Right through his command.
'Sergeant, pursue the Siachin element,' Puri decided.
'I'm going to request immediate air support in that region.'
'At night?' 'At night,' Puri said.
'Captain Anand knows the region.
He can get a gunship to the target. I want you there in case an enemy is present and he digs in where the rockets can't get him.'
'We're on our way, sir,' the sergeant replied.
'We'll have a report in two hours or so.'
'That should be about the time the chopper arrives,' Puri said.
'Good luck. Sergeant.'
Baliah thanked him and clicked off.
The major walked over to his communications officer and asked him to put in a call to the base. Puri would brief Captain Anand and get the air reconnaissance underway. Puri would make certain that the operation be as low-key as possible.
Anand was to take just one chopper into the field and there would be no unnecessary communications with the base. Even if the Pakistanis could not interpret the coded messages, a sudden increase in radio traffic might alert them that something was going on.
While the major waited for Captain Anand he told the lieutenant in charge of the ascent to finish the preparations but to put the operation itself on hold. They could afford to wait two hours more before risking the climb. The Pakistanis on the plateau were not going anywhere.
If there really were Pakistanis on the ledge.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO.
The Siachin Glacier Friday, 12:00 a. m.
When Mike Rodgers was in boot camp, his drill instructor had told him something that he absolutely did not believe.
The DI's name was Glen 'the Hammer' Sheehy. And the Hammer said that when an opponent was punched during an attack, the odds were good that he would not feel it.
'The body ignores a nonlethal assault,' the Hammer told them.
'Whatever juices we've got pour in like reserves, numbing the pain of a punch or a stab or even a gunshot and empowering the need to strike back.'
Rodgers did not believe that until the first time he was in a hand-to-hand combat situation in Vietnam. U. S. and Vietcong recon units literally stumbled upon each other during a patrol north of Go Due near the Cambodian border. Rodgers had suffered a knife wound high in the left arm. But he was not aware of it until after the battle.
One of his friends had been shot in the butt and kept going. When the unit returned to camp and the medics had put the survivors back together, one of Rodgers's buddies gave him a black bandanna with a slogan written in red grease pencil. It said, 'It only hurts when I stop fighting.'
It was true. Moreover, there was no time to hurt. Not with more lives depending upon you.
The reality of losing the Strikers was with Rodgers every moment. But the pain had not yet sunk in. He was too busy staying fixed on the goal that had brought them here.
Rodgers was leg-weary as his group made its way across some of the starkest landscape Rodgers had ever encountered.
The ice was glass-smooth and difficult to navigate.
Nanda and Samouel slipped with increasing regularity.
Rodgers was glad he still had his cram pons heavy though they were.
Rodgers continued to help Apu Kumar along. The farmer's left arm was slung across Rodgers's neck and they were on a gradual incline. Apu's feet had to be dragged more than they moved. Rodgers suspected the only thing that kept the elderly man moving at all was a desire to see his granddaughter reach safety. The American officer would have helped the farmer regardless, but he was touched by that thought.
That was not a sentiment Ron Friday seemed to share.
Friday had stayed several paces behind Rodgers, Apu, and Nanda. Samouel continued to hold the point position, turning the flashlight on at regular intervals. At just under an hour into the trek, Friday stepped beside Rodgers. He was panting, his breath coming in wispy white bursts.
'You realize you're risking the rest of this mission by dragging him along,' Friday said.
Though the NSA operative spoke softly, his voice carried in the still, cold air. Rodgers was certain that Nanda had heard.
'I don't see it that way,' Rodgers replied.
'The delay is exponential,' Friday continued.
'The longer it takes the weaker we become, slowing us down even more.'
'Then you go ahead,' Rodgers said.
