Of course, now that we know it’s possible …
There was nothing to do but play it through, hoping that the terrorists weren’t paying attention.
We reached our target about twenty seconds ahead of schedule. We rappelled down to the road, set up a roadblock, and waited.
We couldn’t see the target building from where we were, but we were plenty close enough to hear the helicopters, and the RPGs and machine guns that greeted them.
* * *
Raise your hand if you’re not familiar with the Russian Hind.
Who’s that in the back?
All right, nugget, we’ll give you an info dump. Rest of the class — smoke ’em if they’re legal.
The Russian-made Hind is a combination gunship troop transport that the Russians perfected in the 1970s after watching how we had used helos in Vietnam.
It comes in several varieties. There’s the Mi-24, which was the first and, unfortunately for its crews, flawed version; the Mi-24A, which took care of most of these deficiencies; the Mi-24D/Mi-25, which tends to be used more as an assault ship than a transport; and the MI-35 Hind E, which brought destruction to admirable levels.
All of these aircraft share the same basic layout — gunner in the nose, pilot above him, crew area in back. As a general rule, they can carry eight troops, unless they’re all Shotgun’s size. Exact weapons depend on the version and the crew chief’s felonious tendencies, but among other goodies there’s a four-barrel 12.7mm machine gun, a twin 30mm, and your basic assortment of rockets, Gatlings, antitank missiles, and small bombs.
In short, one nasty son of a bitch.
The advantage of combining a gunship with a troop carrier is that your assault team is never without shitloads of firepower. One of the disadvantages is that it’s tough to carry out two jobs at one time.
Another disadvantage is that if one of your attack ships goes down, you lose part of your assault team.
The helicopters began by suppressing the ground fire, but the barrage of RPGs and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles that met them was pretty ferocious. One of the Hinds crashed at the edge of the compound. Only one man was killed — the aircraft gunner in the nose — but everyone else aboard was injured, most seriously.
The other helos took out their frustrations on the house, where most of the tangos were holed up. Within two or three minutes, it was a burning wreck.
It would turn out that the majority of the enemy was dead by the time the commandos reached the ground, but there was still some sporadic gunfire coming from the hillside above. The Garud units spent several hours chasing them down.
Captain Birla and I were listening to the play-by-play over the combat frequencies. Within a few minutes, we both realized that the helicopters weren’t in the compound.
Had it been a false alarm?
Or had the helos managed to escape?
The answer came over the frequency used by the air force fighters monitoring the area.
“We have two contacts at low altitude flying north. They appear to be helicopters,” added one of the pilots. “Are they part of the assault group?”
Duh.
“We should follow those helos,” I told Captain Birla.
“The air force — ”
“They’re either going to get shot down or they’ll land somewhere,” I explained. “We ought to be there to grab whoever’s flying them.”
Captain Birla rubbed his forehead. The battle was still going on at the compound. Following the stolen helicopters might have other consequences, such as allowing some of the tangos to escape, or permitting them to be reinforced from the village.
“Leave most of your men here,” I told him. “Shotgun and Mongoose can come with me. We only need one helicopter.”
“Yes, this is an idea,” he told me, bowing his head.
* * *
The Mi-8TV is a relatively fast helicopter, but it’s not in the same league as the Ahi. There was no question about catching up to the helicopters, but I didn’t think that was an issue — the air farce, after all, had a pair of MiGs to do that.
Sounds easy, right? And if we were talking about F-15s, say, or F-16s or F/A-18s, it would have been no problem. But India gets most of its aircraft from Russia, an arrangement that dates to the Cold War. And being Russian-made planes, the Indian MiGs apparently lacked the advanced look-down radars that would have made it easier to find the helicopters.
It’s not that they didn’t try. Or that they were totally incompetent. In fact, one of the planes got close enough to the helicopter 21 to get some footage of it on its gun camera.
Why didn’t the pilot shoot his gun rather than his camera?
Because his ROE — rules of engagement, or Rape Orders preceding Enema — dictated that he get clearance from his unit commander first. And the unit commander had to check with his division commander before clearing the shot. And the division commander had to talk to the group commander before clearing his underling. And the group commander had to get the OK from the minister’s office.
There may have been a janitor in there as well.
While all of this was going on, the helicopter snaked through the mountain passes, literally diving behind trees and pirouetting around canyon faces. The MiG had all sorts of advantages compared to the helicopter. The one thing it couldn’t do, though, was go very slow. The helicopter pilot managed to slip away by dropping to the ground, letting the MiG fly overhead, and then changing direction.
The jets kept up the chase. They continued getting fleeting radar contacts. By now they were close to the Pakistan border, and it was obvious that that’s where the helos were heading. The chain of command cranked out an order: destroy the helicopter. The MiGs armed their missiles, ready to fire — but no longer had any targets.
The last contact they saw was three miles deep over the Pakistan border. It wasn’t clear where the other helicopter was or even that those were the helicopters. But everyone assumed they were.
Pakistan fighters scrambled as the Indian MiGs closed on the border. There was no point crossing over, let alone engaging the Pakis.
The MiGs turned back for base.
The operation was officially FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
By that time, we were only about ten minutes from the border ourselves. Our pilot suggested we check around the area where the helo had apparently stopped. It was a good idea; we banked south and spent some time tracing the route in the hills before fuel concerns forced us to break off. Needless to say, we didn’t see the helicopters, or spot any wreckage thereof.
“Ol’ Murphy kicked ass tonight,” said Shotgun as we headed back to the barn.
( II )
I don’t know how much credit Murph really deserves for that fiasco.
After all, the biggest contributor was really plain old human stupidity. Let’s assume that the air farce was right and the operation had to proceed immediately that night, rather than waiting until they had more assets in place. That was a judgment call, and I personally am prejudiced toward doing things sooner rather than later.
And let’s not worry about the antiquated equipment in the Indian jets, though frankly that’s a little harder to forgive, given that the Indians do actually have some planes with better radar; they just didn’t deploy them for this mission.
(Yes, there are reasons. Mostly the air farce doesn’t want its toys getting broken. Air farces the world over are like that. They clamor for cool toys, then hide them in the garage where they won’t get wet.)
Using gear from Russia rather than Europe or the U.S. — we’ll give them a dumb pass on that.
But the politician or government staff member who leaked the news of the operation?
He or she should be crucified. That wasn’t chance, or even human error. That was stupidity to the nth degree.
You can’t fix stupid. That’s beyond even Murphy’s abilities.
Another media firestorm followed. The Indian press was unmerciful.
They were also screaming for revenge.
It appeared that Pakistan had the helicopters — there were the radar contacts, and they’d certainly been flying in that direction when they disappeared.
The Indians wanted them back. The Indians told the Pakistanis that if they didn’t get them back, they were going to take them back.
The Pakistanis claimed not to know anything about the helicopters.
“Helicopters? What helicopters?” was, I believe, the prime minister’s official reply.
You can imagine how well that went over.
There was some back and forth, but pretty much the conversation was a spitting contest. Both sides mobilized their armies. A shit storm seemed imminent.
* * *
Once again, I found myself very popular with the secretary of State, or rather one of her intelligence flunkies, who pressed me for a “face-to-face” to discuss developments. Madam Secretary would have talked to me in person, he assured me, but she was in Europe doing whatever it is secretaries of State do when not conjuring world peace or banging shoes at the UN.
I didn’t particularly want to brief the State Department official, mostly because it meant that I had to go over to the embassy and risk spending time with my good friend Omar, whose aftershave caused my nose to stop up. I needn’t have worried, though — Omar came to pick me up personally.
“You really got things in an uproar, Marcinko,” he told me as I stepped into the car. “Is this on your Rogue agenda — start World War III?”
“I don’t start wars. I finish them.”
“How are you going to finish this one?”
“Send you to Pakistan and call it a day?”
“What happened to those damn helicopters?” he asked. “Did you steal them?”
“I have them in the hotel parking garage.”
“I’ve heard about the shit you’ve pulled. This would be a perfect Red Cell operation.”
It would have, actually.
We traded insults all the way to the embassy. Once there, I went into the cone of silence room and briefed the ambassador and chief of mission and the aforementioned State Department aide. I didn’t tell them anything you haven’t heard already.
They were actually grateful. Well, the aide and deputy ambassador were. Omar …
We appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Marcinko.
You’ve been very informative, Dick.
You’re a peach of a guy, asshole.
It’s so nice to be loved.
* * *
“No way that was the helicopter.”
“And good morning to you, too,” I told Junior. I wasn’t sure what the hell he was talking about. He’d been waiting at our fancy hotel for me to return from the embassy for more than an hour. I had them meet and drop me off there because I didn’t want the Christians in Action knowing where we were; they’re such blabbermouths.
“It wasn’t the helicopter,” said Junior. We were outside under the canopy area, a few feet from the door. “Come on over to the airfield and look at the tape.”
“Let’s go inside first,” I told him. “We’re surely being watched.”
We went upstairs, threw some things around the rooms for a few minutes, then went back out.
Captain Birla had obtained a copy of the video from the MiG’s HUD or heads-up display showing the helicopter. It was, as you’d expect, a murky collection of shadows moving across the screen.
Junior freeze-framed it.
“Look at that,” he said. “That’s a Bell JetRanger. It’s got some fancy paint on it, and panels on the side to make it look like a gunship.”
He might have been right. Then again, he might not have been. What it mostly looked like was a collection of shadows.
“And, it’s only one helicopter,” he said. “We were looking for two.”
“The other one was farther ahead.”
“No. Check this out.”
He showed me a blurry reconnaissance photo that had also come from the air force. There was one helicopter on the ground, under heavy netting.
“Where’s the other one?” I asked.
“They think it’s in this shadow,” he said. “But there’s no way — the shadow is here later on. Look.”
He produced a photo taken by our helicopter during the mission.
“There were two radar contacts,” I said.
“Their radar is for shit. There was so much ground clutter, they couldn’t follow it.”
I’ll admit that each one of Junior’s objections had a point. But taken together — it just seemed like he was stringing too many objections together to come up with an alternative theory.
Which was?
“I don’t think that helicopter left India,” said Junior. “I wonder if it was ever at that compound to begin with.”
“The satellite photo,” said Captain Birla. “There were definitely helicopters there.”
“One. And it’s under the tarp and netting,” said Junior. “Sure, you can see the back end and some of the rotor. It’s roughly the right size. But it could be a Jet Ranger. Seriously. Look at it.”
We did, for several minutes. Junior had a point. You couldn’t really tell what was under the tarp. Only the tail of one helicopter was visible, and it was partly obscured by a tarp. It did look like the Ahi, but even with a magnifying glass, we couldn’t be positive.
“We should check the compound,” said Junior. “That’s the only way to be sure. We should see what kind of evidence is there.”
Captain Birla shrugged. “This is no longer our problem.”
“I want to have a look, Dad.”
* * *
Did he just call me dad?
No way. If he had I would have smacked him right across the face.
* * *
I may be prejudiced against air farce types, with whom I’ve had mixed experiences, but it seemed to me they were the ones who had logic on their side here. Still, Junior was so adamant that I felt I almost owed it to him to let him go. We weren’t getting anywhere here. The worst that would happen would be that he’d learn a lesson in how not to be so dead sure about things.
“If you can find a way to get up there, go ahead,” I told him. “Go in the morning. Be back by tomorrow night.”
Captain Birla shook his head.
“Better to let him get it out of his system,” I told Birla when Junior left. “He’s still young.”
“Our next operation is tomorrow night.”
“He’ll be there, his butt dragging on the ground. That’s the only way he’ll learn.”
We went back to planning for the next operation, a mock attack on the soccer stadium.
* * *
There was a much simpler way to find out what the helicopter or helicopters in question had been: ask one of the terrorists who’d been there.
As far as we could tell, there had been nineteen tangos at the compound where the helo or helos had been. Only two men had survived, and both were in very serious condition. The military hospital where they were being held wasn’t that far away, and I stopped there after finishing with Captain Birla. The Garud guards wouldn’t let me in. It turned out that their commander was a fan, but even that didn’t get me anything.
Besides drinks, of course.
“These men are potentially as big as Ajmal Kasab,” he told me, naming the terrorist who had been captured during the Mumbai attack in 2008. “For us, there can be no chances. Not even with a famous hero as you.”
“You flatter me.”
“Even so, you cannot go in.”
He did share what they had found at the site, but it wasn’t that much. The building had been leveled in the battle, and they were only now picking through the ruins to see what they could recover and make sense of. The villagers claimed to know nothing of the place — your basic lie, obviously, but one that would take weeks if not months to unravel.
The commander and I had a nice dinner, and a few drinks afterward. He told me storie
s about parachuting: he’d had chute failures not once but twice during training sessions, yet lived to tell about it, both times miraculously finding another jumper before biting the great beyond. Once was unlucky; twice smacked of recklessness: sabotage was suspected, but the culprit never found.
I told him the story of my Fulton system recovery, sort of like parachuting in reverse: I stood under a clear balloon I had launched from the Skyhook kit. It lifted the basket weave tubular line five hundred feet in the air. The line was a specially configured C-130 that flew directly into the line. A special contraption on the nose trapped and locked the line. With the line snagged, I flew higher than the plane. The line fed back to a winch, which eventually reeled me in. Think fifteen-minute freefall trailing behind the plane. A great kick in the balls.
It was all sorts of fun, windsurfing into the rear of the cargo plane to the consternation of a hardtack navy chief, who knew I was being a wiseass but couldn’t quite figure out how.22 I was the first person to use the system without a parachute — not that the damn thing would have done anyone any good if there was a screwup anyway.
“Flying without wings is interesting,” said the commander, nodding solemnly as the check came. “But it is always a good idea to have a sturdy parachute.”
“A seat inside the aircraft is a hell of a lot better,” I told him.
* * *
The air farce’s reluctance to let me question the men is probably understandable; I wasn’t Indian, and I had no official standing with them.
But they also refused to let anyone else question the men for more than two weeks. Supposedly, they had their own experts extracting information in the meantime. Based on the results, they got bupkis.
You’re tired of the whining about interagency bickering and political interference, so I’ll let it go.
* * *
Our friend Igor was still on the loose, staying in the safe house outside of Delhi. With the pressure now ratcheted to violin string levels, the intelligence operatives at the state security office who’d taken over as the lead agency in the case decided it no longer made sense to watch him. Igor, they reasoned, was a valuable source of intelligence. Ten minutes in the backroom and he’d be singing like a bird.
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