Chimera (68 page)

The aircraft tilted ever so slightly as the flight-crew up front brought the aircraft on a southerly heading to refuel with an Il-78 tanker that had lifted from Kalaikunda. As the aircraft headed out of Bhutanese airspace, the only thing the operators in the cabin could think of was the two hours of sleep, strapped in their seats.  

NEW-DELHI

DAY 10 + 2200 HRS

“You better listen to this,” the PM said as he walked into the room along with Ravoof.

“What happened?” Chakri said as he and the NSA put their papers aside and looked up. Chakri removed his reading glasses and put them on the table. The PM looked over to Ravoof and gestured him to speak.

“So,” Ravoof said with quiet deliberation, “I just finished giving our first official press-conference since the Chinese attacks on Tawang this morning. The press is livid. So are the people. The conference went as bad as can be expected. All they wanted to know was how we allowed this to happen and what and when our response was going to be.”

“
And?
What did you tell them?” Chakri asked.

“What do you
think?
I told them that the Chinese attack was a brutal murder of civilians and completely unwarranted. Which is true,” Ravoof added his own comment to the answer. “I also told them that India reserves the right to respond but that we cannot comment on ongoing military operations.”

“Good. That’s all we need to tell them at the moment,” Chakri said and then leaned back into his chair, rubbing his forehead with his fingers as he focused on this new problem, having had to change gears from what he and the NSA had been discussing before the PM had barged in.

“
Good?
That answer might be acceptable to the media but
not
to me,” the PM said, visibly angered now. “I
want
to know what
we
intend to do about this?
Where
is our response? And
when
do we expect to see it?”

Chakri looked over to the NSA sitting nearby and got a poker-faced response. The PM caught the look and it angered him even more.

“
Don’t
you dare give me that! I know both of you think I am not versed with military operations but like it or not, I
am
the Prime-Minister of this nation! You
will
tell me everything that is going on at our borders and will involve me in
all
military decision making processes from now on!”

Chakri sighed and then gestured the PM to take a chair, which he refused. So Chakri continued anyway:

“So here’s how it works. We have the Chinese beaten on the ground and in the air over Tibet. The Chumbi valley for the most part is under our control. The Chinese presence in Bhutan is becoming tenuous as General Potgam and his forces under Joint-Force-Bhutan are continuing their counter-offensives. The Chinese ground offensive in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh has ground to a halt at heavy losses to both sides. And the Navy has begun operations to shut down the Chinese merchant shipping through the Indian Ocean region. There is still the issue of dealing with the Chinese fleet entering the southern Indian Ocean region but Admiral Surakshan has plans to deal with them. So the Chinese are reeling under all this and now intend to use the one advantage they have over us: ballistic-missiles and nuclear weapons. They have a lot more conventional and nuclear armed missiles than us and they will use them if they have to.”

“This
attack
on Tawang,” Chakri continued, “savage and painful as it may be, is nothing more than the dying lashes of a snake. What they want now is for us to get into a war of missiles. And that’s a war we do not want to get into because unlike that bastard Peng and his cronies in Beijing,
we
don’t want to see a lot more of what happened in Tawang happening over the rest of the country.”

“This doesn’t help me any,” the PM grumbled. “If we
don’t
respond then the people of this country are going to hang
us
. Beijing
cannot
be allowed to get away with this!”

“And they won’t! But acting rashly is
exactly
what they want us to do!” the NSA shouted back.

“Besides, what are we going to strike back with?” Chakri asked rhetorically. “The Chinese attacked us with long-range cruise-missiles. We don’t have
any
in our service. Air-Marshal Bhosale and Air-Marshal Iyer are putting together our response now. But we need to give them time to plan and execute their actions properly and not act out of turn. Bite the pain! Our time to respond has not
yet
come!”

“When this is all done,” Ravoof said, “the escalation to nuclear weapons will be inevitable. What we need to do soon is to draw a line in the sand to ensure that Beijing knows the consequences of any action beyond it. Perhaps the Russians can be asked to open a discreet line of conversation with Beijing. The main danger here is that neither side will give up the war in defeat. So we have to find out what the
real
cost of peace is, or else we will
all
find out the
real
cost of war.” 

NEW CHINA NEWS AGENCY

DAY 10 + 2359 HRS

“The operations by the courageous men and women of the People’s Liberation Army against Indian aggression on the borders of Tibet go well on its tenth day. The people of northern Bhutan celebrated the arrival of our soldiers and thanked the soldiers for freeing them of Indian hegemony. The Indian attack on our innocent comrades in Kashgar was avenged today when the People’s Liberation Army Air Force launched a devastating series of raids on Indian forces in the eastern frontier city of Tawang. It was an action that weighed heavily on our leaders but the enemy has been shown that they would be better off not underestimating our will and our determination to ensure our people’s safety. If the enemy continues to push us further, they will find themselves engulfed in an ocean of fire the likes of which the world has never seen.”

day 11

HAA-DZONG

BHUTAN

DAY 11 + 0530 HRS

Lieutenant-General Potgam walked out of the former IMTRAT admin building after being woken up by his adjutant. He stepped out of the main doors and looked around. The place was as abuzz with activity as ever, despite the freezing cold morning. Mi-17s were operating out of the former golf-course, although the mushed up ground there no longer looked like it ever was anything more than a swamp. The artificial grass there had been crushed into the earth long ago under the weight of the arriving helicopters loaded with cargo. Had it not been for the few paved roads inside the base this place would have shut down because of deteriorating logistics long ago.

Potgam walked down the small step of stairs from the building and began walking to the parked AXE utility-vehicle parked on the road waiting for him, its engines revving on neutral gear. He recognized his driver but also noticed new faces standing nearby with their Tavor rifles…

The 12
TH
Para-SF Battalion had deployed alongside the 9
TH
and the 11
TH
into Bhutan. The 11
TH
was deploying via An-32s at Paru and being airlifted via helicopters from there to Thimpu, where Colonel Misra was leading the assault on the remnants of the once powerful PLA Highland Division at Barshong. The 12
TH
Battalion was Potgam’s reserve force that he intended on deploying for security duties around Paru and Haa-Dzong.

The 12
TH
Battalion had already deployed companies to Lieutenant-Colonel Fernandez’s location north of Paru and had also secured Paru airport.

Now he could see Paras standing next to his vehicle, heavily armed in case JFB headquarters came under attack. But Potgam was not worried about getting attacked from the ground. Not anymore.

Potgam had chopped over control for a single Nishant UAV from his original force to the commander of the 12
TH
Para-SF to allow his men to find and isolate the faint infrared signals detected north of Paru and suspected of being enemy special-forces units. Potgam had no spare men before to try and do anything about them. But now the situation had changed, and he wanted them dealt with…

His driver pulled the vehicle from neutral and pushed into forward drive just as the two Paras jumped into the back. The vehicle lurched forward on the slushy wet mud and accelerated, forcing Potgam to hold on for his life. His vehicle drove past the parked helicopters at the golf-course, heading away from the admin building and towards a large patch of trees just inside the base perimeter to the east. He could see camouflaged netting deployed over the tree branches to cover the comms trailers. He also saw a dozen or more Paras patrolling in silence, their breaths visible as puffs in front of their faces…

No. His main concern for this base now was from the air. The Chinese control of the skies via manned aircraft was no more. But the threat from cruise-missiles and ballistic-missiles was definite and very real.

As JFB forces became more and more dominant and the PLA positions became weaker, this threat only increased. And it didn’t take more than two or three missiles to completely shut down Paru for days, if not permanently.

Same went for Haa-Dzong.

He had controlled this war in Bhutan in its initial days from the old IMTRAT buildings. Now the threat to this place was very high and he could not afford to continue keeping his headquarters so vulnerable. So he had ordered all critical elements of the headquarters spread out and dispersed. The situation and the threats had changed, and so had his tactics. 

The only problem is, now I have to drive for five minutes every time I want to make a call to somebody!

The vehicle rumbled to a stop a few meters away from the entrance of his comms trailer, bristling with antennae and small satellite dishes on its flat roof. There was an army technician climbing the ladder on the side of the trailer to reach the roof as Potgam walked over. His comms officer, an army Lieutenant-Colonel, was there to meet him.

“Well?” Potgam asked.

“General Suman wanted to talk to you, sir,” the signals officer replied as they walked in and shut the door behind them. Potgam was handed a speaker set from one of the NCOs inside.

“Warlord here,” Potgam said matter-of-factly.

“Potgam, it’s
damn
nice to hear your voice! How are things looking up there?” Suman said from Kalaikunda. Potgam noted the informality of the conversation. There were very few people in the army who could take that tone with him, and only because they had known him for decades. He responded accordingly and had a rare smile on him:

“It’s nice to hear your voice too, Suman. Glad to see
you
in nice spirits. I take it the Chinese plans for us aren’t going too well?” 

“
Indeed!
” Suman exclaimed. He
was
in good spirits. “The bastards thought they could kill me and push my boys out of Arunachal Pradesh just like last time. Well, I am still alive and kicking and it hasn’t worked out too well for them over there. Sikkim is secure like the gates of hell and we have snatched a good chunk of the Chumbi from them during Chimera. I wish things were as good in Ladakh but that’s out of my control. I heard that there are nasty armored knife-fights taking place over there even now. Our boys got their asses handed to them and they returned the favor to the Chinese.
Neither
side has any strategic momentum worth speaking of over there now. This brings me to Bhutan.”

Oh boy. Here we go…
Potgam thought as he listened.      

“Bhutan is the
only
sector where we have lost significant chunks of soil, Potgam,” Suman continued, more soberly this time. “The Chinese hit Bhutan much harder than we had expected. Heck, we were still looking around for the Highland Division when it went rolling into the RBA defenses. And the Bhutanese got crushed and folded their cards far too quickly to give us a chance. You and Dhillon have done well under the circumstances. If I had the time, I would let you do what you are doing and retake the lost territory. But time is a luxury we no longer have.”

Potgam frowned as he nodded to himself. This was not a surprise.

“Nuclear card?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes,” Suman answered bluntly. “The bastards in Beijing hit Tawang yesterday with cruise-missiles and inflicted staggering civilian casualties. At about the same time, their media mouthpieces started blurting very clear threats to further attacks against our cities and infrastructure, possibly with nuclear weapons if you read between their lines. The intelligence boys up at army headquarters are convinced that we are fast approaching Beijing’s nuclear threshold.”