The second house Igor went to was a legitimate terrorist safe home, a “squat” in a slum not too far from where the Commonwealth Games were to be held. He arrived around eight at night, and stayed until the following afternoon. The family circumstances at the second house were almost exactly the same — this father had a slightly better job sweeping a factory at night, and the wife cleaned toilets, but I would have been hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two families. It was only when we followed the father to his job at the factory that we discovered the terrorist connection.
To a group called People’s Islam.
Sounds sorta kinda like India for Islam, except it’s not.
And that was where things became even murkier.
Which is to say, the muddy details I’d been trying to decipher blurred into solid black nothingness.
* * *
I’m trying to skip as much of the boring intel and blind alleys we took as possible. But if you’re playing along at home, this quick dossier might help make things a little clearer:
The full list of terror groups active in India could fill a telephone book. Throw out the pseudonyms and unintentional duplicates, and you still have several pages. Put the Maoists to one side, and add the people involved in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and the list will be a manageable dozen or so pages.
Alphabetically, India for Islam hits just about page four. It’s relatively new, though with the Pakistani connections it certainly had its potential.
People’s Islam is over on page seven, about halfway down. It has some potential as well, though no connections (known, anyway) to Pakistani intelligence or its political parties. It doesn’t have bases in Kashmir to draw soldiers from, another drawback. It has ambitions, though, and at least according to rumor, contacts with al Qaeda.
You’d think from the title that there was something communist associated with them — any country with the words “people’s democratic” in it almost inevitably has a communist dictatorship. It’s partly true here. One of the founders of People’s Islam had been a communist before undergoing an Islamic “rebirth.” As he pulled like-minded nuts together, he kept “People” in the title of his group.
There were apparently links to the larger Maoist party, but it’s unclear how strong that connection was. No matter, because it seems to have ended completely when the leader conveniently blew himself up while trying to make some bombs to celebrate a religious holiday.
The group soldiered on. Over an eighteen-month period in 2008 – 10, they took credit for three terrorist bombings. Two killed only the bomber because of problems with the equipment; the third killed three people including the bomber.
From the distance, it would look like India for Islam and People’s Islam were just a couple of identical bad apples in a very rotten bunch. But that’s our point of view. From their point of view, the two groups were rivals for funding and affection from a variety of sources, most especially Osama bin Goatfuckin’. And even more importantly, they were competing for followers and fans.
I didn’t know this at the time. When I saw the name, I thought it was just another nom de terror for the assholes we’d been dealing with.
Captain Birla and his G-2 man put me straight.
“Very surprising here, Commander Rick,” said Captain Birla. “They are working together. An ominous development.”
Ominous because two very different groups, with no known connections, had worked together in an elaborate operation to free our prisoners.
The intelligence agencies started working on that idea full-bore. In no time at all, they had pieced together mountains of evidence that showed that not only were India for Islam and People’s Islam working hand-in-hand, but a whole bunch of other groups on that list of alphabetically sorted terror organizations were teaming up. Maoists and jihadists, Sunnis and Shiites, Yankee and Red Sox fans.
The Commonwealth Games were going to be Armageddon.
A few hours after they reached that determination, one of the government ministers issued a statement saying that the terrorists who had struck the helicopter factory had probably had an “Indian handler” who helped guide them. It was a classic chapter in the book of Utterly Unhelpful Political Statements Issued by Politicians Who Know Jack About What’s Going On.
It probably didn’t seem that significant to the minister at the time. It echoed another statement made a few months before by the home minister who said that the Mumbai attacks — known in India as 26/11 — had been facilitated by “an Indian handler whose true identity has yet to be ascertained.”
Or someone who looked like an Indian. Or could have looked like an Indian. Or might have thought he looked like an Indian.
But in a tense India, the statement was a lit match. The reaction was immediate:
Real Indians would never be involved in terrorist acts. How can you say such a thing!
The uproar drowned out his real message, which was that local police should be better integrated into the security network.
Americans shouldn’t feel too smug. We have a hard time facing the truth as well, even when it’s presented with a paragraph’s worth of qualifiers.
* * *
The swirling political storm was weighing on Minister Dharma. Finally taking my calls — it felt like the first day of spring — she asked that I brief her on the situation in her office. She gave me one of her thousand-megawatt smiles, but she seemed only mildly interested in my suggestion that People’s Islam be targeted by Special Squadron Zero the same way India for Islam had been.
“You are very persistent, Richard,” she told me, arms folded across her bosom. “But we are not in America.”
“Just giving you my advice,” I said. “That’s what you hired me for.”
“Maybe that was a mistake.”
Oh, ouch.
She stared at me for a few seconds. A beautiful woman’s glare can be an intimidating weapon, and I’m sure she had castrated dozens of men with hers. I just smiled. At that moment, her stare reminded me of my ex-wife’s.
“I can resign if you want,” I said.
I wasn’t really thinking of resigning, but the offer wasn’t a threat either. While we’d lose a certain amount of revenue, there was no sense continuing to work for people who didn’t want me.
“No. That’s all right. Of course you must stay on and help us. You are invaluable.”
The daggers in her eyes changed to tulips as she turned on the charm, talking about how I must come to the party she was having in a few days. Before I got a chance to decline, there was a knock on her door. Two of her aides came in, and her manner made it clear I was dismissed.
The reason for the blow-off was soon pretty obvious. The intelligence Special Squadron Zero had developed was shared by the minister with the Indian intelligence establishment. Rather than focusing on either of the two groups, there was a fresh cycle of arrests. None of those brought into custody, alas, were members of either India for Islam or People’s Islam.
What are the odds, huh?
Well, at least the entire Indian military, intelligence, and security apparatus was now focused on a massive threat, alerted to the most serious problem and danger facing the country.
* * *
Dream on. You clearly haven’t been paying attention.
* * *
It was Junior who raised the most serious objection to the theory of an India for Islam – People’s Islam alliance.
We were reviewing our days at a debrief/bullshit and beer session at our safe hotel three days after letting Igor “escape.” He was now at yet another safe house several miles outside of Delhi. Special Squadron Zero had just officially turned him over, and was concentrating on the Commonwealth Games.
No questions had been asked about how the information had been developed regarding Igor, but it was known that he was connected to the two prisoners who had disappeared and were still at large.
“If these groups were getting together,” said Junior, swigging
from his beer, “wouldn’t there have been a hell of a lot more intelligence before all this happened?”
“That’s not how it works,” I said. “They’re not going to send out Twitter updates every ten minutes.”
You’d think he’d be impressed that I knew what Twitter was, but no.
“There should have been some communications traffic,” insisted Junior. “Look at everything we got on India for Islam.”
“Most of it is worthless,” I told him.
“Sure. But there was at least some volume. No Such Agency 20 should have reams of intercepts and other shit connecting these two groups.”
“They could have met in person.”
“You still have to send some sort of notice back and forth.”
“Maybe the NSA has the intercepts,” said Doc. “They’re just not sharing with the Indians. Who aren’t sharing with us.”
That was a good point — except that I thought the admiral would have mentioned something along those lines when we spoke. And whatever else you wanted to say about the Christians in Action and the No Suchers, they did tell each other what was up.
Four or five times out of ten.
“Dick always says life follows the KISS principle,” Junior countered. “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
“I see the Stupid part,” said Shotgun. “Where’s the rest?”
“There has to be a simpler explanation,” said Junior. “To us, these groups are all basically the same. But if that were really true, they wouldn’t be forming so many. They were rivals up until now.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Doc.
“The first murder was between brothers,” countered Junior.
“Maybe they were recruiting them,” said Shotgun.
“That’s a possibility,” said Junior.
“Under that theory, they kill Fatty because why?” asked Doc.
“Because he was a spy.”
“How’d they know?”
“We have a traitor inside Special Squadron Zero.”
“A traitor who let the mission proceed? We nailed over two dozen of them there.”
“My head hurts,” said Shotgun.
“Have some more beer,” said Doc.
You have to admit, the man knows his medicine.
* * *
Neither Mongoose nor Trace were at the meeting. Trace had a competition the next morning, and making the meeting would have meant blowing a bed check. Since we didn’t want her banned from the team, she stayed at the dorm.
Mongoose, however, was officially AWTTMO — Absent While Trying To Make Out.
He’d gone back to the gym several times to work out or meet Vina, depending on whether you believe his official story or his hormones. After quite a bit of work, he’d managed to convince Vina to go to dinner with him. Dinner was followed by an evening at one of the hotel’s clubs, where they danced and necked for a few hours.
I’m not sure what else they did, but Mongoose’s butt dragged pretty low at PT the following morning. I even beat him on the run — put a star on the calendar for me.
* * *
Sean wasn’t making much headway in Islamabad. The connection to People’s Islam gave him another excuse to talk to our contacts, but all he got were blank stares.
With one exception.
“Very ambitious,” said a contact in the government passed off to us by a former SEAL who does some contract work for the CIA from time to time. “Trying to prove themselves with the jihadists because of the commie connection. But I’d keep my eye on them.”
“They work with India for Islam?”
“Not a chance. India for Islam is hard-core Muslim. They’re to the right of Osama bin Laden. Way, way, way to the right. That’s how they got their funding.”
Sean nodded.
“India for Islam is hurting,” added our informant. “They got their clocks cleaned a week or so ago. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Sean shook his head sadly. “I’ve been missing all the good stuff lately.”
* * *
I was just coming out of the hotel gym headed for the shower the morning I finished ahead of Mongoose when two members of Special Squadron Zero met me in the hall.
“Commander Rick, the captain needs to see you now,” said the senior man, a corporal who I remembered as one of the team’s best shots.
“Soon as I hit the shower, boys,” I told him. “I’ll wash off, grab some clothes — ”
“Commander Rick, please,” said the corporal. “There is an operation under way.”
“What sort of op?”
The corporal glanced around, making sure he was alone.
“They have found the helicopters,” he whispered. “Please. Time is of the essential.”
Who am I to argue about fractured English? If they could brave the b.o., so could I. I tossed down my towel and followed them out to their car.
5
( I )
The two helicopters had been traced to an area about 150 miles northeast of Delhi. The area was extremely rugged.
Pull up Google Earth and make a line at about two o’clock straight out from the city, and all you’ll see are swirls and squiggles. A few highways tread through the mountains, cutting back and forth with the terrain. They’re narrow, and have more curves than the Miss America Beauty Pageant. Villages cling to the sides of the roads like rats climbing up a rope.
The helicopters were said to be located in the yard of a building at the outskirts of one of these villages. The building had once been the center of a small fortress outpost, held during the Mughal times but abandoned well before the British moved in. The Indian air farce had spotted the choppers on the ground after a series of painstaking reconnaissance flights. The location wasn’t exactly on a straight line from our flight, but it was well within the helicopters’ flight capabilities.
Since it found them, the air farce got to put together the welcome home party. Special Squadron Zero had not been invited — originally. But as the air force pooh-bahs began drawing up their plans, they realized they didn’t have enough ground troops in that area to grab the aircraft that night.
Rather than waiting several days — I have no idea why it would have taken them that long, or why they didn’t have a suitable force in Delhi to begin with — they decided they would share some of the glory. Of course, they were pretty selective about who they wanted, choosing partly on the basis of whom they figured would be least likely to try and steal the press, and partly on the basis of political connections.
Whatever.
The upshot was that Special Squadron Zero had been assigned to cut off the road near the compound, isolating it from a village about two-thirds of a kilometer away.
* * *
You’re thinking:
What the @#$#$ does the Indian air farce know about ground operations?
The air farce actually does have a capable special operations unit — the Garud Commando Force. There are somewhere in the area of fifteen hundred men in the unit, all trained in various facets of force operation and spec ops warfare. Some of them were in the Congo recently, and earned good praise there. They’ve worked with Indian army special forces in Kashmir. A few of their officers have trained with our air farce units in the U.S.
I won’t hold that against them.
The Garud members are pretty dedicated. There should have been more coordination among the officers of the different units working with them, but that’s probably more of a quibble, really, and frankly something that could be said across the board.
More critical were the limits on the operation imposed by their helicopters, which were being pushed to their operating limits because of the high altitude. They solved that problem, but things would have been easier if they’d had up-rated ships like Special Squadron Zero’s.
Chinooks wouldn’t have hurt either. But I’m not in charge of procurement.
No, the problem with the operation had nothing to do with th
e commandos assigned to it, or even the officers. The politicians — they’re a different story.
* * *
I rode with Captain Birla in Pangong 1, the Mi-8TV/India helo we’d taken into Pakistan. Shotgun and Mongoose, fighting off his hangover, were in Pangong 2, an Mi-8 with up-rated engines just barely able to make the climb.
Our assignment was simple — we would arrive at a spot north of the village exactly two minutes ahead of the main assault team. We’d rappel onto the highway, stop traffic, and act as reinforcements for the main team, which was hitting the compound with Hinds.
Trees were scattered throughout the area, and there was no suitable place for our aircraft to land, so they would have to pull donuts nearby. Once the compound was secure, they would go off and refuel, then return before picking us up.
Things started out fine. All the helicopters got off without incident and rendezvoused in the air about thirty minutes from the target. So far so good. They flew together for some period of time — it may have been twenty minutes, may have been less — then split up for their assignments.
There were several other non-Garud elements in the task group. Some army special ops guys were taking the other side of the road, another unit was heading north to a building they thought might be a related safe house, etc.
Anyway, we were five minutes from our drop zone when Captain Birla’s radioman turned to him with an odd expression on his face. He handed the captain a handset he had, his eyes almost crossed.
“We scrubbing?” I asked after Captain Birla handed the phone back.
“No. We’re on television.”
He didn’t mean that literally, but he could have. Someone in the Indian government had leaked the information that the helicopters had been found, and that an operation was currently under way to recover them.
I’m proud to say that I have been involved in many SNAFUs, and more than my share of goatfucks and FUBARs. But this was a new one on me. I can’t think of an American operation that was compromised by a politician while the assault force was en route to its target.
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