Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control
Page 35
they could go. a Pakistani nuclear silo would be my absolute last
choice."
"I agree with all of that," Hood replied.
"The problem is we also have to get Nanda Kumar on-camera as fast as
possible."
"Nanda, yes," Herbert said.
"The problem is Mike and Ron Friday. If the Pakistanis get them on video
there's no telling what bullshit story Islamabad might concoct.
They could kill the audio, release the video to the news media, and say
that Mike and Friday are there as technical advisors. How's that going
to play in India, Russia, China, and God knows where else? An American
general and intelligence officer working closely with Pakistani nuclear
missiles?"
"They'd say we were in on the Pakistani operation from the start," Hood
said.
"I'm just not seeing any other viable options."
Herbert shook his head.
"Nothing's jumping out at me either."
"Then let's move this along and just watch our step," Hood told him.
"The first thing we have to do is try to get Brett on the line. Let's
see if he can even contact Mike." "I'm on it," Herbert said.
"I'll get the coordinates of the missile silo from Simathna," Hood told
him.
"Then I'll call Hank Lewis, Senator Fox, and the president and let them
know what we want to do."
"You won't get support from Fox or the president," Herbert said.
"I know, but I don't think they'll shut the operation down," Hood
replied.
"We're already in this too deep. If Mike and Friday cross the line of
control with the Pakistani cell, Islamabad will say the United States
was helping them escape. That would be nearly as damaging."
Herbert agreed. He turned and wheeled himself into a corner of the
office and punched the TAC-SAT number into his wheelchair phone.
Meanwhile, Paul Hood got back on the line with Ambassador Simathna.
Hood turned off the speakerphone so his conversation would not interfere
with Herbert's call.
"Mr. Ambassador?" Hood said.
"I am here," Simathna replied.
"Thank you for holding, sir," Hood said.
"We agree that your proposal should be pursued."
"Pursued,"
" the ambassador replied.
"Does that mean you are also considering other courses of action?"
"Not at the moment," Hood said.
"But you might," the ambassador pressed.
"It's possible," Hood agreed.
"Right now we're not even certain we can contact General Rodgers, let
alone get him to the silo. We also don't know the condition of his
party."
"I appreciate your uncertainty but you must understand my concern," the
ambassador said.
"We do not wish to give out the location of our defensive silo unless
your officer is going to use it."
The conversation was becoming an exercise in hedging, not cooperation.
Hood needed to change that, especially if he were going to trust Mike
Rodgers's fate to this man.
"I do understand, Mr. Ambassador," Hood said.
Suddenly, Herbert turned. He shook his head.
"Hold on, Mr. Ambassador," Hood said urgently. He jabbed the mute
button.
"What is it. Bob?"
"Brett can't raise Mike," Herbert told him.
Hood swore.
"All he gets on the radio is heavy static," Herbert went on.
"Sharab tells him the winds won't cut out for another five or six
hours."
"That doesn't help us," Hood said.
Hood thought for a moment. They had thousands of satellites in the air
and outposts throughout the region. There had to be some way to get a
message to Mike Rodgers.
Or someone with him. Hood thought suddenly.
"Bob, we may be able to do something," Hood said.
"Tell Brett we'll get back to him in a few minutes. Then put in a call
to Hank Lewis."
"Will do," Herbert said.
Hood deactivated the mute.
"Mr. Ambassador, can you stay on the line?"
"The security of my nation is at risk," Simathna said.
"Is that a 'yes," sir?" Hood pressed. He did not have time for speeches.
"It was an emphatic yes, Mr. Hood."
"Is Mr. Plummer still with you?" Hood asked.
"I'm here, Paul," Plummer said.
"Good. I may need your help," Hood said.
"I understand," Plummer replied.
"I'm putting you on speaker so you can both be a part of what's going
on," Hood said.
The ambassador thanked him.
Simathna sounded sincere. Hood hoped he was. Because if Simathna did
anything to jeopardize Rodgers or the mission, Hood would know about it
immediately.
Ron Plummer would make sure of that.
CHAPTER FIFTY.
The Siachin Glacier Thursday, 11:40 p. m.
It was the last thing Ron Friday expected to feel.
As he neared the kneeling body of Apu Kumar, Friday felt the cell phone
begin to vibrate in his vest pocket. It could only be a call from
someone at the National Security Agency.
But the signal absolutely should not be able to reach him out here. Not
with the mountains surrounding the glacier, the distance from the radio
towers in Kashmir, and the ice storms that whipped around the peaks in
the dark. The friction of the ice particles produced electrostatic
charges that made even point-to-point radio communications difficult.
Yet the phone line was definitely active. Absurdly so, as if he were
riding the Metro in Washington instead of standing on a glacier in the
middle of the Himalayas. Friday stopped and let the gun slip back into
his pocket. He reached inside his coat, withdrew the phone, and hit the
talk button.
"Yes?" Friday said.
"Is this Ron Friday?" the caller asked in a clear, loud voice.
"Who wants to know?" Friday asked incredulously.
"Colonel Brett August of Striker," said the caller.
"Striker?" Friday said.
"Where are you? When did you land?"
"I'm with Sharab in the mountains overlooking your position," August
said.
"I'm calling on our TAC-SAT. Director Lewis gave us your number and the
call code 1272000."
That was the correct ID number for the NSA director in coded
communications. Still, Friday was suspicious.
"How many of you are there?"
"Only three of us," August informed him.
"Three? What happened?" Friday asked.
"We were caught in fire from the Indian army," August told him.
"Is General Rodgers with you?"
"No," Friday replied.
"It's important that you watch for him and link up," August said.
"Where is he?" Friday asked.
"The general reached the Mangala Valley and is headed east," August
said.
"Satellite recon gave him your general position." "The valley," Friday
said. His eyes drifted to where Samouel was moving through the darkness.
"That's just ahead."
"Good. When you link up you are to proceed to these coordinates on the
pilot's map you're carrying," August went on.
"Hold on while I get it," Friday said.
The American crouched and set the phone on the ice. He
pulled the map
and a pen from his pocket. Friday tried to read the map by the green
glow of the cell phone but that was not possible. He was forced to light
one of his torches.
The sudden brightness caused him to wince. He tried jamming the branch
into the glacier but the surface was too solid.
Apu reached over and held it for him. Friday remained crouching with the
map spread before him.
"I'm set," Friday said as his eyes adjusted to the light.
"Go to seventeen-point-three degrees north, twenty-one point-three
degrees east," August told him.
Friday looked at the coordinates. He saw absolutely nothing on the map
but ice.
"What's there?" Friday asked.
"I don't know," August told him.
"Excuse me?"
"I don't know," August repeated.
"Then who does?" Friday demanded.
"I don't know that either," August admitted.
"I'm just relaying orders from our superiors at Op-Center and the NSA."
"Well, I don't go on blind missions," Friday complained as he continued
to study the map.
"And I see that following the coordinates you gave me will take us away
from the line of control." "Look," August said.
"You know what's at stake in the region. So does Washington. They
wouldn't ask you to go if it weren't important. Now I'm sitting up here
with my forces depleted and the Indian army at my feet. I've got to deal
with that. Either I or William Musicant will call back in two hours with
more information. That's about how long it should take you to reach the
coordinates from the mouth of the valley."
"Assuming we go," Friday said.
"I assume you'll follow orders the same way my Strikers did," the
colonel said.
"August out."
The line went dead. Friday shut his phone off and put it away.
Arrogant son of a bitch.
Nanda's voice rose from the darkness.
"What is it?" she asked.
Friday continued to squat where he was. The heat of the torch was
melting the ice beside him but the warmth felt good. The woman obviously
had not seen what he was about to do before the telephone vibrated.
"The know-it-alls in Washington have a new plan for us but they won't
tell us what it is," Friday said.
"They want us to go to a spot on the map and wait for instructions."
Nanda walked over.
"What spot?" she asked.
Friday showed her.
"The middle of the glacier," she said.
"Do you know what might be out there?" Friday asked.
"No," she replied.
"I don't like it," Friday said.
"I don't even know if that was Colonel August on the line. The Indian
army might have captured him, made him give them the code number."
"They didn't," a voice said from the darkness.
Friday and Nanda both started. The American grabbed the torch and held
it to his left. That was the direction from which the voice had come.
A man was walking toward them. He was dressed in a white high altitude
jumpsuit and U. S. Army equipment vest, and he was carrying a
flashlight. Samouel was trailing slightly behind him. Friday shifted the
torch to his left hand.
He slipped his right hand back into the pocket with the gun.
He rose.
"I'm General Mike Rodgers of Striker," said the new arrival.
"I assume you're Friday and Ms. Kumar."
"Yes," the woman replied.
Friday was not happy to have company. First, he wanted to be sure the
man was who he claimed to be. Friday studied the man as he approached.
He did not appear to be Indian.
Also, his cheeks and the area around his eyes were wind blasted red and
raw. He looked like he could be someone who walked a long way to get
here.
"How do you know that it was actually August who called me?" Friday
demanded.
"Colonel August spent several years as a guest of the North Vietnamese,"
Rodgers said.
"He didn't tell them anything they wanted to know. Nothing's changed.
Why did he contact you?"
"Washington wants us to go to a point northeast of here, away from the
line of control," Friday replied.
"But they didn't tell us why." "Of course not," Rodgers said.
"If we're captured by the enemy we can't tell them where we're headed."
He removed his radio and tried it. There was only static.
"How did Colonel August contact you?"
"TAC-SAT to cell phone," Friday replied.
"Clever," Rodgers said.
"Is he holding up all right?"
Friday nodded. As long as August kept the Indians off their trail, he
did not care how the pack animal was holding up.
Rodgers walked over to Apu and offered him a hand. Water had begun to
pool around the Indian's feet.
"I suggest we start walking before we freeze here," Rodgers said.
"That's it, then?" Friday said.
"You've decided that we should go deeper into the glacier?"
"No. Washington decided that," Rodgers replied. He helped Apu to his
feet but his eyes remained on Friday.
"Even though we don't know where we're going," Friday repeated.
"Especially because of that," Rodgers said.
"If they want to keep the target a secret it must be important."
Friday did not disagree. He simply did not trust the people in
Washington to do what was best for him. On top of that, Friday loathed
Rodgers. He had never liked military people.
They were pack animals who expected everyone else to obey the pack
leader's commands and conform to the pack agenda, even if that meant
dying for the pack. Standing up to captors instead of cooperating for
the good of all. That was not his way. It was the reason he worked
alone. One man could always find a way to survive, to prosper.
Nanda and Samouel both moved to where Rodgers was standing with Apu. If
the Indian woman had decided to continue on to the line of control,
Friday would have gone with her. But if she was joining Rodgers, Friday
had no choice but to go along with them.
For now.
Friday extinguished the torch by touching it to the melted ice. The
water would freeze in seconds and he could knock the ice off if they
needed the torch again.
The group continued its trek across the ice with Samouel in the lead and
Rodgers and Nanda helping Apu. Friday kept his right hand in his pocket,
on the gun. If at any point he did not like how things were going he
would put them back on their original course.
With or without General Rodgers.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.
The Himachal Peaks Thursday, 11:41 p. m.
It had been an arduous day for Major Dev Puri and the two hundred men of
his elite front line regiment. This was supposed to be a straightforward
sweep of the foothills of the Great Himalaya Range.
Instead, it had become a forced march sparked by surprising intelligence
reports, unexpected enemies, evolving strategies, and constantly
changing objectives.
The most recent shift was the riskiest. It carried the danger of drawing
the attention of Pakistani border forces. Because of Pun's mission
, it
would be much easier for the enemy to cross the line of control at Base
3.
The Indian soldiers had been marching virtually without rest since they
left the trenches. The terrain was merely rugged to start. Then the
higher elevations brought cold and walls of wind. The successful attack