LASHKAR

by Mukul Deva

  Don’t you see? It is all about money. Only about money. Twenty dead mujahideen like us cost them less than one dead soldier. Plus they have the comfort of denying that they are the ones who train us and task us to fight their war. They get to fight a cheap war at almost no cost to them. Even the few bucks they throw at us we earn for them by bringing out their drugs. Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars those shit-eaters earn from drugs?

  Shaking his head to clear the ghosts from his past Iqbal slowly turned a full circle. His eyes fell on a raised spot further ahead. It was the cluster of rocks where the sentry had made Omar and him bury their weapons. Iqbal automatically began to plot the route to the rock cluster. It would be easier to get to the camp from there. He was about to start around the ravine and head for the rocks when something within made him pause. Would they have posted a sentry? After all, this was where they kept their weapons…some of them at least. There was bound to be a sentry.

  Standing stock-still in the lee of a tree Iqbal focused his attention in the direction in which he knew the camp huts lay. If there is a man on guard then, logically, he should be in that general area. Iqbal focused his eyes in that direction, straining in the dark for any tell-tale signs but could not spot a thing. Twenty minutes later, just when he was about to give up the vigil and start moving a tiny flicker of light shone briefly about a hundred and fifty metres away. An unseen hand cupped a matchstick as a cigarette was lit. In the mind-numbing darkness that tiny transient flame of light was more than enough. Smoking is injurious to health. Iqbal smiled mirthlessly in the darkness. Don’t you guys read the warning on the packet?

  Lowering his rucksack to the ground Iqbal drew his knife from his belt and started forward on light feet. A chilling calm descended on him. The field craft that had been grilled into him at the training camp surfaced effortlessly as Iqbal inched forward soundlessly in the dark. In his mind the man he was going to kill had ceased to be human. His death was simply one more formality to be completed in the interest of his mission. A job to be done; a roadblock to be eliminated. Swiftly. Efficiently. The transformation of the decent young boy from a small-town, middle-class home into a heartless killing machine had been rendered complete. And Iqbal had no idea when and how it had happened.

  Hoping to break the monotony of the watch, the man who was supposed to be standing guard was leaning against a tree trunk toying with a pack of cigarettes when Iqbal’s hand clamped down on his mouth. As it opened into a startled, instinctive ‘O’ of surprise the cold steel of Iqbal’s knife pierced his skin and slit his throat.

  Iqbal silently lowered the dead man to the ground, careful not to make any noise. He checked the blood-streaked face of the man he had killed as he wiped his hands and the blade of his knife clean on the corpse’s clothing. It was not the sentry Omar and he had stayed with earlier. That meant the rest of the group operating from this camp had returned. I hope there are not too many of them. Iqbal had no illusions about his ability to take on a band of hardened jihadis.

  Iqbal dragged the body of the sentry to a clump of bushes a little away from the designated sentry post. If the present inmates of the camp had been trained at camps similar to the one he had been trained at Iqbal knew that sentry duty would not last more than two hours. Normally most people started duty on the hour, if not for any other reason than that it was easy to remember and keep track of shift-change timings. That meant Iqbal had about forty minutes before the dead sentry’s replacement came to relieve him.

  Iqbal made his way towards the cluster of rocks where the weapons were buried. He knew exactly where they were buried, but he had no tools to dig them out. Working with his knife it took him almost half an hour to recover a rifle, as much ammunition as he could carry and a few grenades. Then Iqbal crept back to the sentry post. He had barely settled in when he heard a rustle a little distance behind him. A swift backward glance confirmed that someone was approaching. The guy has just come out of the hut; his eyes have obviously still not adjusted to the darkness.

  Iqbal watched as the man blundered through the undergrowth. He was making a lot more noise than he should have been. Iqbal held the knife close to his belly as he waited.

  ‘Anwar!’ The man called out softly, just a little louder than a whisper. ‘Anwar!’ Again that muted whisper. This time there was a clear note of irritation in his voice. ‘Oh…’ he saw Iqbal. ‘There you are.’ The man changed direction and headed for Iqbal who was slumped forward pretending to be asleep at the post. He placed a hand on Iqbal’s shoulder to shake him awake, cursing him all the while.

  The minute the man’s hand touched his shoulder Iqbal grabbed it and lunged forward with the knife thrust out. In the circumstances, there was no way Iqbal could have aimed it any better. The knife broke through the skin. It hit the man’s breastplate and skidded to the side, tearing through more skin and flesh. The man screamed as he fell forward almost on top of Iqbal. Actually it was more like a howl. The primeval death howl of a dying animal. It rang out loud and fearful and reverberated in the mountains around.

  Iqbal froze. The others in the camp would definitely have heard it. The scream subsided into a whimpering moan. Iqbal raised his knife hand and slammed the hilt down on the man’s temple, silencing the whimpers.

  Iqbal was moving away from the unconscious sentry when he heard the sound of breaking undergrowth. Several people were on the move. Iqbal tensed as he reached for his rifle and prepared to meet the imminent assault.

  Then he stopped. He listened more attentively. The sounds were moving away from him. For a minute he was perplexed. He listened even harder. Yes, they were definitely moving away from him.

  Suddenly understanding and comprehension dawned.

  You must never get into committed battle with the security forces. They are better equipped, armed and trained. They also have a far higher capacity to absorb losses. So, when you are attacked you must run for it. Get away. Then come back and hit them when and where they least expect it. Always remember, the attacker has the latitude of selecting the time, place and method of attack. Come back and fight them on your terms, at the time and place of your own choosing.

  The words of the instructor conducting the tactics class at the training camp echoed in his memory. Iqbal knew for a fact that his erstwhile terror mates must have assumed it was a raid by the Indian security forces and were making a run for it. Of course, they would return. Once they realized there was no pursuit.

  This suited Iqbal just fine. It gave him enough time to do what he had to do. For Iqbal this was the most critical part of the mission.

  Iqbal used the bootlaces of the unconscious sentry to lash his hands behind him. Then snatching up the rifle he cocked it. The blood lust in him was now in full fury. Holding the weapon at half port so that he could bring it into action instantly Iqbal moved forward hoping he wouldn’t have to actually fire. Noise carried far in this terrain. It could actually get the security forces here.

  Moving rapidly, Iqbal circled silently along the ledge, pausing every now and then to recheck his surroundings before he moved again. He paused for slightly longer as he scoped out the huts. The door of the main hut was ajar and a faint glow came from within. He resisted the illogical temptation to go inside. There was nothing in there that he sought. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind Iqbal could hear the faint hiss of the radio set he had heard that morning when they had reached here after the ambush. The sound reverberated in his memory guiding him to the spot he thought he had heard the sounds from. It took him only a few minutes to find the radio. He used the rifle butt to smash it before he resumed his circuitous patrol. The camp was completely deserted.

  Iqbal returned to the spot where the sentry lay. He was beginning to recover consciousness and starting to moan. Iqbal knelt beside the man and shook him till he saw the man’s eyes open.

  It did not take very long for Iqbal to get the information he needed from the traumatized and terrified man. Having learnt what he needed Iqbal
stepped away from the wounded man; looking at him made him nauseous. The dying man beseeched Iqbal to spare his life with eyes full of fear; eyes that pleaded with him to show some compassion. A part of Iqbal wondered at himself, at the level of evil to which he had fallen, even as the other part plunged the knife expertly into the man’s heart, ending the agony of the night.

  Shouldering his rifle Iqbal went back to the top of the ravine and retrieved his rucksack. Then he started the descent.

  An hour later Iqbal had reached the base of the mountain. By now his body was a screaming mass of pain and fatigue. He forced himself to push on, knowing that if he sat down to rest even for a moment he would not be able to get up and get moving again.

  By the time he found the small cave in the side of the mountain that the sentry had told him about his his numb and exhausted body had lost all sensation. Dropping the load he was toting he fell to the hard, cold floor as though he had been pole-axed.

  Sleep had just engulfed him when, on the other side of the mountain, Omar hopped off a ramshackle jeep two miles away from Hari.

  1800 hours, 31 October 2005, Birbal/Bound Three, Somewhere in the Desert, South of Fort Abbas, Pakistan.

  Sami checked his watch yet again. The hands of the watch seemed to have frozen. He must have looked at it more than twenty times before the small luminous dial glinting in the dark confirmed that it was finally time. He nodded to Tiwathia.

  Tiwathia checked his watch and returned the nod. Turning on his radio set Sami sent a brief signal into the ether. ‘Fox One Four for Tango. We are leaving Birbal now.’

  The tiny burst of disturbance in the electromagnetic spectrum was picked up and heard by many people. After all, this happened to be one of the hottest and most active international borders in the world. There were more guns deployed on this border and more people keeping eyes and ears on it than there were hookers on Sunset Boulevard.

  Sitting in the ad hoc control room near Khajewala, Tiwari and Vashisht heard the transmission. Their radio set was on the same frequency hopping sequence as Sami’s so they received the transmission in the clear.

  ‘Birbal?’ Tiwari who was standing near the door asked Vashisht. ‘Did he say Birbal?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘They must have run into trouble at Akbar…Damn! Hope they are okay.’

  ‘But he did add One Four to his call sign. That means all four of them are still together and okay.’

  ‘Great! Let us get the birds up.’

  ‘Roger that Fox. Stand by for five. Big brothers are on the way.’

  The two men raced out to launch the waiting Krishnas.

  The various Indian monitoring stations keeping an ear on that border heard the signal too. None of them got it in the clear since the transmission had been automatically coded by the radio set and they were not on the same frequency hopping sequence. Most of them duly logged it since it originated in Pakistani territory. A few of the sharper operators observed that it was a typical Indian Army frequency transmission.

  Almost a dozen Pakistani monitoring stations also picked up the signal. Once again they got the scrambled version of the transmission so they had no clue what it meant.

  ‘What the heck was that?’ The Sigint man asked his Controller.

  ‘No clue, but it is definitely on the Indian Army frequency. Much like the new frequency hoppers they have inducted recently.’

  ‘Should I pass it on to the cipher guys to decode?’

  ‘Do that…not that it will be any good to us. By the time they make any sense of the signal it will cease to be relevant.’ The Operator shook his head in disgust. ‘Well, I do have a fix on their location, sir.’

  ‘Good!’ The Controller called up the others. ‘Charlie One to Charlie Seven. Do you guys have a fix on that transmission?’

  ‘Charlie Five I have a fix.’ The Operator passed on the coordinates.

  ‘Copy that Charlie Five. Who else picked it up?’

  ‘Charlie this is Two. I also picked it up. Here’s the reference.’

  ‘Roger that Charlie Two.’

  The Controller triangulated the location and had a fix on the precise location of the transmission a couple of minutes later.

  Within minutes telephone wires burned all along the front.

  ‘I am positive, sir. It was one of those newfangled Indian Army frequency hoppers. Though what the hell they are doing in our neck of the woods beats me.’

  ‘You don’t beat your brains about that.’ The Garrison Commander at Fort Abbas was in on the information loop. It did not take him long to put two and two together. ‘Just keep your ears open and keep me posted about everything happening there.’

  He was pretty sure it was connected to the incidents at Bahawalpur and Multan.

  *

  The officer commanding the BOP Rangers company who had sent out the second patrol was horrified when he was ordered to step out of the safety of his BOP and investigate it personally.

  ‘I want another patrol out. Also send one section out from each of the BOPs on the sides…fully loaded and properly briefed. And listen–’ The Garrison Commander was fully conversant with the abilities and capabilities of the Company Commander– ‘let’s try not to make a mess of it this time.’

  The stricken officer moved his ample bottom as fast as he was able to. ‘Get another section ready,’ he told his Platoon Commander. ‘I will go with them myself. You jokers are useless.’

  He then got on to the radio and briefed the second patrol about the radio that was transmitting from that area. ‘Keep your eyes peeled. Check out area Black Rocks and Twin Dunes thoroughly. And maintain radio contact at all times.’

  He also ordered the BOPs at Lambawala Toba and Majnuwala to launch patrols into the area. ‘One section strength both of you. Lamba, you cover the area between your BOP and Black Rocks. Majnu, patrol the IB (International Border). Warn your people to be careful. Really bloody careful. And get everyone on the BOP on high alert. I want everyone on the ball. Okay?’ He repeated his instructions twice more, revealing his nervousness more than reinforcing the orders. ‘And, remember, we have two more patrols out. No friendly fire, okay? I’ll personally annihilate anyone who shoots at each other.’

  All three Rangers patrols moved out within minutes of each other. At about the same time two helicopters took off from the Pakistan military garrison at Fort Abbas.

  Although six American AH-64D Long Bow Apache attack helicopters had been inducted into service by Pakistan in early 2002, the Pakistan Army detachment at Fort Abbas was considered a low priority area and had only two ageing AH-1 Cobra helicopter gun ships available to it.

  Inducted into service during the Vietnam offensive the AH-1 Cobra had definitely seen better days. However, geriatrics though the two birds were, the 20 mm cannon capable of unleashing 750 rounds in a matter of seconds, the four TOW missiles and the 19-tube M261 2.75" rocket launchers fitted on to them made them more than capable of dealing with the situation on the ground that particular day. The choppers moved towards the area triangulated by the monitoring posts, onto which the three Pakistan Rangers patrols were also rapidly converging.

  Unknown to the four commandos, all at once the desert around them was coming alive. Of course, they were clearly aware of the dangers of staying put in the same location once they had used the radio set. They knew how deadly and effective technology was; they may as well have placed a ‘We are here’ marker on the Pakistan battle board the minute they used the radio.

  Sitting in the Force 22 control room Colonel Anbu heard the transmission. His eyes were automatically drawn to the tiny green dots pulsing brightly on the electronic battle board. One, two, three, four…yes…all there. His mind mulled the possibilities of what could have gone wrong at Akbar even as he tried to visualize what was happening on ground. Then the imagery on the screen before him changed. The Krishnas had come into their holding pattern over the target area. Live feed from them began streaming in.

  ‘Tango for
Fox. We are up and about now. Screens are lighting up. Give us a moment to get a fix on things.’

  Sami double-clicked the transmit button in acknowledgement.

  Both the Krishna UAVs slashed their way unseen through the night sky. The ever-vigilant shepherds were going out to guide their flock home again. They spotted the four commandos almost immediately. The small IFF (Identification Friend of Foe) system fitted into the GPS locators carried by the Force 22 officers shone like welcome beacons.

  The Krishnas also spotted the second Rangers patrol from Ranabhana BOP and the two Cobra helicopters that had taken off from Fort Abbas, heading straight for the Force 22 officers.

  ‘Fox, this is Tango. You’ve got mail.’ Vashisht’s voice came through crisply on Sami’s headset. ‘Ten inbounds, dead ahead. Eighteen hundred and closing.

  You also have a couple of Snakes coming at you…ETA approximately fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Snakes? Shit!’ The last thing they needed right now was a pair of attack helicopters looking for them. Things were beginning to get hot and hairy.

  ‘Roger Tango. We’re going to need assist with the Snakes.’

  ‘Stand by Fox. Let’s work on that.’

  Sami hated to transmit again. He knew that the more often they transmitted the faster and more accurately the Pakistanis would be able to pin them down. On the battlefield that we operate, we are safe only as long as we are not detected, he remembered Anbu telling them more than once during training. Problem is, modern technology makes it almost impossible for anyone or anything to remain undetected for very long. That is why the key is to move fast and move smart.

  ‘We’re hot now…’ Sami alerted the others as he repeated the message transmitted by Vashisht to the other three. They assimilated the information with grim nods. Instinctively their grips tightened on their weapons and they altered course to ensure they would not run head-on into the incoming Rangers patrol.