Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control

by Line of Control [lit]

  Some were climbing up the peak, others were rappelling down. They were

  all converging on a small mouth located near the base of the for.

  Viens quickly refined the location of the audio signal. It was not

  coming from the people on the cliff but from a stationary target.

  Probably from an individual or individuals inside the cave.

  Viens immediately phoned Bob Herbert and redirected the signal to

  Op-Center.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

  Slachin Base 2E, Kashmir Thursday, 7:01 a. m.

  There is nothing like sunrise in the Himalayas.

  The higher altitude and thinner, cleaner atmosphere allow a purer light

  to get through. Ishaq did not know how else to describe it. A

  photographer in Islamabad once told him that the atmosphere acted like a

  prism. The lower to the ground you were, the thicker the air blanket was

  and the more the sunlight was bent to the red. Ishaq was not a

  scientist. He did not know if that were true.

  All the Pakistani knew was that the light up here was like he imagined

  the eye of Allah to be. It was white, warm, and intense. He wondered if

  the story of the mountain coming to Mohammad had originated in a peak

  like this one. For as the sun edged higher above the foothills below and

  the shadows shortened, the crags actually appeared to move.

  And as they moved their snow-covered sides glowed brighter and brighter.

  It was almost as though enlightenment were spreading throughout the

  land. Perhaps this was what the tale of the Prophet signified. The light

  of Allah and his Prophet was stronger than anything on this earth. And

  opening one's heart and mind to them made us as strong and eternal.

  That was a comforting thought to Ishaq. If this were to be his last dawn

  at least he would die satisfied and closer to God. In fact, as he looked

  back over his life he had just one regret: that he might have to die

  here and now. He had wanted to be with his comrades when they returned

  to their homeland. But they had intentionally selected for their armory

  a cave that had no other direct line of sight nearby. It would have been

  difficult for anyone to spot the small outpost or to watch them while

  they were here.

  Ishaq had stayed up all night preparing. Then he had watched the sun

  rise as he ate breakfast. He had not wanted to sleep. There would be

  time enough for that. Now, as he sat in the dark in the back of the

  cave, Ishaq heard scraping noises outside.

  Sharab was right. They had been tracked here.

  The Indians had been quiet at first. Now they were no longer taking

  pains to conceal their approach. They were probably wearing cram pons

  and they sounded like mice outside a wall, scratching their way in. The

  sounds grew from a few scrapes along the rear and sides of the cave to

  constant noise and motion. From the shifting location of the sounds he

  could tell that the Indians were already within range of the mouth of

  the cave. They would probably lob tear gas before charging in. If the

  cell had been here there would have been no escape.

  Ishaq decided that this would be a good time to put on his gas mask. He

  slipped the Iranian-made unit on, tightened the straps over his head,

  and snapped the mouthpiece in place.

  His breath was coming in little bursts. He was anxious, but not because

  of what was going to happen. He was worried because he hoped he had done

  everything right. The Pakistani looked at the wooden crates lined with

  plastic. He had gathered them nearby, like wives in a harem, ready for a

  final embrace. It had been a simple process to attach detonators to

  individual explosives, leave them on the top of the crates, and make

  sure the receivers were facing him. But he had not been able to examine

  all of the explosives. They had been stored up here for nearly two

  years. Though it was dry and cold and dampness should not be a problem,

  dynamite was temperamental. The sticks they had used in Srinagar had

  been showing signs of caking. Moisture had gotten inside.

  Still, everything should be all right. Ishaq had rigged seven bundles of

  dynamite with C-4 and remote triggers. All he needed was for one of the

  bundles to blow. He pulled off his heavy gloves and took the detonator

  in his right hand.

  He leaned back against the stone wall.

  Ishaq's legs were spread straight out in front of him and his backside

  was cold. The folded canvas he was sitting on was a bad insulator.

  Not that it mattered. He would not be sitting on it much longer.

  The scraping stopped. He watched the tarp through the greenish tint of

  his face mask Curtains of sunlight hung along the side walls of the

  cave. They shifted and undulated as the wind pushed against the tarp.

  The covering itself rattled against the hooks that held it in place.

  Suddenly, the tarp dropped. Particles of ice that had collected on the

  outside flew, glistening in the sunlight. The shimmering beads died as

  two large, cylindrical canisters were lobbed in. They clanked on the

  cave floor and rolled toward Ishaq. They were already hissing and

  jetting thick clouds of smoke into the air and across the ground. Some

  of the gas unfurled sideways, and some of it was sprayed in his

  direction.

  The Pakistani sat there, waiting calmly. The rolling green gas was still

  about fifteen meters away. The view to the nearest of the detonators

  remained unobstructed. He had a few more moments.

  He began to pray.

  Ishaq listened for the scraping to resume. After a moment it did, moving

  rapidly toward the front of the cave. He watched as the clouds of gas

  began to billow and roll aside as though people were moving through it.

  The gas had nearly reached the explosives.

  It was time.

  The Muslim continued his silent prayer as he pressed the blue "engage"

  button. A light on top of the small controller came on. Ishaq quickly

  pressed the red "detonate" button below it.

  For a blessed moment the sun shined all around Ishaq and he felt as if

  he had been embraced by Allah.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

  Washington, D. C.

  Wednesday, 9:36 p. m.

  "What the hell just happened, Stephen?" Bob Herbert asked.

  Op-Center's intelligence chief had pulled his wheelchair deep under the

  desk. He was leaning over the speakerphone as he watched the Omni Com

  image on his computer. What he had said was not so much a question as an

  observation.

  Herbert knew exactly what had happened.

  "The side of the mountain just exploded," Viens said over the phone.

  "It didn't just explode, it evaporated," Herbert pointed out.

  "That blast had to have been the equivalent of a thousand pounds of

  TNT."

  "At least," Viens agreed.

  Herbert was glad there was no sound with the image. Even just seeing the

  massive, unexpected explosion wakened his sensory memories. Tension and

  grief washed over him as he was reminded of the Beirut embassy bombing.

  "What do you think. Bob? Was it set off by a sensor or motion detector?"

  Viens asked.

  "I doubt it," Herbert said.

  "There are
a lot of avalanches in that part of the world. They could

  have triggered the explosion prematurely."

  "I didn't think of that," Viens admitted.

  Herbert forced himself to focus on the present, not the past.

  Op-Center's intelligence chief reloaded the pictures the satellite had

  sent moments before the blast. He asked the computer to enhance the

  images of the soldiers one at a time.

  "It looked to me like the climbers tossed gas inside," Herbert said.

  "They obviously believed that someone might be waiting for them."

  "They were right," Viens said.

  "The question is how many people were in there?" Herbert said.

  "Were the people who used that cave expecting the climbers? Or were they

  caught by surprise and decided they did not want to be captured alive?"

  An image of the first soldier filled Herbert's monitor.

  There was a clear shot of the man's right arm. On top, just below the

  shoulder of the white camouflage snowsuit, was a circular red patch with

  a solid black insignia. The silhouette showed a horse running along the

  tail of a comet. That was the insignia of the Special Frontier Force.

  "Well, one thing's dead for sure," Viens said.

  "What's that?" Herbert asked.

  "Matt Stoll just phoned to say he's not picking up the cell phone signal

  anymore," Viens told Herbert.

  "He wanted to see if we'd lost it too. I just checked. We have."

  Herbert was still looking at the monitor. He saved the magnified image

  of the shoulder patch.

  "I wonder if the cell led the commandos there to throw them off the

  trail," he said.

  "Possibly," Viens said.

  "Do we have any idea which way the Indian commandos would have come?"

  "From the south," Herbert replied.

  "How long would it take you to start searching through the mountains

  north of the site?"

  "It will take about a half hour to move the satellite," Viens said.

  "First, though, I want to make sure we're not wasting our time. If

  anyone left the cave they would have had to go up before they could go

  down again. I want to get the Omni Com in for a closer look."

  "Footprints in the snow?" Herbert said as the secure phone on his

  wheelchair beeped.

  "Exactly," Viens replied.

  "Go for it. I'll wait," Herbert told him as he backed away from the desk

  so he could reach the phone. He snapped up the receiver.

  "Herbert." "Bob, it's Hank Lewis," said the caller.

  "I've got Ron Friday on the line. He says it's important. I'd like to

  conference him in." "Go ahead," Herbert said. He had been wondering what

  Friday would find at the farmhouse. He was hoping it did not confirm

  their fears of police or government involvement in the Srinagar market

  attack. The implications were too grim to contemplate.

  "Go ahead, Ron," Lewis said.

  "I have Director of Intelligence Bob Herbert on the line with us."

  "Good," Friday said.

  "Mr. Herbert, I'm at the Kumar farmhouse in Kargil with my Black Cat

  liaison. I need to know what other intel you have on the farmer and his

  granddaughter."

  "What have you found out there?" Herbert asked.

  "What?" Friday said.

  "What did you find at the farm?" Herbert asked.

  "What is this, "I show you mine and you show me yours?" " Friday angrily

  demanded.

  "No," Herbert said.

  "It's a field report. Tell me what you've got."

  "I've got my ass on the front frigging line and you're sitting on your

  ass safe in Washington!" Friday said.

  "I need information!"

  "I'm on my ass because my legs don't work anymore," Herbert responded

  calmly.

  "I lost them because too many people trusted the wrong people. Mr.

  Friday, I've got an entire team headed toward your position and they may

  be at considerable risk. You're a piece in my puzzle, a field op for me.

  You tell me what you have and then I'll tell you what you need to know."

  Friday said nothing. Herbert hoped he was considering exactly how to

  word his apology.

  After a few moments Friday broke the silence.

  "I'm waiting for that information, Mr. Herbert," he said.

  That caught Herbert off guard. Okay. They were playing hardball with a

  hand grenade. He could do that.

  "Mr. Lewis," Herbert said, "please thank your field operative for

  reconnoitering the farmhouse. Inform him we will get our information

  directly from the Black Cat Commandos and that our joint operation is

  ended."

  "You bureaucratic asshole--!" Friday snapped.

  "Friday, Mr. Herbert has the authority to terminate this alliance,"

  Lewis said.

  "And frankly, you're not giving me a reason to fight for it."

  "We need each other out here!" Friday said.

  "We may be looking at an international catastrophe!"

  "That's the first useful insight you've given me," Herbert said.

  "Would you care to continue?"

  Friday swore.

  "I don't have time for a pissing contest, Herbert. I'll straighten you

  out later. We've learned that a Pakistani cell, part of the Free Kashmir

  Militia, stayed at the farm of Apu Kumar for about five months.

  The farmer's granddaughter, Nanda, is the only child of a couple who

  died fighting the Pakistanis. The girl wrote poetry the whole time the

  cell was here. It appears to have contained coded elements reporting on

  the cell's activities. She used to recite her poems aloud while she took

  care of the chickens. We suspect members of the Special Frontier Force

  heard what she was saying, probably by cell phone. She was with them

  when the bazaar attack in Srinagar took place and we believe the SFF was

  behind the temple bombing. We also believe that she is still with them,

  and might have the cell phone to signal SFF."

  "She was signaling the SFF," Herbert replied.

  "What happened?" Friday asked.

  It was time to give Friday a little information, a little trust.

  "The Indian pursuit team was just taken out by a powerful explosion in

  the Himalayas," Herbert informed him.

  "How do you know that?" Lewis asked.

  "We've got ELINT resources in the region," Herbert said.

  Herbert used the vague electronics intelligence reference because he did

  not want Lewis to know that he had satellite coverage of the region. The

  new NSA head might start pushing the NRO for off-the-books satellite

  time of his own.

  "How many men were killed?" Lewis asked.

  "About thirteen or fourteen," Herbert replied.

  "They were closing in on what appeared to be an outpost about eight

  thousand feet up in the mountains. The men, the outpost, and the side of

  the mountain are all gone."

  "Were you able to ID the commandos?" Friday asked.

  "Were they wearing uniforms?"

  "They were SFF," Herbert replied.

  "I knew it," Friday said triumphantly.

  "What about the cell?"

  "We don't know," Herbert admitted.

  "We're trying to find out if they got away."

  Herbert looked at the computer monitor. Stephen Viens had just finished

  zooming in slowly on the northern side of the cliff. The resolution was

/>   three meters, sufficient to show footprints. The angle of the sun was

  still low. That would help by casting shadows off the side walls of any

  prints.

  Viens began panning the flattest, widest areas of the slopes.

  Those were the sections where people were likely to be walking in the

  darkness.

  "If the cell did get away the SFF is not going to give up," Friday

  continued.

  "There's a possibility the SFF set them up to take the fall for the

  temple bombings in Srinagar."

  "Do you have proof of that?" Herbert asked. He was interested that

  Friday had come to the same conclusion as he and General Rodgers.

  "No," Friday admitted.

  "But the Black Cats would normally have handled the investigation and

  they were cut out of it by the SFF. They also obviously knew about the