quickly as possible. Puri knew they had to be stopped. Not just to retain Kashmir but to keep hundreds of thousands more refugees from flooding the neighboring Indian provinces.
Maybe the SFF was right. Maybe this was the time and place to stop the Pakistani aggression. Major Puri only wished there had been some other way to trigger the event.
He drew long and hard on the cigarette and then crushed it in the ashtray beside the phone. The tin receptacle was filled with partly smoked cigarettes. They were the residue of three afternoons filled with anxiety, doubt, and the looming pressure of his role in the operation. His aide would have emptied it if a Pakistani artillery shell had not blown his right arm off during a Sunday night game of checkers.
The major rose. It was time for the late afternoon intelligence report from the other outposts on the base. Those were always held in the officers' bunker further along the trench.
This meeting would be different in just one respect. Puri would ask the other officers to be prepared to initiate a code yellow nighttime evacuation drill. If the Indian air force planned to 'light up' the mountains with nuclear missiles, the front lines would have to be cleared of personnel well in advance of the attack. It would have to be done at night when there was less chance of the Pakistanis noticing.
The enemy would also be given a warning, though a much shorter one.
There would be no point in striking the sites if the missiles were mobile and Pakistan had time to move them.
Around seven o'clock, after the meeting was finished, the major would eat his dinner, go to sleep, and get up early to start the next phase of the top-secret operation. He was one of the few officers who knew about an American team that was coming to Kashmir to help the Indian military find the missile silos. The Directorate of Air Intelligence, which would be responsible for the strikes, knew generally where the silos were located. But they needed more specific information.
Scatter-bombing the Himalaya Mountains was not an efficient use of military resources. And given the depth at which the silos were probably buried, it might be necessary to strike with more than conventional weapons. India needed to know that as well.
Of course, they had not shared this plan with their unwitting partners in this operation.
The United States wanted intelligence on Pakistan's nuclear capacity as much as India did. The Americans needed to know who was helping to arm Islamabad and whether the missiles they had deployed could reach other non-Muslim nations. Both Washington and New Delhi knew that if an American unit were discovered in Kashmir it would cause a diplomatic row but not start a war. Thus, the U. S. government had offered to send over a team that was off the normal military radar. Anonymity was important since Russia, China, and other nations had moles at U. S. military installations.
These spies kept an eye on the comings and goings of the U. S. Navy SEALs, the U. S. Army Delta Force 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, and other elite forces. The information they gathered was used internally and also sold to other nations.
The team that was enroute from Washington, the National Crisis Management Center's Striker unit, had experience in mountain silo surveillance going back to a successful operation in the Diamond Mountains of North Korea years before.
They were linking up with a NSA operative who had worked with the the Indian government and knew the area they would be searching.
Major Puri had to make certain that as soon as the American squad arrived the search-and-identify mission went smoothly and quickly. The Americans would not be told of the capture of the Pakistani cell. They would not know that a strike was actually in the offing. That information would only be revealed when it was necessary to blunt international condemnation of India's actions. If necessary, the participation of the Striker unit would also be exposed. The United States would have no choice then but to back the Indian strike.
Puri tugged on the hem of his jacket to straighten it. He picked up his turban, placed it squarely on his head, and headed for the door. He was glad of one thing, at least. His name was not attached to the SFF action in any way. As far as any official communiques were concerned, he had simply been told to help the Americans find the silos.
He was just doing his job.
He was just carrying out orders.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Washington, D. C. Wednesday, 8:21 a. m.
'This is not good,' Bob Herbert said as he stared at the computer monitor.
'This is not good at all.'
The intelligence chief had been reviewing the latest satellite images from the mountains bordering Kashmir. Suddenly, a State Department news update flashed across the screen. Herbert clicked on the headline and had just started reading when the desk phone beeped. He glanced with annoyance at the small black console. It was an outside line.
Herbert jabbed the button and picked up the receiver. He continued reading.
'Herbert here,' he said.
'Bob, this is Hank Lewis,' said the caller.
The name was familiar but for some reason Herbert could not place it.
Then again, he was not trying very hard. He was concentrating on the news brief. According to the update there had been two powerful explosions in Srinagar. Both of them were directed at Hindu targets.
That was going to ratchet up tensions along the line of control.
Herbert needed to get more information and brief Paul Hood and General Rodgers as soon as possible.
'I've been meaning to call since I took over at NSA,' Lewis said, 'but it's been brutal getting up to speed.'
