Chimera

“No. The Chinese are feeling the pain from the actions being taken by Gephel and his boys. They are motivated and determined to fight for their country under Beijing’s oppression. Let them fight some more. As far as reinforcement and supplies go, get them away from this sector if it’s proving difficult. Have them meet you someplace else. Near Nepal perhaps? Or Sikkim? You decide. I don’t particularly care. All I want is for these men to continue to prove a thorn embedded under Beijing’s feet. The more destabilized Tibet is, the more controllable the Chinese are and the weaker their position is in front of the world. Continue it long enough and they will be forced to negotiate with the Tibetans and us on resolving border issues just to make this whole painful affair stop. At the very least I want them to lose hundreds, if not thousands of their men to these Tibetan rebels. The Dalai Lama is on his way out and the only way the Tibetans will survive Beijing’s genocide against their culture is to fight back against them. If along the way they bring China to its knees with our support… well, then we might have just avenged the dishonor of what happened during the winter of 1962, won’t we?”

Ansari did not answer but instead walked over and shut down the video on the screen and removed the tape. He looked at the tape in his hand and then looked back at the Defense-Minister:

“Yes, we would have.”

LEH AIRBASE

INDIA

MAY 16, 0900 HRS

The three blue-painted ambassador cars pulled up in front of the entrance for the hardened aircraft shelters at one corner of the airbase. A flurry of officers got out of the cars along with Air-Marshal Bhosale. He returned the salutes to the young squadron pilots standing in flight-suits covered with leather jackets to protect from the cold weather of Ladakh. Bhosale walked inside the hardened shelter along with his entourage a few moments later. Once there, he found himself staring at the shredded remains of the port wing of one of the Mig-29s from the previous night. The maintenance crews were attempting to remove sections of the aircraft for transport on board one of the IAF C-17s from Leh to Bangalore for repair.

Bhosale was shown the damaged underside of the aircraft by one of the Sergeants supervising the disassembly operations. It had been a miracle that the aircraft undercarriage had opened properly, allowing the pilot to make an emergency landing that saved the aircraft from total loss. A minute later Khurana walked over and saluted. Bhosale returned the salute.

“Hell of a night, son. Nice work out there preventing this thing from snowballing out of control. You and your men all right?”

“Yes sir. Some minor injuries to the pilot of this aircraft from shrapnel to the cockpit glass. Nothing serious though. He will make it.”

The Air-Marshal nodded as we walked around the crippled Mig-29 with the base commander in tow.

“So what do you make of our Chinese buddies and their intentions?”

“Sir, they are testing our response times, endurance limits and evaluating the overall threat we present to them,” Khurana replied.

“Which is of course in stark contrast to their activities in eastern Tibet. We know they cannot threaten us in this region from the air. Their ground based surface-to-air batteries are a different matter though,” Bhosale said as he walked near the damaged port engine exhaust and checked the deepness of the slash that a shrapnel piece had made into the fuselage paneling. It brought a frown to his face. He turned to face Khurana.

“You did good work out there to control the situation. I know how easy it must have been to let go and take down the bugger who did this. But as it happens, we are operating under a policy of restraint from New-Delhi. The idea is to not provoke a war right now. Unfortunately, events such as this one will change the rules. I will make sure of it. We will not sit by and accept losses in men and material simply to avoid provocation. I am headed to Delhi after this. Let’s see if I can get you boys the freedom of action you need to ensure this never happens again,” Bhosale nodded to Khurana as he walked away from the hanger with the base commander and his entourage.

Once outside and seeing the brown mountains of Leh and a gray overcast sky above, he turned to the base commander even as he entered the back of his car:

“The gloves will come off sooner rather than later the way the mess in Tibet is spiraling out of control. And Beijing is going to lash out once they get pushed beyond a certain limit. What happened yesterday night might just be a precursor of things to come. Samik, get your boys ready. For anything.”

THE JUNWEI-KONG-JUN

BEIJING, CHINA

MAY 25, 0900 HRS