his body stopped its free fall. He winced as the strap yanked his wounded shoulder. The pain shot through his entire right side. He grimaced against the pain and tapped a button on his watch. It displayed a compass. He guided the parachute south-east. He glanced behind him. His team had their parachutes open and were following his lead. Their destination was a wide plateau atop a mountain a few kilometres ahead. He couldn’t see it yet; his altitude was still quite high and far below him were the snowy mountains of the Himalayas. The wind was doing a good job of speeding his parachute through the mountains without losing much altitude.
There it is.
Armaan spotted the flat expanse of the plateau near the end of the mountain range. Steep cliffs bordered the plateau and fell directly to a valley below. There were a few tall peaks around the plateau that made the plateau look like an inverted stool. Armaan knew there was a winding road on the valley below the plateau where his contact would be waiting for him. Now, he just had to fly down and land on the plateau.
He approached a narrow gap between two snowy peaks that overshadowed the plateau. He directed his parachute between them careful not to touch either peak. Then he got his first glimpse of the snow-covered plateau. His jaw dropped at the sight. A brick of horror crashed in his stomach.
He had only seen the top-down satellite images of the landing zone. He hadn’t accounted for parallax. From his angle as he squeezed his parachute between the two peaks, he realized the plateau he had selected to land upon was at a far lower altitude below the peaks. His parachute was at least a thousand metres above the landing zone. And he was moving fast.
He was at a risk of overflying the plateau.
And would smash his parachute in the rocky-faced cliff opposite the plateau.
Armaan looked around. He was rapidly passing over the LZ. A quarter of the plateau was already behind him. The plateau ended at a cliff that overlooked a gorge. Beyond the gorge stood the tall rocky cliff of a wide mountain range. The mountain opposite loomed large in front of him. He was soon going to overfly the plateau. He tugged at the parachute to slow it down, but the winds still carried the parachute forward. He had to do somethin
g fast. Half of the LZ had already passed below. Seconds mattered. And then, he did the only thing he could.
He cut off his primaries.
The parachute no longer bearing his weight fluttered away, blown by a gust of wind.
And he fell like a rock.
The cold wind whipped into his face as he accelerated downwards. He saw the ground rushing fast at him. He was near the edge of the plateau where it dropped off into a cliff far below to the valley. He had to time this perfectly.
Now!
He pulled his secondary and a smaller parachute bobbed out. But the ground was still zooming fast towards him. He knew it took a moment for the parachute to unfurl. Come on! He urged. And then, the parachute fully opened up. The jerk of gravity rippled through him a second time as the momentum of his falling body was arrested in mid-air. But it hadn’t slowed him enough. The downward momentum of his weight was still overriding the parachute’s buoyancy. He was dropping faster than normal. Worse, the parachute was going to fly dangerously close to the edge of the cliff.
Armaan braced his legs as the snow-layered plateau rose up towards him. His feet smashed the ground hard and he sprinted a couple of steps to transfer the kinetic energy through his body. But the momentum was too strong and he stumbled and fell on his face only a few metres away from the edge of the cliff.
The parachute didn’t stop. The wind whipped it threatening to carry it over the cliff. Armaan found himself pulled and dragged by the billowing parachute right towards the edge. Armaan wiped the snow from his face and saw the cliff’s edge barely a metre away. Beyond that, he could see the yawning gap of the gorge far below. He had to act fast. If he fell from there, even his bones would not be found. He scrambled to his knees and cut off his secondaries. The parachute fell away.
Armaan turned and watched his team. They had witnessed his experience. They quickly cut off their primaries and engaged their secondaries and landed in the middle of the plateau.
Armaan sighed in relief. The hard part was done.
CHAPTER 31
“We’ll reach the destination in a little over two hours.” The Navigator said.
Captain Khurana looked at the screen showing the surface and sub-surface contacts. The screen was littered with a dozen contacts. He had to be very sure about this. Their submarine, the INS Khanderi was a mere fifty kilometres from the narrowest point through the Straits of Malacca, the Singapore Straits. Their destination.
They couldn’t risk exposure. The mission required stealth and precision.
Khurana pulled out the piece of paper that had the Captain's Only message on it. The order still seemed unreal. He was tasked to block the narrow Strait by torpedoing cargo ships and supertankers. This close to Singapore, anti-piracy patrol boats roamed the seas above, always alert to any situation.
That wasn’t his only problem. He had to look out for hostile submarines too. China had over sixty submarines. And at any given point of time, he could surmise that there were a few passing through the Straits of Malacca.
“Switch to the seabed sonar analyzer.” Khurana ordered.
The submarine’s sonar allowed them to track contacts over a wide range. But the problem in the narrow Straits was of too much disturbance in the closed space. Their sonar detection range reduced to only a few kilometres here. It would be hard to detect a silent enemy sub. But there was a solution.
A few years ago, the Navy had installed passive sonar detectors on the seabed of the Straits. The sonar detectors were reasonably efficient at listening to the ambient sounds. They could identify any contact underwater or on water by its unique acoustic signature. The analyzer would eliminate biological contacts like sharks and would be able to identify ships and submarines down to vessel type. The sonar detectors detected the noise made by propellers and could roughly approximate the location of the contact. The submarine’s own sonar had a very short range allowing them to see only in their vicinity. But the information from the seabed sonar analyzer allowed them to view any portion of the Straits of Malacca for hostile contacts.
“Yes, Captain,” the Sonar technician tapped a few keys.
The screen in front of Khurana zoomed out showing a wider area around the submarine. The screen was peppered with hundreds of dots indicating multiple contacts. The colour of each dot was different based on whether the ship was a merchant ship, naval ship, smaller boat or submarine.
“Filter out all the commercial vessels.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The screen refreshed now showing only a few contacts. Khurana could see one submarine around twenty kilometres away. It was going eastwards into the Straits right behind them. In fact, it seemed to be following them.
“Is that a Chinese sub?” Khurana asked, apprehensive that his guess would turn out right.
The Sonar ran a few commands and looked at him, “Yes. The acoustic signature corresponds to a Shang-class submarine.”
Khurana frowned. It could just be a coincidence. There was no way the submarine could have detected them from so far away. But he had to make sure they stayed out of its way.
“Chart a course to zero-four-zero.” He ordered.
“Yes, Captain.” The navigator replied promptly.
The north-easterly course in the direction of the Malaysian coast would ensure the Chinese submarine would pass them without detecting them. He would just have to ensure they went at half-speed or less so that the acoustics of his submarine were at a minimum.
It would mean that there could be a delay in reaching their destination but the trade-off was a no-brainer. There would be no way he could execute the mission with a Chinese sub on his tail. The reason they were given this mission was clear. Only a submarine could get in and out of the narrow straits and evade detection. He calculated the distance to the destination in his mind. Forty-five kilometres.
“Captain!” The Sonar’s voice was sharp.
“Yes?” Khurana wondered what had happened. The man seemed agitated.
“The Chinese sub has also changed its direction. Towards us!”
Khurana’s jaw dropped. How could it be?
And then it struck him. Even the Chinese must have installed sensors on the seabed.
They were locked on by the enemy.
“We must be right over one of their seabed sonar detectors. That’s why they found out the change in the direction so quickly.” Captain Khurana said.
The Chinese submarine had changed direction almost immediately after they had turned north. Khurana had no doubt the Chinese had seabed detectors that had identified their sub. Now the question was how to avoid the Chinese ship.
The seabed detectors were good at identifying the who. But they weren’t so good at identifying the where. The location capabilities decreased drastically the farther away they were from a seabed detector. An idea struck Khurana.
“Chart course back to one-three-zero.” He ordered.
It meant that they would now continue traversing along their previous course. Whoever was trailing them would assume that there was an anomaly in the tracking. And they would continue tracking them down the Straits just as before.
So far, the Chinese sub had covertly tracked them smug in the knowledge they hadn’t been detected. Now, Khurana knew the Chinese sub was tracking them, but the Chinese weren’t aware the Indians knew. It was an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse and Khurana knew he had to come up trumps.
“Captain, the Shang sub has changed course too.”
“Good. Keep track of them and let me know if they stay back or gain upon us.”
There was no way the Chinese would know what they were doing here. He guessed the Chinese would think that their sub would cross the Strait and reconnoitre the South China Sea. And the Shang sub would stay at a reasonable distance to observe them. But the moment they stopped near the Singapore straits, the Chinese would know something was amiss. The place was too narrow and shallow to escape from a pursuing sub.
“The Shang sub is keeping a f
ixed distance from us, Captain.” The Sonar reported.
Khurana looked at the screen that showed the seabed detector feed. The contact signal was getting faint. It meant the Chinese sub was far from their seabed detectors. He hoped his submarine was also far enough from the Chinese detectors. He would give it another five to ten minutes. It was time for a disappearing act. He had to manoeuvre this very precisely. But Khurana was a veteran captain. He had executed these kinds of manoeuvres countless times in Navy exercises as well as in hot situations like these.
“Initiate stealth mode in eight minutes.”
Stealth mode meant the ship would go into complete lockdown. All activity on the sub would stop. The engine, propeller, and ballast tanks would turn off so that no acoustic sounds could be detected by the enemy. The sub would simply disappear off the screen of the Chinese sub. But there was one final command he would give that would make it impossible for the Chinese to trace him.
“Pass the word throughout the sub that we are about to go in stealth mode. I want no one to move a muscle till I tell them to.”
Khurana watched the screen tracking the Shang-class submarine behind him. So far, it had made no changes in its direction or speed content to trail the INS Khanderi from a safe distance. He unblinkingly watched the submarine as the minutes counted down. The sub didn’t change course or distance. It was still tracking them.
But that would soon change.
“Capt, executing stealth mode in thirty seconds,” the XO told him.
Khurana nodded. “Navigator, be prepared to chart a course to two-two-zero in thirty seconds.”
The Navigator acknowledged. Khurana looked at the screen again. South of their position was the island of Sumatra. He stared at the screen for a few seconds. He trusted his team. They knew what needed to be done and when the time came, they would execute their orders with precision. The thirty seconds passed and he looked up at the XO focused on his work.
“Initiating stealth mode,” the XO said.