Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control

by Line of Control [lit]

captured in their mountain headquarters.

  After that. Pun's units were supposed to begin preparing for retreat.

  The preparations were supposed to be made quietly and unhurriedly,

  without the use of cell phones or radios. As much as possible should be

  done underground in the shelters and low in the trenches. The Pakistanis

  would notice nothing unusual going on. Devi's four hundred soldiers were

  supposed to be finished by eleven a. m. but they were not to move out

  until they received word directly from Hussain.

  Instead, Commander Hussain had called with a much different project.

  Major Pun was to take half the four hundred soldiers in his command and

  move south, into the mountains.

  They were to carry full survival packs and dress in thermal camouflage

  clothes. Hussain wanted them to proceed in a wide sweep formation toward

  the Siachin Glacier, closing in as the glacier narrowed and they neared

  the summit.

  "Wide sweep" meant that the militia would consist of a line of men who

  came no closer than eyesight. That meant the force could be stretched

  across approximately two miles. Since radio channels might be monitored,

  Hussain wanted them to communicate using field signals.

  Those were a standardized series of gestures developed by MEAN in the

  1930s. The Indian army adopted them in 1947. The signals told them

  little more than to advance, retreat, wait, proceed, slow down, speed

  up, and attack. Directions for attacks were indicated by finger signals:

  the index finger was north, middle finger south, ring finger west, and

  pinky east. The thumb was the indication to "go." Those hand signals

  were usually enough.

  The commands were issued by noncommissioned officers stationed in the

  center of each platoon. They could be overruled by the company

  lieutenants and by Puri himself, who would be leading the operation from

  the center of the wide sweep. In the event of an emergency, the men had

  radios they could use.

  Puri picked up the phone. He ordered his aide to assemble his

  lieutenants in the briefing room. The major said he would be there in

  five minutes. He wanted top-level security for the meeting: no phones or

  radios present, no laptop computers, no notepads.

  Puri chewed his tobacco a moment more before rising.

  Hussain had told him that the Pakistani cell had evaded capture and was

  thought to be heading to Pakistan. Four other bases along the line of

  control were activating units in an effort to intercept the terrorists.

  Each of the base leaders had been given the same order: to take the

  cell, dead or alive.

  That option did not include their lone hostage, an Indian woman from

  Kashmir. Commander Hussain said that the SFF did not expect the woman to

  survive her ordeal. He did not say that she had been mistreated.

  His tone said something else altogether.

  He wanted her not to survive.

  Major Puri turned toward the door and left the shelter. The morning

  light was cold and hazy. He had checked the weather report earlier. It

  was snowing up in the mountains.

  That always produced haze here in the lower elevations.

  Nothing was clear, not even the walls of the trench itself.

  Nor his own vision.

  Major Puri had not expected to play that part either. The role of

  assassin. As he headed for the meeting it struck him as odd that a

  single life should matter. What he did here would contribute to the

  deaths of millions of people in just a day or two. What did one more

  mean?

  Was he upset because she was Indian? No. Indians would die in the

  conflagration as well. Was he upset because she was a woman? No.

  Women would certainly die.

  He was upset because he would probably be there when she died. He might

  even be the one to execute the commander's order.

  He would have to look into her eyes. He would be watching the woman as

  she realized that she was about to die.

  In 1984, when India was rocked by inter caste violence, Prime Minister

  Indira Gandhi ordered a series of attacks on armed Sikh separatists in

  Amritsar. Over a thousand people were killed. Those deaths were

  unfortunate, the inevitable result of armed conflict. Several months

  later, Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by Sikhs who were members of her own

  bodyguard. Her murder was a cold-blooded act and a tragedy.

  It had a face.

  Major Puri knew that this had to be done. But he also knew that he

  wished someone else would do it. Soldiering was a career he could leave

  behind. The job of combatant was temporary. But once he killed, even in

  the name of patriotism, that act would stay with him for the rest of his

  life.

  And the next.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

  Washington, D. C. Wednesday, 11:45 p. m.

  Paul Hood was glad when Bob Herbert came to see him.

  Hood had shut his office door, opened a box of Wheat Thins, and worked

  on the Op-Center budget cuts for the better part of the evening. He had

  left word with Bugs Benet that he was not to be disturbed unless it were

  urgent. Hood did not feel like end-of-the-day chitchat. He did not want

  to have to put on a public face. He wanted to hide, to lose himself in a

  project--any project.

  Most of all Hood did not feel like going home. Or what passed for home

  these days, an undistinguished fifth-floor suite at the Days Inn on

  Mercedes Boulevard. Hood had a feeling that it would be a long time, if

  ever, before he regarded anything but the Hood house in Chevy Chase,

  Maryland, as home. But he and his wife, Sharon, were separated and his

  presence at the house created strife for her. She said he was a reminder

  of their failed marriage, of facing a future without a companion. Their

  two children did not need that tension, especially Harleigh. Hood had

  spent time with Harleigh and her younger brother, Alexander, over the

  weekend.

  They did things that Washingtonians rarely did: they toured the

  monuments. Hood had also arranged for them to get a personal tour of the

  Pentagon. Alexander was impressed by all the saluting that went on. It

  made him feel important not to have to do it. He also liked the kick-ass

  intensity of all the guards.

  Harleigh said she enjoyed the outing but that was pretty much all she

  said. Hood did not know whether it was posttraumatic stress, the

  separation, or both that were on her mind. Psychologist Liz Gordon had

  advised him not to talk about any of that unless Harleigh brought it up.

  His job was to be upbeat and supportive. That was difficult without any

  input from Harleigh. But he did the best he could.

  For Harleigh.

  What he had been neglecting in all of this were his needs.

  Home was the biggest and most immediate hole. The hotel room did not

  have the familiar creaking and pipe sounds and outside noises he had

  come to know. There was no oil burner clicking on and off. The hotel

  room smelled unfamiliar, shared, transient. The water pressure was

  weaker, the soap and shampoo small and impersonal. The nighttime

  lighting on the ceiling was different. Even the c
offeemaker didn't pop

  and burble the same as the one at home. He missed the comfort of the

  familiar. He hated the changes.

  Especially the biggest one. The huge hole he had dug for himself with

  Ann Fan-is, Op-Center's thirty-four year-old press liaison. She had

  pursued him virtually from the day she arrived. He had found the pursuit

  both flattering and uncomfortable.

  Flattering because Paul Hood and his wife had not been connecting for

  years. Uncomfortable because Ann Farris was not subtle. Whatever poker

  face Ann put on during press briefings she did not wear around Hood.

  Maybe it was a question of balance, of yin and yang, of being passive in

  public and aggressive in private. Regardless, her open attention was a

  distraction for Hood and for the people closest to him, like Mike

  Rodgers and Bob Herbert.

  So of course Hood made the desperate mistake of actually making love to

  Ann. That had ratcheted up the tension level by making her feel closer

  and him feel even guiltier. He did not want to make love to her again.

  At least, not until he was divorced. Ann said she understood but she

  still took it as a personal rejection. It had affected their working

  relationship.

  Now she was cool to him in private and hot with the press in public.

  How had Paul Hood gone from someone who reached the top of several

  professions at a relatively young age to someone who had messed up his

  own life and the lives of those around him? How the hell had that

  happened?

  Ann was really the one that Hood did not want to see tonight. But he

  could not tell Bugs to keep only her out.

  Even if she did figure out that was what Hood was doing he did not want

  to insult her directly.

  Ironically, the work Hood was doing involved cutting Ann and her entire

  division.

  Hood was not surprised that Herbert was working this late.

  The intelligence chief preferred work to socializing. It was not

  politically correct but it was pure Herbert: he said that it was more of

  a challenge trying to get inside a spy's head than into a woman's pants.

  The rewards were also greater, Herbert insisted. The spy ended up dead,

  in prison, or incapacitated.

  It was a lesson Hood should have learned from his friend.

  Hood was glad when Herbert came to see him. He needed a crisis to deal

  with, one that was not of his own making.

  The briefing that Bob Herbert gave Hood was not the low intensity

  distraction he had been hoping for. However, the prospect of nuclear war

  between India and Pakistan did chase all other thoughts from Hood's

  mind.

  Herbert brought Hood up to speed on the conversations he'd had with Mike

  Rodgers and Ron Friday. When Herbert was finished. Hood felt energized.

  His own problems had not gone away. But part of him, at least, was out

  of hiding. The part that had a responsibility to others.

  "This is a sticky one," Hood said.

  "Yeah," Herbert agreed.

  "What's your gut say?" "It says to take this situation to the president

  and drop it square in his lap," Hood replied.

  Herbert regarded Hood for a moment.

  "There's a 'but' in your voice," Herbert said.

  "Actually, there are three 'buts' in my voice," Hood told him.

  "First, we're only guessing about what's going on.

  They're educated guesses, but we still don't have proof. Second, let's

  assume your intel is right. That there is a plot to start a war. If we

  tell the president, the president will tell State. Once you tell State,

  the world will know about it through leaks, moles, or electronic

  surveillance. That could scare the perpetrators off--or it could

  accelerate whatever timetable they have."

  "I agree," Herbert said.

  "The SFF and their allies would have insecurity issues instead of

  security issues. Typical when you're keeping information from your own

  countrymen." "Exactly," Hood said.

  "All right. So what's the third 'but'?" Herbert asked.

  "The fact that we may prove a nuclear attack plan is in place," Hood

  said.

  "If the United States exposes it we may actually give it impetus." "I

  don't understand," Herbert said.

  "In terms of military support and intelligence assistance, India has

  always leaned toward Russia," Hood said.

  "An entire generation of Indians considers the United States the

  opposition.

  Suppose we expose a patriotic plan. Do you think that will cause the

  Indians to kill it?"

  "If it involves a nuclear exchange, yes," Herbert said, "Russia would

  come down on our side. So would China." "I don't know if I agree," Hood

  said.

  "Russia is facing an Islamic threat along several of its borders.

  Op-Center just defused a crisis where the Russians were scared about

  Iran's access to Caspian oil. Moscow fought the mujahedin in

  Afghanistan.

  They're afraid of aggressive fifth-column activities in their own

  cities, in allied republics. We can't be sure they would back a Muslim

  nation against their old friend India. As for China, they're looking for

  allies in a move against Taiwan. Suppose India provided them with that,

  a kind of quid pro quo."

  Herbert shook his head slowly.

  "Paul, I've been in this game a long time. I've seen videos of Saddam

  using gas and gunships against his own people. I've been to a Chinese

  execution where five men were shot in the head because they expressed

  dissenting political beliefs. But I can't believe that sane individuals

  would make a deal about nuclear strikes that will kill millions of

  people." "Why not?" Hood asked.

  "Because a nuclear exchange raises the bar for all of human conflict,"

  Herbert insisted.

  "It says that anything goes.

  No one gains by that." "Fair enough," Hood said.

  "I still believe that we may have a radical group of Indian officials

  who may want to nuke Pakistan," Herbert said.

  "Then valid or not, all three of my concerns point to the same thing,"

  Hood said.

  "We need more intel before we go to the president," Herbert said.

  "Right," Hood said.

  "Is there any way of getting that electronically or from sources in the

  government?"

  "There might be, if we had the time," Herbert said.

  "But we've got the Pakistani cell on the run in the mountains and the

  dead SFF commandos behind them. The Indians are not going to wait."

  "Has anything been on DD-1 yet?" Hood asked. DD-1 National was the

  flagship station of Doordarshan, the Indian national television network.

  The broadcaster was also closely affiliated with Prasar Bharati, All

  India Radio, which was run and maintained by the Ministry of Information

  and Broadcasting.

  "One of Matt's people is taping the newscasts," Herbert replied.

  "He's going to give me an assessment of how riled up people are and at

  what rate the media are adding to the whipping-up process."

  "Can we go in and bust up their satellite?" Hood asked.

  Herbert grinned.

  "They use five," he said.

  IN SAT-2E, 2DT, 2B, PAS-4, and Thai Co
m We can scramble them all if we

  have to." "Good," Hood said. He regarded Herbert.

  "You're pushing for Striker to go in and grab the Pakistanis, aren't

  you?" "Hell," Herbert said, "I don't want to just drop Mike and his

  people into the Himalayas--"

  "I know that," Hood assured him.

  "But I don't know if we have any other options, Paul," Herbert

  continued.

  "Whatever we think of what the Pakistanis have done, they have to get

  out to tell what they did not do."

  "What would we do if Striker weren't headed toward the region?" Hood

  asked.

  Herbert thought for a moment then shrugged.

  "What we did in Korea, Russia, and Spain," Herbert said.

  "We'd send 'em."

  Hood nodded thoughtfully.

  "We probably would," he agreed.

  "Have you run this past Mike?" "Not in so many words," Herbert said.

  "But I did tell him to sleep on the flight from Alconbury to Chushul.

  Just in case."

  "How long is that leg of the trip?" Hood asked.