He fell back on his back on to the mattress and instantly fell asleep.
“Sir!” There was a knock on the door.
Haider muttered some choice Urdu expletives and then composed himself: “go away! I told you to leave me alone!”
But the knock persisted. “Sir! Please open the door!”
Haider picked up his sidearm from the bed and then walked up to the door. He opened it to find one of his radiomen standing there, holding a phone-speaker: “sir, incoming call from army headquarters! For you!”
Haider scowled and then took the phone from the man, extending its coiled cable as he walked into the room.
“General Haider, here.”
“General, please hold for the army commander!” A bland voice replied.
Haider cocked an eyebrow. He wondered what Hussein wanted now…
“You still alive?” Haider recognized Hussein’s gruff voice. And also his tone. Haider’s facial expression contorted, but he kept his voice calm.
“Alive and fighting,” he managed to say without anger seeping in. “No thanks to you, though.”
“Where are you now?”
Haider let out a deep breath: “commanding units north of Lahore. The 6TH Armored in particular. The Indians decapitated its leadership just as it moved into the line. I was in the area and took over.”
“Good!” Hussein replied. Haider noted the change in tone. The man sounded genuine on that one. “Had you not stepped in, it would have been chaos and the Indians could have penetrated deep into our defenses. I was told that the 6TH Armored was fighting hard. I should have guessed you had something to do with adding steel to its spine.”
“I appreciate that,” Haider sat down on the mattress bed. “How bad is it?”
He heard what could only be a long sigh. Haider knew that well enough: Hussein wasn’t sure what to do. That sigh had always been his placeholder whenever he wanted advice but didn’t want to ask for it.
Haider looked at the floor: “that bad, eh?”
“Did you hear about the debacle near Rahim Yar Khan this evening?”
“I heard some rumors,” Haider lied. He knew a great deal more about that failed counterattack from his ISI commanders, but he wanted Hussein to say it the way he saw it. Because that was more important…
“The Indians routed us from there, plain and simple.” Hussein said, surprising Haider with his uncharacteristic bout of honesty. Pakistani generals never admit defeat as a matter of principle. They couldn’t. Doing so meant public humiliation and ridicule and the termination of any further prospects in Pakistan. They hadn’t admitted a defeat even when ninety-thousand soldiers had surrendered to India in East Pakistan in 1971. They even celebrated the loss of land in 1965 to India as “victory day”. And the humiliation of Kargil and Siachen were ignored altogether. Under such a culture, it was highly surprising when the top general admitted a defeat in candor such as this.
Hussein continued: “they have taken the entire stretch of land from the border all the way to the Indus river. The 1ST Armored Division has been destroyed. So have several Infantry divisions. They have chopped our control of the country into several pieces. The northern forces are now fighting independently of the southern ones. And units west of the river are being funneled, thanks to the river obstacle!”
“But we can still move forces across the river.” Haider added. His mind was working in overdrive now: “and the concentration of our forces in the north means that we do not have to worry about the Rahim Yar Khan capture as being overly strategic in…”
“Isn’t it, though?” Hussein interrupted. “Do you know that the Balochis are using this as the time to launch their own drive for independence? How are we to move forces into the area when the Indians are making strategic movement impossible?”
“Right,” Haider said after a couple seconds.
“Our control on the country is hanging by a thread, Haider.” Hussein said flatly. And once again, he sounded genuine. That scared Haider to his core. Haider was a master of conversations, but he felt even a lieutenant out of basic training could see where this conversation as going. Once the country’s fate had been invoked, there were no limits on what methods they could use to defend themselves…
“And the Indians haven’t stopped,” Hussein continued. “If Lahore wasn’t a clear enough sign for them about our seriousness, then nothing else will. Perhaps the Mumbai atta…”
“Let me stop you right there,” Haider interrupted his commander. There was only so much he would be caught speaking over a phone. He wasn’t about to hand the Indians any evidence. Not now. “The country’s fate is hanging in the balance, sir. We need to pull ourselves together and do what has to be done!” He let that emphasis sink in, before continuing calmly: “and you need to get out Rawalpindi.”
After a very long minute of silence, he got his response:
“Yes.”
It was the most chilling one word reply Haider had ever heard. In it carried the acceptance of fate. His own fate and that of his country. Acceptance of his past actions. And a determination to see it through. All summed up in one word.
Both men knew what had to happen now.
The link cut off. Haider looked at his phone as though it had offended him in a deep way. But really it was his reflexes kicking in while the mind processed what his immediate next steps needed to be.
“Sir?” The radioman said as Haider handed him the phone. But Haider was already in self-preservation mode. He grabbed his helmet, sidearm holster and pushed the scared radioman aside as he walked out the door.
45
Malhotra sipped what must have been his sixteenth cup of coffee for the past two days. He sipped from the steaming cup and took warmth from the cup, wrapping his wrists around it. He always felt cold inside the operations center no matter how much climate-control they did in there.
There was a light knock on the door. Malhotra knew who that was: “come on in!” He took another sip.
Sinha walked into his office with his own cup and a smile. Noting the cup in Malhotra’s hands, he raised his own cup in a sign of “misery loves company” and then took the seat opposite the desk.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Sinha asked as he glanced at the blanket and pillows on the small couch in the office.
“Could you?” Malhotra replied. “What with all this going on? My body wouldn’t let me sleep. Hell. We don’t need sleep to see nightmares, my friend. We are living through them these days!”
Sinha nodded: “a shrewd summary of our woes!”
Malhotra smiled faintly, but even that gesture seemed to be against his body’s seemingly-perpetual inertia to scowl. After all, what was there to smile about?
“How’s the analysis on the Lahore detonation looking like?” He asked, getting back to business.
“Pakistani warhead as far as we can tell,” Sinha replied. “No inbound missile or aircraft delivery. That thing was driven over to the city and detonated on the ground. All according to our initial assumptions. Our young civilian experts from the DRDO are putting the numbers together.”
“So the bastards did it to themselves,” Malhotra stared at the desk. And then shook his head. “Maybe they were offering us a way out?”
“Or maybe they were showing us how serious they are,” Sinha said grimly. “A message perhaps. Plus it halted our offensive on the city, so they gained something out of it.”