Red Jihad

by Sami Ahmad Khan

  'I personally believe he's dead, but ironically someone high up in the American intelligence does not agree with that assessment. It does not matter to me. I merely follow my orders. Anyway, it is a matter of conjecture. Think he is dead, and our purpose here is to catch only Yasser Basheer. Think he is alive, and we are here to take them both.'

  Menon fell silent for a few moments. The captain resumed, 'It was said by the Americans that OBL was desirous of meeting the man who almost had Pakistan nuke India.'

  'Wow.' Menon whistled in excitement. However, he also hated it when the captain made it sound like a James Bond flick. It made him realize how Commander Menon had done nothing in his life when compared to Commander Bond – especially in terms of wine and women. 'Go on, sir.'

  Captain Rao continued, 'A high level chiefs-of-staff meeting was called, and it was decided that Basheer should be allowed to escape and meet the maybe-dead, maybe-alive primus inter pares of global terrorism,' he chuckled, 'and then we were to attack and bust the gang red-handed.'

  'But that's an awful risk. How was the command so sure we would have caught him again, sir?' Menon was sceptical.

  'That is the catch, Commander. I myself have sketchy details of it. For now, hear the rest,' said the captain, 'Basheer was seen exfiltrating the port of Chabahar and was reportedly picked up by a sub. The command may have had let him go, but it also wanted him badly. And since we cannot have combed the seven oceans, the command hoped to formulate a plan where rather than we searching for the needle in this haystack, the needle came to us instead!'

  'Were not they running away from us? Why would they come to us?' asked a curious Menon.

  'The lure of victory. Of causing maximum damage to their foes. That is why the command dispatched two battle groups: one with INS Vismaya in command and the second was ours – a flotilla of stealth ships that were not easy to pick amongst the clutter of the ocean.'

  'Why two? So that we cover more area?' Menon asked.

  'No. It is more than that. Soon after the hunt began, we took pictures from RISAT and calculated the probable locations of the rogue sub. Then we sent a carrier group with our flagship, INS Vismaya, as bait and assigned it a course that took it near all the probable locations of the sub. Their orders: happily sail by these locations. Take no action. Just wade around.'

  'Oh. So we hoped that the submarine will be tempted by the plush targets and fire upon them.' Menon was beginning to realize the beauty of the plan. 'But why did we send our best ship? Why risk it?'

  'Had we not sent our best ship, the submarine may have laid dormant till we went away. This would have been terrible, as we would have lost both our targets. All our plans would have backfired. We just hoped and prayed that this target will be too much for them to resist. As you know, it did tempt them.' Rao never thought he could almost feel happy to see a ship of his colours be fired upon.

  'So they fired at the battle group.' Menon suddenly became serious. One of his batchmates was the XO on that ship.

  The captain said, 'Yes, the deck of Vismaya was purposefully loaded with inflammable material that exploded and fizzled out harmlessly. Vismaya is safe. Sadly, Doon is not. But it was a worthy sacrifice to make the attacking submarine over-confident. And that, Menon, is dangerous for piloting.'

  Menon gave a start. 'Very dangerous indeed! But, sir, a ship lost to capture a man…the command works in mysterious ways.'

  'I agree. So what do you think would have been their next step now? What would you have done if you were the submarine's commander?' the captain asked Menon.

  'Er...hit and then run in the opposite direction, at full speed,' he answered.

  'Exactly. The rogue submarine took the bait and attacked the group. We, out of its sensor range, tracked the torpedoes back to it and triangulated the submarine's position, keeping the torpedo range of that class in mind.'

  'Once that was done,' the captain continued delineating the plan, 'we predicted its future course vis-à-vis the group that it attacked […] in the opposite direction […] a full 180 degrees.'

  'Oh. So that is why we mined the Arabian Sea with the American anti-submarine mines!' Things were finally falling into a coherent sequence for the commander.

  'Yes. The fleeing sub was caught in the magnetic mines and wounded, but not mortally. Now the sub is limping towards us, and will surface soon. No pain, all gain.'

  'But what about the loss of life aboard the ships it sunk, sir?' Menon interjected.

  'Relax, the command knew of it. A volunteer skeleton crew that bailed out at the first sign of trouble operated the ships in the task force. We lost a ship, but no lives. The command believes no more lives are to be jeopardized presently, only infrastructure, that too only this one time. Cannot say I disagree with it. We already have lost bright young men and women in the war. Better a piece of machinery go down to the bottom of the ocean than human bodies.'

  'But why did we not attack the moment we had its location?' Menon, as always, was a bundle of questions. The good part was that his captain encouraged questions.

  'We need these men alive. The information they can provide would be crucial to vanquish the sectarian movements in both India and Pakistan. Think of it as decimating the entire command and coordination centre of global terrorism at one go. In addition, it was a policy decision. Straight from PMO.' The captain pointed up at the sky.

  'But how can we get them alive? They will fight to their deaths! You know that, sir,' Menon asked.

  'Relax.' Captain Rao was pretty chilled out.

  'Look, Captain, the sub is surfacing. Beware, they can fire at us,' Menon was frantic. He was about to ask the captain's permission for targeting the submarine with the ship's Otobreda 76-mm guns but something in the captain's manner made him stop. Yes, the captain remained calm in the most fiery of all battle situations but right now, he was plainly indifferent.

  Soon the captain explained the reasons behind his behaviour, 'Blacked-out men cannot fire. Why do you think we used these special US mines? They served a dual purpose. One, they made microscopic incisions in the sub's hull. Tiny enough to allow water in, but at a very slow rate that meant the sub would not have lost integrity over an extended period. There were chemicals present in those mines that penetrated the sub and made its air-supply run short by clogging its pumps while simultaneously emptying its tanks, thus forcing the sub to surface. Two, the chemicals infused a neurotoxin in the air supply that acted as a slow sleeping pill. These men would have fallen unconscious the moment their sub had made contact with air on the surface. Chemical warfare, yes, but these bastards deserved it.'

  Menon could not believe his luck. Take Yasser Basheer without firing a single shot! Still, he ordered the ship to be on battle alert. It was no use taking chances.

  The sub surfaced with waters frothing all around it. The ships closed in on it. Menon took out his binoculars and focused on the submarine. The morning sun shone brightly on it, making it look like a floating, burnt hot-dog. Menon patted his stomach. Either you are too hungry or you have gone mad, he thought, or maybe both, a voice at the back of his head whispered. He grinned.

  At a command from Captain Rao, he made his way towards the flight deck. A company of Marcos, specially assigned to Koyna for this mission, was ready to storm the sub. Lieutenant Acintya K, or AK as he was better known, looked at Menon and saluted.

  Menon simply patted his back and said, 'Take care, lad.'

  AK nodded and rounded up his men. They first lowered a speedboat in the water, and followed it with a surprising agility despite their bulk. An engineering team from the ship also joined them. An engine revved. The boat shot towards Ghazi. The Marcos had been briefed on what to do and what to expect. A dozen guns were firmly trained on the submarine.

  They reached the sub and climbed up. And then the Marcos cut through the hatch and entered its belly. The Marco group split into teams and headed towards the various areas they were assigned to sanitize. They undertook a quick tour of the sub and re
ported back to AK, who in turn briefed his Koyna-based controller.

  No resistance had been met but the submarine was in a sorry state. Smoke billowed from the engine room. The pumps were clogged. The sub was operating on battery power. The lights were out. The propeller was damaged. Water was gushing in from the cracks. Some bulkheads had collapsed, but the sub was still intact.

  Ah, the triumph of technology, thought Menon as he heard AK report in.

  Water was beginning to flood a few compartments and its level was rising. The Marcos hurried. The teams returned to the bridge with their precious cargo – the occupants. At an all-clear sign from AK, the engineering team that had tagged along immediately started on the repairs. They had to seal the leaks first to ensure the sub did not sink. Then they started cleaning the filters of the air pumps.

  The bridge was soon full of bodies, except that they were breathing, though unconscious. They ignored the bodies first and stripped the sub of any information that might be useful later. Then, as per orders, the Marcos started to take the unconscious crew of the submarine into custody. One by one, they rolled over the slumped crew and transferred them to the speedboat. From there the men were taken to the Indian ship that was patiently waiting for them.

  The speedboat swayed as it carried them back. The sea spray hit their faces and some stirred, only to be overtaken by an unnatural drowsiness again. Finally, they reached the ship, which was by now hosting a carnival as evident from the multitude of ebullient faces thronging the deck, irrespective of rank and unit. The crew of Ghazi were pulled up to the deck from the speedboat. A doctor was already waiting for them. The crew of the submarine was given medical attention and then identified by naval intelligence.

  Those high up in the command ladder who had been lucky enough to see Basheer's picture, started to hunt for him in the mass of piling bodies in the makeshift sickbay on the deck. One by one, they turned bodies over, peered, and elbowed each other.

  A lieutenant commander cursed. He had found him. Yasser Basheer lay semi-conscious, chewing a tablet. Damn! What was he eating, the lieutenant commander thought. He immediately shouted for the doctor who came running. 'No, not cyanide,' he assured the others after a brief check-up. This man had to live to face the consequences of his doings.

  The men saw Yasser Basheer alive and congratulated each other. Then they saw another of the crew member lying on his stomach in the speedboat wearing a camouflage jacket. Only a fool would wear this at sea instead of a life jacket, they thought, amused at the stupidity of the man. They decided to turn him over to identify him when the captain's voice rang out over the loudspeakers.

  'Clear the deck, NOW!'

  The festive atmosphere shattered like a glass hit by a speeding bullet. The men gasped and rushed to comply and discipline units swung into action. They heard a beating noise in the distance. A bird was coming nearer. It was Commodore Mansoor–he arrived in a Westland WS-61 Sea King helicopter and intentionally landed squarely in the middle of the gathering, thereby dispersing the officers and men observing the entire operation.

  Mansoor took the man with the camouflage jacket into custody, along with Yasser Basheer. Both their unconscious bodies were put in a naval helicopter and were flown away immediately. It was suspiciously hush-hush. The helicopter disappeared in the horizon in a matter of minutes. However, sailors were able to have one glance at the man in the camouflage jacket. They tried racking their brains over who he resembled.

  They were in for a shock.

  Epilogue

  Directorate General of Combined Intelligence Corps, Washington DC, USA

  Local time: 1200 hrs

  Date: 27 April 2014

  Jason E. Cartman, director general of CIC, had a splitting headache–and for a good reason too. The Symmetrists, who were against providing his organization with federal funding, were getting stronger in the Congress with each passing day. Economy was being destabilized by a sudden spurt in Chinese imports, a popular majority in the Middle East had elected the Islamic Brotherhood to power and some meddling public litigators were insisting on reopening the JFK files.

  A reappointment for Cartman looked unlikely, unless the conglomerate backed him up again. Moreover, the conglomerate had made it amply clear that it would support him only if he dug out the truth about the man America had wanted for so long. The conglomerate's objective was clear– the current president had to go. His quasi-socialist goals were too radical for their interests, not to mention quite unprofitable. Cartman was tasked with finding skeletons in the presidential closet. To top it all, he had to work in total secrecy. Operating independently of the White House was not an option but also a prerequisite for one simple reason. The conglomerate had reason to believe that the White House itself had duped the American public by killing a lookalike of the country's most wanted man, and toted it to strengthen a sagging presidency.

  That man had to be found. Not that the conglomerate meant any harm. It just wanted to apprise the president of its knowledge of certain facts and then reason with him to soften his policies pertaining to the industry. Being pro-people was fine for a president as long as he was not anti-industry. It did not work. Not in America. Not anywhere else.

  Cartman opened a drawer to reach for a painkiller. He groped for an aspirin but to no avail. It seemed he was running out of them, too. He cursed, rubbed his temples and stared at the sunlight streaming in the spacious room through the open windows, illuminating the swirling microscopic particles. Suddenly the door was flung open.

  'Sir...!' A deputy burst in, panting and said, 'We got him, sir! The real one! Congratulations!' Forgetting the protocol, he extended a hand towards Cartman, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

  Cartman looked up at him in astonishment. He involuntarily jumped out of his chair.

  'What! We have? Really?' Cartman too, it seemed, was in no mood to stick to formalities. The aide nodded at him zealously as Cartman continued, 'This is splendid news indeed.'

  The aide kept nodding all the while, trying to stop himself from giving Cartman a high five, 'I cannot believe it, sir! We got him!' The young deputy was jumping all around the room.

  Cartman was thunderstruck too. 'What's the status of the entire operation?' he asked.

  'Check, sir. The plan was a roaring success,' the deputy remarked, 'Operation Ragnarök* has successfully achieved all its objectives.'

  'Elucidate.' Cartman wanted to hear all about it. Genuine success stories orchestrated wholly by CIC have become rare indeed.

  'One,' the deputy began, 'we have captured the man we have been hunting for so long. There is DNA proof that he is the real one. The Indians are interrogating him but should part with him soon. As for our agent, he was handed over to our military attaché in New Delhi some time ago and is now here.'

  'Good. Dangle the Shadley-Anders carrot in front of the Indians regarding our target. It should not be difficult considering all this became possible only because of our assistance.'

  'Yes, sir. Secondly, because of their war,' the aide spoke up, 'both India and Pakistan, with their fractured economies, are looking at us for guidance and aid. All caps on foreign direct investments and FIIs have been removed.'

  'Hmm... Seems they require rapid infrastructure reconstruction to make up for the damage caused by the war. Let us be good Samaritans, shall we?' Cartman winked.

  'Thirdly, the Naxalite-Maoist combine has been ousted from India. The Indians clamped down on them very heavily, thanks to the no-nonsense attitude and dedicated synergy of the military and bureaucratic top brass. The Red Corridor is no longer red, or green for that matter.' The aide patted the desk and continued, 'With China too opening up, it seems Communism will no longer be a potent threat to any part of the globe.'

  'Great! No more of this people's revolution hogwash. It always used to freak me out.' Cartman heaved a sigh of relief and said, 'there is nothing more empowering than a democracy.'

  Cartman reached out to drink a glass of water, decided agains
t popping an aspirin into his mouth, and returned to his aide. His headache seemed better all of a sudden.

  'Fourthly, the Islamic fundamentalists are on the verge of either surrendering to the Pakistani government, or are mending their ways. NWFP and Pakistan are returning to normalcy. The companies owned by the conglomerate and mining for Lithium in Afghanistan have reported lesser and lesser attacks with each passing day. The Jihadi morale is on an all-time low except in Xinjiang and Chechnya where, surprisingly, it is not only resurfacing but gaining momentum as well.' The aide smiled slyly.

  'This gets even better!' So does the splitting head, Cartman thought and suppressed a smile, 'And?'

  'Fifthly, India and Pakistan have finally begun to cooperate economically and politically. India and Pakistan have conferred the MFN status on each other and are trying to create a free trade area that comprises of all the SAARC countries. The countries in the East Asia Summit have already exhibited interest to form an FTA with the SAARC countries. Grapevine posits the possibility of the formation of an Asian Union on the lines of the European Union. I can safely say that South Asia is going to be a slightly more stable region now onwards.'

  'Good. Dealing with one unified trading bloc, especially one that espouses free markets, is better than dealing with many.'

  'Sixthly,' the aide kept checking points on a data pad he was holding and said, 'both India and Pakistan are wary of China because of its suspicious role in the entire affair. The intelligence reports of ISI and RAW indict rogue elements of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for fomenting unrest and mutual discord amongst the two countries, not to mention PLA's air force's loaning of couple of J-20s to PAF during the Indo-Pak war raising hackles on all sides. Moreover, investigators will soon find out that the party that attacked the base was trained by China.'

  'With this, India and Pakistan both are definitely out of the Chinese sphere of influence,' Cartman said.