“How far out are the Indians?” Haider pulled up his binoculars and looked east. They were standing atop one of the buildings serving as a field-hospital for the battered defenders of Lahore.
“About twelve kilometers, due east,” Akram said without looking away from his own optics. “The 6TH Armored is putting up a stiff fight. The Indian armored columns are taking losses.”
“Hardly surprising,” Haider said as he lowered his binoculars and rested them on the sidewall. “We knew the strengths of their Russian-supplied tanks and other vehicles for a long time now. The 6TH Armored is almost equally powerful to any of its Indian counterparts. And our artillery is superior. But the Indians have more men and tanks.”
“And control of the skies,” Akram noted sourly.
Haider shook his head as though it was unbelievable how this had come to pass: “yes, it appears that they have. And so our men will eventually be overrun and defeated. But it was inevitable and we have known this for years. Which is why we have nuclear weapons. What I cannot understand, however, is the rapid reversals in the desert. How are the Indians penetrating so far and wide out there?”
“No idea, sir.” Akram said. “The Indian forces there are using Arjun tanks and their crews are all battle-hardened veterans of the China war. Compared to our inexperienced crews, I believe the Indians in the Rahim Yar Khan front have a crucial advantage.”
“Perhaps,” Haider conceded. What he really wanted to know was how Hussein would respond. But cut off from the happenings in Rawalpindi, he could only speculate.
“We will strike with nuclear warheads, won’t we, sir?” Akram asked in a whisper. He knew the operational plans for the Pak army for such dire conditions. He never did get a response from his commanding general. Haider simply picked up his optics and hung it around his neck.
A thundering crash to the north caused everyone to jerk their heads in that direction. They turned just in time to see several black balls of smoke rising into the sky, several kilometers away. Licks of yellow-orange flames appeared within the smoke before they rose into thick black columns. From the northeast, Akram spotted two black spots heading towards them…
“Sir, look out!” Akram leapt and tackled Haider to the floor just as the air around them was torn apart by fast-moving flashes of sparks and fire. Two Indian Jaguar strike-aircraft flashed overhead, being chased by massive amounts of small-arms fire from the streets below. The two aircraft flying at treetop level passed south without too much ado. The strafing attack was over just as abruptly and violently as it had started. The small-arms fire stopped and shouts and screams filled the air.
Akram rolled over on his back, shearing off chunks of concrete from the walls that had fallen all around them. The smell of spent gunpowder was in the air. He checked to see if all of his limbs were still attached and was relieved when they were. He turned to the side and watched Haider doing the same. That led to another relieved exhale and a small laugh brought on by the adrenaline in his body.
That was when the moaning from behind reached his ears. He turned around to see Saadat squirming on the floor, his left wrist missing from his arm. Clumps of blood were everywhere where his hand should have been. Two other soldiers behind him had been shorn in pieces by the cannon rounds. The rooftop was spattered in blood and body parts.
“Saadat!” Akram leapt to his feet and slid next to the wounded man as medics ran up to the roof.
Haider was still gathering his bearings. He walked over to the sidewall of the roof and saw that it now had large holes punched into it. He looked at the streets below and saw soldiers running around with stretchers. An ambulance was ablaze. He could also see another ambulance with the windshield shattered and the driver’s compartment splattered red. He winced and turned away. His own rooftop was a bloody mess. He saw Akram and two medics trying to calm down a rabid Saadat who could see his wrist missing and was reacting in horror…
“So the gloves are off,” Haider muttered. He realized that the strike on Lahore had cost the Indian military a lot of lives. And they were out for revenge. Their own government would not allow them to strike first with nuclear weapons. So they were out seeking revenge the old fashioned way. Even field hospitals were not secure anymore. It never crossed Haider’s mind that he himself was using this military hospital as a shield. Hypocrisy ran deep in his psyche to a point where he never even recognized it anymore…
“Sir!” One of his radiomen ran up the stairs to the rooftop and looked around. He glanced at the blood and shattered bodies and was instantly silenced by the gore.
“Well?” Akram asked from where he was, holding Saadat down. “Speak, boy!”
The radioman tried to speak but instead just vomited and fell on his knees.
“Goddamn it!” Akram got up on his feet and walked over, grabbing the radioman by his shoulder harness and pulling him on his feet. “What was your message? Is this how you contribute to this jihad? By vomiting at the first sight of blood? Call yourself an Islamic warrior?!”
Haider sighed and raised his hand: “major, please. Let the boy speak.”
The two officers looked at the radioman who was clearly overwhelmed. He closed his eyes and tried to recollect his thoughts: “sir, I… we just lost contact with the 6TH Division headquarters. We are hearing complete chaos between the field units. What should we do?”
Haider gritted his teeth and turned to Akram: “those explosions we saw before the Indians strafed us. That must have been the divisional headquarters. The Indians decapitated that division just as it was moving into battle!”
“Sir, what are your orders?” Akram asked as he released his grip on the radioman, who fell again on his knees and vomited some more.
Haider shook his head as he considered his options.
“Major, get your comms people together and send the word out for any surviving 6TH Division staff and logistical columns to make their way to Muridke. We are establishing an ad-hoc command center here. And inform them that Lt-general Haider is taking command for this front. It’s time we put a stop to this rout!”
43
“Sir! Warning message from Mongol-three. We have inbounds heading towards rhino!”
Sudarshan and his senior staff looked up from the map table to see the projected map on the digital screen showing vectors provided by the Phalcon airborne-radar aircraft controlling this sector. The vectors had speeds and altitude provided, and they were inbound and converging on the section of the highway controlled by Kulkarni’s tanks. The vector also showed what they thought these contacts were: AH-1 Cobra gunships of the Pak army. Further west, another eight vectors were overtaking the slow-moving choppers. These the computer identified as Babur cruise-missiles launched from Quetta, in western Pakistan. Sudarshan knew this for what it was: a strike to weaken his defenses. This corroborated well with what his long-range unmanned drones were already showing: two columns of T-80 tanks, one heading north and the other south and both converging on Rahim Yar Khan.