Sharab hung up. She folded the cell phone and slipped it in the pocket of her blue windbreaker.
There would be time enough for analysis and regrouping.
Only one thing mattered right now.
Getting out of the country before the Indians had live scapegoats to parade before the world.
CHAPTER TEN.
Siachin Base 3, Kashmir Wednesday, 5:42 p. m.
Major Dev Puri hung up the phone. A chill shook him from the shoulders to the small of his back.
Puri was sitting behind the small gunmetal desk in his underground command center. On the wall before him was a detailed map of the region. It was spotted with red flags showing Pakistan emplacements and green flags showing Indian bases. Behind him was a map of India and Pakistan. To his left was a bulletin board with orders, rosters, schedules, and reports tacked to it. To his right was a blank wall with a door.
Affectionately known as 'the Pit,' the shelter was a twelve-by-fourteen-foot hole cut from hard earth and granite.
Warping wood-panel walls backed with thick plastic sheets kept the moisture and dirt out but not the cold. How could it? the major wondered. The earth was always cool, like a grave, and the surrounding mountains prevented direct sunlight from ever hitting the Pit. There were no windows or skylights. The only ventilation came from the open door and a rapidly spinning ceiling fan.
Or at least the semblance of ventilation, Puri thought. It was fakery.
Just like everything else about this day.
But the cool command center was not what gave Major Puri a chill. It was what the Special Frontier Force liaison had said over the phone.
The man, who was stationed in Kargil, had spoken just one word.
However, the significance of that word was profound.
'Proceed,' he had said.
Operation Earthworm was a go.
On the one hand, the major had to admire the nerve of the SFF. Puri did not know how high up in the government this plan had traveled or where it had originated. Probably with the SFF. Possibly in the Ministry of External Affairs or the Parliamentary Committee on Defence.
Both had oversight powers regarding the activities of nonmilitary intelligence groups. Certainly the SFF would have needed their approval for something this big. But Puri did know that if the truth of this action were ever revealed, the SFF would be scapegoated and the overseers of the plot would be executed.
On the other hand, part of him felt that maybe the people behind this deserved to be punished.
A 'vaccination.' That was how the SFF liaison officer had characterized Operation Earthworm when he first described it just three days before. They were giving the body of India a small taste of sickness to prevent a larger disease from ever taking hold. When the major was a child, smallpox and polio had been fearful diseases. His sister had survived smallpox and it left her scarred. Back then, vaccination was a wonderful word.
This was a corruption. However necessary and justifiable it might be, destroying the bus and temple had been vile, unholy acts.
Major Puri reached for the Marlboros on his desk. He shook a cigarette from the pack and lit it. He inhaled slowly and sat back. This was better than chewing the tobacco. It helped him to think clearly, less emotionally.
Less judgment ally Everything was relative, the officer told himself.
Back in the 1940s his parents were pacifists. They had not approved of him becoming a soldier. They would have been happy if he had joined them and other citizens of Haryana in the government's fledgling caste advancement program.
The Backward Classes list guaranteed a gift of low-paying government jobs for underprivileged natives of seventeen states. Dev Puri had not wanted that. He had wanted to make it on his own.
And he had.
Puri drew harder on the cigarette. He was suddenly disgusted with his own value judgments. The SFF had obviously viewed this action as a necessary extension of business as usual. Trained jointly by the American CIA and the Indian military's RAW--Research and Analysis Wing--the SFF were masters of finding and spying on foreign agents and terrorists. For the most part, enemy operatives and suspected collaborators were eliminated without fanfare or heavy firepower.
Occasionally, through a specially recruited unit. Civilian Network Operatives, the SFF also used foreign agents to send disinformation back to Pakistan. In the case ofsharab and her group, the SFF had spent months planning a more elaborate scheme. They felt it was necessary to frame Pakistan terrorists for the murder of dozens of innocent Hindus.
Then, when the Pakistani cell members were captured--as they would be, thanks to the CNO operative who was traveling with them--documents and tools would be 'found' on the terrorists. These would show that Sharab and her party had traveled the country planting targeting beacons for nuclear strikes against Indian cities. That would give the Indian military a moral imperative to make a preemptive strike against Pakistan's missile silos.
Major Puri drew on the cigarette again. He looked at his watch. It was nearly time to go.
Over the past ten years more than a quarter of a million Hindus had left the Kashmir Valley to go to other parts of India. With a growing Muslim majority it was increasingly difficult for Indian authorities to secure this region from terrorism.
Moreover, Pakistan had recently deployed nuclear weapons and was working to increase its nuclear arsenal as
