‘You are the only one I trust and the only one I know who can use them,’ said Hamid Khan.
They had strapped the metal cases to the sides of mules and walked them over the hills like they had done twenty-five years before. They travelled by night and hid out during the day and they reached the rendezvous near Srinagar with two hours of darkness left. He was protected by members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the group he heard had tried to kill the Prime Minister. The rumour was that Hamid Khan had ordered the bomb attack on the car and chosen the place and time.
Saeed had kept track of the groups as they became more and more extreme, the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind, the Sunni group, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, who took on the minority Shias, then the more extreme Sipah-e-Sahaba who wanted to go to war against Iran, and the Harkat-ul-Ansar, the first group into Kashmir, and finally Hamid’s very own terrorist group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the fighters who would win back Kashmir.
The door of the hut opened slightly, just wide enough for two scouts to slip in. They couldn’t have been more than eighteen and they didn’t carry weapons, because it was safer for them. Their training was in aircraft recognition and they told him exactly which aircraft had just landed in Srinagar and how he should shoot it down. Saeed knew the aircraft well. It was a Russian-made Mi-26, known as the Halo and the world’s most powerful helicopter. Saeed listened to the boys talking, about its position on helipad, the flight route they thought it would take out, the minefield around the perimeter fence and the gap in the Indian defences where they could fire, and run with a chance to save their own lives.
It would be safer than the barren land of Afghanistan, where even in the mountains there was barely a tree to give cover. Even though they had trekked through Kashmir at night, he had seen the deepest green ricefields and a landscape marked by tall poplar trees. They had walked along paths which took them through orchards of apple and plum trees, villages of tall, walled farmhouses made of wood and brick and showing off a wealth he had never seen in Afghanistan.
‘We just want to let them know that the Stingers are out of the boxes again,’ Hamid Khan had told him. ‘Let them know their airspace is no longer safe and that we are in the heart of the valley.’
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.