Chimera

Vikram looked at Pathanya’s leg and tried moving the rock away, but he didn’t have the strength. He looked around for something to use as leverage and looked east. He froze in his actions as he watched a large, brown cloud of dust rising into the blue sunny sky above, drifting east. It was drifting away from them. He looked down and saw that the valley was filled with the smoke and dust like water filling up the cracks…

Barshong was gone.

And so were the 11TH Para Battalion soldiers deployed there after they had overrun the Highland Division headquarters earlier.

Vikram was still staring at the rising cloud when he heard rustling behind him and turned to see Tarun straggling over. He patted Vikram on the back and a mound of dust fell off his uniform from it. Vikram pointed to the rock on Pathanya’s leg and together they pushed it aside, relieving the pressure on the leg. Instantly Pathanya cried in agony as his body felt the severed leg once again…

“We need to get him out of here!” Tarun said quietly as he saw the broken leg under the rock.

“Where’s your backpack?” Vikram asked.

“Heaven knows! I don’t even have my weapon anymore!” he replied, kneeling beside the Captain.

“Shit!” Vikram looked around and saw a radio lying half-buried in gravel a few meters away. He got up on his feet and ran to it, sliding in the gravel as he grabbed the speaker and brought it his ear.

“This is Spear-Two to any Juliet-Foxtrot-Bravo units! We are in need of immediate medical assistance west of Barshong! We have a man in critical condition! Does anybody read? Over!”

He waited for several seconds but got no reply except static.

“Damn this thing!” he said to himself as he reached for the set, pulled it out of the gravel and dusted it off. He realized it had been knocked out by the explosion. Tarun ran over.

“So what’s the deal?”

“No joy!” Vikram replied. “We are on our own. Get the Captain ready to move. Use whatever you can find to patch his leg up. Seen any of the others?”

Tarun shook his head and pointed some distance away where Ravi lay motionless under a tree-trunk that had fallen on top of him.

“Doesn’t matter,” Vikram replied, clearing the lump in his throat. “We have to move right now!”

“Where are we going?” Tarun asked as Vikram got up, dusted his uniform and then walked over to pick up a Tavor rifle from the ground nearby, checking its sights to see if everything worked.

“South,” Vikram replied. “We have to get to Thimpu or Dotanang. Or even some village that has a working telephone.”

Tarun glanced at the rising dust cloud thousands of feet in the air.

“If Thimpu still exists anymore.”

NEW-DELHI

INDIA

DAY 15 + 1400 HRS

“Is it done?” the PM asked with his fingers rubbing his forehead.

“It’s done.” Iyer’s voice came over the phone seconds later.

“And?” Chakri asked, probing for more details.

“And both airbases are destroyed. Confirmed smoking craters where the bases were supposed to be.”

“Casualties?” the PM asked, bracing himself.

“Korla,” Iyer replied with deliberate carefulness, “had been pretty much abandoned except for military personnel for the last few weeks. So it is going to be in the ballpark of the low thousands from both detonations combined. And most of them will be PLAAF personnel. The 26TH Air Division forward operations center has been destroyed as well as one of the two KJ-2000 AWACS. The last aircraft of the type has been pulled further north to Wulumuqi. We believe the 55TH Fighter Regiment Su-27s are also destroyed except for four which were in the air at the time.”

The PM was not interested in these minute military details, however.

“Yes, yes! I get it!” he replied with obvious irritation in his voice. Chakri and Iyer both backed off and held their temper. Ravoof did the same, although he didn’t like the way the PM spoke with Iyer now that he had been forced to do something against his wishes. Chakri noticed the look on Ravoof’s face but did nothing. He agreed with the man, after all. The PM continued: “Has the point been made or not?”

“We sent the message to their foreign office via Bogdanov in Moscow as planned,” Ravoof said. “Whoever is in command over in Beijing would have got it by now. Hopefully they will understand the rules of this deadly game.”

“Or we will get another round of missiles thrown at us!” the PM retorted and then turned to the NSA, sitting across the room: “When are we departing to Palam?”

“Within a few minutes sir.” The NSA replied. “The aircraft is ready and we are awaiting the helicopter.”

“Good,” the PM replied as he got up from his seat. He did not fancy having done to him what they had done to the Chinese CMC a few hours before…

“Sir, what are my orders?” Iyer asked from the other end of the line.

“Be prepared for anything,” the PM replied, “but for god’s sake do not lob any more nukes at them or else you will take all of us down as well. We have enough to soothe the public anger in the coming days, but right now we need to diffuse the situation quickly.”