Line of Control

FIFTY-ONE

It had been an arduous day for Major Dev Puri and the two hundred men of his elite frontline regiment. This was supposed to be a straightforward sweep of the foothills of the Great Himalaya Range. Instead, it had become a forced march sparked by surprising intelligence reports, unexpected enemies, evolving strategies, and constantly changing objectives.

The most recent shift was the riskiest. It carried the danger of drawing the attention of Pakistani border forces. Because of Puri's mission, it would be much easier for the enemy to cross the line of control at Base 3.

The Indian soldiers had been marching virtually without rest since they left the trenches. The terrain was merely rugged to start. Then the higher elevations brought cold and walls of wind. The successful attack on the paratroopers had given the force a much-needed morale boost as they continued to search for the Pakistani cell. But darkness and sleet had battered them as they ascended. Now they were looking at a climb that was going to tax their energies to the limit. Then there was the unknown factor: the strength and exact location of the enemy. It was not the way Major Puri liked to run a campaign.

Nearly eight hours before, the Indian soldiers had begun closing ranks at the base of the Gompa Tower in the Himachal cluster of peaks. The latest intelligence Puri had received was that American soldiers were jumping in to help the terrorists get through the line of control to Pakistan. That was where the parachutists had been headed. The Pakistani cell was almost certainly there as well. There was no way forward except through the Indian soldiers. The Pakistanis were undoubtedly exhausted and relatively underarmed now that the Americans had been stopped. Still, Major Puri did not underestimate them. He never took an enemy for granted when they had the high ground. The plan he and his lieutenants had worked out was to have twenty-five men ascend the peak while the rest covered them from the ground with high-powered rifles and telescopic sights. Twenty-five more would be ready to ascend as backup if needed. One or another of the teams was bound to take the cell. One or another of the teams was also likely to take casualties. Unfortunately, Defense Minister Kabir did not want to wait for the Pakistanis to come down. Now that Americans had been killed there would be hard questions from Washington and New Delhi about what had happened to the paratroopers. The minister was doing his best to stall air reconnaissance from moving in to locate and collect the American remains. He had already informed the prime minister that Major Puri's team was in the region and would pinpoint them for the Himalayan Eagles. What Kabir feared was that air reconnaissance might locate the Pakistanis as well as the paratroopers. The defense minister did not want the cell to be taken alive.

Using night glasses and shielded flashlights, the Indian troops had been deploying their climbing gear. They had detected faint heat signatures above and knew the enemy was up there waiting. Unfortunately, flyovers would not help them now. The fierce ice storms above made visibility and navigation difficult. And blind scatter-bombing of the region was not guaranteed to stop the cell. There were caves they could hide in. Besides, there were very holy, anchoritic religious sects and cliff-dwelling tribes living in the foothills and in some of the higher caves. The last thing either side wanted was to collaterally destroy the homes or temples of these neutral peoples. That would force them or their international supporters into political or military activism.

The Indian soldiers were nearly halfway into the preparations to scale the cliff when Major Puri received a surprising radio communique. Earlier in the day a helicopter on routine patrol had reported what looked like the wreckage of an aircraft in the Mangala Valley. However, there was no room for the chopper to descend and search for possible survivors. Major Puri had dispatched a four-soldier unit to investigate. Two hours before, the men had reported the discovery of a downed helicopter. It looked like a Ka-25. But the aircraft was so badly burned they could not be certain. Puri called the Base 3 communications center. They checked with the air ministry. There were no choppers on special assignment in the region.

Because the chopper went down in the narrow valley, rescue personnel would not be dispatched until the following day. A parachute drop at night was too risky and, in any case, there were no survivors.

An hour later, Puri's group found the remains of ten American paratroopers. Major Puri relayed that information to the defense minister. The minister said he would sit on that information until after the cell had been taken. He had already come up with a scenario in which, regrettably, Puri's soldiers had mistaken the Americans for Pakistanis and had shot the team down.

What surprised the Indian reconnaissance team was what they discovered on the body of one of the Americans. The soldier, a black woman, was hanging from a ledge by her parachute. There was a point-to-point radio in her equipment belt. Occasionally, the red "contact" light flashed. Someone in the communications link was trying to contact her or someone else in the link. That meant not all the soldiers had been killed. Unfortunately, the Indian soldiers could not confirm that. All they got on the radio was static.

Puri expected that he would find those soldiers in the cliffs above, with the Pakistanis. But the Mangala Valley unit had employed infrared glasses in a scan of the region. They had come up with a different scenario.

"We're detecting a very strong heat source several miles to the northeast," Sergeant Baliah, the leader of the reconnaissance unit, had reported. "There is a singular heat source on the glacier."

"It could be some of the native people," Puri said.

Several groups of mountain dwellers lived in the upper foothills of the ranges that surrounded the glacier. They often hunted at night after small game and the larger gazelles had returned to their dens and warrens. They also used the darkness to set traps for predators that hunted in the early morning. The Tarari did not eat the wolves and foxes but used their fur for clothing. The traps also kept the animals from becoming so numerous that they depopulated the region of prey.

"It's a little far west for them," Baliah remarked. "The heat signature is also less than we would get from a string of torches. I'm wondering if it might be some of the Americans. If their equipment was damaged in the jump, they might have built a campfire."

"How far is 'several miles'?" Puri asked.

"Approximately four," Baliah responded. "What I don't understand is why the Americans would have left the valley. The weather is much more temperate there. They could not have failed to see the ice."

"The survivors might have found the wreckage of the helicopter and anticipated a recon team. They moved on," Puri suggested.

"But then why would they have left the radio?" the sergeant wondered aloud. "They could easily have gotten it down. Then no one would know there were survivors."

"Maybe we were meant to find it," Puri said. "That way they could feed us miscommunications." Yet even as the major said that, he knew it did not make sense. The Americans could not have known that a reconnaissance unit was en route to the site.

Puri began to consider likely scenarios. The helicopter was probably in the valley to support the clandestine American operation. Perhaps it was there to extract the soldiers when their mission was completed. That was why there was no immediate flight profile. Perhaps the Americans were only supposed to link up with the Pakistanis and see them as far as the border.

And then it hit him. Maybe that was still the objective.

"Sergeant, can you make your way to that heat source double-time?" Major Puri asked.

"Of course," Baliah replied. "What do you think is going on, sir?"

"I'm not sure," Major Puri told him. "It's possible that some of the Americans survived the drop and joined the Pakistani cell on our plateau. But other paratroopers may have been blown clear of the valley."

"And you think the two may be trying to stay in touch point-to-point in order to find each other?" Sergeant Baliah asked.

"That's possible," Puri replied.

The major looked up at the plateau his men were getting ready to climb. The peak was dark but he could see the outline by the way it blocked the clouds above. Except for the presence of the American paratroopers he did not know for certain that the cell was up there. What if they were not? What if the American drop had been a feint? The shortest way to Pakistan from this region was across the Siachin Glacier, Base 3 sector.

Right through his command.

"Sergeant, pursue the Siachin element," Puri decided. "I'm going to request immediate air support in that region."

"At night?"

"At night," Puri said. "Captain Anand knows the region. He can get a gunship to the target. I want you there in case an enemy is present and he digs in where the rockets can't get him."

"We're on our way, sir," the sergeant replied. "We'll have a report in two hours or so."

"That should be about the time the chopper arrives," Puri said. "Good luck, Sergeant."

Baliah thanked him and clicked off.

The major walked over to his communications officer and asked him to put in a call to the base. Puri would brief Captain Anand and get the air reconnaissance underway. Puri would make certain that the operation be as low-key as possible. Anand was to take just one chopper into the field and there would be no unnecessary communications with the base. Even if the Pakistanis could not interpret the coded messages, a sudden increase in radio traffic might alert them that something was going on.

While the major waited for Captain Anand he told the lieutenant in charge of the ascent to finish the preparations but to put the operation itself on hold. They could afford to wait two hours more before risking the climb. The Pakistanis on the plateau were not going anywhere.

If there really were Pakistanis on the ledge.