Fenix (37 page)

              Ansari was not satisfied, but nodded anyway. Wartime decision-making was always ad-hoc. The Indian military was just not prepared to fight intensive wars on
two
fronts simultaneously. One front had to be cannibalized to beef up the other. Just the nature of things.

              The two men walked over to where Dutt and Jagat were conferring with maps. They turned to see the two special-forces guys approaching but otherwise kept going. Ansari shared a look with Gephel and spotted what he thought was a brief smile. All services of the armed forces share a common trait: the shared mistrust of the black-ops guys…

              “Gentlemen, how’s it looking?” Ansari asked the pilots.

              “Proceeding.” Dutt said flatly. “We will be dusting off within minutes. My boys and I are just making sure we know precisely where we need to be. Jagat and his pilots are far more acquainted with the geography here than we are.”

              “Good.” Ansari replied and turned to Jagat: “are we flying with you?”

              Jagat nodded and gestured to the parked Dhruv nearest to them:  “right. That bird there. We are fueled and ready to leave just as soon Dutt and his pilots are briefed and their choppers loaded with fuel and weapons.”

              Dutt folded the maps and shook his head: “no. We are all set. Don’t wait up for us. Considering the conditions of this war, it is not safe for all of us to be sitting here, clustered like this. I suggest you get your birds in the air. We will depart soon enough behind you. The C-130 airdrops for the
FARP
will go ahead as planned, so we will bring our own gear.”

              “Fair enough,” Jagat replied with a single nod and then began walking to his parked helicopters. His crews saw him coming and he rotated his lead finger in the sign of
start-them-up
. The pilots and crews dispersed. Ansari and Gephel followed behind Jagat. Ansari saw that the other two Dhruv helicopters were loaded with what looked like Nag anti-tank missiles and crates of equipment. He could only surmise how much the Indian government had staked on this operation. Basu and
SOCOM
had pulled out all the stops.

              Several minutes later, Jagat’s Dhruv lifted off the grassy field and dove to the southwest, flying fast and low over the airbase. The other two helicopters took position behind Jagat. The three helicopters disappeared into the darkness within moments, but left the lingering rotor noise echoing at the airbase. Dutt crossed his arms as he and his pilots watched the last of the four
LCH
s being offloaded on to the tarmac.

──── 42
────

H
aider looked at the sky above to see white contrails of jet fighters. The rumble of their engines was all around. Two black columns of smoke to the west indicated some Al-Khalid tanks from the 6
TH
Armored Division that had just been struck by bombs dropped by these aircraft. He turned to see the swishing trail of a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile as it leapt into the sky. It would never get that far up. Haider interpreted it as a sign of frustration by the anti-air troops. Having struck down the long-range missile batteries with Brahmos missiles, the high-flying Indian fighters and bombers were under no real threat from below. The days of flying low with unguided munitions were long past. Even helicopters these days had the range and common sense to stay away and launch attacks using guided-missiles. Both the sides of this war were learning this the hard way…

              “How far out are the Indians?” Haider pulled up his binoculars and looked east. They were standing atop one of the buildings serving as a field-hospital for the battered defenders of Lahore.

              “About twelve kilometers, due east,” Akram said without looking away from his own optics. “The 6
TH
Armored is putting up a stiff fight. The Indian armored columns are taking losses.”

              “Hardly surprising,” Haider said as he lowered his binoculars and rested them on the sidewall. “We knew the strengths of their Russian-supplied tanks and other vehicles for a long time now. The 6
TH
Armored is almost equally powerful to any of its Indian counterparts. And our artillery is superior. But the Indians have more men and tanks.”

              “And control of the skies,” Akram noted sourly.

              Haider shook his head as though it was unbelievable how this had come to pass: “yes, it appears that they have. And so our men will eventually be overrun and defeated. But it was inevitable and we have known this for years. Which is why we have nuclear weapons. What
I
cannot understand, however, is the rapid reversals in the desert. How
are
the Indians penetrating so far and wide out there?”

              “No idea, sir.” Akram said. “The Indian forces there are using Arjun tanks and their crews are all battle-hardened veterans of the China war. Compared to our inexperienced crews, I believe the Indians in the Rahim Yar Khan front have a crucial advantage.”

              “Perhaps,” Haider conceded. What he really wanted to know was how Hussein would respond. But cut off from the happenings in Rawalpindi, he could only speculate.

              “We will strike with nuclear warheads, won’t we, sir?” Akram asked in a whisper. He knew the operational plans for the Pak army for such dire conditions. He never did get a response from his commanding general. Haider simply picked up his optics and hung it around his neck.

              A thundering crash to the north caused everyone to jerk their heads in that direction. They turned just in time to see several black balls of smoke rising into the sky, several kilometers away. Licks of yellow-orange flames appeared within the smoke before they rose into thick black columns. From the northeast, Akram spotted two black spots heading towards them…

              “Sir, look out!” Akram leapt and tackled Haider to the floor just as the air around them was torn apart by fast-moving flashes of sparks and fire. Two Indian Jaguar strike-aircraft flashed overhead, being chased by massive amounts of small-arms fire from the streets below. The two aircraft flying at treetop level passed south without too much ado. The strafing attack was over just as abruptly and violently as it had started. The small-arms fire stopped and shouts and screams filled the air.

              Akram rolled over on his back, shearing off chunks of concrete from the walls that had fallen all around them. The smell of spent gunpowder was in the air. He checked to see if all of his limbs were still attached and was relieved when they were. He turned to the side and watched Haider doing the same. That led to another relieved exhale and a small laugh brought on by the adrenaline in his body.

That was when the moaning from behind reached his ears. He turned around to see Saadat squirming on the floor, his left wrist missing from his arm. Clumps of blood were everywhere where his hand should have been. Two other soldiers behind him had been shorn in pieces by the cannon rounds. The rooftop was spattered in blood and body parts.

“Saadat!” Akram leapt to his feet and slid next to the wounded man as medics ran up to the roof.

Haider was still gathering his bearings. He walked over to the sidewall of the roof and saw that it now had large holes punched into it. He looked at the streets below and saw soldiers running around with stretchers. An ambulance was ablaze. He could also see another ambulance with the windshield shattered and the driver’s compartment splattered red. He winced and turned away. His own rooftop was a bloody mess. He saw Akram and two medics trying to calm down a rabid Saadat who could see his wrist missing and was reacting in horror…

“So the gloves are off,” Haider muttered. He realized that the strike on Lahore had cost the Indian military a lot of lives. And they were out for revenge. Their own government would not allow them to strike first with nuclear weapons. So they were out seeking revenge the old fashioned way. Even field hospitals were not secure anymore. It never crossed Haider’s mind that he himself was using this military hospital as a shield. Hypocrisy ran deep in his psyche to a point where he never even recognized it anymore…

“Sir!” One of his radiomen ran up the stairs to the rooftop and looked around. He glanced at the blood and shattered bodies and was instantly silenced by the gore.

“Well?” Akram asked from where he was, holding Saadat down. “
Speak
, boy!”

              The radioman tried to speak but instead just vomited and fell on his knees.

              “
Goddamn it!
” Akram got up on his feet and walked over, grabbing the radioman by his shoulder harness and pulling him on his feet. “
What
was your message? Is this how you contribute to this jihad? By vomiting at the first sight of blood? Call yourself an Islamic warrior?!”

              Haider sighed and raised his hand: “major, please. Let the boy speak.”

              The two officers looked at the radioman who was clearly overwhelmed. He closed his eyes and tried to recollect his thoughts: “sir, I…we just lost contact with the 6
TH
Division headquarters. We are hearing complete chaos between the field units. What should we do?”

              Haider gritted his teeth and turned to Akram: “those explosions we saw before the Indians strafed us. That
must
have been the divisional headquarters. The Indians decapitated that division just as it was moving into battle!”

              “Sir, what are your orders?” Akram asked as he released his grip on the radioman, who fell again on his knees and vomited some more.

              Haider shook his head as he considered his options.

              “Major, get your comms people together and send the word out for any surviving 6
TH
Division staff and logistical columns to make their way to Muridke. We are establishing an ad-hoc command center here. And inform them that Lt-general Haider is taking command for this front. It’s time we put a stop to this rout!”

──── 43
────

“S
ir! Warning message from Mongol-three. We have inbounds heading towards rhino!”

Sudarshan and his senior staff looked up from the map table to see the projected map on the digital screen showing vectors provided by the Phalcon airborne-radar aircraft controlling this sector. The vectors had speeds and altitude provided, and they were inbound and converging on the section of the highway controlled by Kulkarni’s tanks. The vector also showed what they thought these contacts were: AH-1 Cobra gunships of the Pak army. Further west, another eight vectors were overtaking the slow-moving choppers. These the computer identified as Babur cruise-missiles launched from Quetta, in western Pakistan. Sudarshan knew this for what it was: a strike to weaken his defenses. This corroborated well with what his long-range unmanned drones were already showing: two columns of T-80 tanks, one heading north and the other south and both converging on Rahim Yar Khan.

All in all, a formidable Pakistani counterattack.

But one that was hardly surprising to him. He
knew
what his armored taskforces had taken from the Pakistanis. He
knew
they would try to take it back. He also knew that the quashed resistance by the Pakistani forces inside Rahim Yar Khan would have reminded the Pakistani commanders that time was running out. The question had been when and how. Both answers were right here on the screen in front of him.

He turned to the staff around him: “all right gents, here comes the counterattack. We have prepared for this. Make the bastards pay!” He pounded the table with his fist for emphasis. The staff ran in different directions as though struck by lightning. He walked over to the comms personnel: “get me Lt-colonel Kulkarni out at waypoint
red
.”

“Steel-central to rhino-actual, over.”

After three seconds of static: “rhino-actual here. Send traffic. Over.”

One of the comms officers handed Sudarshan a speaker: “this is steel-actual. Be advised, we are detecting massed enemy movements towards you. You have inbound cruise-missiles and enemy attack choppers. And we are detecting mechanized columns of T-80s heading out to you from north and south.” He paused for that to sink in.

“Roger. Uh…rhino-actual copies all.”

Sudarshan noted the hesitation. So he decided to make things clear: “listen to me clearly, son. We can see all of these buggers moving in and we are
not
about to sit here wriggling our thumbs. We have anticipated this. Rhino is ordered to dig in. Finish off whatever we miss. But do
not
let the enemy take control of the highway. Is that understood?”

“Understood, sir. We will make our stand here.”

Sudarshan nodded: “good. Steel-actual,  out.” He handed the speaker back to the comms officer. “Now this show is in the hands of the air-force. We better hope they pull it off, or rhino is dead meat.”                   

T
he airspace in western Rajasthan had been crowding up ever since mongol-three first detected the Babur cruise-missile launches near Quetta. Since the war had started, the unique radar signature of the ground-launched Pakistani missile had been passed around between all airborne-radar aircraft. This allowed for earlier warnings, as was the case here. Mongol-three had spent the warning time to bring up interceptor aircraft. They had also alerted the ground-based anti-air units of the army near Rahim Yar Khan. The latter would work as a second-layer defense, mopping up whatever the air-force fighters were unable to get.

              The first set of aircraft that dived from altitude were a trio of Mirage-2000s from No. 1 Squadron. They would go after the inbound Babur missiles. The quartet of Su-30s at high-altitude switched afterburners and accelerated west to ensure that the
PAF
did not intervene. An indicator of how high this battle ranked in the Pakistani mindset, three F-16s were detected as they lifted off from Quetta. The Su-30s would ensure that they posed themselves as a solid wall between the F-16s and the diving Mirage-2000s. Considering the state of the
PAF
by this time in the war, the use of their remaining fighters as top cover for ground forces was noted by the mongol-three crew and passed on to commanders on the ground.

              Further east, five Mig-27s thundered over the international border in the desert.. They would concentrate on the inbound enemy attack helicopters, forcing them to abandon their attack and retreat. Sending fixed-wing aircraft after low-flying helicopters was an iffy business. The best counter for an attack helicopter was
another
attack helicopter, especially in terrain where the attackers could stay out of range. Ideally, the Apache gunships would have gone after the Pakistani Cobras. But the Apaches were
already
moving into positions to play hell with the inbound T-80 columns.

              To support this aerial armada, two IL-78 refueling tankers entered the cold skies above the Indian desert. They would stay in their patrols here waiting to refuel whoever was thirsty after combat. The airborne-radar however, had to be closer to the events. The Phalcon entered Pakistani airspace, trailing behind the fighters. It was technically over Indian controlled Pakistani land, but this marked the first time an Indian airborne-radar aircraft had penetrated enemy airspace.

And it wouldn’t be the last. 

T
he Pakistani army was learning the hard way, what it meant to fight in skies controlled by the enemy. Their ground and aviation forces were paying the price. For the army-aviation forces, the reversals in the skies above had proven extremely costly. Amongst all elements that made up the army, the highest attrition rate had been within their helicopter squadrons. They had gone into battle armed with French puma transports, some American Huey transports and cobra gunships, Russian Mi-17 and Mi-35 gunships as well as an assortment of utility helicopters. Almost all of these had now been ravaged to the point of extinction.

The Mi-17 units had been used exclusively in Kashmir. They had the endurance and power to be able to fly in the very high-altitudes of the Himalayas. The UH-1 Huey units were being used in Punjab and Jammu along with the handful of Mi-35s in a gunship role.

Out here in the desert, however, the puma and cobra units were in play. Pakistan had a fleet of heavily-used and somewhat-outdated Cobra helicopters provided to them by the United-States in the 1980s. They had been used heavily against the Pakistani Taliban when they were fighting the Islamabad government. The two major units operating the helicopters were deeply-experienced in counterinsurgency combat, almost to the point of weariness.

But that experience didn’t necessarily translate into experience against a technologically-advanced enemy. And the initial mistakes made by the cobra crews against Indian defenses had cost them nearly a third of the overall fleet in the first few hours of the ground war.

Of course, that was when their air-force was putting up a stiff fight against the Indians. But as that cover had eroded, hour by hour, to the point of ineffectiveness, the cobra units had begun to feel the effect. What was, at first, a straight trip from the helipads to the battlefield had now degenerated into long, arduous and winding paths, avoiding the attention of Indian fighters above and airborne radars to the east. Flying had become an art of hop, skip and jump from cover to cover. And if they
did
somehow make it to the frontlines, the threat of anti-air units firing at them from all directions added to the stress. Finishing that, it was a similar trip back to the rearming point. Not only did all this dramatically increase the time between turnaround flights, reducing their presence and effect on the frontlines, it also exhausted the crews and wore down the machines. The resulting attrition was enormous. And the cobra units had become a nearly spent force.

This counteroffensive against Rahim Yar Khan required the units to muster
all
available machines. This force, once an awe-inspiring sight of dozens of machines, now represented just five helicopters. It was a sobering sight to the senior pilots and gunners as they had made their way to their parked helicopters.

One thing about fighting over home turf: the crew recovery from downed helicopters was relatively high, though there
had
been casualties. As a result, the units now had more pilots and gunners than they had machines. As a result, only the senior crews were going out on missions to maximize what little effect they could make…

As the five helicopters came to a hover over the trees on the west bank of the Indus river, their gunners were scanning for targets. There was no way to tell if the eastern bank was now occupied by the Indians or not. Chinese satellite pictures
had
shown fast-moving columns of Indian reconnaissance platoons. That meant that if the cobra crews got shot down on the eastern bank, there was no guarantee of recovery.

The pilots saw specks of light amplified by their helmet night-vision optics as the Babur missiles streaked over the river, some kilometers north. These missiles would then turn south to hit important targets on the Indian logistical lines before the tank columns engaged in combat.

An abrupt flash of light reflected off the waters of the Indus and disappeared. The cobra pilots continued to hover, being unsure of what they had seen. The deep rumble of the explosion passed through their cockpits, rocking them sideways. And then another explosion further west…

Against the greenish night sky they spotted the clear delta-shaped silhouettes of Indian Mirage-2000s intercepting the predictably-flying Babur missiles. The explosions showed the cobra crews that their attack was already going wrong.

They had to push on, regardless of the obvious threat around them. Under the command of their squadron commander, the five cobras moved out of hover and flew low over the waters of the river. The gunners kept a close eye on the maneuvering Indian fighters to their northeast, guiding the pilots into cover whenever one of them came close. Neither did, so within minutes the helicopters were doggedly making their way east. They were now within a few kilometers of sighting the Indian armor on the highway…

The fast-moving flight of Mig-27s caught them all by surprise, including the Indian pilots, who could not spot the hovering Pakistani helicopters against so much clutter. They flew
past
their prey and crossed the river. They then began to make a slow arc around.

The Pakistani pilots now knew that they had been spotted on Indian radar. There was no other way to explain the precision with which these enemy pilots were visually looking for their targets out here. They
must
have been vectored here.

As the Mig-27s again flew within three-hundred meters of the cobras without spotting them, the latter decided they would have to fight their way out. All five helicopters carried with them a pair of
stinger
missiles. As two of the Mig-27s broke pattern and climbed up to get a better view, the other three aircraft swept over the river again, north of where the cobras were.

The Pakistani squadron commander brought his helicopter around and pitched it up. This instantly put the burning exhausts of the Indian jets in clear contrast with the cold night sky. The first stinger missile leapt off its pylon and arced across the night sky, chasing its target…

Now the game was up. The arcing trajectory of the missile showed the Indian pilots
exactly
where the cobras were. The five mig-27s broke pattern and dived in different directions, lighting up the entire night sky with a massive pattern of flares. It rendered the entire terrain in flickering shades of orange and yellow. It also destroyed what night-vision anyone had. The stinger missile was an outdated design by modern standards. It flew wildly into the flares and kept climbing until it ran out of fuel before dropping out of the sky like a rock.

But the battle had just begun. All five cobra crews scattered in different direction as the Mig-27s made strafing passes. The helicopters were slow, but maneuverable. Their gunners were busy lacing the night sky with gunfire.

A burst of cannon rounds tore into the tail boom of one of the cobras, instantly shearing off the tail-rotor and sending it into an uncontrolled rotation. The tracers from its chin turret were flying in a circular arc as the helicopter spun and lost altitude. It splashed into the waters of the Indus near the eastern bank and its rotor blades flew off wildly in all directions, twisted and broken.

Three more stingers raced for the sky above. This time one of the Mig-27s flew past and was caught in a tri-lateral threat. The pilot pulled his control stick into his stomach and the aircraft went nearly vertical, climbing on fully power and punching flares behind it. But gravity was against the aircraft and the missiles were much faster and lighter. Two of the missiles struck in quick succession against the flaming engine exhaust and detonated. The pilot ejected just in time as the aircraft shattered to pieces and lost vertical momentum. The burning debris began falling in all directions.