Line Of Control (2001)

by Clancy, Tom - Op Center 08

  Behind him, in the basement of the NCMC, there were careers at risk. Out here men and women were about to buy their way into India using their lives as collateral.

  The day that became routine was the day Rodgers vowed to hang up his uniform.

  Stepping briskly, proudly, Rodgers made his way toward the shadow of the plane and the sharp, bright salutes of his waiting team.

  FOUR

  Kargil, Kashmir Wednesday, 4:11 P.M.

  Apu Kumar sat on the old, puffy featherbed that had once been used by his grandmother. He looked out at the four bare walls of his small bedroom. They had not always been bare. There used to be framed pictures of his late wife and his daughter and son-in-law, and a mirror. But their houseguests had removed them. Glass could be used as a weapon.

  The bed was tucked in a corner of the room he shared with his twenty-two-year-old granddaughter Nanda. At the moment the young woman was outside cleaning the chicken coop. When she was finished she would shower in the small stall behind the house and then return to the room. She would unfold a small card table, set it beside her grandfather's bed, and pull over a wooden chair. The bedroom door would be kept ajar and their vegetarian meals would be served to them in small wooden bowls. Then Apu and Nanda would listen to the radio, play chess, read, meditate, and pray. They would pray for enlightenment and also for Nanda's mother and father, both of whom died in the roaring hell that was unleashed on Kargil just four years ago. Sometime around ten or eleven they would go to sleep. With any luck Apu would make it through the night. Sudden noises tended to wake him instantly and bring back the planes and the weeks of endless bombing raids.

  In the morning, the Kargil-born farmer was permitted to go out and look after his chickens. One of his houseguests always went with him to make sure he did not try to leave. Apu's truck was still parked beside the coop. Even though the Pakistanis had taken the keys Apu could easily splice the ignition wires and drive off. Of course, he would only do that if his granddaughter Nanda were with him. Which was why they were never allowed outside together.

  The slender, silver-haired man would feed the chickens, talk to them, and look after any eggs they had left. Then he was taken back to the room. In the late afternoon it was Nanda's turn to go out to do the more difficult work of cleaning the coop. Though Apu could do it, their guests insisted that Nanda go. It helped keep the headstrong young woman tired. When they had enough eggs to bring to market one of their houseguests always went to Srinagar for them. And they always gave the money to Apu. The Pakistanis were not here for financial profit. Though Apu tried hard to eavesdrop, he was still not sure why they were here. They did not do much except talk.

  For five months, ever since the five Pakistanis arrived in the middle of the night, the physical life of the sixty-three-year-old farmer had been defined by this routine. Though daily visits to the coop had been the extent of the Kumars' physical life, Apu had retained his wits, his spirit, and most importantly his dignity. He had done that by devoting himself to reading and meditating on his deep Hindu beliefs. He did that for himself and also to show his Islamic captors that his faith and resolve were as powerful as theirs.

  Apu reached behind him. He raised his pillow a little higher. It was lumpy with age, having been through three generations of Kumars. A smile played on his grizzled, leathery face. The down had suffered enough. Perhaps the duck would find contentment in another incarnation.

  The smile faded quickly. That was sacrilegious. It was something his granddaughter might have said. He should know better. Maybe the months of incarceration were affecting his reason. He looked around.

  Nanda slept in a sleeping bag on the other side of the room. There were times when Apu would wake in the small hours of the night and hear her breathing. He enjoyed that. If nothing else their captivity had allowed them to get to know each other better. Even though her nontraditional religious views bothered him, he was glad to know what they were. One could not fight the enemy without knowing his face.

  There were two other rooms in the small stone house. The door to the living room was open. The Pakistanis stayed there during the day. At night they moved to the room that used to be his. All save the one who took the watch. One of them was always awake. They had to be. Not just to make sure Apu and Nanda stayed inside the house but to watch for anyone who might approach the farm. Though no one lived close by, Indian army patrols occasionally came through these low-lying hills. When this group of Pakistanis first arrived they had promised their unwilling hosts that they would stay no more than six months. And if Apu and Nanda did what they were told they would not be harmed after that time. Apu was not sure he believed the four men and one woman but he was willing to give them the time they asked for. After all, what choice did he have?

  Though he would not mind if the authorities came and shot them dead. As long as he did not cause harm to befall them it would not affect his future in this life or the next. The shame of it was that as people they would all get along fine. But politics and religion had stirred things up. That was the story of this entire region from the time Apu had been a young man. Neighbors were neighbors until outsiders turned them into enemies.

  There was one small window in the room but the shutters had been nailed closed. The only light came from a small lamp on the nightstand. The glow illuminated a small, old, leatherbound copy of the Upanishads. Those were the mystical writings of Apu's faith. The Upanishads comprised the final section of the Veda, the Hindu holy scriptures.

  Apu turned his mind back to the text. He was reading the earliest of the Upanishads, the sections of verse that addressed the doctrine of Brahman, the universal self or soul. The goal of Hinduism, like other Eastern religions, was nirvana, the eventual freedom from the cycle of rebirth and the pain brought about by one's own actions or karma. This could only be accomplished by following spiritual yoga, which led to a union with God. Apu was determined to pursue that goal, though actually achieving it was a dream. He was also devoted to the study of the post-Vedic Puranas, which address the structure of life in an individual and social sense and also take the reader through the repeating cycle of creation and end of the universe as represented by the divine trinity of Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer. He had had a hard life, as befitted his farmer caste. But he had to believe that it was just a blink in the cosmic cycle. Otherwise, there would be nothing to work toward, no ultimate end.

  Nanda was different. She put more trust in the poet-saints who wrote religious songs and epics. The literature was essential to Hinduism but she responded to the outpourings of men more than the doctrines they were describing. Nanda had always liked heroes who spoke their minds. That had been her mother's nature as well. To say what she believed. To fight. To resist.

  That was what had helped cost Apu his daughter and son-in-law. When the Pakistani invaders first arrived, the two sheep farmers made Molotov cocktails for the hastily organized resistance fighters. After two weeks both Savitri and her husband, Manjay, were caught transporting them inside bags of wool. The bags were ignited with the couple bound in the cab of their truck. The next day Apu and Nanda found their bodies in the blackened ruins. To Nanda they were martyrs. To Apu they had been reckless. To Apu's ailing wife, Pad, they were the final blow to a frail body. She died eight days later.

  "All human errors are impatience," it was written. If only Savitri and Manjay had asked, Apu would have told them to wait. Time brings balance.

  The Indian military eventually pushed most of the Pakistanis out. There was no reason for his children to have acted violently. They hurt others and added that burden to their spiritual inventory.

  Tears began to fill his eyes. It was all such a waste. Though, strangely, it made him cherish Nanda all the more. She was the only part of his wife and daughter that he had left.

  There was a sudden commotion in the other room. Apu shut his book and set it on the rickety night table. He slid into his slippers and quietly crossed the wooden
floor. He peeked out the door. Four of the Pakistanis were all there. The houseguests were working on something, arms and heads moving over something between them. The backs of three of the men were toward him so he could not see what they were doing. Only the woman was facing him. She was a slender, very swarthy woman with short black hair and a frowning, intense look. The others called her Sharab but Apu did not know if that was her real name.

  Sharab waved a gun at him. "Go back!" she ordered.

  Apu lingered a moment longer. His houseguests had never done anything like this before that he was aware of. They came and went and they talked. Occasionally they looked at maps. Something was happening. He edged forward a little more. There appeared to be a burlap sack on the floor between the men. One of the men was crouching beside it. He appeared to be working on something inside the bag.

  "Get back!" the woman yelled again.

  There was a tension in her voice that Apu had never heard before. He did as he was told.

  Apu kicked off his slippers and lay back on the bed. As he did he heard the front door open. It was Nanda and presumably the fifth Pakistani. He could tell by how loud the door creaked. The young woman always opened it boldly, as if she wanted to hit whoever might be standing behind it.

  Apu smiled. He always looked forward to seeing his granddaughter. Even if she had only been gone an hour or two.

  This time, however, things were different. He did not hear her footsteps. Instead he heard quiet talking. Apu held his breath and tried to hear what was being said. But his heart was beating louder than usual and he could not hear. Quietly, he raised himself from the bed and eased toward the door. He leaned closer, careful not to show himself. He listened.

  He heard nothing.

  Slowly, he nudged the door open. One of the men was there, looking out the window. He was holding his silver handgun and smoking a cigarette. The Pakistani glanced back at Apu.

  "Go back in the room," the man said quietly.

  "Where is my granddaughter?" Apu asked. He did not like this. Something felt wrong.

  "She left with the others," he said.

  "Left? Where did they go?" Apu asked.

  The man looked back out the window. He drew on his cigarette. "They went to market," he replied.

  FIVE

  Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 7:00 A.M.

  Colonel Brett August had lost track of the number of times he had ridden in the shaking, cavernous bellies of C-130 transports. But he remembered this much. He had hated each and every one of those damn flights.

  This particular Hercules was one of the newer variants, a long-range SAR HC-130H designed for fuel economy. Colonel August had ridden in a number of customized C-130s: the C-130D with ski landing gear during an Arctic training mission, a KC-130R tanker, a C-130F assault transport, and many others. The amazing thing was that not one of those versions offered a comfortable ride. The fuselages were stripped down to lighten the aircraft and give it as much range as possible. That meant there was very little insulation against cold and noise. And the four powerful turboprops were deafening as they fought to lift the massive plane skyward. The vibrations were so strong that the chain around Colonel August's dog tags actually did a dance around his neck.

  Comfort was also not in the original design-lexicon. The seats in this particular aircraft were cushioned plastic buckets arranged side by side along the fuselage walls. They had high, thick padded backrests and headrests that were supposed to keep the passenger warm. Theoretically that would work if the air itself did not become so cold. There were no armrests and very little space between the chairs. Duffel bags were stowed under the seats. The guys who designed these were probably like the guys who drew up battle plans. It all looked great on paper.

  Not that Colonel August was complaining. He remembered a story his father once told him about his own military days. Sid August was part of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, which was trapped by the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division shortly before the Battle of the Bulge. The men had only K rations to eat. Invented by an apparently sadistic physiologist named Ancel Benjamin Keys, K rations were flat-tasting compressed biscuits, a sliver of dry meat, sugar cubes, bouillon powder, chewing gum, and compressed chocolate. The chocolate was code-named D ration. Why chocolate needed a code name no one knew but the men suspected the starving Germans would fight harder knowing there was more than just dry meat and cardboardlike biscuits in the enemy foxholes.

  The airmen ate the K rations sparingly while lying low. After a few days the air force managed to night-drop several cases of C rations and extra munitions to the soldiers. The C rations contained dinner portions of meat and potatoes. But introducing real food to their systems made the men so sick and flatulent that the noise and smell actually gave their position away to a German patrol. The airmen were forced to fight their way out. The story always made Brett August uneasy with the idea of having too much comfort available to him.

  Mike Rodgers was sitting to August's right. August smiled to himself. Rodgers had a big, high-arched nose that had been broken four times playing college basketball. Mike Rodgers did not know any way but forward. They had just taken off and that nose was already hunkered into a briefcase thick with folders. August had flown with Rodgers long enough to know the drill. As soon as the pilot gave the okay to use electronic devices, Rodgers would pull some of those folders out. He would put them on his left knee and place his laptop on the right knee. Then, as Rodgers finished with material, he would pass it to August. About halfway over the Atlantic they would begin to talk openly and candidly about what they had read. That was how they had discussed everything for the forty-plus years they had known each other. More often than not it was unnecessary to say anything. Rodgers and August each knew what the other man was thinking.

  Brett August and Mike Rodgers were childhood friends. The boys met in Hartford, Connecticut, when they were six. In addition to sharing a love of baseball they shared a passion for airplanes. On weekends, the two young boys used to bicycle five miles along Route 22 out to Bradley Field. They would just sit on an empty field and watch the planes take off and land. They were old enough to remember when prop planes gave way to the jet planes. Both of them used to go wild whenever one of the new 707s roared overhead. Prop planes had a familiar, reassuring hum. But those new babies--they made a boy's insides rattle. August and Rodgers loved it.

  After school each day the boys would do their homework together, each taking alternate math problems or science questions so they could finish faster. Then they would build plastic model airplanes, boats, tanks, and jeeps, taking care that the paint jobs were accurate and that the decals were put in exactly the right place.

  When it came time to enlist--kids like the two of them didn't wait to be drafted--Rodgers joined the army and August went into the air force. Both men ended up in Vietnam. While Rodgers did his tours of duty on the ground, August flew reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam. On one flight northwest of Hue, August's plane was shot down. He mourned the loss of his aircraft, which had almost become a part of him. The flier was taken prisoner and spent over a year in a POW camp, finally escaping with another prisoner in 1970. August spent three months making his way to the south before finally being discovered by a patrol of U.S. Marines.

  Except for the loss of his aircraft, August was not embittered by his experiences. To the contrary. He was heartened by the courage he had witnessed among American POWs. He returned to the United States, regained his strength, and went back to Vietnam to organize a spy network searching for other American POWs. August remained undercover for a year after the U.S. withdrawal. After he had exhausted his contacts trying to find MIAs, August was shifted to the Philippines. He spent three years training pilots to help President Ferdinand Marcos battle Moro secessionists. After that August worked briefly as an air force liaison with NASA, helping to organize security for spy satellite missions. But there was no flying involved and being with the astronauts now was different from being with the m
onkey Ham when he was a kid. It was frustrating working with men and women who were actually getting to travel in space. So August moved over to the air force's Special Operations Command, where he stayed ten years before joining Striker.

  Rodgers and August had seen one another only intermittently in the post-Vietnam years. But each time they talked or got together it was as if no time had passed. When Rodgers first signed on at Op-Center he had asked August to come aboard as the leader of the Striker force. August turned him down twice. He did not want to spend most of his time on a base, working with young specialists. Lt. Colonel Charlie Squires got the post. After Squires was killed on a mission in Russia, Rodgers came to his old friend again. Two years had passed since Rodgers had first made the offer. But things were different now. The team was shaken by the loss and he needed a commander who could get them back up to speed as fast as possible. This time August could not refuse. It was not only friendship. There were national security issues at stake.