Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control
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on the paratroopers had given the force a much-needed morale boost as
they continued to search for the Pakistani cell. But darkness and sleet
had battered them as they ascended. Now they were looking at a climb
that was going to tax their energies to the limit.
Then there was the unknown factor: the strength and exact location of
the enemy. It was not the way Major Puri liked to run a campaign.
Nearly eight hours before, the Indian soldiers had begun closing ranks
at the base of the Gompa Tower in the Himachal cluster of peaks. The
latest intelligence Puri had received was that American soldiers were
jumping in to help the terrorists get through the line of control to
Pakistan. That was where the parachutists had been headed. The Pakistani
cell was almost certainly there as well. There was no way forward except
through the Indian soldiers. The Pakistanis were undoubtedly exhausted
and relatively under armed now that the Americans had been stopped.
Still, Major Puri did not underestimate them. He never took an enemy for
granted when they had the high ground. The plan he and his lieutenants
had worked out was to have twenty-five men ascend the peak while the
rest covered them from the ground with highpowered rifles and telescopic
sights. Twenty-five more would be ready to ascend as backup if needed.
One or another of the teams was bound to take the cell. One or another
of the teams was also likely to take casualties. Unfortunately, Defense
Minister Kabir did not want to wait for the Pakistanis to come down. Now
that Americans had been killed there would be hard questions from
Washington and New Delhi about what had happened to the paratroopers.
The minister was doing his best to stall air reconnaissance from moving
in to locate and collect the American remains. He had already informed
the prime minister that Major Puri's team was in the region and would
pinpoint them for the Himalayan Eagles.
What Kabir feared was that air reconnaissance might locate the
Pakistanis as well as the paratroopers. The defense minister did not
want the cell to be taken alive.
Using night glasses and shielded flashlights, the Indian troops had been
deploying their climbing gear. They had detected faint heat signatures
above and knew the enemy was up there waiting.
Unfortunately, fly overs would not help them now. The fierce ice storms
above made visibility and navigation difficult. And blind
scatter-bombing of the region was not guaranteed to stop the cell.
There were caves they could hide in. Besides, there were very holy,
anchoritic religious sects and cliff-dwelling tribes living in the
foothills and in some of the higher caves. The last thing either side
wanted was to collate rally destroy the homes or temples of these
neutral peoples. That would force them or their international supporters
into political or military activism.
The Indian soldiers were nearly halfway into the preparations to scale
the cliff when Major Puri received a surprising radio communique.
Earlier in the day a helicopter on routine patrol had reported what
looked like the wreckage of an aircraft in the Mangala Valley.
However, there was no room for the chopper to descend and search for
possible survivors.
Major Puri had dispatched a four-soldier unit to investigate.
Two hours before, the men had reported the discovery of a downed
helicopter. It looked like a Ka-25.
But the aircraft was so badly burned they could not be certain.
Puri called the Base 3 communications center. They checked with the air
ministry. There were no choppers on special assignment in the region.
Because the chopper went down in the narrow valley, rescue personnel
would not be dispatched until the following day. A parachute drop at
night was too risky and, in any case, there were no survivors.
An hour later, Puri's group found the remains of ten American
paratroopers. Major Puri relayed that information to the defense
minister. The minister said he would sit on that information until after
the cell had been taken. He had already come up with a scenario in
which, regrettably, Puri's soldiers had mistaken the Americans for
Pakistanis and had shot the team down.
What surprised the Indian reconnaissance team was what they discovered
on the body of one of the Americans. The soldier, a black woman, was
hanging from a ledge by her parachute. There was a point-to-point radio
in her equipment belt. Occasionally, the red "contact" light flashed.
Someone in the communications link was trying to contact her or someone
else in the link. That meant not all the soldiers had been killed.
Unfortunately, the Indian soldiers could not confirm that. All they got
on the radio was static.
Puri expected that he would find those soldiers in the cliffs above,
with the Pakistanis. But the Mangala Valley unit had employed infrared
glasses in a scan of the region. They had come up with a different
scenario.
"We're detecting a very strong heat source several miles to the
northeast," Sergeant Baliah, the leader of the reconnaissance unit, had
reported.
"There is a singular heat source on the glacier."
"It could be some of the native people," Puri said.
Several groups of mountain dwellers lived in the upper foothills of the
ranges that surrounded the glacier. They often hunted at night after
small game and the larger gazelles had returned to their dens and
warrens. They also used the darkness to set traps for predators that
hunted in the early morning The Tarari did not eat the wolves and foxes
but used their fur for clothing. The traps also kept the animals from
becoming so numerous that they depopulated the region of prey.
"It's a little far west for them," Baliah remarked.
"The heat signature is also less than we would get from a string of
torches. I'm wondering if it might be some of the Americans.
If their equipment was damaged in the jump, they might have built a
campfire."
"How far is 'several miles'?" Puri asked.
"Approximately four," Baliah responded.
"What I don't understand is why the Americans would have left the
valley.
The weather is much more temperate there. They could not have failed to
see the ice."
"The survivors might have found the wreckage of the helicopter and
anticipated a recon team. They moved on," Puri suggested.
"But then why would they have left the radio?" the sergeant wondered
aloud.
"They could easily have gotten it down. Then no one would know there
were survivors."
"Maybe we were meant to find it," Puri said.
"That way they could feed us mis communications Yet even as the major
said that, he knew it did not make sense. The Americans could not have
known that a reconnaissance unit was enroute to the site.
Puri began to consider likely scenarios. The helicopter was probably in
the valley to support the clandestine American operation. Perhaps it was
there to extract the soldiers when their mission was completed.
Americans were only supposed to link up with the Pakistanis and see them
as far as the border.
And then it hit him. Maybe that was still the objective.
"Sergeant, can you make your way to that heat source double-time?" Major
Puri asked.
"Of course," Baliah replied.
"What do you think is going on, sir?"
"I'm not sure," Major Puri told him.
"It's possible that some of the Americans survived the drop and joined
the Pakistani cell on our plateau. But other paratroopers may have been
blown clear of the valley."
"And you think the two may be trying to stay in touch point-to-point in
order to find each other?" Sergeant Baliah asked.
"That's possible," Puri replied.
The major looked up at the plateau his men were getting ready to climb.
The peak was dark but he could see the outline by the way it blocked the
clouds above. Except for the presence of the American paratroopers he
did not know for certain that the cell was up there. What if they were
not?
What if the American drop had been a feint? The shortest way to Pakistan
from this region was across the Siachin Glacier, Base 3 sector.
Right through his command.
"Sergeant, pursue the Siachin element," Puri decided.
"I'm going to request immediate air support in that region."
"At night?" "At night," Puri said.
"Captain Anand knows the region.
He can get a gunship to the target. I want you there in case an enemy is
present and he digs in where the rockets can't get him."
"We're on our way, sir," the sergeant replied.
"We'll have a report in two hours or so."
"That should be about the time the chopper arrives," Puri said.
"Good luck. Sergeant."
Baliah thanked him and clicked off.
The major walked over to his communications officer and asked him to put
in a call to the base. Puri would brief Captain Anand and get the air
reconnaissance underway. Puri would make certain that the operation be
as low-key as possible.
Anand was to take just one chopper into the field and there would be no
unnecessary communications with the base. Even if the Pakistanis could
not interpret the coded messages, a sudden increase in radio traffic
might alert them that something was going on.
While the major waited for Captain Anand he told the lieutenant in
charge of the ascent to finish the preparations but to put the operation
itself on hold. They could afford to wait two hours more before risking
the climb. The Pakistanis on the plateau were not going anywhere.
If there really were Pakistanis on the ledge.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO.
The Siachin Glacier Friday, 12:00 a. m.
When Mike Rodgers was in boot camp, his drill instructor had told him
something that he absolutely did not believe.
The DI's name was Glen "the Hammer" Sheehy. And the Hammer said that
when an opponent was punched during an attack, the odds were good that
he would not feel it.
"The body ignores a nonlethal assault," the Hammer told them.
"Whatever juices we've got pour in like reserves, numbing the pain of a
punch or a stab or even a gunshot and empowering the need to strike
back."
Rodgers did not believe that until the first time he was in a
hand-to-hand combat situation in Vietnam. U. S. and Vietcong recon units
literally stumbled upon each other during a patrol north of Go Due near
the Cambodian border. Rodgers had suffered a knife wound high in the
left arm. But he was not aware of it until after the battle.
One of his friends had been shot in the butt and kept going. When the
unit returned to camp and the medics had put the survivors back
together, one of Rodgers's buddies gave him a black bandanna with a
slogan written in red grease pencil. It said, "It only hurts when I stop
fighting."
It was true. Moreover, there was no time to hurt. Not with more lives
depending upon you.
The reality of losing the Strikers was with Rodgers every moment. But
the pain had not yet sunk in. He was too busy staying fixed on the goal
that had brought them here.
Rodgers was leg-weary as his group made its way across some of the
starkest landscape Rodgers had ever encountered.
The ice was glass-smooth and difficult to navigate.
Nanda and Samouel slipped with increasing regularity.
Rodgers was glad he still had his cram pons heavy though they were.
Rodgers continued to help Apu Kumar along. The farmer's left arm was
slung across Rodgers's neck and they were on a gradual incline. Apu's
feet had to be dragged more than they moved. Rodgers suspected the only
thing that kept the elderly man moving at all was a desire to see his
granddaughter reach safety. The American officer would have helped the
farmer regardless, but he was touched by that thought.
That was not a sentiment Ron Friday seemed to share.
Friday had stayed several paces behind Rodgers, Apu, and Nanda. Samouel
continued to hold the point position, turning the flashlight on at
regular intervals. At just under an hour into the trek, Friday stepped
beside Rodgers. He was panting, his breath coming in wispy white bursts.
"You realize you're risking the rest of this mission by dragging him
along," Friday said.
Though the NSA operative spoke softly, his voice carried in the still,
cold air. Rodgers was certain that Nanda had heard.
"I don't see it that way," Rodgers replied.
"The delay is exponential," Friday continued.
"The longer it takes the weaker we become, slowing us down even more."
"Then you go ahead," Rodgers said.
"I will," he said.
"With Nanda. Across the border." "No," she said emphatically.
"I don't know why you're both so willing to trust those bastards in
Washington," Friday went on.
"We're at our closest approach to the border. It's just about twenty or
thirty minutes north of here. Troops have probably been pulled out to
man the incursion line."
"Some," Rodgers agreed.
"Not all."
"Enough," Friday replied.
"Heading there makes more sense than going another hour northeast to
God-knows where
"Not to the guys we report to," Rodgers reminded him.
"They're not here," Friday shot back.
"They don't have on-site intelligence. They aren't in our shoes."
"They're not field personnel," Rodgers pointed out.
"This is one of the things we trained for."
"Blind, stupid loyalty?" Friday asked.
"Was that also part of your training. General?"
"No. Trust," Rodgers replied.
"I respect the judgment of the men I work with."
"Maybe that's why you ended up with a valley full of dead soldiers,"
Friday said.
Mike Rodgers let the remark go. He had to. He did not have the time or
extra energy to break Friday's jaw.
Friday continued to pace Rodgers. The NSA agent shook his head.
"How many disasters have to bite a military guy in the ass before he
&nbs
p; takes independent action?" he asked.
"Hell, Herbert isn't even a superior officer. You're taking orders from
a civilian."
"And you're pushing it," Rodgers said.
"Let me ask you something," Friday went on.
"If you knew you could cross the line of control and get Nanda to a
place where she could broadcast her story, would you disobey your
instructions?"
"No," Rodgers replied.
"Why?"
"Because there may be a component to this we're not aware of," Rodgers
replied.
"Like what?" Friday asked.
"A 'for instance'?" Rodgers said.
"You flew out here with an Indian officer instead of waiting for us to
join the cell, against instructions. Well, you hate taking orders.
Maybe you were being headstrong. Or maybe you're working with the SFF.