Dragon Fire

Indian Army Headquarters, Srinagar, India

The Indian Home Minister, Indrajit Bagchi, ushered the three community leaders out of his temporary office in a suite at what used to be the Maharajah’s palace, overlooking Dal Lake. It had been a tiring afternoon. From the crisis meeting at South Block he flew by military aircraft to Srinagar. The Prime Minister had wanted Bagchi to go up, rather than the National Security Advisor, to stress a civilian rather than a military future for Kashmir. After twenty years of insurgency, it was time to stop talking about war and start discussing investment.

The meeting with the multi-ethnic Kashmir Chamber of Commerce was to discuss bringing back investment to the Valley. The army had wanted to hold it at the secure civilian complex inside the Badami Bagh Cantonment. But Bagchi was adamant that it should be somewhere with less of a direct link to the war. They compromised on the barracks at the former Maharajah’s palace. It had, after all, been the luxury Oberoi Palace Hotel until the insurgency began.

Bagchi preferred to maintain a casual approach, a brightly coloured open-neck shirt, faded denim jeans and soft shoes whenever possible. Bagchi preferred the neutrality of Western dress in a place as culturally and religiously sensitive as Kashmir. Waiting for him in the foyer was General Prabhu Ninan, the Northern army commander, who had been credited making substantive inroads against the insurgency in the past eighteen months. The armoured personnel carrier was parked right up against the palace doors for the five-minute drive to the Badami Bagh helipad, next to the Corps Headquarters. Bodyguards, known as Black Cats because of their black dungaree uniform, fanned out on either side. They were part of the seven-thousand-strong National Security Guard (NSG), created in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi to meet the emerging threats of terrorism in India. Normally, Bagchi would only have been given local police protection. But with the Dharamsala attack only hours old, the Prime Minister had insisted the more highly trained NSG be used. A high brick wall topped with razor wire protected the palace, which with its panoramic views of the Dal Lake had once been internationally famous as a venue for afternoon tea. At the gates, concrete tank traps had been built to prevent suicide car bombers ramming themselves into the palace grounds.

‘The Antonov has engine problems,’ said Ninan, ushering the Home Minister towards the door. ‘We are taking a helicopter, also with wounded. The weather is becoming problematic. But if we take off in twenty minutes we should be clear of the mountains before it closes in.’

Saeed hid in the thick undergrowth of the Ningali forests 500 metres south-east of the helipad. He recognized the scent of wild briar roses and nearby there was the rush of water from a fast-running stream. The boys from the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi carried the three Stingers and took up positions around him, ensuring he could concentrate on the job. They communicated using sign language and stepped quietly through the undergrowth. The spot, near the stream, had been chosen to cover any noise from the assembly of the weapons.

He unclipped the metal case and bought out the sections: the missile, the disposable launch tube, the detachable grip stock and the integral Identification Friend or Foe system which made up the sixteen kilograms of weapon they had been carrying. Saeed loved the lightweight cool black metal of the missile which had avenged the misery the Soviets had brought to Afghanistan. It was designed to be used against high-speed, low-level, ground-attack aircraft, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t go for a lumbering Mi-26.

In the United States Marine Corps the Stinger is a certified round of ammunition, a use-and-throw-away weapon, which is what Saeed would do, so that India would have no doubt about what had shot down its aircraft. He checked that Hamid Khan had given him the best type of Stinger they had. It was fitted with a Rosette Scan Pattern image-scanning technique, which would allow the missile to distinguish between the target and the Mi-26’s counter-measures, decoys such as flares, chaff or background clutter. The system also had the Target Adaptive Guidance, which would steer the missile towards the most vulnerable part of the aircraft. He would set it for a fire-and-forget heat-seeking capability. One missile even winging the aircraft would almost certainly bring it down.

What worried Saeed was his range. He expected the aircraft to pass overhead, flying south. If it went in any other direction, moving low and fast, he would have problems with the trajectory. The Stinger’s range was just over four kilometres. He would have to act quickly.

General Ninan saw Bagchi up into the helicopter with his private secretary, and a crew-member showed them into the four-seat passenger compartment just aft of the flight deck. At the back Bagchi could see six stretchers, two with blankets over the faces of the dead, four with the wounded and two on drips secured to the bulkhead of the fuselage — victims of the low-intensity conflict which took place every day in Kashmir. They would be treated at the 92 Base Hospital, often referred to as the Advanced Command Hospital. A doctor looked impatiently at his watch and adjusted the flow to a drip. Ten commandos boarded, followed by Ninan and his ADC, who joined Bagchi in the compartment.

Bagchi put on his headphone and switched on the intercom to listen to the cockpit communication. He watched through the window as another dozen commandos took up new positions around the aircraft. The engine shuddered and the huge eight-bladed rotor began to turn. The helicopter lurched upwards and settled back, and one by one the commandos boarded, the last one jumping up as the aircraft was moving forward, seconds from lifting off.

‘The control tower is reporting fighting five hundred metres outside the perimeter fence,’ said the pilot through the intercom. ‘Should we continue?’

The Mi-26 shook as the pilot held the aircraft back, its wheels settling down again. Ninan looked at Bagchi: ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Your call,’ said Bagchi.

The major in charge of the commando unit made the decision: ‘We should go now, sir,’ he said. ‘Fly north, then double back and we will be clear of the fighting.’

It was a routine Indian patrol. There was no tip-off or betrayal. The Indian soldiers were moving through the plantation towards the stream, pausing to joke with each other, unaware that they were under threat. The fighters of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi opened fire first. Three Indians were hit before the others could return fire, and the guerrillas went on the offensive to try and flush them out and keep the protection around Saeed. They failed to hit the radio operator in time. He sent out an alert as soon as he heard the first burst of machine-gun fire.

Saeed had his back to the fighting. It was like the war all over again: Soviet troops on the ground. Soon a helicopter gunship was overhead. His experience took over. He had missed the tension, and as he raised the launcher to his shoulder, keeping his eye on the fence, waiting for the helicopter, he felt good, glad that Hamid had called on him to come here.

Still the boys didn’t talk. He could sense them running behind him, changing positions, the controlled fire of two of three rounds at a time. He heard a grenade and knew the boys were getting hit, dying as the enemy fire got closer. Then he saw the rotor blades of the Mi-26 rise above the trees, its nose down, the shimmering wave of heat around the engine casing. It turned on itself, but not flying south towards them as it should, picking up speed, keeping low, perhaps two kilometres away already, with a trajectory which made the Stinger like an anti-tank weapon, near-horizontal fire. The missile had an impact force of Mach 2.0, hit-to-kill accuracy.

A boy was right beside him with a second missile, in case the first one missed. He had stayed at his post, not fighting, watching his friends fall, doing what he was told to do. But he pointed up, and a second helicopter was coming towards them, smaller, the Mi-25, with a 30mm cannon in its nose. Saeed knew it. He had shot it down before.

He lined up the launcher’s sights towards the airstrip, judging that the Mi-26 was at 500 feet and he fired, turned and took the second Stinger from the boy just as the cannon rounds cut up the ground around them. The boy fell first, then Saeed was hit, the Stinger hurled out of his hand and his torso was torn apart by two cannon shells.

The pilot tried to attain height over the helipad itself, hoping to get to at least 1,000 feet before adopting its flight path. But before that, Bagchi lurched against the bulkhead as the missile smashed into the engine cowling of the helicopter. It exploded instantaneously, tearing off rotor blades and sending the aircraft hurtling back to the ground where it exploded in a ball of fire.