Verma had his job full alongside his army and navy colleagues. The latter two were already heavily involved in the evacuation of people from northern Mumbai into safe sectors to the south. Verma shuddered at the very thought of the magnitude of that task. Anybody who had been to Mumbai could testify to the impossibility of a chaotic evacuation.
Out in the northeast of Mumbai, the air-force and army were working in close conjunction under nuclear conditions. The first of the army’s unmanned nuclear reconnaissance vehicles had just been airlifted into the northeastern sector by the “Featherweights” Mi-26 helicopter. Verma had also deployed several high-altitude Heron unmanned-aerial-drones to provide real time intelligence on the ground situation. Through the enhanced black-and-white view of the Heron’s electro-optical pods, they could see the Mi-26 parked on the ground with a mass of civilians flooding the rear of the helicopter. They could also see the “Muntra-N” nuclear recon vehicle beginning to roll under its own power with a puff of engine exhaust and a slight jerk forward…
“Looks like the NBC recon vehicle is operational and moving,” one of Verma’s staff members noted. Verma looked at the man: “fair enough. But how the hell do we get the civilians out from there in time? This recon vehicle is only going to confirm what we already expect to happen!”
“Sir!” Verma turned to see one of his operations people calling from his station outside the conference room. Verma left the room and walked over.
“What is it?”
“Sir, griffon-one-actual is asking permission to see if he can make a landing approach in sector two-bravo to evac civilians out of there.”
Verma raised an eyebrow: “What’s available in two-bravo to land on?”
The officer waved Verma over to the wall screen showing the drone feed from the Heron overhead. The view was centered on a straight stretch of tar road about three-quarters of a kilometer in length and about half kilometer away east of the parked Mi-26 on the ground. The road had apparently been scouted by the army folks there. He could see some of their trucks parked on the grassy fields nearby. Verma immediately understood the play his pilots were requesting for.
“Can he make it?” He asked and saw that his men have him a “we-are-going-to-find-out” shrug. Verma looked back at the screen and evaluated the width and flatness of the tar road. He then turned to face his operations officer:
“Do it!”
The officer nodded and brought his comms mouthpiece up to his mouth: “griffon-one-actual, this is guardian-operations. Guardian-one has authorized your request and wishes you best of luck! We have you on visual from guardian-angel’s eyes and will follow you in. Out!”
Verma heard the static-laced response from the flight-crew of the C-130J as they began their approach. He turned to see the wall screen along with everybody in the room and saw the black-and-white screen showing the flat-winged, multi-engine aircraft make its approach on the tar road. The video was without audio except from the incoming radio traffic from the pilots of the aircraft and the Heron operators overhead.
Several minutes later there was a large dust cloud behind the aircraft as it made contact with the field and began slowing down. The whitish cloud on the screen enveloped the aircraft for several seconds. The entire room held its breath as they scrutinized the video feed.
Seconds later the lumbering transport emerged from the dust cloud and began rolling forward. Verma let out a very loud breath along with several of his people around him. As they watched, a crowd of civilians were herded towards the waiting aircraft by soldiers. Verma turned to his people: “Scramble griffon-two and — three as well. Griffon-one has blazed a trail for us to follow! Tell them to get in as soon as Griffon-one is off the ground and keep doing it till we get all those civilians out! Move!”
As everybody around him scrambled to the task and the radios went alive with chatter, Verma turned to see the silent video of the parked C-130J on the road with a mass of people boarding it.
Damn heroes!
And yes, you will get a bottle of scotch from me for your actions today!
4
“Sir, we must act! Now!”
“But there is no proof they are involved!” The Prime-Minister reiterated yet again. Ravoof watched in silence as the members of the PM’s cabinet fought each other. Half the group advocated declaration of war against Pakistan. Another half fought against it citing lack of evidence on Islamabad’s involvement. Ravoof had heard both arguments enough times. He knew the pros and cons. As the minister of external affairs for the Indian government, he had held this position and served this PM through the war with China and the fluid geo-political turmoil thence. He was a seasoned practitioner of realpolitik.
He did notice one major difference between this time around: the former defense-minister Chakri’s absence was conspicuous here. Chakri’s voice had been one of solid action during the China war and of stoic patience in the face of near-death and chaos. All these characteristics had made the man a legend within the senior members of the government.
He was probably more responsible for us surviving the war than perhaps any other single person… Ravoof thought as he maintained his silent glance in the chaos of the room. Of course, Chakri had not been a legend just for his wartime actions…
There were many in the government who had stated after the war that Chakri had far exceeded his stated mandate as defense-minister. When the realities of the pre-war Indian involvement in the Tibetan rebellion had surfaced, Chakri had become the focal point of those that looked to find a scapegoat. Special-warfare teams built around soldiers of Tibetan ethnicity had been infiltrated into Tibet during the rebellion to help bring down Chinese control over the region. They had succeeded enough to scare the Chinese into conducting a desperate and precipitated military response…
And what followed was the most brutal war between the two Asian giants… Ravoof leaned back in his chair. The man had exceeded his stated mandate… but not his personal one!
After watching his country slide towards impotence under past governments, Ravoof could never bring himself to blame Chakri for what he had done. It had been three years now and he still could not bring himself to do blame Chakri.
But others had. Leading the charge for his removal had been the PM himself, who saw Chakri as an affront to his own authority and as a convenient scapegoat to offer to those in the government and the media who demanded someone’s head for the Tibetan covert operations. And so Chakri had resigned under unbearable pressure and returned to his house in the outskirts of the city. He had moved there to hide from the media floodlights. He had been forced to become a relative nobody on the political scene despite his accomplishments and sacrifices for the country.
The PM had survived the war in a condition better than when it had started. Having taken credit for Chakri’s successes, whilst passing the blame for failures, he had conveniently buried his own glaring deficiencies on matters of national security. Deficiencies that had almost cost India the war. Riding on popular belief that he had led the country to victory, he had been reelected to office with sound popular majority. He had broad authority as PM like which his predecessors had dared not dream about.