Chimera

Pathanya saw housewives grab their kids and run while truck drivers left their vehicles with the engines still revving. Vikram, coming up behind Pathanya had his rifle at shoulder level and aimed at any sudden threat that might appear from the windows in the deserted streets. He brought it up on a reflexive move and pointed it towards a second floor window only to see a man in his mid-thirties close the shutters in anticipation of the upcoming battle. The streets became silent in front of the small group of Indians.

“Damn. What do you think they know that we don’t?” Vikram said as he lowered his rifle away from that window.

“That the Chinese are coming. They couldn’t have missed hearing the ever-increasing gunfire and arty noise we were dropping on the Chinese all the way south from winchester-charlie,” Ravi replied and chimed off.

“Keep the chatter down!” Pathanya ordered. “Vik, bring out your IMFS and set up on top of this house here.”

Pathanya pointed to the same house that Vikram had pointed his rifle to a few moments ago. It was the tallest such house around and had a good line-of-sight to the north from its flat roof. Better yet, the roof had side walls made of concrete unlike other houses around.

“Take two and set up an O-P here,” Pathanya continued. “I want you to be my eyes and ears.”

He turned to Ravi further down the line. The team members had taken positions along the edge of the road and were on their knees covering possible ambush sectors with their rifles. Pathanya pointed two fingers to his eyes and then swept them across the street. The soldiers nodded in turn. He then keyed his comms again:

“Ravi, you and the rest of the boys are with me. I want to advance on the palace and see what’s going on. Vik, I want you and your O-P team to stay here as long as you can. When the position becomes untenable, make your way back to the palace. This is not a strategic position for holding this city, so don’t let yourselves be cornered trying to hold it. I want no heroic last stands for these four plaster walls. Play hell and fall back. We will meet you at the palace. That will be our primary combat position. Understood?”

“Roger that boss!” Vikram replied with a nod.

“Good. Okay, rest of you: let’s pull out. Ravi, take point,” Pathanya ordered and his team went into action.

Vikram pointed to two of the men and the three of them lowered their rifles, removed explosives and a handful of mines they had left from their backpacks and ran across the street to start setting them up. Vikram ran to the entrance door of the house and knocked on it politely. The same middle-aged man he had seen earlier showed up, nervous and sweating to see heavily armed soldiers knocking on his door. He spoke broken Hindi so Vikram pointed out the need for him and his family to vacate the house right then and there.

The man was hesitant but there was no time so Vikram and another soldier from his team pushed the man aside and entered. They found the man’s wife and kids inside, shouting at the intrusion. Vikram grabbed what looked like a bag from the man’s living room and ordered him to put stuff in and get out while there was still time. Finally the man relented and began telling his wife and kids to start moving the essential items into the bags. Pathanya was on the other side of the road during this commotion. As he saw the civilian man and his family rush out of the house with their handful of belongings, he smiled and keyed the comms:

“Everything okay in there, Vik?”

“Yeah boss. All clear here. I guess the old man needed a more forceful argument as to why his presence here was detrimental to his and his family’s health.”

Pathanya’s smiled broadened. His team had been through hell but at least their spirits remained high.

And that is good…

“Roger that, Vik! Good luck,” Pathanya said as he unslung his rifle and moved out behind the last of his men.

HAA-DZONG

BHUTAN

DAY 7 + 1100 HRS

Lieutenant-General Potgam stood with his arms crossed inside the operations center for Joint-Force-Bhutan at the former IMTRAT headquarters building. He was staring intently at the paper map of Bhutan pinned on the wall of the room. His staff officers were scurrying about in all directions. Potgam was currently listening to his new operations officer: a Colonel who had been sent forward from eastern-army headquarters to take over from the Lieutenant-Colonel handling the job till now.

Unfortunately that latter officer had met with an accident earlier in the morning before sunrise when he had been hit by one of the AXE utility vehicles outside the building. The driver of that vehicle had fallen asleep on the wheel as a result of exhaustion. But such unfortunate things happened, as Potgam and the others understood. Yet another casualty out here…