Chimera (50 page)

Potgam and Pathanya both understood this.

The problem was what reinforcements could be brought in? And how?

While Potgam was attempting to figure that larger question, Pathanya had his own problems at the nasty, tactical end of things. He had been ordered to move to the Dechencholing Palace in Thimpu. It was the main operating point for the government of Bhutan right now. He was to figure out the exact civilian situation from the local officials there and ascertain the availability of RBA units to help defend the city.

The disintegration of the RBA during the initial assaults by the Chinese forces in northern Bhutan had not left many units to play with. Most that remained were closer to police and paramilitary units. And even their availability was currently unknown. Many had deserted and left along with their families to the south after the king and his family had been evacuated two days ago. The Bhutanese monarchy was a tight knit group, but remove the one binding thread and the whole group could unwind…

The remaining civilians in the northern outskirts were scrambling at the sight of Pathanya’s men, not knowing whose side they were on. Others recognized them as Indians but also realized from their condition that the Chinese were not far behind.

Pathanya saw housewives grab their kids and run while truck drivers left their vehicles with the engines still revving. Vikram, coming up behind Pathanya had his rifle at shoulder level and aimed at any sudden threat that might appear from the windows in the deserted streets. He brought it up on a reflexive move and pointed it towards a second floor window only to see a man in his mid-thirties close the shutters in anticipation of the upcoming battle. The streets became silent in front of the small group of Indians.  

“Damn. What do you think they know that we don’t?” Vikram said as he lowered his rifle away from that window.

“That the Chinese are coming. They couldn’t have missed hearing the ever-increasing gunfire and arty noise we were dropping on the Chinese all the way south from winchester-charlie,” Ravi replied and chimed off. 

“Keep the chatter
down!
” Pathanya ordered. “Vik, bring out your IMFS and set up on top of this house here.”

Pathanya pointed to the same house that Vikram had pointed his rifle to a few moments ago. It was the tallest such house around and had a good line-of-sight to the north from its flat roof. Better yet, the roof had side walls made of concrete unlike other houses around.

“Take two and set up an O-P here,” Pathanya continued. “I want you to be my eyes and ears.”

He turned to Ravi further down the line. The team members had taken positions along the edge of the road and were on their knees covering possible ambush sectors with their rifles. Pathanya pointed two fingers to his eyes and then swept them across the street. The soldiers nodded in turn. He then keyed his comms again:

“Ravi, you and the rest of the boys are with me. I want to advance on the palace and see what’s going on. Vik, I want you and your O-P team to stay here as long as you can. When the position becomes untenable, make your way back to the palace. This is not a strategic position for holding this city, so don’t let yourselves be cornered trying to hold it. I want no heroic last stands for these four plaster walls. Play hell and fall back. We will meet you at the palace. That will be our primary combat position. Understood?”

“Roger that boss!” Vikram replied with a nod.

“Good. Okay, rest of you: let’s pull out. Ravi, take point,” Pathanya ordered and his team went into action.

Vikram pointed to two of the men and the three of them lowered their rifles, removed explosives and a handful of mines they had left from their backpacks and ran across the street to start setting them up. Vikram ran to the entrance door of the house and knocked on it politely. The same middle-aged man he had seen earlier showed up, nervous and sweating to see heavily armed soldiers knocking on his door. He spoke broken Hindi so Vikram pointed out the need for him and his family to vacate the house right then and there.

The man was hesitant but there was no time so Vikram and another soldier from his team pushed the man aside and entered. They found the man’s wife and kids inside, shouting at the intrusion. Vikram grabbed what looked like a bag from the man’s living room and ordered him to put stuff in and get out while there was still time. Finally the man relented and began telling his wife and kids to start moving the essential items into the bags. Pathanya was on the other side of the road during this commotion. As he saw the civilian man and his family rush out of the house with their handful of belongings, he smiled and keyed the comms:

“Everything okay in there, Vik?”

“Yeah
boss
. All clear here. I guess the old man needed a more forceful argument as to why his presence here was detrimental to his and his family’s health.”

Pathanya’s smiled broadened. His team had been through hell but at least their spirits remained high.

And that is good…

“Roger that, Vik! Good luck,” Pathanya said as he unslung his rifle and moved out behind the last of his men.             

HAA-DZONG

BHUTAN

DAY 7 + 1100 HRS

Lieutenant-General Potgam stood with his arms crossed inside the operations center for Joint-Force-Bhutan at the former IMTRAT headquarters building. He was staring intently at the paper map of Bhutan pinned on the wall of the room. His staff officers were scurrying about in all directions. Potgam was currently listening to his new operations officer: a Colonel who had been sent forward from eastern-army headquarters to take over from the Lieutenant-Colonel handling the job till now.

Unfortunately that latter officer had met with an accident earlier in the morning before sunrise when he had been hit by one of the AXE utility vehicles outside the building. The driver of that vehicle had fallen asleep on the wheel as a result of exhaustion. But such unfortunate things happened, as Potgam and the others understood. Yet another casualty out here…

“Colonel,” Potgam interjected on the verge of frustration, “my only concern at this point is to get the 11
TH
Para Battalion into Thimpu before the Chinese get there. Send the 9
TH
Para to Major-General Dhillon in eastern Bhutan. He can use all the reinforcements he can get. Eastern army is already sending a brigade from IV Corps to him to beef up their left flank. But he could still use the special-forces capability. And keep the incoming 12
TH
Para Battalion on security duties around Paru airport and west from there where Fernandez is deployed. Especially
that
battery.

“I am
particularly
concerned about security to Fernandez’s unit. His is the only heavy precision arty we have south of Thimpu and the Chinese know it. If I was in their position I would be sending out my own special-forces teams to find and destroy that battery and remove any interference with my plans. We can’t let that happen. Tell the 12
TH
Para commander that I want that arty and that airport at Paru secured.”

Potgam saw the Colonel nodding and making notes. He sighed and turned to the lone unit marker pinned on top of Thimpu on the map.

Pathanya’s boys.
It must be pretty lonely up there…

Potgam turned back to the Colonel:

“And what’s the E-T-A on the 11
TH
Para getting up to Thimpu? Pathanya’s boys have held out as much as we could possibly expect them to. They have been pushed all the way to Thimpu’s outskirts. We have to get some backup up there to them, damn it!”

The Colonel walked up to the board and stood alongside Potgam and pointed a finger at Paru airport. 

“Sir, 11
TH
Para is arriving at Paru as we speak. I have requisitioned the last two surviving air-force Mi-26s to assist in the movement of deployed forces from the airport here,” the Colonel slid his finger across the map to the north and tapped where it said Thimpu, “to here at Thimpu. What we need from Captain Pathanya is for him to secure the Dechencholing palace helipads. He has already been informed of this task.”

“Good. We really don’t have much time before the Chinese march on the capital,” Potgam said as he glanced at the red unit markers north of the single blue marker on Thimpu…

“We
really
are out of time. See if you can push everybody to move faster than they are,” Potgam ordered.

“Sir!”

The Colonel saluted and ran out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. Potgam checked his watch. He then picked up his cap from the table and left the room. As he walked past the snow covered lawns outside glistening in the morning sunlight, he could hear the distant rumble of artillery from the Chumbi valley. 

If I was the Chinese brigade commander north of Thimpu, I would be assaulting the city right about now…

Damn the Chinese attack on Paru! They have brought us to the verge of losing all of Bhutan north of this valley!

But if they think they have won, they are out of their fucking minds.

Warlord is not so easily defeated.      

NORTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF THIMPU

BHUTAN

DAY 7 + 1220 HRS

“Time to wake up, Vik,” a distant yet familiar voice said.

Already? What the hell. I just got to sleep. Five more minutes. Come on, I haven’t had proper sleep in two days. Just five more minutes?

A distant crashing explosion rumbled through and Vikram’s eyes opened with a jerk, still red from the exhaustion of combat. The sudden brightness of the day caused him to squint even as his arms reached for his assault-rifle nearby. His sudden motion was caught by his two colleagues.

“
Easy
there, Vik!” Sarvanan said. “No danger! That was off to the west in the Chumbi.”

Sarvanan lowered his binoculars and slid under the protection of the open, meter-high walls on the roof. Vikram looked around and realized after several seconds where he was and what he was doing. He sighed and then lay back on the bare floor again, staring at the clear blue morning sky above. He heard the crunch of the fresh snow under his rifle as he put it down. It reminded him of his childhood in Himachal Pradesh from a few years before. But as much as he was tempted to play in it, he couldn’t.

Not now at any rate.

The three men had been careful not to leave patterns in the snow on the roof, knowing fully well that it could be noticed from a Chinese UAV overhead. Their only protection from the cold was their uniforms, which was designed to be thermally insulating. Along with the gloves, helmet and other equipment around their bodies, it was not unbearable. Even out here in the Himalayas. All Vikram had to do to wake himself up despite his tiredness was to remove one glove from one hand. The biting chill hit him like a hammer and removed all the grogginess from his head.

“What’s it looking like out there?” He asked Sarvanan as he put his glove back on and sat up straight.

“Same as before,” Sarvanan said.

Vikram hummed and looked at his wrist watch.  

“How long was I asleep?”

“About an hour,” Sarvanan replied as he opened a small sealed ready-to-eat meal packet. The packet could be chemically heated and he was doing that as he spoke to Vikram.

“Tarun has the optics all set up and pointed north. The IMFS is up and so is the laser designator. I have the comms set up and the majority of our stuff is stashed in the apartment below. The building entrances are booby-trapped except for our escape route. As for the Chinese, Tarun and I spotted a small recon party two kilometers north checking out the roads. They retreated quickly enough after doing their job. Nothing unexpected, so I let you grab a few more minutes of sleep,” Sarvanan concluded.

Vikram did not like that one single bit. He got up with a jerk and went for his binoculars in his backpack next to where he was and turned to Sarvanan:

“You did
what?
Why the
hell
didn’t you wake me up during all this?”

Sarvanan was not intimidated by the young lieutenant’s sudden anger.

“You have to trust me on this, Vikram. I have been through enough to know that a tired C-O make mistakes in combat. We need you rested and composed. Besides, nothing unexpected happened; else I would have woken you up. Here, have some hot food. Keep it under cover in case the Chinese have some thermal optics on us from above.”

Vikram scanned the northern approaches to Thimpu from above the meter-high wall and spotted nothing. After several seconds he lowered himself and took the food packet from Sarvanan. He reminded himself that the latter man was older to him and more experienced in combat. Vikram on the other hand was fresh out of training. So while he was the ranking-officer present, Sarvanan tended to look at him as a wet-nosed cadet still in training…

Hell, the Captain probably thinks so too. Why else was he so pleased when I chose Sarvanan and Tarun to be my team out here?

Probably thought I had picked the right babysitters.

Nah. Experience is something I could use and these two have it. So bite the pain, buddy boy. And learn, learn, learn!