Red Jihad

  'Strategic and symbolic…but two and a half hours?' asked the defence secretary.

  'Yeah. The trajectory of the missile is very irregular,' noted ACM Sharma and looked questioningly at the only man who could have answered that question satisfactorily–the head of DRDO who was also the scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence.

  The DRDO chief thought for a bit and replied, 'It was meant to be. The new guidance system we installed was precisely for this effect. But even I cannot say if it was meant to be this irregular.'

  'This is extremely unusual. What should we do?'

  'When in doubt, shoot,' whispered General Malhotra.

  A sceptical cabinet secretary, Ajay Mishra, realized the implications of this decision and raised his eyebrows. He spoke, 'General, are you sure you want to do this?'

  'Yes,' came a terse reply from Malhotra, and he nodded to the admiral.

  Admiral Sapra got the hint, and in turn looked at the operations officer and said, 'As you wish, General.'

  He then gave his order, 'Raise the SFC alert to Level 3. Mate the warheads to the missiles and let the military begin to move them into launch positions. Also, review and ready plans for Level 2. But take no proactive measures, OK?'

  The operations officer looked at General Malhotra, and at a nod from him went out and began to comply by coordinating with the actual executors of the orders, passing on the specific codes required for the job.

  Suddenly, an officer from DRDO, white as a sheet, burst in panting. 'Sir, we have developments,' he screamed, his spectacles almost falling off his nose.

  'What? Is it going to strike sooner?' asked Mishra, rising from his chair.

  'No, sir.'

  'Will strike later than expected, then? Good for us. It will give us more time to evacuate.' Air Chief Vikramjeet Sharma heaved a sigh of relief.

  'No, sir.'

  'No? Are you telling me it veered off course and fell in the sea or in a forest?' enquired an agitated Admiral Sapra.

  'Er...no, sir.'

  'Then what are you trying to say, young man?' General Malhotra asked. Irritation oozed out of the room like a white frothing brook. The general's gaze was capable of melting steel.

  'Based on the present calculations, the missile will...er... overshoot Delhi,' the DRDO officer managed to sputter.

  He was not to be blamed, though. He was on deputation to DRDO from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). All this talk of missiles and violence made him sad. Not to mention scared. He was an explorer who had planned to devote his life to locate and communicate with extra-terrestrial intelligence. All this human infighting made him irritated. However, he chose to keep his irritation in check, for greater matters pestered him.

  An incredulous general asked, 'What! Are you sure?'

  'Yes, sir. I double-checked,' the man said nervously. The only thing that would have offended him was to have his calculations doubted. Thankfully, it did not happen.

  'Ha! Thank God we have got the DRDO working for us!' the admiral said, sarcasm mingled with relief, as the DRDO chief gave him an angry look.

  'Then where is it headed?'

  'Er...this is only a rough estimate. The missile constantly keeps changing bearing but the most probable target as per its current trajectory is...' His voice trailed off imagining the kind of reaction his revelation would invoke.

  The home secretary realized his condition. He said, 'Come on, beta. Speak up. Where is it going to strike?'

  'Sir, based on its current trajectory, it will strike Amritsar,' the man from DRDO said and looked away.

  Silence engulfed the room like a dark, icy sheet.

  Master Control Facility, NMRC

  Local time: 0200 hours

  Date: 25 April 2014

  As a hound on scent, Captain Rajiv Thomas kept searching room after room diligently. Salvage operations were under way. Based on what he had come across until now, the perpetrators were most definitely Naxalites, but with SSG guns, ammunitions, supplies and leadership.

  Grapevine had it that India was officially moving to Red Deux, Level 2 of nuclear readiness. Preliminary action had been initiated to permit rapid transition to maximum readiness and nuclear capable missiles were being moved to launch positions.

  Funny, he thought, how it was a missile that had started it all. He instinctively looked back at the empty silo. How could they have assembled and test-fired a missile? How on earth? He saw a dead attacker. He rummaged through his gear. Yes, definitely SSG standard issue equipment. However, the man himself was frail and emaciated. Moreover, he was wearing spectacles. Not the SSG-type at all, Thomas thought.

  Thomas stumbled across another body, this one wearing a lab coat that was caked with blood. He must be one of the technical staff of the base, he thought. A postcard-sized photo hung out of the lab coat's upper pocket. Was it a picture of his family? Friends? Out of curiosity Thomas bent down to pick it up. It showed a man, most probably the one lying dead at his feet, on his graduation day. Weird scientists. Colleagues are their family, work their religion, he mused–is it any different from us?

  Thomas was about to put the photo away but he decided to look at it once. The picture was clicked with an old Polaroid camera and was of the same man standing with a couple of his friends. He saw the picture and was about to respectfully stuff it back in the man's pocket when something caught his eye.

  He looked at the photo again. A shiver ran down his spine. He shook his head forcefully and rubbed his eyes with his hands. Then he looked at the photo again. And kept looking, his mouth hung open, his brain refusing to work.

  Jesus, is it possible? He flipped the photo over to read 'Surya, Bhau, Wali, and Ray–Graduation Day 1985, IIT Kharagpur' scrawled on it in wriggly handwriting. The man at his feet was definitely Surya. Or Suryakant, as the name tag on the lab coat said, something that Thomas had missed earlier. He chided himself. Such minute details were vital.

  Thomas looked at the picture again. His mind started to whirr as he compared the picture he was currently holding in his hands with the sole existing picture of another individual he had come to fear. The photo that he had seen had been taken in Kathmandu about a decade ago. This one was, on the other hand, about thirty years old. A swear word escaped him as realization struck home. Mutual necessity, it seems, is the mother of strange bedfellows. 'O God, why hast thou forsaken us?' he said. From behind the face of a young, smiling Bhau thirty years ago, Comrade Agyaat's penetrating gaze stared back at him.

  Integrated Defence Command Headquarters, New Delhi

  Local time: 0300 hours

  Date: 25 April 2014

  'Sir, I am not sure whether this will make you feel better or worse...' The DRDO man was back again, his eyes carefully checking the data on the pad he clutched close to him, as if it was the only thing standing between him and the forceful personalities all around.

  'Or mad?' Sharma, the cheeky joker, quipped.

  'Or mad,' the man accepted gracefully.

  'What is it?' asked Malhotra, who was, by now, getting extremely wary of the sudden twists in the tale.

  The DRDO chief had by now stridden towards his staff member and was glancing at his data with the most peculiar expression on his face. 'Er...you are not going to like this,' he said.

  'Come on, tell me. How can I like this if I have not liked an iota of whatever that has happened in the past few nightmarish hours of my life?' Malhotra was feeling on the edge.

  'The direction of the missile has changed. Pralay has a new target again,' the DRDO chief announced.

  'Oh how wonderful,' someone rued in the background.

  'What???'

  'Again!'

  'No!'

  Had the situation not been so tense, the chorus would have been quite aesthetic for its absurdist tautology.

  'Yes, the variable target guidance system installed in Pralay just kicked in. The target changed at the last instant. The missile was twenty-three kilometres from Amritsar when it swerved in anot
her direction.'

  'Which direction? Is it doubling back on us now that we have stopped the evacuation of Delhi and asked Amritsar to be evacuated in turn?' Malhotra asked, horrified, and hoping that he was wrong. He was.

  'No, sir.'

  People in the room sighed collectively in relief.

  'Then what is the missile's final target?' asked Mishra.

  'It does not make any sense! I do not know what to make of it, sir!' The DRDO man holding the data pad was still shaking his head.

  Poor lad, buckling under pressure, thought the civil servants, must be hard for him. Incompetent wretch, thought the military men, he should be shot for dereliction of duty at such a crucial hour. As ever, the two viewpoints clashed; one was hard when the other was soft, one was aggressive when the other was defensive. Between the civil servants and the military, no one way of life was either hard or soft forever – their perspectives changed with the context. The military was from Mars, and the civilian administrators from Venus, but for the fact that both of them frequently kept changing their home planets.

  'Dammit, tell me where is the missile going to strike?' Malhotra screamed; he was fed up of the erratic missile.

  The man stammered, 'La-la-la-Lahore, sir. The missile is headed straight towards Lahore.'

  It seemed as if time stopped for a while. Then everyone in the room, from the battle-hardened warriors to the most esteemed rational, non-sentimental core constituents of the steel frame, went utterly mad.

  Part III

  IMPACT

  We make war that we may live in peace.

  –Aristotle

  Ganda Singh Wala, Kasur, Pakistan

  Local time: 0345 hours

  Date: 25 April 2014

  Corporal technician Rashid Haidar operating the air defence station in the twenty-four hours operational observation room was freshly hurting from a fight with his better half. His fondness for cricket clashed with his wife's love for reality shows, and he had just one television set at home.

  An irritated Haidar stopped cursing the day he had said yes to marriage when he spied something anomalous on the screen. He bent to recheck as he felt his body shiver. He looked up from his console slowly and shook his head. He counted from one to ten and then looked down again, only to stare disbelievingly at the venomous information the console was spewing out. He scanned the scope for a third time, his eyes unable to believe what he was seeing. This was not possible! Where did it come from?

  Haidar took a print out and ran to the officer-on-duty, Cecil Chughtai, a lieutenant recently graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy, and handed him the paper. Chughtai was, against regulations, listening to music on his iPod and smoking a Marlboro while still on duty. Night shifts, especially pertaining to watch-keeping and coordination, were immensely boring. Some leeway was granted to officers with regard to how they chose to spend their time. Listening to music, having a smoke and reading a book, generally qualified as one such illegitimate but acceptable time-pass.

  Chughtai started as the visibly pale Haidar entered the room in a mad rush, as if rabid dogs were chasing him.

  'Yes?' Chughtai asked curtly. He did not like being disturbed in the middle of Zaphod's daring escape from the Vogons.

  'Sir…' Haidar pushed the paper towards Chughtai. He did not salute, an omission noted by the lieutenant. He will have to record it and discipline the corporal himself, the lieutenant thought. He never trusted these air force types with their inherent oh-I'm-so-better-than-you-bloody-earth-thumpers attitude. Leave officers, even other ranks were obnoxious. A pity air defence was primarily the responsibility of the Pakistan Air Force.

  Chughtai looked up in time to see Haidar trying to steady himself on the table.

  'Oye! Ki hoya?' Chughtai asked, suddenly cautious, 'You look as if you have seen a ghost! Are you all right?' He hoped the man under his command was not having a cardiac arrest. Such accidents tarnished one's record. Really. He knew a lieutenant general who did not make it to a full general only because he had given many under his command. Cardiac arrests.

  'J-j-janaab,' Haidar pointed at the printout with shaking fingers.

  Chughtai glanced at it, his interest piqued by such a queer anomaly. He studied the document further. It sunk in with the intensity of a sharp, heated scimitar. The cigarette dropped from his lips. He got up and rushed to the console to recheck the calculations and sensor readings himself.

  Chughtai completed his calculations as sweat drops began to appear on his forehead. With a quivering voice, he called his superior at GHQ to inform him of the development. From there, the chain of command took over, until it reached and forcefully shook General Mohammad Akram Haque, the chief of Pakistani army, from his cosy slumber.

  ♦

  The general was out of his bed and making his way towards the headquarters in almost record time. His farmhouse was not very far away from the headquarters. His cavalcade sped on the empty roads, sirens blaring at full. When he reached, his deputies who had already assembled in the war room waiting to be briefed, greeted him with worried looks. This was insane. This was so not happening.

  'Status?' General Akram barked, as the doors to the conference room closed behind him.

  Silence greeted him, followed by a wave of incoherent murmuring. He did not know whether it was the unearthly hours, low morale, trouble with enemy identification or lack of plain sleep that made his officers act like this. Or was it the anti corruption cases lodged against them by the new government?

  'Come on, men, pull yourself together. We have a job to do. We have planned for such eventualities, right? We always knew India would attack us one day. Today we prove to the Pakistani people how much they need us for their safety. Brief the president and the PM.'

  Akram knew well one of the basic rules of command. When in a sticky situation, distance oneself from urgency. Behave as if nothing is wrong. Act almost casual. That everything is well under control. Or soon will be. Just keep a cool head, use your training and follow orders. Otherwise, all is lost in the first few hours of combat itself.

  There was a murmur of agreement. People started falling in line.

  'Target?' General Akram asked no one in particular.

  The men understood at whom the question was directed. The commander of Army Air Defence Command said, glancing up from his notepad, 'The target remains the same, sir. Lahore.'

  'Have you tried to take the missile down yet?' Akram asked.

  A major general reported, 'We have, sir. We have activated the Missile Shield System and locked on Interceptor and S-75 Dvina missiles, but the oncoming missile is highly agile. Almost invisible. It fools our counter-attacks.'

  The air vice-marshal of the Air Defence Command, Chaklala, ventured forth, 'Yes, sir. We have also launched three unsuccessful waves until now with MBDA Spada 2000. All failed. This is highly advanced enemy technology we are dealing with. We cannot even lock in on the heat signature of the missile about to hit us. The speed and bearing keeps changing with every moment. This is absurd! It is Op. Geronimo all over again!'

  Akram responded, 'This is irritating indeed. Launch one more wave. The intelligence reported that Indians were planning to do something similar, did it not? Did we not create battle plans for such a contingency? There has to be something that we can do!'

  His question was met by an awkward silence. Of all the battle exercises and plans, none had prepared them for an attack with an invisible missile.

  'Warhead?' Akram asked.

  'Indeterminate,' came the reply.

  God, I hope it is not nuclear. He gritted his teeth, 'Evacuation status?'

  'Lahore is being evacuated, but it is bound to take time. It is a big city, after all. The delay lay in locating the incoming missile,' said commander north of the Pakistani navy.

  Others jumped to his defence. 'It seems to be a new stealth design, sir. Even our newly acquired American radar sensors were unable to pick it until it was almost on top of us.'

  'Yea
h, even the American technology failed to detect it!'

  'Even now, it disappears off the screen now and then. We can only hope it reappears. We know one thing–the flight path makes it clear it originated from the Indian airspace. It was launched from India.' Perhaps this was the only thing that everyone present in the room fully agreed to. It was all India's fault. As always.

  Akram swore and turned to face his most trusted aide, who had uncharacteristically remained silent until now. How very curious, Akram thought, and opened his mouth to say something to him. Lieutenant General Asif Chowdhury sat gazing into the distance, drumming the table with his fingers. His face was unreadable.

  Integrated Defence Command Headquarters, New Delhi

  Local time: 0400 hours

  Date: 25 April 2014

  'If deep shit qualifies as this much…till here,' General Malhotra made a gesture of the depth of the entity he was talking about, 'then I reckon we are in deep shit to the power of n, where n equals the number of battle plans we have drawn up in case of opening up of hostilities against Pakistan.'

  'And it is time for legs up-hands down drill,' muttered ACM Sharma, his NDA days flashing back in his mind all of a sudden.

  The war room was abuzz with voices. The cabinet secretary leaned forward as the defence secretary whispered something in his ear. The military men sat huddled together, pondering over the near miss, some even savouring the visible discomfort of the Secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs. Clearly, someone had a lot of explaining to do to the world.

  The home secretary broke the silence, 'What do we do now?'

  'What do you think we should do?' shot back General Malhotra.

  'We should tell the Pakistanis they have an inbound missile. Give them the target and any information they need. Tell them that the missile is…er…rogue and was launched by non-state actors.'

  'I am sure they will understand the terminology all too well,' said Air Chief Sharma, his tone acerbic.