‘What about Pakistan, then?’
‘What about Pakistan?’
‘We have information that you’re shipping them missiles and nuclear technology.’
Jamie Song was silent for a moment: ‘You have this on authority?’
Overhalt nodded.
‘They’ve asked. They’ve been asking for years. If it’s happening, Reece, I don’t know. And that’s the truth.’
India — Pakistan border, Rajasthan, India
All stations: Order of March: Charlie Combat Commands, Artillery Group, 4 Brigade. 7 Brigade is to take 2 Field Regiment, 9 Artillery, under command. Helicopter reconnaissance is a priority call. 7 Brigade is to advance to Objectives Cotton and Silk and cut enemy routes north to south. Secure 5 kilometres beyond railway line west. 5 kilometres south of Mirbar Mathello and 5 kilometres north of Rahimaya Khan. None to move before orders.
Lieutenant General Gurjit Singh, commander of the Indian XXI Strike Armoured Corps, closed his eyes to acclimatize quickly to the bright desert sunlight, opened the tank turret and lifted himself out of the cramped and dingy interior. If they were sent in, he anticipated at least seventy-two hours of continual combat before the Pakistani surrender. His ears were already ringing with the constant radio traffic through his headphones. He took them off and jumped down onto the crusty surface of the Thar Desert to allow himself five minutes of clear thinking.
His armoured deployment was as good as he could make it. But even for the new and most tested tanks the Rajasthan sector was one of the most difficult for armoured warfare. The desert was not like in North Africa, where the sand was relatively hard. The surface of the Thar desert was loose and shifting. No wheeled vehicle could handle it, and even tracked vehicles could suddenly get bogged down. There were very few paved roads, and once across the border all Pakistani territory was assumed mined.
Under his command were a thousand main battlefield tanks, an assortment of tracked armoured vehicles and a hundred thousand men. The advance armour would be led by the three-man T-72M1 Ajay main battlefield tank (MBT), whose resistance to nuclear, biological and chemical attack had been proven in exercises. Its sensors could detect chemicals, viruses, bacteria and gamma rays released into the air by an explosion. The filters ensured that contaminated air didn’t enter the crew chamber and there would be enough oxygen to continue advancing in hostile conditions for several hours.
Singh’s own tank was a T-90, the next model on from the T-72. The electronics were not as stable as the T-72, which was why Singh had deployed them in front. But the T-90 was one of the best-protected battle tanks in the world. It was fitted with an infrared jamming system to disrupt any guided rocket attack. The missile had a range of four kilometres and took less than twelve seconds to reach that distance. The anti-tank missiles were intended to engage tanks fitted with Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) as well as low-flying air targets such as helicopters, at a range of up to more than five kilometres. The missile was fitted with a semi-automatic laser beam riding guidance system and a hollow-charge warhead with an 80 per cent chance of penetrating a target with 700mm armour. In most situations the T-90 could attack a tank or a helicopter while it was safely out of range itself.
The back-up for the T-90s and T-72s was the Indian-built Arjun, a tank which had failed many of its user trials and was not liked by the army. It had too many technical defects to be trusted to operate alone and the first orders for the Arjun totalled less than 125. The second series was meant to have improved features, but they only led to further defects.
The first advance would bypass small pockets of the enemy resistance. The second wave of T-90s and Arjun tanks would mop up.
Unlike the enemy, Singh knew the positions of every sand dune, bunker and Pakistani tank formation across the desert. He had ordered pictures from IRS-1C satellite when it was at pan 91–53B, taken from a height of 960 kilometres. Some were confined to the smallest tactical area and if needed he could have brought in images right down to the markings on individual tanks.
India and Pakistan had agreed that no military exercises should take place within a hundred kilometres each side of the border. But as soon as darkness had fallen, Singh received the order from Southern Command Headquarters in Poona to advance to within a kilometre of the border. He had now been waiting there for half a day.
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi
‘We’re losing on the higher ground east of Kargil,’ said the Indian Chief of Army Staff, Unni Khrishnan.
‘I thought we weren’t even trying to go in there,’ said Dixit impatiently.
‘No, but we were reinforcing and the troops helicoptered in had not been acclimatized to high altitude. Usually, they walk up there, taking a couple of weeks to get used to it.’
‘How on earth did that happen?’
Khrishnan shrugged. ‘It was a mix-up of men. The wrong battalion got on the wrong aircraft.’
‘In a military campaign these things happen,’ said Chandra Reddy, supportingly.
‘The affected area is around Batalik,’ explained Khrishnan, ‘between the Red and Yellow sectors designated in Operation Safe Ground. The altitude at our higher posts is above five and a half thousand metres. After two hours up there the men went down with acute mountain sickness. The brain swells trying to draw in enough oxygen and you end up dizzy or going mad.’
‘I thought all the troops in this operation were mountain-trained,’ snapped Dixit.
‘They are, Prime Minister. But if they spend three weeks at normal altitudes they have to start acclimatization all over again. The Pakistanis must have known this and threw all their remaining forces against us there, around Jubar, on Muntho Dhalo. The Shangruti post is now in Pak hands and the boys in Kukarthang are hanging on. We don’t know for how long.’
‘Casualties?’
‘In the hundreds, sir,’ said the Chief of Army Staff.
‘Do the press know about this?’
‘They are bound to find out. Although it seems they are concentrating on our successes.’
Dixit stabbed his finger onto his notepad. ‘If Pakistan has raised its flag on our territory, then we don’t have any successes. What about airstrikes?’
‘We can’t. They have Indian prisoners in their bunkers, sir.’
‘And the good news?’
‘We have the beginnings of a buffer zone.’ Khrishnan turned to Chandra Reddy for support. ‘But this is the most hostile terrain in which to fight and resupply.’
‘Can we hold it?’
Khrishnan shook his head. ‘No sir, not indefinitely.’
‘You said you could do it,’ interrupted the Prime Minister.
Reddy came to Khrishnan’s aid. ‘The mujahedin are throwing themselves at us in human waves, Prime Minister. This is unlike any other conflict we have fought with Pakistan. In war you can never be sure what is going to happen until it begins.’
‘Will we have to retreat?’
‘We can hold on for a while. But it depends how many casualties we can accept.’
‘Foreign Minister, any bright ideas?’ said Dixit, looking towards Purie. ‘Short of bombing Islamabad.’
‘Let’s hope that will not be necessary.’ Purie fiddled with his papers and took a sip from the glass of water in front of him, showing that he wanted to lance the anger in the room. ‘China is the key, Prime Minister. Without China, Pakistan is nothing. It is a Sudan or an Afghanistan. An Islamic basket-case. Indians understand the conflict with Pakistan and will accept casualties over the short term. They feel nothing about China. They can’t hate a place and people they don’t know. I urge you. Make peace with China. Move troops from the Chinese border to the Pakistan front and win the war.’