Line of Control- A Thriller on the Coming War in Asia Page 19

  Then it happened.

  Chauhan jumped off the tank and ran to safety. An Army Inquiry found him to be not guilty of any negligence, as in the judgment of the Commission, he could not have survived himself had he gone back into the tank.

  But Chauhan never forgave himself. A difficult six months later, he was back, but the scars remained. And the nightmares. And the snide remarks from fellow officers that he was a coward, and had gotten away only because his father was a big shot in the Army. And the two years of constantly trying to prove himself to others, and most importantly, to himself.

  When he finished, there were tears in his eyes, and he had gripped Pooja’s hand tightly, as if seeking support.

  `Oh God, I had no idea. But, Dev, you need to let go. The man’s death was not your fault.’

  Chauhan’s voice took on a bitter edge.

  `You know what, it’s not whether I could have gone in or not. At that moment, I wouldn’t have-I was terrified. I just froze. I could have at least tried to get him out…’

  The tears were coming freely now.

  Pooja put her arm around his shoulder and spoke softly, `Dev, you can’t live with the ghosts of the past forever. You have to put them behind you. And the best way to do that is to confront your fears head on, and not try and hide from them. You can’t go through life always proving to yourself that you have it in you. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. The moment you have convinced yourself, the battle’s won.’

  Chauhan wiped his eyes and looked at Pooja with an embarrassed grin.

  `Thanks. I feel much lighter. I just hope I haven’t made a fool of myself.’

  He was trying to return to his usual self, and Pooja did not want to embarrass him.

  `No, oh God, Dev. You haven’t made a fool of yourself at all. Sometimes, you just need to let go. Now get some rest, I guess we’ll have a tough day tomorrow.’

  Pooja got up and walked towards the door, as Chauhan stopped her with the following words,

  `Could you stay for a while.’

  As she came closer to him, she could see that he was still sobbing, and she reached out to comfort him. He buried his head into her shoulder as he gripped her tightly for support. Things then happened fast-Pooja wasn’t sure what started it, but their lips seemed to seek each other out as they kissed, tentatively at first, and then with increasing passion. Chauhan started to say something, probably realizing that things were moving far beyond what either of them had planned, but Pooja put a finger to his lips to silence him as he guided her down onto the bed

  ***

  `Shells coming in!’ Phadke shouted and dove for cover. The solitary shell landed quite some distance away and exploded with an anti-climactic thud. Phadke got up, grinning sheepishly. Everyone else had reacted to his shouts and also scampered for cover, and were now looking as sheepish as him.

  `Well, so much for their artillery. Bless those Air Force guys, they’ve finally got their act together.’

  After the afternoon’s air raid, the Pakistanis had only one artillery piece left, and it was little more than nuisance value for the Indians holding Uri. But there still was a whole Pakistani Brigade out there, which together with the Mujahideen, meant an attacking force of close to 1500 men. The Indians, despite the reinforcements numbered only around 600. The odds were still in favor of the Pakistanis, but with almost total Indian air superiority, they were paying a terrible price for every inch they came closer to Uri. The main force was now only six kilometers outside the town, and advance scouts had reported that the Pakistanis had six M-113 APCs and four Type 59 tanks. Rahman had deployed all his anti-tank launchers outside the city on the hill that had been the site for the first skirmish with the Mujahideen, but for now it was the Air Force’s show.

  Phadke was now fiddling around with an LMG, showing off to the Paras. He had become something of a celebrity after word got around that he was the one who had led the fateful counterattack on the Mujahideen camp.

  `Look up!’

  Rahman turned his head up to see four planes streaking westwards. Poor bastards, thought Rahman, as he pictured the Pakistanis, advancing under almost incessant attacks from the air.

  A couple of minutes later, the four aircraft flew back over Uri, one of them trailing smoke. Three columns of black smoke rising in the distance told Rahman and his men that the IAF fighters had not missed.

  Thapa came up to Rahman, assault rifle in hand.

  `So, Major, we are ready?’

  `Yes, let’s begin.’

  The Indian plan was simple, and the key to its success was surprise. Despite their losses, the Pakistanis would have figured that they still had a fairly large numerical edge, and the last thing they would expect was an Indian attack.

  Phadke was leading a combined force of 100 men, armed only with assault rifles and grenades. The only heavy weapons the Indians had, four mortars and three anti-tank launchers, were all on the hill, which the Pakistanis were rapidly approaching. Thapa and Rahman were both on the hill with all their remaining men.

  Phadke had left just over thirty minutes ago, leading the men in a grueling march that would take them almost two hours and would place them behind the Pakistani left flank. To avoid detection, they had clambered down the side of the small valley to Uri’s Northwest. It had been slow and painful progress down a nearly vertical hill and when they finally reached their destination, almost every one of the Indians had bruises and cuts.

  Hawk had once again guided them. The regular Pakistani troops were at the front and the Mujahideen were bringing up the flanks and rear. These men had been at Uri since the fighting began, and had their numbers and morale depleted by the fierce fighting and air strikes. This was the soft underbelly where the Indians were going to strike.

  ***

  `Goel, are the coordinates fed in?’

  `Yes, Boss. Now we just sit back and enjoy the view.’

  Singh knew it was going to be much harder work than that. The four Sukhois were flying at an altitude of barely 500 feet, the backseaters using the terrain following radar to keep the big planes flying at such low altitudes. The coordinates for their flight had already been fed into the navigation computer. As the crow flies, the distance between Jaisalmer and Karachi is less than 500 kilometers, but to minimize time spent over hostile airspace, the planes would fly South over Gujarat and then loop back North towards their target. This meant a round trip of over 1500 kilometers, and the Sukhoi was the only fighter in the IAF inventory with the endurance to carry out such a mission.

  Singh could see the ground sweep past his plane, which was maintaining a steady speed of 400 knots. After about a half hour of flying, they reached their first waypoint-over the Arabian Sea.

  `Feet wet. Mum’s the word. Happy hunting, boys.’

  From now on, till they reached the target, there would be no radar or radio emissions. The backseaters were using the Sukhoi’s passive systems and RWR to keep track of any likely threats. Now it was a straight 300-kilometer run to the target, PAF Faisal, the main airbase just outside Karachi. Singh smiled to himself at the irony. The base had been named after a Saudi monarch of the dynasty that Abu Sayed had overthrown, and was now being used to further Sayed’s interests.

  At a range of a hundred kilometers, Goel armed his two KH-31P missiles, as did his wingman. While Singh focused on flying the big plane at such a low altitude, Goel was hunched over the computer, analyzing radar signals from the PAF base. He had already identified the SAM radars at the base, and at a range of 60 kilometers, he would lock on and fire the missiles. The KH-31P was a specialized anti-radar weapon. It would lock onto radar emissions and home in. The Indians were using a tactic pioneered by the United States. After suffering heavy initial losses over Vietnam to Russian supplied SAMs, the USAF had evolved specialized SAM-hunting missions. Usually converted F-105 fighterd, these `Wild Weasel’ aircraft, as they were known, would go ahead of strike aircraft to defeat enemy SAMs. The early missiles they carried could be ev
aded by simply switching off the radar, but later missiles, such as the US HARM and the KH-31P would `remember’ where the radar had been, and would home in even if it had been shut off.

  Singh and his wingman, Bhatia, were flying fifty kilometers in front of the two other Sukhois. They would be the first to draw blood, and the first to get shot at. They were flying low and slow to evade radar detection. Without the AWACS, the PAF would have a tough time detecting them. Normally, the PAF had a couple of F-16s flying CAP over the base at any given time, but the Indian mission had been timed to maximize chances that they would arrive over target at a changeover time when there would be no F-16s in the air. That window of opportunity was just four minutes long, and Singh knew the IAF planners had spent hours ensuring the mission was planned to put the Sukhois on target in that precise window. Singh had wondered where the IAF had gotten such precise intelligence, but for now, he just hoped it was right.

  `Boss, I have three Hawk batteries and one Crotale.’

  Goel was using his weapons computer and passive systems to identify the threat they faced. The circle in the center of Goel’s HUD glowed red indicating that he had a good lock-on. He pressed the trigger on his flight stick. A second later, he locked on to another Hawk radar and fired his second missile. The two KH-31 missiles left the Sukhoi’s wing in a flash of flame and smoke and Singh looked on at the smoke trails they left as the flew on towards their targets. To his right, he could see Bhatia’s missiles flying through the early morning sky.

  `This is it, Goel. We’re going in. Turn on the lights.’

  ***

  `So, how does it look, Shah Nawaz?’

  Shamsher Ahmed was in his office at Islamabad, personally directing the Battle for Lahore, as it had come to be known in the Press. While it was unconventional to have the Chief of Army Staff personally involved in tactical operations, this was probably the most crucial battle the Pakistani army had ever fought.

  Major General Shah Nawaz’s loud voice boomed over the phone. His normal exuberance had been replaced by a more somber tone. In the background, Ahmed could hear the sound of artillery.

  `Sir, it’s not looking very good.’

  `Hang in there, Nawaz.’

  Ahmed looked at the large map on the wall. The Indian units were depicted by red markers and the Pakistanis by blue. The main Indian thrust had struck a hammer blow. The initial artillery barrage and the non-stop air strikes that followed were bleeding his forces dry. The PAF had tried to contest the skies, but Ahmed knew there was only so much that they could do. Without the AWACS and F-15s, and with a whole squadron of F-16s tied up at Karachi, the PAF was badly outnumbered and outgunned. The artillery and air strikes were meant to soften up the Pakistani defenses, and these had been followed by a massive armored thrust.

  The Pakistanis were fighting desperately for every inch, but were giving way before the Indian juggernaut. The Indians were already inside Pakistani territory, and if things continued this way, they would be within mobile artillery range of Lahore within six to ten hours.

  Ahmed had to do something. The Indian attack in the plains had taken the Pakistanis by surprise. While they had expected the Indians to attack once Pakistani regular troops entered Kashmir, the Indians seemed to have almost got advance warning of the move into Kashmir. There was increasing talk of the Indians having infiltrated the Pakistani intelligence or military network, but there had been no concrete evidence so far. In any case, he knew that in a slugfest, the Indians were bound to prevail, and with the M-1s still a day away from the front, he had to hold the Indians at least that long. The convoy was now less than a hundred kilometers from Karachi and was expected to begin unloading in four hours. From there, it was still a thousand-kilometer journey to the front in Punjab. The PAF had nothing that could lift the fifty-ton monsters, and the tanks would be loaded onto a specially arranged express train. The Pakistani army crews that would man the tanks were with them on the ships, and had been training extensively on their new mounts for a couple of months. They would be ready to fight as soon as they reached the front. The train was expected to deliver them near Islamabad in about twelve hours. That was about six hours more than Ahmed currently had.

  He looked again at the map for a long time, hoping for some idea. And then it came to him. He walked up to the map and drew two dark circles-the first was at Kasur, a small town just ten kilometers from the border, and where the Pakistanis were backing into-he knew Shah Nawaz planned to make a stand there. The second was a point ten kilometers to the northwest of Kasur, just twenty kilometers from Lahore. Ahmed drew an arrow from Kasur to the second point. He scribbled away furiously on his pad, and when he had fleshed out his idea, he made two calls. The first was to Shah Nawaz, and the second was to Karim.

  ***

  Phadke was lying on his belly, with his men in a long line beside him, lining the edge of the ravine. The Indians had gone behind the Pakistani advance and were now arrayed along the ravine beside which the Pakistanis were approaching Uri. Phadke could now see Mujahideen soldiers, just a hundred yards away. They had no inkling yet of the ambush they were walking into.

  At Phadke’s signal, the Indians fixed bayonets on their rifles. Phadke closed his eyes for a second, praying for luck. Then with an ear splitting battle cry, he jumped out, running full steam at the Mujahideen and Pakistanis ahead.

  The Indians fired as they ran, some stopping to kneel and aim, others firing on the run. Several of them threw grenades at the enemy ahead.

  The Mujahideen were taken completely by surprise, and almost a dozen fell to the first salvo. By the time the others could regroup, the Indians were upon them.

  Phadke was now only ten yards away from the Mujahideen. Counter fire had felled a few Indian soldiers, but by and large, the Mujahideen had been taken too much by surprise to put up an organized resistance. The few Pakistani soldiers at the flanks were trying to fight back, but they too had been surprised. Phadke saw a burly Mujahideen in front of him and fired a three round burst, sending the man down. A Pakistani soldier was upon him, raising his rifle like a club. As the man swung his gun down, Phadke parried it to the right with his own rifle, and then bought his gun crashing into the side of the man’s head. As he fell, Phadke bayoneted him in the throat. He had killed men before-but that was at long range, with his gun. This was the first time he had ever killed a man hand-to-hand. For a second, he looked at the fallen Pakistani with a mixture of horror and shock. He had reacted with his training and instinct, but the end result almost made him want to throw up. A bullet whizzing past his head quickly snapped him back to reality.

  When he looked up, the Mujahideen were in retreat. Seeing their rear blocked, they ran forward, the Indians in hot pursuit.

  The Major leading the Pakistanis was now only two kilometers from the hill. Knowing that the Indians had anti-tank weapons, he had left his tanks hidden a kilometer back, along with his M-113s. He would use his tanks as artillery cover, while he had arrayed a dozen mortars in front of him. He planned to use the tanks and the mortars in a single salvo to soften the Indian defenses. Then he would charge. He judged there to be around four hundred Indian defenders, and knew he would probably need more than one charge to dislodge them. He still had a three-to-one advantage, and fully intended to use it.

  He was about to order his tanks to begin firing when utter chaos broke out in the ranks. The Mujahideen were running frantically, shouting about being attacked from behind by a thousand Indian soldiers. The Mujahideen leader, Gul, was trying to rally them, but they were no longer an organized fighting force, they were just a bunch of scared men running for their lives. Though the Pakistanis were professional soldiers, the two days of incessant air raids had sapped their morale, and many of them began to waver.

  `Fools, don’t listen to them, fire!’

  But he knew it was too late.

  Phadke and his men had now given up the chase-their mission was to create panic in the Pakistanis’ ranks, not commit suicide by runnin
g into a force ten times their size. They clambered back into the ravine and made their way back towards Uri.

  The Pakistanis Major knew that there was no way he was going to press home the attack now and ordered a withdrawal. He was seething with anger at the Mujahideen, but for now just wanted an orderly retreat.

  After regrouping five kilometers from the town, he began to take stock of his losses. The total casualties were not heavy-forty Mujahideen and twenty-six Pakistanis dead, but they had found only a dozen Indian bodies. The real damage had not been material, but psychological. His men knew that the Indians were not cornered, as they had been led to believe. Despite being outnumbered, the Indians would, and could, take the initiative.

  ***

  The Pakistani officer manning the mobile Hawk launcher picked up the Indian aircraft at a range of seventy kilometers. He locked on and fired two missiles. That was when he saw the Indian missiles on his scope. There was only one reason the Indians could be firing missiles from such a range. He shut off his radar, and the Hawks, with no radar guidance, flew on harmlessly.

  Flying at supersonic speeds, the KH-31s reached their targets in less than two minutes. Two Hawk launchers, on either side of the two main runways, were destroyed immediately. The third, to the left of the smaller runway, which bisected the two larger ones, was damaged badly. The sole Crotale battery near the Control Tower, however, escaped unscathed, with the KH-31 missing and plummeting into the ground twenty meters behind the Pakistani battery.