by Clancy, Tom
If they were out there now, Rodgers could neither see nor hear them. He had been in many isolated places during his long military career but he had never experienced anything like this. Standing at the foot of the glacier he was not just alone, surrounded by mountain and ice, but he could only see as far as his flashlight let him. And he was unable to get anything but static on his radio. He shined the light up the sloping white ice. The foot of the glacier reminded him of a lion’s paw. There were long, large lumps of dirty white ice about ten feet high with crevasses between them. They led to a gently sloping area that rose higher and higher into the darkness. The formation made him feel fragile and insignificant. The glacier had probably looked exactly like this when the first humans were tossing sticks and berries at each other from trees in the valley.
Suddenly, Rodgers’s radio beeped. He grabbed it quickly.
“Yes?”
“The target is up there,” said the caller.
The transmission was broken and the voice was barely recognizable. But Rodgers had no doubt that it was Brett August. The colonel did not know how long he would be able to transmit. So he got right to the heart of the communication without wasting words.
“Copy that,” Rodgers said.
“Team of four,” August said. “Girl and grandfather, Friday, and one cell member.”
“I copy,” Rodgers said again. “I’m at the foot of the zone. Should I go up now?”
“If you wait till sunup you may miss them,” August said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Rodgers said.
“Will try and keep enemy busy,” August went on. His voice began to break up. “Storming here—cell exhausted. Ammo low.”
“Then bail out,” Rodgers said. “I’ll be okay.”
August’s response was lost in static.
“I’ve got a good head start,” Rodgers went on. He was shouting each syllable, hoping he would be heard. “Even if they enter the valley now they won’t catch up to me. I’m ordering you to pull back. Do you read? Pull back!”
There was no response. Just a loud, frustrating crackle.
Rodgers turned down the volume and kept the channel open for another few moments. Then he shut the radio off to conserve the batteries and slipped the unit back in his belt.
Rodgers hoped that August would not try to stick this one out. Going back down the mountain might not be an option for August and the others. But finding a cave and building a fire would be a better use of their energies than hanging on to a slope and trying to draw the Indian army toward them. Unfortunately, Rodgers knew the colonel too well. August would probably regard retreat as abandonment of a friend as well as a strategic position. Neither of those was acceptable to August.
The plateau was also the place where the Strikers had died. That made it sacred ground to August. There was no way he would simply turn and walk away from it. Rodgers understood that because he felt the same way. It made no sense to fight for geography without strategic value. But once blood had been spilled there, one fought for the memory of fallen comrades. It validated the original sacrifice in a way that only combat soldiers could understand.
Rodgers took a moment to walk along the bottom of the glacier. It did not seem to matter where he started. He had to pull himself up one of the “toes” and start walking.
There were collapsible steel bipoint ice crampons in his vest. Rodgers removed them and slipped them over his rigid boots. The two-pronged claws on the bottoms would allow for a surer grip on the ice.
He strapped them on and removed the pitons from another pocket. He would hold them in his fists and use them to assist his climb. He would not take the time to hammer them in unless he had to.
Before he left, Rodgers secured the flashlight in his lefthand shoulder strap. There were powerful cadmium batteries in the specially made lights. The bulb itself was a lowintensity scatter-beam in front of a highly polished mirror. They would definitely last through the night. As he rested the toe of his left boot on the “toe” of the glacier, he took one last look up the mountain of ice.
“I’m going to beat you,” he muttered. “I’m going to get up there and finish the job my team started.”
Rodgers’s eyes continued up through the darkness. He saw the stars, which were dimly visible through the wispy clouds. Time seemed to vanish and Rodgers suddenly felt as if he were every warrior who had ever undertaken a journey, from the Vikings to the present. And as he jabbed the base of one crampon into the ice and reached up with a piton, Mike Rodgers no longer saw stars. He saw the eyes of those warriors looking down on him.
And among them the eyes of the Strikers looking after him.
FORTY-SIX
Washington, D.C. Thursday, 12:00 P.M.
The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is located in a small, high-gated estate on Massachusetts Avenue in northwest D.C.
Ron Plummer drove his Saab to the gate, where a voice on the other end of the intercom buzzed him through. He headed up the curving concrete driveway to a second security checkpoint at the back of the mansion.
Plummer pulled up to the white double doors and was greeted by a security guard. The man was dressed in a black business suit. He wore sunglasses, a headset, and a bullet-proof vest under his white shirt. He carried a handgun in a shoulder holster. The man checked Plummer’s ID then directed him to a visitor’s spot in the small lot. The guard waited while Plummer parked.
As he hurried back to the mansion, Ron Plummer ran a hand through his untamed, thinning brown hair and adjusted his thick, black-framed glasses. The thirty-nine-year-old former CIA intelligence analyst for Western Europe was not just feeling the pressure of his own part in this drama. The political and economics officer was also aware of how many things had to go right or the Indian subcontinent would explode.
The National Crisis Management Center had not had a lot of dealings with the Pakistani embassy. The only reason the ambassador, Dr. Ismail Simathna, personally knew them was because of Paul Hood and Mike Rodgers. After the men had ended the hostage stalemate at the United Nations, Simathna asked them to visit the embassy. Plummer was invited to join them. The ambassador claimed to be paying his respects to a brave and brilliant American intelligence unit. Among the many lives they had saved were those of the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations and his wife. But Hood and Plummer both suspected that Simathna simply wanted to meet the men who had embarrassed the Indian secretary-general. That feeling was reinforced when the visit received considerable coverage in the Islamabad media. Hood was glad, then, that Plummer had come along. Op-Center’s PEO gave the appearance of substance to a meeting that was conceived to make a statement about India’s ineffective contribution to world peace.
The security officer turned Plummer over to the ambassador’s executive secretary. The young man smiled pleasantly and led Plummer to Simathna’s office. The white-haired ambassador came out from behind his glass-topped desk. He was wearing a brown suit and a muted yellow tie. The sixty-three-year-old ambassador had been a frontline soldier and bore a scar on both cheeks where a bullet had passed through his jaw. He had also been an intelligence expert and a professor of politics and political sociology at Quaid-E-Azam University in Islamabad before being tapped to represent his nation in Washington, D.C. He greeted Op-Center’s political officer warmly.
Plummer had not told Ambassador Simathna why he needed to see him, only that it was urgent.
The men sat in modern armchairs on the window side of the office. The thick bullet-proof glass muted their voices. As Plummer spoke he sounded almost conspiratorial.
The ambassador’s lean face was serious but unemotional as Plummer spoke. He leaned forward, listening quietly, as Plummer told him about the Striker operation from conception to present, and Hood’s fears about the actions of India’s SFF. When Plummer was finished, the ambassador sat back.
“I am disappointed that you did not come to me for intelligence on the nuclear situation in Kashmir,” the ambas
sador said.
“We did not want to impose on your friendship,” Plummer replied. “It means a great deal to us.”
“That was thoughtful of you,” he replied with a little smile. “But you have come to me now.”
“Yes,” Plummer replied. “For your advice, your confidence, your patience, and most of all your trust. We believe we have a good chance to keep this under control but the hours ahead will be extremely difficult.”
“One could describe nuclear brinkmanship in those terms,” the ambassador said softly. “Your Strikers were quite brave, going into the mountains the way they did. And the surviving members give me hope. Nations are not monolithic, not even India and Pakistan. When people care enough about one another great things can be accomplished.”
“Paul Hood and I share your optimism,” Plummer said.
“Even at this moment?”
“Especially at this moment,” Plummer replied.
Throughout the exchange Plummer had watched the ambassador’s dark eyes. Simathna’s mind was elsewhere. Plummer feared that the ambassador was thinking of alerting his government.
The ambassador rose. “Mr. Plummer, would you excuse me for a few minutes?”
Plummer also stood. “Mr. Ambassador, one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t wish to push you, sir, but I want to make certain I’ve made the situation clear,” Plummer said. “It is vital that your government take no action until our people in the field have had a chance to extract the Indian operative.”
“You have made that quite clear,” the ambassador replied.
“There is the very real danger that even a leaked word could turn this into a self-fulfilling nightmare,” Plummer added.
“I agree,” Simathna assured him. The tall Pakistani smiled slightly and started toward the door.
“Mr. Ambassador, please tell me what you’re going to do,” Plummer implored. The American was going to feel very foolish if Simathna were going to get an aspirin or visit the lavatory. But Plummer had to know.
“I am going to do something that will require your assistance,” Simathna replied.
“Anything,” Plummer said. “What can I do?”
The ambassador opened the door and looked back. “You must give me something that you just requested of me.”
“Of course,” Plummer told him. “Name it.” While the PEO waited he replayed the conversation in his mind on fastforward, trying to remember what the hell he had asked the ambassador for.
“I need your trust,” Simathna said.
“You have it, sir. That’s why I came here,” Plummer insisted. “What I need to know is if we’re on the same tactical page.”
“We are,” Simathna replied. “However, I have access to footnotes that you do not.”
With that, the Pakistani ambassador left his office and quietly shut the door behind him.
FORTY-SEVEN
The Siachin Glacier Thursday, 10:57 P.M.
Ron Friday’s anger kept him from freezing.
The NSA operative was not angry when he started this leg of the mission. He had been optimistic. He had effectively taken charge of the mission from Sharab. Even if the woman survived her encounter with the Indian army, Friday would be the one who led the cell into Pakistan. The triumph would be his. And the journey appeared feasible, at least according to the Indian military reconnaissance maps he had taken from the helicopter. The line of control did not appear to be heavily guarded at the Bellpora Pass. The region was extremely wide and open and easy to monitor from the air. Captain Nazir had told Friday that anyone passing through the jagged, icy region risked being spotted and picked off. So Friday and his group would have to remain alert. If the cell was still in the pass during a flyover, they would find a place to hide until it was finished.
However, Friday became less enthusiastic about the operation as the hours passed. He was accustomed to working alone. That had always given him a psychological advantage. Not having to worry about or rely on someone else enabled him to make fast tactical turns, both mentally and physically. It had been the same with his romantic relationships. They were paid for by the hour. That made them easy, to the point, and, most importantly, over.
Samouel was holding up well enough. He was in the lead. The Pakistani was deftly poking the ground with a long stick he had picked up, making sure there were no pockets of thin ice. Friday was directly behind him. There were two unlit torches tucked under his right arm. They were made with sturdy branches the men had picked up before the tree line ended. They were capped by tightly wound strangler vines. The thick vines glowed rather than burned. Friday had stuffed very dry ryegrass between the vines to serve as primers. The torches would only be used in an emergency. Friday had five matches in his pocket and he did not want to waste them.
Nanda and her grandfather were at the rear of the line. Nanda herself was doing all right. She was a slight woman and she lost body heat quickly. But she had a fighting spirit and would have kept up the pace if not for Apu. The elderly farmer was simply exhausted. If not for his granddaughter the Indian probably would have lain down and died.
As darkness had descended over the ice and the temperature had fallen, Friday had become increasingly disgusted with the Kumars. He had no tolerance for Apu’s infirmity. And Nanda’s devotion frustrated him. She had a responsibility to end the crisis she had helped cause. Every minute they spent nursing Apu across the glacier slowed their progress and drained the energies of Nanda, Friday, and the other man.
The farmer’s life just did not matter that much.
Friday had taken a last look around before night finally engulfed them. The group was on a flat, barren expanse. To the right, about a half mile distant, the blue-white glacier rose thousands of feet nearly straight up. The surface appeared to be rough and jagged, as though a mountain-sized section had been ripped away. To the left the terrain was much smoother, probably worn down by ages of rain and runoff from the mountains. It sloped downward into what looked like a distant valley. Friday could not be certain because a mist was rising from the lower, warmer levels of the glacier.
Not that it mattered. Pakistan was ahead, due north. And unless Ron Friday did something to speed up this group’s progress they would not get there in time, if at all.
Friday took out his small flashlight and handed it to Samouel. The batteries would probably not last until sunrise. Friday told the Pakistani to get a good look at the terrain and then shut the light off until he absolutely needed it again. Then the American dropped to the left side of the loose formation. The air was still and the night was quiet. The glacier was protecting them from the fierce mountain winds. Friday waited for Nanda and her grandfather to catch up. Then he fell in beside the woman. She was holding Apu’s hand close to her waist and walking slightly ahead of him. With each step Nanda stopped and literally gave her grandfather a firm but gentle tug across the ice. She was breathing heavily and Apu was bent deeply at the waist.
“We’re not going to make it at this rate,” Friday said.
“We’ll make it,” she replied.
“Not in time,” Friday insisted. He did not know that for a fact. But saying it emphatically would make it sound true to Nanda.
Nanda did not respond.
“If either side drops a nuclear missile anywhere in the mountains, this glacier will become a freshwater lake,” Friday pointed out. “Let me leave Samouel with your grandfather. You come with me. When we reach Pakistan we can send help.”
“Leave my grandfather with one of the men who held us captive?” she said. “I can’t trust a man like that.”
“Circumstances have changed,” Friday said. “Samouel wants to save his people. That means protecting your grandfather.”
The young woman continued to help her grandfather along. Friday could not see her expression in the dark. But he could hear the farmer’s feet drag along the ice. Just the sound had an enraging quality.
“Nanda, I need your cooper
ation on this,” Friday pressed.
“I am cooperating,” she replied evenly.
“You don’t understand,” Friday said. “We have no idea what’s happening in the outside world. We need to get you across the line of control as quickly as possible.”
Nanda stopped. She told her grandfather to rest for a moment. The farmer gratefully lowered himself to his knees while the woman took Friday aside. The American told Samouel to keep moving. Friday would find him by the bursts from the flashlight.
“If we leave the terrorist and my grandfather here, no one will come back,” Nanda said. “I know this border region. There will be a great deal of tension on both sides of the glacier. No one will want to make any unnecessary or provocative military moves. Samouel will leave without him.”
“We’ll send a civilian helicopter back here,” Friday said. “The American embassy can arrange it quickly.”
“They’ll be dead by then,” Nanda told him. “My grandfather is pushing himself as it is. If I leave he’ll give up.”
“Nanda, if you don’t leave, two nations may cease to exist,” Friday pointed out. “You played a key role in this. You have to set it right.”
The young woman was silent. Friday could not see her in the blackness but he could hear her breathing. It had slowed somewhat. Nanda was thinking. She was softening.
She was going to agree.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll do what you ask but only if you stay and help my grandfather.”
That caught Friday by surprise. “Why?”
“You know how to survive out here,” Nanda replied. She placed her hand on the unlit torches for emphasis. “I think I saw a valley to the west. You will be able to get him down there in the dark, find shelter, warmth, and water. Promise me you’ll take care of him and I’ll go ahead with Samouel.”
