Vivek Ahuja
Fenix
In loving memory of my father, late Wing-commander P. M. Ahuja. A true gentlemen and an officer
PRINCIPLE CHARACTERS
Pathanya — Major, Indian Army Special Operations Command. Pathfinder team leader
Vikram — Captain, Indian Army Special Operations Command. Pathfinder team second-in-command
Kamidalla — Captain, Indian Army Special Operations Command. Pathfinder team member
Ansari — Colonel, Indian Army Special Operations Command
Gephel — Colonel, Indian Army Special Operations Command. Former Special Frontier Force Operations (Tibet)
Grewal — Wing-commander, Indian Air Force. Commander, No. 45 “Daggers” Squadron
Malhotra — Air-Marshal, Indian Air Force. Commander, Indian Aerospace Command
Sinha — Rear-Admiral, Indian Navy. Deputy-commander, Indian Aerospace Command
Basu — Director, Research and Analysis Wing
Ravoof — Minister of External Affairs
Bafna — Defense-minister
Potgam — Chief-of-Army-Staff, Indian Army
Sudarshan — Brigadier, Indian Army. Commander, armored taskforces Rhino and Trishul
Kulkarni — Lieutenant-Colonel, Indian Army. Commander, taskforce Rhino
Jagat — Lieutenant-Colonel, Indian Army. Commander, Panther-flight (special heli-borne operations)
Dutt — Group-Captain, Indian Air Force. Squadron commander, No. 199 Helicopter Unit (“The Himalayan Gunners”)
Verma — Air-Commodore, Indian Air Force
Bhosale — Air-Chief-Marshal, Indian Air Force
Hussein — Chief-of-Army-Staff, Pakistani Army
Haider — Lieutenant-General, Pakistani Army. Commander, Inter-Services-Intelligence
Akram — Major, Pakistani Army. Aide-de-camp to Haider. Inter-Services-Intelligence
Muzammil — Commander, Lashkar-e-taiba
Afridi — Field-commander, Lashkar-e-taiba
Wencang — President, People’s Republic of China
Chen — General, People’s Republic of China Air Force
PROLOGUE
The blue sky disappeared into a white nothingness. The clouds flashed into oblivion. As he raised his hands to shield himself from the intense light, it only got worse. He could see the reddish-pink color of blood inside his arms as the intense light made even the skin transparent.
Was that even possible?
What was certain was that the ball of white light was now turning yellow and revealing itself as an expanding fireball…
“Go! Go! Get to cover!”
He ran at full speed, leaping over the rocks and snow. Others turned to do the same. But they weren’t fast enough. How could they? After all, they were only human.
The ground shook and he fell on his left knee as the gravel began to shake itself loose. Boulders began rolling down the hillside. He tried getting up but found his knees weak. He saw his rifle shaking with the gravel on the ground. He turned to face the valley behind him as others staggered past. He saw Vikram running past. Only seconds had passed, but it felt as though everything was going far slower. Even as he saw Vikram’s gaping mouth yelling his name out, Pathanya turned to see the snow flashing away just as the clouds above. The fireball smashed into the rocky hillsides. A high wall of dirt, gravel and rocks ran up the valley towards them.
He saw the approaching shockwave from the airborne nuclear detonation. His face wore the mask of pure horror. A large tree trunk overtook Pathanya’s view. It slammed into his leg and his view went black…
Pathanya jerked from his bed with a cold sweat. His hands were on his chest checking for wounds and surprisingly, he found himself out of breath. He turned to see the small red digital readout of the alarm clock nearby and slowly regained his bearings. He felt the sweat on his forehead. His heartbeat began to slow down to normal rhythm.
The same nightmare again.
He caught his breath and realized that there was no way he was going to fall back to bed again. So he shoved his blankets aside and rolled his legs off the bed. He checked his left thigh with his fingers pressing down. The pain slowly shot up the rest of his body. The thick scar left there by that tree log in northwestern Bhutan had taken a year to heal. During that time he had been walking with a stagger that had not gone unnoticed within the small Para community he belonged to. He hated it; hated the attention it garnered and the stories—Rumors! — that spread as a result. He just wanted to be left alone.
Needless to say, he had not been left alone.
The work done by Pathanya and his small team of Paras in the mountains of Bhutan had become legend within the Indian Army. He glanced over to his uniform hanging behind the door of the wooden hut and saw the moonlight glistening off the various ribbons and citations. One of these was the special citation given to all Paras from the 9TH, 10TH, 11TH and 12TH Battalions of the Regiment by the King of Bhutan. It was for services rendered in the defense of the Himalayan Kingdom from Chinese forces. The “Snow-Lions”, as the Bhutanese citizenry now called them, had received that ribbon soberly. They had paid a heavy price for it. The two Chinese nuclear missiles launched against the Kingdom in the final days of the war had savagely taken the lives of thousands of Indian soldiers and fifteen-thousand Bhutanese civilians. All in the blink of an eye. That war had been nasty to all parties involved.
To Pathanya, the personal price had been the loss of six of ten members of his long-range reconnaissance patrol team. Of the four survivors, two had been severely wounded, himself included. The first to go had been second-lieutenant Ganesh who had taken a deep splinter wound on their second day in Bhutan. Days later, the nuclear explosion over Barshong had taken the others with one swipe.
Gone! Just like that!
He stopped pressing down on his scar and exhaled a long breath. He then made his way to the uniform hanging near the door to his hut. He could see the black night sky outside beginning to turn to deep blue. The early morning fog descended over the trees. He rubbed his thumb over the ribbon on his uniform chest. This one had been given to Tarun, Vikram and himself by the King of Bhutan, a few months after the war.
That ceremony had been simple and sober too. The young King had aged tremendously over the course of the war. Even so, he had put the ribbon on the three men for what they had done to prevent the fall of the Bhutanese capital city of Thimpu during the early days of that war.
“The Thimpu shield,” Pathanya said to himself as he remembered the King’s description of him and his men that day. He sighed again.
The day had started for him. He took his running tee-shirt from the rack nearby, grabbed his jogging shoes and walked outside. He sat on the cold rocks of the steps at the edge of the hut’s foundation, tied his shoes, stretched his muscles and began running on the dirt path past the lawns. He headed towards the trail that headed into the woods. By now the first chirping birds had begun to fill the skies near the army base at Vairengte, in the state of Mizoram.
Following his serious leg injury, it had been a major struggle for Pathanya to stay on in the army. It had taken him months to recover and even more months after to learn to walk again. Over the last month, he had forced himself to return to jogging just like he used to before the injury. He had managed to survive and prove to the doctors that he was still fit for duty. Given his combat record, the army had been somewhat relenting.