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Operation Deep Strike

Page 27

by Rahul Badami


  During his captivity, Nadeem Kunduz, the leader of the terrorists had explained his bold plan of a missile attack against New Delhi. Even though Abdul wasn’t too warm about the Indians, he had been shocked by the proposal. But over time, Abdul had realized that it was either his life or his enemy’s life. And the choice for him was clear. He would save himself rather than some thousands of Indians who viewed Pakistan as an enemy.

  “How much time will it take?” Nadeem Kunduz asked him. He stood next to Abdul and watched him operate the console and enter the commands on the screen.

  “Only a few minutes more. The coordinates for Delhi have been programmed. We have locked onto the Parliament, Secretariat Building, Rashtrapati Bhavan, and other major targets.” Abdul looked up at Nadeem and saw a malicious smile on his face.

  “The infidels will die by our hand. I can’t wait. Make it quick.”

  Armaan and Baldev crept quietly down the stairs. Level 2 was deserted. Armaan looked around and signalled downstairs. They tiptoed down, their suede-leather shoes making no noise on the polished tiles of the stairs. They reached the entrance door to Level 3. Armaan peered around the corner. Twenty feet away, a young terrorist stood admiring the stations that were loaded with missile components. The automated machines were still working. No one had bothered to turn them off. The components were being loaded in the stations; the nose cones were manufactured and were then deposited on an assembly line. It was probably the first time the young teenager had seen such an advanced technology. Armaan wanted to ensure it was his last.

  Armaan looked around. There were no other terrorists in the vicinity, or if they were, they were out of sight. He couldn’t shoot the gun he had taken from the terrorists in Level 1. It would create a lot of noise and alert everyone. He had to be discreet.

  Armaan raced forward, quickly covering the distance between the terrorist and himself. He clamped his hand on the terrorist’s mouth and with a swift jerk pulled the terrorist’s face towards him. The terrorist’s neck snapped and he slumped to the floor.

  Armaan looked around. No one had witnessed the incident. He beckoned to Baldev to join him.

  “I think the Missile Control Room is in the far corner.” Armaan said, “We passed by it without thinking much about it, but I think I saw a narrow corridor that leads up to a locked door.”

  “We don’t have a moment to lose.”

  They scurried swiftly past the row of stations using them as cover, but couldn’t see any other terrorists. They reached the corridor and Armaan took a peek. A massive imposing door stood at the end of the narrow corridor complete with an iris scanner and a biometric console for access. But that wasn’t what bothered Armaan. In front of the door stood two heavily built terrorists, their eyes on the corridor. Armaan backed his head out of their sight, but he wasn’t quick enough.

  “Who’s that? Hamid, is that you?” one of the terrorists had already sighted him. He started walking down the corridor towards him.

  “Oh bother,” Baldev uttered. He brought his gun to his chest. Armaan nodded. They had been discovered. The time for discretion and stealth was gone.

  It would now be replaced by violent force.

  “What are you doing down here?” Armaan heard a startled voice behind him. He turned around. A terrorist was walking towards them. Apparently he hadn’t seen the guns in their hands and mistook them for employees who had escaped. He would be Hamid that the other terrorist had referred to. The terrorist’s eyes widened as he saw the guns in their hands. He brought his own up, but Baldev was quicker. A short burst of gunfire arced through the man’s chest and he was down in a flash.

  “Who’s there?” The voice in the corridor grew closer. Armaan backed up against the wall while Baldev raced to safety behind one of the missile stations, his gun pointed at the corridor. Armaan could hear the terrorist’s footsteps bounding across the floor echoing through the corridor. A moment later, the terrorist came into view. Armaan let loose a quick burst that ripped through the terrorist’s body.

  One left.

  The second terrorist had stopped. No sound came through the corridor. He would have seen the fate of his companion. He would probably be backing up to the door. Armaan wasn’t sure how many terrorists were in the Missile Control Room, but he could take his chances with one terrorist.

  Armaan gave a quick signal to Baldev and then sprinted towards the corridor and dived sideways, his gun pointed towards the passage. As the opening of the corridor came into the view, he saw the terrorist crouched in the far end next to the door. He squeezed the trigger and let loose a hail of bullets. As he landed on his side, he realized that all his shots had missed.

  The terrorist was now aiming at him.

  Armaan thought of rolling out of harm’s way when he heard a burst of gunfire behind him. He saw the terrorist slam back against the reinforced door due to the impact of the bullets and then slide down on the floor, lifeless.

  Armaan looked back at Baldev who offered him a hand, “I have your six.”

  “Thank you.” Armaan nodded gratefully.

  Abdul’s hand stopped instinctively on the console as he heard the sound of gunfire. He was almost done uploading the coordinates into the system. He looked up at Nadeem. The gunfire sounded quite close. He wondered if there were still soldiers out there who hadn’t been caught by the terrorists.

  “Keep working,” Nadeem ordered.

  “Should I go and check?” Nazal walked over to the closed biometric door and asked Nadeem.

  “No. There are two guards outside the door. And no one can come inside bypassing the security.”

  “So, we stay put in here?”

  “Yes, our mission is to launch the missiles, not to fight the soldiers. As long as the door is sealed no one can stop us from carrying out our objective. If anyone does come, we shoot them down. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, brother.” Nazal took position in front of the door.

  Abdul felt Nadeem’s eyes upon him. He answered his unasked question. “We are done. The missiles are programmed for launch.”

  Abdul walked up and went to one end of the console. He pulled out a key from his pocket and inserted it inside a hole. He looked at Nadeem. Nadeem walked to the other end of the console and inserted an identical key into the keyhole on the other end. They had taken the keys from Tahir and the second-in-command.

  “On my mark,” Abdul said, “One, two, three.”

  They both simultaneously twisted the keys. A minute later the information on the large screen changed to a single sentence.

  Press red switch to initiate launch sequence.

  Abdul walked back to his seat and looked at the red button. He lifted the transparent switch cap and his finger wavered over the button. Once launched, there would be no going back. There was no way missiles could be recalled or diverted once they were in the air. They used to call the missiles ‘fire and forget.’ It was time to fire and forget.

  Abdul firmly pressed down the red button.

  Armaan looked at the reinforced door with the biometric security. He was totally at a loss. “There is no way we can get past this.”

  “An iris scanner, a biometric fingerprint and an access card.” Baldev counted. “We cannot force our way through. We will need an employee who already has access to this place.”

  “Let’s go to Level 1 and see if someone works in the Missile Control Room.”

  They raced up the stairs and ran across the cubicles on Level 1. Armaan opened the Lab door and was relieved that the employees had followed his advice and were still there.

  “Does any one of you work in the Missile Control Room?”

  Armaan waited, but no one said anything. He spoke again.

  “This is an emergency. The terrorists will be launching missiles. We have to stop them.”

  One of the men spoke up. “I am from Level 3. There are only a handful of employees that have access to the Control Room but I don’t see any of them here.”

  Armaan felt
a froth bubbling in his stomach. “There has to be another way to get inside.”

  “There is none. It’s completely secured from all sides. Only authorised personnel have access to it.”

  The froth in his stomach threatened to burst. The terrorists would be inside and they would launch the missiles any time now. “We have to get inside somehow…”

  Suddenly a deep rumbling noise echoed from the depths of the earth.

  “What was that?” Baldev walked over to a nearby window. A moment later he yelled, “Armaan!”

  Armaan rushed over and looked at where Baldev was pointing. The missile bays were open and he watched in incredulous disbelief as thirty missiles whooshed out of the launch pads and raced into the skies heading east.

  Armaan watched the missiles till they disappeared in the horizon. He roared in a fit of impotent rage. He had failed to stop the launch.

  New Delhi was about to burn.

  Chapter 40

  “Eagle! Did you see that?”

  Roshan’s voice was frantic. He had just seen the missiles zoom over their heads. Roshan had been worried for Armaan and Baldev when they were trapped inside the barracks, but he had overheard Armaan’s conversation with the terrorists and had quietly hoped that they would be able to shut down the launch. But then Roshan had seen the missiles eject from the launchpads. They were in a no-win situation. Based on where the missiles would hit, Delhi would face casualties running into tens of thousands up to a million. And he hadn’t even taken into account the political implications.

  All hell is going to break loose.

  “No. The SAT is not over the area. But I heard.” Eagle said. “I have been trying to contact Homebase for the past five minutes, ever since I learned the terrorist’s plan, but Homebase hasn’t responded. Let me try to get the Delhi GES or BMD team on this.”

  “Okay, but make it quick. We have literally only a few minutes.”

  Five hundred kilometres over the earth, the Cartosat series of satellites moved in a sun-synchronous orbit. One of their jobs was to look out for ground based threats and analyse them. A few seconds after the missiles were launched; the infra-red sensors on one of the satellites detected a huge thermal footprint over a pre-designated coordinate in Pakistan. The coordinates matched the list of threat sites in its database. As per the program coded on its software, it sent out an alert to all the ground based ELINT systems.

  The Ilyushin-76 aircraft hovered at a height of thirty thousand feet above the Pathankot air base in northern Punjab. Atop the IL-76 aircraft was fitted the Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems called as AWACS in military slang. Hovering right at the edge of the international border, the job of the AWACS was to detect incoming aircraft or missiles and coordinate the information to the Ground Exploitation Stations. With an impressive radar range of 400km, it immediately picked up the missiles hurtling towards India.

  Shikha stifled a yawn. She tried to focus on the computer screen but couldn’t. Documentation was the most boring part of a project. She loved the creativity of working on a project, but hated having to document everything that she did. But today she felt unusually sluggish. She had taken her work home last night and had slept quite late. She wasn’t sure if she was sleep-deprived or just plain bored penning down the documentation.

  I need to get a cup of coffee.

  Shikha rose from her desk when a sharp beep emanated from her desktop computer. Her heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t remember the last time she had received an unexpected alert. She immediately sat down and looked at the notification message that had popped on the screen.

  It was an automated alert from the Cartosat satellite. It had detected a massive thermal gradient change that corresponded with a missile launch, plus the location of the thermal spike corresponded to Facility Project S25.

  Shikha stood up and walked out of her cabin and looked over at her team sitting in the cubicles. Everyone’s eyes were on her. They all had received the same alert and everyone was wondering what it really meant.

  “Do you think it’s a false positive?” Shikha asked.

  “No,” Tanmay replied, “We will need separate evidence before we can confirm this is indeed a missile launch.” He paused, “In fact, multiple missile launches. We have received thermal signatures in the past, but they were of a single missile during test launches, but nothing on this scale.”

  “Yeah, the thermal difference is what unnerves me. We –” Shikha was about to say something when another beep sounded simultaneously on everyone’s computer. She quickly walked around to Tanmay’s desktop and viewed over his shoulder.

  The new notification was from the Phalcon AWACS. Shikha read it and her heart spiked up in her throat. The AWACS had detected the launch of thirty missiles. They were headed east, towards India.

  It was impossible!

  “Did Pakistan issue a NOTAM?” Shikha tried to reassure herself that this couldn’t be happening.

  The NOTAM or Notice to Airmen was an announcement made prior to any missile tests that informed aircraft pilots everywhere to not be in the vicinity when a country was conducting a missile test. Pakistan had always issued NOTAMs before testing their missiles. Maybe she had missed out on the notification due to her workload.

  Tanmay shook his head, “There were no NOTAMs.” He looked at her and spoke in a low voice. “It’s really happening.”

  Shikha’s mobile buzzed. It was an unknown number, but it couldn’t be a coincidence. She picked up the call, dreading whatever she was going to hear.

  “Multiple missiles are headed for New Delhi. Please take evasive action.” The voice on the other line didn’t even introduce himself, nor did he elaborate on his outrageous claim. But Shikha knew immediately that he was speaking the fact. There was no way anyone could have known about the alert so quickly.

  “How…” She left the question dangling.

  “Please trust me.” Eagle replied. “We have HUMINT on the ground on Facility S25. Thirty missiles were launched. The target is New Delhi.”

  “We will follow the protocols. Thank you for letting us know.”

  “Thanks.” The unknown caller hung up.

  Shikha squared her shoulders. They had trained multiple times for such an eventuality. Only this time, it was for real. She couldn’t afford to fail. Shikha went back to her desk and initiated the Crisis Response program on her computer. It had been live tested only once before when the system was introduced and was demoed in front of the PM and the NSA.

  The program loaded immediately and Shikha swiftly executed the commands. She pulled the headset over her ears. The program was designed to create a teleconference bridge and it immediately dialled the hotlines for the Prime Minister, Defence Minister, National Security Advisor and select members of the National Security Council. The software would emit a distinctive ringtone on the group member’s phone and keep dialling till they picked it up. A few seconds later, all of the members were on the teleconference and Shikha informed them of the alert.

  Prime Minister Inamdaar spoke first, “The Ballistic Missile Defence are programmed to automatically respond to incoming missiles, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shikha said.

  “How much time will it take for the missiles to reach us?”

  “The Ghauri missiles are travelling at a speed of 6 Mach. The launch site is nine hundred kilometres from New Delhi. Not counting the parabolic path of the missiles, the minimum time we have is seven minutes, twenty one seconds. Two minutes have already crossed since launch time so the current ETA is five minutes.”

  Inamdaar said in a calm voice, “We have prepared for such eventualities. Vishwajeet, Rabindra and Dharamveer,” the PM addressed the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and Airforce, “we initiate Operation Rapid Revenge. We have gone over the second strike doctrine multiple times and I am sure we can adequately respond to anything the Pakistanis can throw at us.”

  The Defence Minister interrupted, “Sir, there is something wrong wi
th their attack pattern. If Pakistan wanted to attack us, they would have launched their missiles on all our cities and from multiple launchpads all over Pakistan. This attack is just from one site to only one of our cities. I suspect it’s a rogue attempt.”

  Inamdaar fumed. “Undisciplined fools. They can’t even control their rank and file. I will speak with the Pakistani PM on his hotline. Vishwajeet, you speak with the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff.”

  General Singh said, “Sir, I just got an update from my subordinate. We have HUMINT at the missile launch site as well as SAT. This launch was initiated by terrorists and not the Pakistani Army. We aren’t sure if they are conventional warheads or nukes. I would suggest we call off the decision on Operation Rapid Revenge and inform the Pakistani counterparts on what happened.”

  “We will decide that later. First, we will focus on our BMD response. Can we ensure that we can eliminate all the incoming missiles without letting any of them fall through our defences?”

  Shikha hesitated, “Sir, no Ballistic Missile Defence is one hundred percent foolproof. It is like stopping one bullet with another. We have our S400 BMD systems located a few kilometres north of here for such a situation. But we’ve tested it with only single missiles and not with multiple incoming missiles. We have thirty incoming missiles. Considering that we may not be able to reload the missiles and fire in five minutes, it’s too close a call.”

  “Let’s have faith in our systems.” Inamdaar said. “I approve all methods necessary to neutralize the threats.”

  Shikha watched the action on the large LCD screen. It seemed like a video game. Thirty red streaks were mapped on the left side of the screen, and she could see multiple blue streaks on the right that rose up to meet them. She had mentioned that Ballistic Missile Defence was like stopping a bullet by firing another bullet at it. The comparison wasn’t off. She watched as the first blue streak reached the closest red streak and then both vanished indicating that the missile had been demolished in mid-air. A moment later, the second blue streak touched a red streak and the red streak disappeared. The third and fourth streaks also did their work.

 

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