by Duane Evans
“Let Allah decide his fate,” one of the other team members said.
“Allah decides all our fates,” Sheik Osman replied impatiently.
“Right. So give him to the river and let Allah decide.”
Sheik Osman thought for a moment. “Alright then, take him out and throw him overboard.”
“What about his hands?”
“Leave them tied and leave the gag in. I don’t want him shouting. And may Allah have mercy on him. Now, do as I said; we have things to do.”
Kicking and thrashing, Omar was lifted up off the floor like a heavy sack of grain and heaved overboard into the dark river, his body making a loud splash plainly heard by all in the boat.
“Alright,” Sheik Osman said. “Forget him. We are about to do what we came here to do. Remember your training. We cannot make any mistakes.”
As one of the team members continued to pilot the boat, the others began collecting the rucksacks of equipment into one area. One by one, and in the order taught them, they removed the component parts of the device from their rucksacks. Now, as the boat approached Farakka Barrage some 10 kilometers in the distance, it was time to put their package back together again and run a final systems check.
The two halves of the highly-machined steel device were so black it was difficult for the men to see them in the dark, even with the parts right in front of them. They took two dark rain ponchos from one of the rucksacks and snapped them together, then used the joined ponchos to cover themselves in order to use a red-filter flashlight without fear of it being seen while they assembled the device.
The assembly procedure was straightforward. The base half was stood upright and the top half was set on top. The most difficult part was to make sure the male and female parts of the four internal locks were perfectly aligned before the full weight of the top half was allowed to rest on the bottom half. Not done correctly, the locks could be damaged, and the device would not function. In a training situation, the special barrier would also be placed between the two halves to protect the locks, but this was not a training situation—this was real, and the barrier was tossed overboard.
When the two hemispheres were fitted together the device was laid on its side, and the waterproofed electronic control panel was snapped into the recessed area under the base. Once it was determined that the connection between the control panel and the base was good, the team ran a systems check to make sure all electronic components would function and the device would detonate according to the programmed instructions.
Finally, the internal locks were electronically activated, which insured a precise seal was established between the two hemispheres. Ten minutes after the team started, the device was fully assembled.
All that remained was to set the desired detonation time and to initiate the system using a six-digit code followed by the single push of a button. Detonation would then occur at the programmed time.
Sheik Osman oversaw every step of the assembly, and he was satisfied that all was ready. Looking downstream, he could see a glow of lights stretching across the river. His target was now in sight. There was only one thing left to do before putting the device into operation.
Digging through his pack, Osman found the satellite phone. Although he could see the dam, it was still several kilometers away, so he decided to wait to make the call to make sure no problems occurred during the final approach to the dam. He put the phone into the cargo pocket of his pants and turned to the team. The men watched him closely, waiting for his orders.
“Sheik Osman, what should we do now,” one of them asked.
“Pray,” Osman answered.
82
Rashid, did you hear that? HV/30 asked, his eyes straining as they searched the black river.
“I heard something,” Tarek said. “Quick, cut the engine.”
The outboard motor fell silent. The sound of the LT team’s diesel motor could be heard up ahead in the darkness. But there was another sound as well. Something between the two boats was splashing around in the water. They drifted with the current for a few seconds. Tarek thought he saw movement on the surface of the water only a few meters ahead. HV/30 saw it too.
“It’s one of them!” HV/30 said, pulling the revolver out from his waist band. “I’ll kill him myself,” he said as he edged toward the side of the boat.
“Mahmoud, if you shoot it will alert the rest of them. Put the gun down and get the motor going again. Let’s see what this is all about.”
“Let’s just leave him,” HV/30 said. “None of them deserve our help.”
“We can’t. He may have some useful information,” Tarek said.
“Why should he tell us anything? They are his friends.”
“Really? Then why haven’t they tried to fish him out of the river?”
“Maybe you’re right,” Mahmoud said. “Can you see him?”
“No, but I can hear him. He’s still thrashing about.”
Suddenly Mahmoud spotted the man. “There he is, off to our right.”
“Quick, bring the boat around,” Tarek said. “Let’s try to pick him up.”
HV/30 started the motor and maneuvered the boat, bringing it up alongside the man who disappeared under the water for a few seconds, and then resurfaced. Tarek reached down and grabbed him by his arms and with HV/30’s assistance, dragged the man onboard. It appeared he might already be dead.
“Which one is he?” Tarek asked.
“May Allah have mercy!” HV/30 said. “This is the son of the boat owner.”
Tarek immediately yanked the gag out of his mouth. The young man began to cough and spit up water.
“Look! They tied him up. Those miserable beasts!” Mahmoud said in disgust.
“I’ll untie him, Mahmoud. You get back to driving the boat and get us closer to their boat. I want to see what this boy can tell us.”
“Alright, Rashid, but you better do it fast.”
Tarek instantly looked up and saw what had prompted the comment. It was Farakka Barrage, still some distance away, but approaching fast.
83
The portable lighting set up around the shamiana did a good job of illuminating the scene for the ceremony. With Advani on one side and the ever-persistent Governor Ghule on the other, Sahar watched the other guests as they arrived and took their seats. This was the first time all the invitees had been assembled in one spot during the trip and she was impressed by how large a gathering they made.
“Father, isn’t this exciting!” she said. “So many people have come and all of them here to recognize you for this wonderful achievement. Oh, I am so proud of you. If only mother were here to see it.”
Advani smiled lovingly at his daughter, whom he loved so dearly, and squeezed her hand. Leaning close, he said, “It is you who are wonderful. And it is you that I wish your mother were here to see. She would be so proud of what her daughter has become.”
Sahar reached her arm around her father and gave him a gentle hug.
Just then, the chief administrator of Farakka Barrage, Engineer Seyed Kamal, stepped onto the speaker’s platform and asked for everyone to take their seats as the ceremony was about to begin. Sahar felt a tinge of sadness that Tarek was not going to witness the honoring of her father. As she thought of him, she wondered where he was and what he was doing.
Had someone told her the answers to her questions, she would not have believed them.
84
Sitting well forward in the bow, the occasional splash of water hitting his face as the low-riding sand boat cut through the river, Sheik Osman no longer needed his binoculars to see the details of Farakka Barrage some 800 meters in the distance.
He was surprised at how well lit the dam was, and he realized the lighting that ran along the length of the structure would make the boat visible once it came to within a 100 meters.
Previous reconnaissance with his binoculars had revealed no hint of a security force on the dam, and he believed that the security personnel would be d
eployed at the site of the commemoration ceremony, about a thousand meters from where the device would be dropped overboard.
The lights on the dam made it easy to see the target destination, a five-meter “L” shaped, recessed area built into the dam about 300 meters from the central gate. The spot was used for docking maintenance boats when work was needed on the lower aprons of the dam. It was an ideal spot to drop the device as the recessed area formed a natural eddy in the flow of the river that would protect the device from the otherwise swift current.
Sheik Osman estimated that the boat would reach its target in five minutes. Making his way back to the center of the boat, he signaled for the helmsman to cut speed and hold steady in the current.
Seeing the assembled device, Sheik Osman was hit with the realization that the time had come for him to put it into action and, in so doing, play a dramatic part in the ascendance of Islam as a force to be reckoned with in the modern world.
It was time to make the call. To steady himself, he sat down on the floor of the boat and reached into his cargo-pants pocket for his satellite phone. He entered the 10-digit telephone number and waited for the call to go through.
The phone was answered almost immediately. He recognized the familiar voice of Abu Shafik who was sitting in a safe-house in Islamabad. Across the table from him sat Ambassador Salim, his prayer beads in hand.
“Hello,” Abu Shafik said.
“This is Samad. Is Muhammad there?” Osman asked.
“One moment.” Abu Shafik looked at Ambassador Salim.
Salim’s eyes met Abu Shafik’s. For a moment neither man moved. Salim then slowly nodded.
Abu Shafik spoke into the phone. “Muhammad is at a birthday party. Can you call tomorrow?”
“Yes. I will call him tomorrow. Please wish him well and tell him I am well.”
“I will tell him. Khoda hafez.”
Osman turned off the satellite phone and put it back into his pack. Standing up in the boat he looked at the men who crowded around him, expectant expressions on their faces.
“Allah akbar! The mission is approved.”
* * * * *
The detonation timing was critical, as it would determine how much time the team would have to get away from the area. During the training in Pakistan, Sheik Osman was told that any structures within a 1,000 meter radius of the explosion would be totally destroyed. Even beyond this distance, tons of debris would be propelled into the air out to a radius of 1,500 meters.
Sheik Osman glanced across the river to the site of the commemoration ceremony. It would be decimated, if not by the initial shock wave, then by the rain of cement that would follow. Farakka Barrage was soon to become a disaster zone.
It only took a few seconds for Osman to make his decision. He would set the device to go off in 30 minutes, allowing the team enough time to get out of harm’s way but still be close enough to witness the event. Sheik Osman looked at his watch, calculating that the detonation would occur two minutes before 8:00 p.m.
A feeling of exhilaration ran through him. He had just decided the exact time that the world would be changed forever.
85
The infrared images of the boats plying the Ganges appeared light gray on the otherwise black river. The locations, sizes, and the speeds of those images varied, but apart from that, there was little to distinguish one boat from the other—with the exception that boats with the larger motors appeared whiter in color due to the increased heat signature they produced.
When the Transformer’s sophisticated electro-optics and infrared sensors were employed against a selected boat, all was laid bare. Before that happened, there was a necessary process of elimination to be sorted through and that was taking time, too much time. Having watched the same scenes for almost an hour, both the pilot and co-pilot, remotely flying the Transformer from their grounded cockpit, were growing weary of the monotony.
But it wasn’t only the two pilots who were watching the scene. Thanks to satellite communications, many other spectators scattered around the globe were watching it as well. Staff members at the US Pacific Command in Honolulu, Hawaii, the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, the Ops Center at the Pentagon, and the Counterterrorist Watch Center at CIA Headquarters in Virginia, which had overall responsibility for the operation, were all seeing the same scene as the two men in their ground-based trailer in the desert. Still, it was the pilot and co-pilot who were calling the shots on the search.
For the moment, however, there were no shots to call.
“If we don’t get a match soon, we’ll have the best seats in the house to witness whatever is going to happen,” the co-pilot said mostly to himself.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth, when an audible alert began to beep. Both pilots immediately switched their views from the flat screen mounted on the wall to the virtual heads-up displays directly in front of them.
The V-HUDs showed the same images projected on the flat screen, but the area covered was reduced. They also displayed an array of digital data fields showing, among other things, the speed, direction, position, and altitude of Transformer. Also displayed on the right side margin was a stationary red electronic box, called the Electronic Sighting Mechanism, or ESM.
Within three seconds of the audible alert, the ESM automatically tracked across the screen and framed one of the gray images, a 10-digit geographic coordinate immediately popping up on the screen to indicate the boat’s precise location. A second set of digits underneath the geo-coords displayed the boat’s bearing and speed. A quick check of the magnified IR images indicated there were six men onboard the boat.
Switching to his external comms, the pilot announced, “We have a match on the target profile. The ESM is engaged and locked on. Target is stationary in the river 800 meters west of the dam. Request permission to execute on target.”
“Roger. You are green to execute. Repeat. You are green to execute,” came the response from the other side of the country.
As the pilot maneuvered Transformer to assume an attack profile, Sheik Osman knelt down in the boat next to the device and positioned himself where, with the assistance of a small red-filtered flashlight, he had a clear view of the control panel. Steadying himself from the movement of the boat, he carefully punched in the detonation time. A flashing red prompt indicated that the time should be re-entered for validation. Osman punched in the time again, and a green light appeared.
Half a world away, the pilot established Transformer in the proper position and armed its single missile.
“Base, Base, this is Control One,” squawked the radio speaker.
“Go Control One,” the pilot replied.
“Abort. Repeat. Abort. You are no longer green. Repeat. You are no longer green. Mission is cancelled.”
86
It had been almost half an hour since Tarek had spoken with General Ali when his sat phone rang.
“Yes,” Tarek answered.
“We have a problem,” Ali said. “The Americans are calling off the strike.”
“What!” Tarek said in disbelief. “Why?”
“Someone in the American government doesn’t believe our information about the team, and the ambassador in New Delhi balked at the plan. He said it would violate Indian air space and create a diplomatic nightmare for the US The Secretary of State is backing him up.”
“Idiots! Do they know what the consequences of this could be?” Tarek asked.
“My agency contact is working the problem and is trying to have the decision reconsidered, but that could take hours,” Ali replied.
“We don’t have hours, General. The team is only a few minutes from the dam. They must be stopped now.”
“I agree, but how?” Ali asked.
“Well, we have two pistols. We’ll have to work with that.”
HV/30, who had been listening to Tarek’s side of the conversation, reached into his back pack. “We also have this,” he said as he pulled out the pilfered hand grenade.
Tarek’s eyes lit up. Smiling at HV/30, Tarek said, “General, our arsenal has just been upgraded. My partner has brought along a grenade, and a white phosphorus one at that. This thing will literally set their world on fire.”
“Then do it, Tarek. Take them out.”
87
We will only get one shot at this, Tarek said to HV/30. “I want you to bring us up slowly behind the other boat. Once we are as close as we can safely be without being discovered, I will get in the water. At my signal, I want you to gun the engine and blast past them into the night as fast as you can make this boat go.”
“Rashid, what about you? You will be like a duck in the water,” HV/30 said.
“Maybe, but you will create a diversion. While their attention is directed toward you, I will swim up behind the boat and drop in the grenade. Then I’ll get as far away as I can before it detonates,” Tarek said.
“But then what? How will I find you?”
“It should be easy to spot the remains of the boat, so just come back to the area and I will call for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Brother, I understand.”
“Now make sure you and Omar stay as low in the boat as possible. They may open up on you.”
“Alright. We’ll keep down,” HV/30 said. He leaned forward and quickly embraced Tarek. “Brother, we’ve come a long way together. Keep yourself safe. I want Soriya to one day know the man that took revenge for her honor’s sake. If I cannot do this myself, than there is no one else I would rather have kill Sheik Osman than you.”
Tarek smiled. “Then let’s get on with it.”
HV/30 kept the outboard motor running at just above idle speed and slowly moved in the direction of the LT boat, remaining directly behind it. Tarek slipped off his shoes and shirt and repositioned himself at the front of the boat. He placed the grenade in a netted pocket on his pack and put his arms through its shoulder straps, cinching them up tightly. The muffled sound of the LT team’s diesel engine grew louder as HV/30 guided the boat forward.