off with a timer in a suitcase or backpack well padded to take the bumps
of the road. Maybe the passenger who was carrying the luggage got off
here, deposited additional explosives in the temple and police station,
and walked on. Perhaps the bomber was someone who had been masquerading
as a pilgrim or a police officer. Perhaps one of the men Friday had been
sitting with or looked at had been involved.
Perhaps one or more terrorists had been killed in the blast. Anything
was possible.
Friday continued to look around. He was not going to see anyone. In
terrorist terms, years had passed. Whoever did this was dead or long
gone. And he could not see anyone watching from the street, a room, or a
rooftop.
The best way to deal with this now was with intel. Collect data from
outside the targets and use it to pinpoint possible perpetrators. Then
move in on them. Because this much was clear: Now that Hindu targets had
been attacked, unless the guilty parties were found and punished, the
situation in Kashmir was going to deteriorate very, very quickly.
With nuclear war not just an option but a real possibility.
CHAPTER NINE.
Srinagar, India Wednesday, 4:55 p. m.
Sharab was sitting forward in the passenger's seat of the old flatbed
truck. To her left the driver sat with his hands tightly clutching the
steering wheel. He was perspiring as he guided them north along Route
1A, the same road that had brought the bus to the bazaar. Between them
sat Nanda, her right ankle cuffed to an iron spring under the seat. Two
other men were seated in the open deck of the truck, leaning against the
bulkhead amid bags of wool. They were huddled under a tarp to protect
them from the increasingly heavy rain.
The windshield wipers were batting furiously in front of Sharab's dark
eyes and the air vent howled. The young woman was also howling. First
she had been screaming orders at her team. Get the truck away from the
market and stick to the plan, at least until they had additional
information.
Now she was screaming questions into her cell phone.
The young woman was not screaming to be heard over the noise. She was
screaming from frustration.
"Ishaq, did you already place the call?" Sharab demanded.
"Of course I placed the call, just as we always do," the man on the
other end informed her.
Sharab punched the padded dashboard with the heel of her left hand. The
suddenness of the strike caused Nanda to jump. Sharab struck it again
but she did not say a word, did not swear. Blaspheming was a sin.
"Is there a problem?" Ishaq asked.
Sharab did not answer.
"You were very specific about it," Ishaq went on.
"You wanted me to call at exactly forty minutes past four. I always do
what you say."
"I know," the woman said in a low monotone.
"Something is wrong," the man on the telephone said.
"I know that tone of voice. What is it?"
"We'll talk later," the woman replied.
"I need to think."
Sharab sat back.
"Should I turn on the radio?" the driver asked sheepishly.
"Maybe there is news, an explanation." "No," Sharab told him.
"I don't need the radio. I know what the explanation is."
The driver fell silent. Sharab shut her eyes. She was wheezing slightly.
The truck's vents had pulled in slightly acrid, smoky air from the
bazaar blast. The woman could not tell whether it was the air or the
screaming that had made her throat raw. Probably both. She shook her
head. The urge to scream was still there, at the top of her throat. She
wanted to vent her frustration.
Failure was not the worst of this. What bothered Sharab most was the
idea that she and her team had been used. She had been warned about this
five years ago when she was still in Pakistan, at the combat school in
Sargodha. The Special Services Group agents who trained her said she had
to be wary of success. When a cell succeeded over an dover it might not
be because they were good. It might be because the host was allowing
them to succeed so they could be watched and used at some later date.
For years Sharab's group, the Pakistan-financed Free Kashmir Militia,
had been striking at select targets throughout the region. The modus
operand! for each attack was always the same. They would take over a
house, plan their assault, then strike the target. At the moment of each
attack whichever cell member had remained behind would telephone a
regional police or military headquarters. He would claim credit for the
attack on behalf of the Free Kashmir Militia. After that the FKM would
move to another home.
In the end, the isolated farmers whose homes and lives they briefly
borrowed cared more about survival than about politics.
Many of them were Muslim anyway. Though they did not want to cooperate
and risk arrest, they did not resist the
FKM.
Sharab and her people only struck military, police, and government
offices, never civilian or religious targets. They did not want to push
or alienate the Hindu population of Kashmir or India, turn them into
hawkish adversaries. They only wanted to deconstruct the resources and
the resolve of the Indian leaders. Force them to go home and leave
Kashmir.
That was what they were trying to do in the bazaar. Cripple the police
but not harm the merchants. Scare people away and impact the local
economy just enough so that farmers and shoppers would fight the
inflammatory presence of Indian authorities.
They had been so careful to do just that. Over the past few nights one
member of the party would go to the bazaar in Srinagar. He would enter
the temple dressed in clerical robes, exit in back, and climb to the
roof of the police station.
There, he would systematically lift tiles and place plastique beneath
them. Because it was in the middle of a night shift, when this section
of the city was usually quiet, the police were not as alert as during
the day. Besides, terrorist attacks did not typically occur at night.
The idea of terrorism was to disrupt routine, to make ordinary people
afraid to go out.
This morning, well before dawn, the last explosives were placed on the
roof along with a timer. The timer had been set to detonate at exactly
twenty minutes to five that afternoon.
Sharab and the others returned at four thirty to watch from the side of
the road to make sure the explosion went off.
It did. And it punched right through her.
When the first blast occurred Sharab knew something was wrong. The
plastique they had put down was not strong enough to do the damage this
explosion had done. When the second blast went off she knew they had
been set up. Muslims had seemingly attacked a Hindu temple and a busload
of pilgrims. The sentiments of nearly one billion people would turn
against them and the Pakistan people.
But Muslims had not attacked Hindu targets, Sharab thought bitterly.
The FKM had attacked a police station.
Some o
ther group had attacked the religious targets and timed it to
coincide with the FKM attack.
She did not believe that a member of the cell had betrayed them. The men
in the truck had been with her for years. She knew their families, their
friends, their backgrounds. They were people of unshakable faith who
would never have done anything to hurt the cause.
What about Apu and Nanda? Back at the house they had never been out of
their sight except when they were asleep.
Even then the door was always ajar and a guard was always awake. The man
and his granddaughter did not own a transmitter or cell phone. The house
had been searched. There were no neighbors who could have seen or heard
them.
Sharab took a long breath and opened her eyes. For the moment, it did
not matter. The question was what to do right now.
The truck sped past black-bearded pilgrims in white tunics and mountain
men leading ponies from the marketplace. Distant rice paddies were
visible at the misty foot of the Himalayas.
Trucks bearing more soldiers sped past them, headed toward the bazaar.
Maybe they did not know who was responsible for the attack. Or maybe
they did not want to catch them right away. Perhaps whoever had framed
them was waiting to see if they linked up with other terrorists in
Kashmir before closing in.
If that was the case they were going to be disappointed.
Sharab opened the glove compartment and removed a map of the region.
There were seventeen grids on the map, each one numbered and lettered.
For the purposes of security the numbers and letters were reversed.
"All right, Ishaq," she said into the phone, "I want you to leave the
house now and go to position 5B."
What Sharab really meant was that Ishaq should go to area 2E. The E came
from the 5 and the 2 from the B. Anyone who might be listening to the
conversation and who might have obtained a copy of their map would go to
the wrong spot.
"Can you meet us there at seven o'clock?" "Yes," he said.
"What about the old man?"
"Leave him," she said. She glanced at Nanda. The younger girl's
expression was defiant.
"Remind him that we have his granddaughter. If the authorities ask him
about us he is to say nothing. Tell him if we reach the border safely
she will be set free."
Ishaq said he would do that and meet the others later.
Sharab hung up. She folded the cell phone and slipped it in the pocket
of her blue windbreaker.
There would be time enough for analysis and regrouping.
Only one thing mattered right now.
Getting out of the country before the Indians had live scapegoats to
parade before the world.
CHAPTER TEN.
Siachin Base 3, Kashmir Wednesday, 5:42 p. m.
Major Dev Puri hung up the phone. A chill shook him from the shoulders
to the small of his back.
Puri was sitting behind the small gunmetal desk in his underground
command center. On the wall before him was a detailed map of the region.
It was spotted with red flags showing Pakistan emplacements and green
flags showing Indian bases. Behind him was a map of India and Pakistan.
To his left was a bulletin board with orders, rosters, schedules, and
reports tacked to it. To his right was a blank wall with a door.
Affectionately known as "the Pit," the shelter was a
twelve-by-fourteen-foot hole cut from hard earth and granite.
Warping wood-panel walls backed with thick plastic sheets kept the
moisture and dirt out but not the cold. How could it? the major
wondered. The earth was always cool, like a grave, and the surrounding
mountains prevented direct sunlight from ever hitting the Pit. There
were no windows or skylights. The only ventilation came from the open
door and a rapidly spinning ceiling fan.
Or at least the semblance of ventilation, Puri thought. It was fakery.
Just like everything else about this day.
But the cool command center was not what gave Major Puri a chill. It was
what the Special Frontier Force liaison had said over the phone.
The man, who was stationed in Kargil, had spoken just one word.
However, the significance of that word was profound.
"Proceed," he had said.
Operation Earthworm was a go.
On the one hand, the major had to admire the nerve of the SFF. Puri did
not know how high up in the government this plan had traveled or where
it had originated. Probably with the SFF. Possibly in the Ministry of
External Affairs or the Parliamentary Committee on Defence.
Both had oversight powers regarding the activities of nonmilitary
intelligence groups. Certainly the SFF would have needed their approval
for something this big. But Puri did know that if the truth of this
action were ever revealed, the SFF would be scapegoated and the
overseers of the plot would be executed.
On the other hand, part of him felt that maybe the people behind this
deserved to be punished.
A "vaccination." That was how the SFF liaison officer had characterized
Operation Earthworm when he first described it just three days before.
They were giving the body of India a small taste of sickness to prevent
a larger disease from ever taking hold. When the major was a child,
smallpox and polio had been fearful diseases. His sister had survived
smallpox and it left her scarred. Back then, vaccination was a wonderful
word.
This was a corruption. However necessary and justifiable it might be,
destroying the bus and temple had been vile, unholy acts.
Major Puri reached for the Marlboros on his desk. He shook a cigarette
from the pack and lit it. He inhaled slowly and sat back. This was
better than chewing the tobacco. It helped him to think clearly, less
emotionally.
Less judgment ally Everything was relative, the officer told himself.
Back in the 1940s his parents were pacifists. They had not approved of
him becoming a soldier. They would have been happy if he had joined them
and other citizens of Haryana in the government's fledgling caste
advancement program.
The Backward Classes list guaranteed a gift of low-paying government
jobs for underprivileged natives of seventeen states. Dev Puri had not
wanted that. He had wanted to make it on his own.
And he had.
Puri drew harder on the cigarette. He was suddenly disgusted with his
own value judgments. The SFF had obviously viewed this action as a
necessary extension of business as usual. Trained jointly by the
American CIA and the Indian military's RAW--Research and Analysis
Wing--the SFF were masters of finding and spying on foreign agents and
terrorists. For the most part, enemy operatives and suspected
collaborators were eliminated without fanfare or heavy firepower.
Occasionally, through a specially recruited unit. Civilian Network
Operatives, the SFF also used foreign agents to send disinformation back
to Pakistan. In the case ofsharab and her group, the SFF had spent
months planning a more elaborate scheme. They felt it was necessary to
frame Pakistan terro
rists for the murder of dozens of innocent Hindus.
Then, when the Pakistani cell members were captured--as they would be,
thanks to the CNO operative who was traveling with them--documents and
tools would be "found" on the terrorists. These would show that Sharab
and her party had traveled the country planting targeting beacons for
nuclear strikes against Indian cities. That would give the Indian
military a moral imperative to make a preemptive strike against
Pakistan's missile silos.
Major Puri drew on the cigarette again. He looked at his watch. It was
nearly time to go.
Over the past ten years more than a quarter of a million Hindus had left
the Kashmir Valley to go to other parts of India. With a growing Muslim
majority it was increasingly difficult for Indian authorities to secure
this region from terrorism.
Moreover, Pakistan had recently deployed nuclear weapons and was working
to increase its nuclear arsenal as quickly as possible. Puri knew they
had to be stopped. Not just to retain Kashmir but to keep hundreds of
thousands more refugees from flooding the neighboring Indian provinces.
Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control Page 7
