Operation Deep Strike

by Rahul Badami

  “This is Three.” Roshan huffed. “Breach complete.”

  Armaan replied, “Acknowledged. Two is next.”

  Roshan watched as Baldev ran to the edge of the grove and waited in the shadows. He would also dodge the search lights to cross into the perimeter followed by the others.

  Five minutes later, all of them were huddled together inside the compound. Hitesh was already working on his tablet.

  “Can you locate the goods?” Armaan asked.

  “Trying that now.” Hitesh replied, his eyes on the screen. “I am accessing the Inventory database.”

  Roshan looked around. After the blazing bright light at the exterior side of the fence, it was pitch dark inside the compound. He pulled down the Night Vision Glasses attached to his helmet over his eyes; the world around turned into green. He could see a lone sentry far off to his right. Two hundred feet in front of him was one of the many bunkers that dotted the landscape. Two sentries walked across it, unaware of their presence. Now the only question was which one housed the Babur-3 missiles. After a few minutes, Hitesh pointed on his tablet.

  “This one.”

  Everyone peered to get a closer look.

  Roshan looked at the Weapons Storage Bunker that Hitesh was pointing at among the multiple others that surrounded it on the map, and tried to get his bearings in relation to their destination.

  “It's five hundred metres east of our location.” Hitesh said.

  “Okay, let's move.” Armaan said.

  Roshan crept slowly behind the others. They walked cautiously in a half-crouch keeping a wide berth from the bunkers and the sentinels posted there. The Night Vision helped. They could see the guards pacing the grounds in a predictable routine. They waited for the guards to pass and continued their way forward.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were in front of their target. The Weapons Storage Bunker looked no different from the others they had passed. It had two sloping roofs on either side that extended down to the ground making it look like a concrete tent. The door was recessed deep inside as a precaution against an air attack. A neon-lit square on the right of the door indicated the biometric readout. To his surprise, there were no guards patrolling in front of the bunker.

  “I don't like this.” Armaan said. “Where are the guards?”

  “Probably on a loo break,” Baldev smirked. “Let’s get inside before they return.”

  “Hitesh,” Armaan said, “Can you get us inside bypassing the biometric access?”

  “Yes,” Hitesh held out a card, “I already added my profile and this card to the security database. My fingerprints will get us through.”

  Armaan looked around. “Then let’s get in ASAP.”

  Roshan followed Armaan and the others to the bunker. He looked around but there were no guards around. His silenced Glock 17 was out of its holster and ready if anyone was going to spring a surprise. But no one came as they walked the length of the open ground and reached the door of the bunker. Hitesh had already pressed his thumb on the glass panel and swiped the card.

  Roshan watched as a green LED lit up and the heavy reinforced door opened with a click. Hitesh was all smiles. “Piece of cake.”

  Baldev took up the rear and looked around. Armaan led the way. They were going into a dark opening. He could see steps going down for quite a distance. They stealthily walked down as Baldev closed the heavy door behind them. Roshan held his Glock 17 upright, ready to fire at anything that moved.

  The steps suddenly ended and they looked out in front. The room was long, rectangular and filled with crates of various sizes and shapes. But the crates were small and didn't look like a missile could fit in them. They could probably be in the far end, Roshan thought.

  “I found a switch.” Hitesh said. “Take off your NVGs.”

  Roshan slid up his Night Vision Glasses, and a minute later the room was flooded with the luminescence of the overhead lights as Hitesh switched them on one by one. Roshan blinked his eyes accustoming his vision to the stark layout of the bunker. On either end of him, the crates he had seen earlier were piled in neat columns that extended right up to the ceiling high above them. There was a wide aisle in the centre through which one could move the inventory around. At one side parked along the wall was a customized forklift. There were a couple of large metal housings at the far end that he hadn't noticed before.

  “The goods look to be in the far end.” Armaan said. They moved systematically forward checking for hostiles hidden behind each row of crates, but the place looked devoid of life. They made their way to the end towards the metallic behemoth that took up the entire rear wall.

  “It’s a Weapons Storage Vault.” Hitesh stood next to him. The vault had multiple weapon pods for storing the missiles kept in hardened cases that isolated one missile from another. But the cases were empty. Hitesh stopped as the realization hit him. “Where are the missiles?”

  Armaan gave a hard stare at Hitesh. “Are you sure we are in the correct bunker?”

  “I am positive. The inventory log stated Bunker B36. The nameplate above the biometric panel said B36. This is the place.”

  “Then where are the missiles? Show me the tablet.” Armaan ordered.

  Hitesh gave the tablet to Armaan and pointed to the inventory log.

  “Yes, it says B36.” Armaan looked around. “So where did the missiles go?” He glanced again at the tablet. “There is an inventory number tagged with the missile. Search using the inventory ID for today's date. It may be possible they moved it to another bunker today.”

  Hitesh tapped the tablet and searched for the information. “There is no entry under that inventory ID for today.”

  “What?” Armaan peered closely at the tablet confirming what Hitesh had claimed. “Tap on the Inventory ID. It should give us some information.”

  “It's not here.” Hitesh said with finality.

  Roshan walked up to Hitesh. “What are you talking about?”

  Hitesh pointed to the tablet screen. Roshan squinted his eyes as he tried to read the small text. It read. 'Outbound. Destination: Classified.'

  Roshan looked in Hitesh's eyes for confirmation. Hitesh nodded. “The missiles were relocated yesterday to an unknown destination. It’s not here in Sargodha.”

  A sickening emptiness filled Roshan's stomach. He had looked forward to executing the mission and he knew how vital it was. They should have completed the mission in Ormara itself, but fate hadn't been with them. Deciding to travel to Sargodha had been a risky venture, even leading to their capture. But somehow they had escaped, resolute in their decision to neutralize the missiles.

  Now, as he looked at the empty weapons pod in Sargodha, far away from the coast and with no idea of where the missiles were, he felt deflated. It had all been for nothing. He looked up at Armaan wondering if he would give the order to fall back and abort the mission.

  A low hissing sound emanated from somewhere.

  “What was that?” Baldev whispered.

  “I don't know.” Armaan whipped out his gun.

  Roshan looked around but the bunker was still. If someone had come through the door, he would have heard them long before they reached the foot of the stairs. He suddenly felt a gag in his throat. He was having difficulty breathing; his eyes were rolling all over the bunker walls, unable to focus in front of him. His knees buckled and he saw Hitesh collapse in front of him. A second later he fell on top of Hitesh, and darkness engulfed his vision.

  Chapter 22

  These Indians are good, but not good enough, Ijaz smiled devilishly.

  An alert had just come up on the screen. Barrier Three had been breached. Ijaz looked at the data. There were no reports of Barrier One and Two being compromised, but the surveillance cameras he had installed two months ago on a separate network showed four men crossing Barrier Three. The only thing the Indians hadn't realized was that they were crossing an invisible fence.

  Barrier Three was a motion detecting laser fence. An invisible laser light
ran along its length and the moment anyone passed through it, the laser light got blocked triggering an alert.

  The phone on the desk rang. Ijaz picked it up.

  “Sir, we found a car parked in the middle of nowhere a few kilometres from here. As soon as we went closer to investigate, the car bolted.”

  Ijaz’s eyes widened. This was not something that they encountered in their daily routine. “It could be related to the alert we received. Did you give chase?”

  “Yes sir, we did but the driver started shooting at us. We shot in retaliation and the car lost control and crashed into a wall. The driver was found dead.”

  The chair fell to the ground as Ijaz stood up with a jerk. “You idiot.” He screamed, “I told you that I wanted the intruders alive.”

  “Yes sir,” the man stammered. “It was only one person. We are trying to find if there were any others.”

  Ijaz’s eyes went to the LCD screen. The four men had made their way to Bunker B36. “Don’t bother,” he spoke into the phone. “Search the car for Intel and submit a report to me in sixty minutes.”

  “I already searched the vehicle before calling you. It’s a Range Rover. Preliminary search yielded nothing substantial. We are now checking the registration number of the Range Rover. I will submit the report.”

  “Yes, do that ASAP.” Ijaz would be surprised if the background info on the vehicle didn’t lead to a dead end. He focused back on the flat-panel screen. The Indians had arrived at the entrance to the bunker. He had purposefully kept the guards off duty as he prepared to spring a trap on them. A few moments later the bunker door swung open and the Indians went inside.

  Ijaz reached into a wall shelf and picked up his trusted Heckler & Koch MP5K. He toggled the safety selector from S to E on the sub-machine gun. S denoted safe and E indicated single fire. He looked at the third option F. F meant continuous fire. He held the safety selector between his thumb and index finger as he debated between E and F. E was redundant, he finally decided. F would be the best option. He switched the toggle to continuous fire.

  The forecast for tonight was blood.

  Lots of it.

  Ijaz stood in front of Bunker B57, fingering the trigger of the MP5K. He hated B57. He had been inside only once and the musty air and the dirty floor had repelled him, not to mention the perpetually putrid smell that hung in the air.

  B57 was an abandoned bunker no one dared to go into. Many years ago, a crate of spent fissile material from the nearby Khushab reactor was stored in B57 en-route to its disposal as radioactive waste. While handling it, one of the pellets had fallen to the floor sparking a panic among the workers. Since then, the bunker had been shut down as a potential risk, even though the radiation levels were not that high.

  The door to the bunker opened from inside revealing one of his guards. He walked up to Ijaz. “It's done like you said.”

  “Good. Let’s go inside.”

  “Yes sir.” The soldier replied but his voice was uneasy. Ijaz could see that he didn’t like going into the contaminated bunker.

  Ijaz went inside the bunker with the guard. A few minutes later his wrinkling nose had adjusted itself to the stench of the stale air. At the foot of the stairs, a solitary light illuminated the four Indians lying unconscious on the floor. Three guards stood sentry next to them and the fourth guard that accompanied Ijaz joined them. The prisoners had been tied up, and their weapons confiscated from them.

  It had been Ijaz’s idea to use the gas in the bunker; an easy way of rendering them out of action without long-drawn standoffs or casualties on either end. The Pakistani soldiers had moved the unconscious Indians from Bunker B36 to the abandoned B57. The effect of the gas would pass any time soon. He had some questions for them.

  “They are stirring.” One of the guards said. And sure enough Ijaz could see one of the prisoners open his eyes slowly and then blink wide open as he found himself tied and saw four men who had their guns pointed at him.

  “Don't even think of doing anything smart.” Ijaz warned.

  The others also came to their senses and the realization that they were bound. Their reaction was predictable. Confusion followed by surprise and shock. His guards were ready; each had a gun pointed to one of the prisoners. They couldn’t escape.

  One of them spoke. “What do you want?”

  Ijaz laughed. “I suppose that's a question I should be asking.” He stopped pacing. “But then, I already know the answer.”

  The man didn't reply. Ijaz continued, “I am the Security commander here. Nothing escapes my notice. You are here for the Babur-3 missiles, aren't you?”

  Another guy spoke; he looked the youngest of them. “If you know, then why do you ask?”

  “Quiet.” The first man commanded. He seemed to the leader of the group.

  So, it was true, Ijaz mused. The ISI Director had been correct when he alerted him that Indians would come to Sargodha. It was rare in their profession to get such precise Intel.

  Ijaz had been reserved in his reaction when he had received the call as Head of Security about the alert. In most cases, he would follow standard operating procedures and the alert would turn out to be false, but this time something told him that things would be different. He had carefully chalked out his plan. And the result was in front of him.

  “You were fools to come here. As you see, it was a futile quest to search for the missiles. The missiles have been relocated far away from here where you can never reach them.”

  Ijaz watched the faces of the Indians droop under his words. He had completely outplayed the Indians. It was time to inform them of their colleague's death.

  “I also know about your fifth colleague.” He immediately saw their eyes on him, wary and surprised. “You guys came in a Range rover.” He saw the dejected expressions change into resignation. The car must have been their getaway vehicle. Now they knew that he knew about the car too.

  “I am sorry to inform you, that your colleague in the Range Rover is no longer with us. He died.” Ijaz considered himself a good reader of faces. The resignation had turned into shock and anger on hearing their colleague's death.

  “I am sure you are aware of the rules of engagement as spies. Now that you are captured, the Indian government will disavow all links to you. They will deny your existence. As of now, your only safety is in cooperating with us. Do that, and we may be able to come to an understanding.”

  “Never, we would rather prefer to die.” The response was defiant.

  The evidence was conclusive. These intruders were indeed Indians who had come for the missiles.

  “Death serves no purpose. Tell me, how is your friend's death helping you?”

  The leader spat at Ijaz. In response, one of Ijaz’s guards smashed his rifle’s butt into the leader’s shoulder and shrieked. “You will be sorry for what you did. All of you are going to die like pigs in here with no one to hear your screams of pain.” The guard kicked him in the ribs.

  The man on the floor winced under the blow and then glared at the guard, the pain apparent in his muffled voice. “Go to hell.”

  Ijaz had heard enough. He swung his MP5K gun and aimed it at the four men. A deafening fusillade of gunfire echoed in the sound-proof underground bunker.

  Then all was quiet.

  Chapter 23

  PM Jagdish Inamdaar felt his cheeks grow hot as he watched the news on the television. There had been yet another terrorist attack in Srinagar; the casualties included both Army soldiers and civilians. He fumed as he picked up the phone and called his National Security Advisor.

  “Navnath, report to my office ASAP.” He slammed the phone down.

  A minute later Navnath Shah entered. He was followed by the three Service Chiefs and the Defence Minister Dayanand Mistry.

  “I was about to come to your office. Our on-ground investigators found evidence on the terrorists that conclude that they came from Pakistan.”

  Inamdaar smashed his fist on the wooden desk. “They have gone too
far this time.” He stood up and proclaimed, “They will pay heavily for their misadventure.” He paced the room, anger coursing through his body clamouring for an outlet. “I authorize a military strike ASAP on all terrorist camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.”

  Navnath looked at him. “But sir, consider the implications. You are in effect proposing war.”

  Inamdaar stopped pacing and glared at Navnath.

  “Tell me who is already engaged in a war that killed our people? Those cowards from across the border can never win a face-to-face war against us. So, they supply money and guns to these terrorists and then deny that they sent them. It’s time we exterminate these pests once and for all.”

  General Singh stepped in. “There is a challenge here, sir. We have the capability to strike at the camps in POK, but what is the probability that we will terminate any high value targets?”

  Inamdaar looked at the General. “I am not sure I follow you.”

  “Let’s say we strike across the border at the camps that harbour terrorists. What if we kill only a few terrorists, or kill no one important? We get in a lose-lose situation. Not only do we not root out the source of terrorism, but now we also face a potential backlash from Pakistan, and an escalation of war.”

  Inamdaar resumed pacing as he mulled over what the General had said. He looked at the news broadcast on the television. Already the media were asking the government spokesperson on how they were going to respond to this act of naked aggression.

  Inamdaar’s anger simmered down. He was walking on a political tightrope. He had to satisfy the common people who were crying out for a fitting response against Pakistan, and at the same time he had to protect the very same people by not risking a war with Pakistan. It was a paradox and no one understood it at the moment better than Inamdaar.