But soon there would be none left to buy.
8
As the tires touched the concrete, a puff of smoke rose to the air and was sucked up into the trailing vortices behind. The engine roared as the F-16 pair thundered down the runway. In the cloudy skies above Skardu in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, more white contrails made circles in the freezing air as other aircraft prepared to land. While the two F-16s were escorted off the runway into the empty hardened shelters, the engine noise echoed in the valley in dampened thunder. The second F-16 pair was barely rolling off the runway when the next pair began their approach. The aircraft were quickly pulled into the shelters to bring the detachment at Skardu up to its predetermined wartime allocation. These F-16s of the Pakistani air-force were the advanced Block-52 versions of the venerable F-16 fighter design. And as such, their arrival at Skardu to compliment the older generation detachment was as much a signal as was the arrival of many Su-30 and Mig-29 detachments to forward airfields on the Indian side of Kashmir.
Darkness enveloped the valley and the fading sunlight began to silhouette the western Himalayan peaks against the reddish-orange sky. By this time, ten F-16s of the PAF filled up all of the hardened shelters at the base. Inside the shelters, yellow lighting illuminated the aircraft and allowed the ground crews to help the pilots unstrap themselves from the cockpits. These aircraft were quickly refueled and the underwing pylons were fitted with live AMRAAM beyond-visual-range missiles.
Jeeps took the pilots to their ready rooms and the next sorties of transports began arriving. Two C-130 transports landed in quick succession, bringing the requisite backup flight crews and ground crews as well as auxiliary equipment needed to support the much more modern Block-52 F-16s. Two of the PAF’s highly precious IL-78 tankers, purchased from Ukraine, as well as a SAAB turboprop airborne early warning aircraft diverted to Gilgit airport, further north of Skardu and away from the Indian airbases to the south.
Hours later the first of the Indian RISAT satellites confirmed the arrival of the PAF in force. The imagery was enhanced and analyzed. The presence of the two advanced F-16s on the readiness platform as well as the two C-130s disgorging crews and equipment was easily spotted. Rawalpindi had just provided its rebuttal to the Indian government’s threats to strike terrorist targets inside Kashmir. Far from letting the Indians push their aerial strike packages through, the PAF had instead staked its claim to the airspace above its side of Kashmir.
Further satellite passes confirmed more of the same. Endless ground convoys were now beginning to move troops and artillery into forward positions all along the line-of-control. With the mountain passes barely allowing either the Pakistanis or the Indians to surge ground-based logistics and with the Pakistanis now on the alert, Bafna’s plan to release Indian plans before acting on them had cost the Indian military dearly. The element of strategic surprise had now been lost.
The crowd of Pashtun tribesmen got up on their feet and cheered his speech. Muzammil smiled and waved his AK-47 in the air. The stunning mountain backdrop of Skardu added the backdrop for his rifle. Following the Indian government’s warning to Pakistan to hand over the culprits or face massive aerial bombardment, Muzammil and his followers had responded with a call to jihad from all cadres of the mujahedeen devoted to a free Kashmir. As one of his colleagues standing next to him pointed out the circular contours of the Pakistani air force fighters patrolling the blue skies above, he smiled and recognized that his back was against a very supportive wall. The Indians would be foolish to wage all-out war in their weakened state against a Pakistani military armed to the teeth like never before in history. And if they did, his cadres would wage relentless warfare in the Indian rear lines forcing them to divert troops from the line-of-control. In fact, should they do such a foolish act, they may very well lose Kashmir altogether.
And that was a vision worth fighting and dying for!
Muzammil knew he was under watch, and he used it to his advantage. He spotted several of the local Pakistan news crews filming his moves from the perimeter of the grounds. He wanted them seeing his speech. After all, he was calling New-Delhi’s bluff right on their faces and declaring jihad against the infidel occupiers of Kashmir. He wanted the viewership from South Block to see this… and fear it.
“Cheerful bastard, isn’t he?” Basu said as he took the remote and switched off the television screen. He turned to see a dozen faces of young and tough special-forces operators standing casually without a word. All of them were outfitted in white combat smocks designed for winter combat. Their faces remained stoic, as though chiseled in stone. If any of them felt any emotions at all from seeing Muzammil declaring jihad against their country, they kept it to themselves. Basu reminded himself that these warfighters were not known for being verbose.
“Indeed he is,” Ansari said for his group and got up from his seat. “That son of a bitch was a key player in the strike on Mumbai. He doesn’t know it yet, but his days are numbered!”
Gephel kept his peace and stared at the television screen. They had ‘requisitioned’ the officer’s mess at the Ladakh Scouts base for the time being despite the growing SOCOM base in Leh. The main detachment of Paras at Leh was drawing too much attention to themselves. And attention was something Ansari and Gephel could do without. However, the more attention the others drew to themselves, the less attention would be given to the two dozen men working with Ansari…
“So Muzammil is our main target?” Pathanya asked.
“Yes.” Ansari stated flatly. “He is currently in the Deosai valley in occupied Kashmir, organizing his jihad army for operations against us. It won’t succeed. These rag-tag buggers are going to disperse like cockroaches when we deliver steel rain on them. However, that’s not your main concern. Leave the bearded foot-soldiers to the rest of the army and your buddies in SOCOM. We are going after this bugger and his field commanders!”
“So we are to take him alive?” Kamidalla asked.
“If we can, we will.” Ansari looked at the others. “But if there is any risk of him getting away, you nail his ass! Understood?”
“Yes sir!” The group responded in near unison. Their actual body language said: “With pleasure!” Ansari smiled and turned to Gepheclass="underline" “You have the floor, colonel.”
Gephel nodded and got up from his seat. He then paced for a few steps and faced the group of men: “As you are aware, from painful experiences, the biggest issue for any such operation is intelligence and timing. We need both if we are to arrive at the target and take him out when it is of maximum advantage to us and minimum advantage to the enemy.” Gephel then walked to the wall that had now been covered with maps of regions north of the line of control. He took the wooden pointer and poked at a point called Deosai on the map. “This region is where our target individual is spending most of his time these days. We know where he is and he doesn’t seem to mind us watching him all that much. The bugger feels very secure within his army of mujahedeen and the Paki air-force that’s protecting them. For now. South of there, you have the line-of-control and it is heavily fortified with layers of sensors, battlefield radars and observation posts. Very similar to our defensive line south from there. Mr. Basu here,” Gephel nodded to the RAW director, “assures us that when the time comes we will have the location of the target down to a few hundred meters. However, the issue at the moment,” he wave his hand at the maps of occupied Kashmir, “…is to find an ingress and egress route through these massive defenses.”