Operation Deep Strike Read online

  Operation Deep Strike:

  An India-Pakistan Covert Ops Spy Thriller

  by

  Rahul Badami

  First published in 2017

  Copyright © Rahul Badami 2017

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locales is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author or publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Table of Contents

  Principal Characters

  Acronyms

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Principal Characters

  Ops Team

  Armaan Ahmed

  Baldev Bakshi

  Roshan Gupta

  Hitesh Vohra

  Indian Administration

  Jagdish Inamdaar, Prime Minister

  Gen. Vishwajeet Singh, Director General, DIA

  Shikha Tiwari, Head – Advanced Warfare Systems, DIA

  Pakistani Administration

  Mian Fateh, Prime Minister

  Sohail Akhtar, Divisional Director of ISI

  Gorbat Khan, CTD Inspector, Quetta

  Fazal Darzada, Balochi leader

  Acronyms

  AFS – Air Force Station

  AWACS – Airborne Early Warning and Control System

  BARC – Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

  BMD – Ballistic Missile Defence

  CIA – Central Intelligence Agency

  CTD – Counter Terrorism Department

  DG – Director General

  DIA – Defence Intelligence Agency

  DRDO – Defence Research and Development Organisation

  ELINT – Electronic Intelligence

  ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival

  EXFIL – Exfiltrate

  FATA – Federally Administered Tribal Areas

  GES – Ground Exploitation Station

  GPS – Global Positioning System

  GR – Grid Reference

  HUMINT – Human Intelligence

  HVT – High Value Target

  IAF – Indian Air Force

  IGP – Inspector General of Police

  INFIL – Infiltrate

  INS – Indian Naval Ship

  ISI – Inter-Services Intelligence

  ISRO – Indian Space Research Organisation

  KP – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

  LTRA – Long Term Resident Agent

  LZ – Landing Zone

  NCA – National Command Authority

  NDS – National Directorate of Security

  NOTAM – Notice to Airmen

  NVG – Night Vision Glasses

  PM – Prime Minister

  PMO – Prime Minister's Office

  POK – Pakistan-occupied Kashmir

  R&AW – Research and Analysis Wing

  RPG – Rocket-Propelled Grenade

  SAM – Surface-to-Air Missile

  SAT – Satellite

  SIGINT – Signal Intelligence

  SITREP – Situation Report

  SLCM – Submarine-launched Cruise Missile

  TEL – Transporter Erector Launcher

  TTP – Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan

  VR – Virtual Reality

  WSB – Weapons Storage Bunker

  Prologue

  Hunza Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

  Bang!

  Abdul knew he was about to die as soon as he heard the gunshot.

  Bang!

  The second gunshot was as loud as the first, reverberating in the tiny hotel room. Abdul watched in horror as his security guard who had opened the door crumple down on the floor. Two small holes blot red on his beige uniform. The body lay motionless.

  Dead.

  Abdul couldn’t see the assailant. He was in one corner of the hotel room and the half-open door blocked his view of the killer outside the door who had shot his guard.

  This also meant that the assailant hadn’t seen him. Yet. He only had a second before he too would be gunned down.

  Abdul’s eyes darted around the room searching for an escape route. The window. It was open. It was the only way. But he hesitated.

  “He should be in here.” He heard shouts beyond the door.

  Abdul glanced back. The assailant walked past the door. Abdul could see him now. A smoking 9mm was in his hand, the face masked by a black cloth. Only the eyes showed. Dark. Furious. Deadly. The killer’s gaze burned with such intensity, Abdul felt his soul shiver.

  “There.” More men poured into the room. All masked. All of them carried weapons.

  Abdul had seen enough. His decision was made.

  He turned and jumped through the open window.

  He fell through fifteen feet and landed on the snow-covered ground. His room was on the first floor of the hotel and the snow cushioned the impact of his fall. He was alive, but he wasn’t safe. Abdul scrambled to his feet and ran. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. But he wanted to get as far away from the hotel as he could.

  He hurried through the snow filled path, his boots trampling through the wet snow making it difficult for him to run. But he had to run, his life depended on it.

  Abdul looked back in the dim glow of the moon. His pursuers had also jumped through the window and were after him. They were relentless. And they were catching up. He willed himself to run faster.

  To one side of the path was a small snow-clad hill. He clambered towards it, his breathing laboured. Once at the top, he paused for a moment to catch his breath. The snow-capped mountains looked magical under the moonlight. In the distance, he could see the Attabad Lake, the youngest lake in the world. The moon reflecting off the still water was a sight to behold. But none of the beauty held any value for Abdul. He desperately searched for a place to hide. But the open hillsides didn’t have any.

  Abdul had decided to take a small vacation to keep away from the pressures at work. As a missile engineer working on numerous projects for the Pakistan Army, he received very few leaves. Little did he know when he planned his vacation that it would turn out this way. A few minutes back, there had been a knock on his hotel room door. His guard had opened the door and the nightmare had begun.

  Abdul had immediately guessed who they were. Terrorists. He wasn’t sure why they were after him. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t wa
nt to stay to find out.

  He looked down the hill. There were six of them at the foot of the hill. Three continued sprinting on the path parallel to the hill, and the remaining three spread apart as they climbed up the hill. Towards him.

  Abdul realised he was going to get boxed from all sides. He waded through the knee-deep snow. Slowed down by the flakes that sunk under his weight. The three men on the foothill below raced past him on the even path and were now approaching towards him from the side.

  The first of the pursuers was only a few feet behind him, swinging his sub-machine gun; his eyes resolute and intent. Abdul wondered why they hadn’t shot him yet. A dread of terror filled the pit of his stomach as a new realisation struck him. They wanted to torture and kill him.

  As he ran, the tip of his boot landed unevenly on the wet snow. His feet slipped back, propelling his upper body forward and he found himself falling. He landed flat on his face. The moist snow momentarily blinded him. He scrambled frantically to get up, but a powerful foot plunged itself in the small of his back. The wind went out of his chest as he got pinned to the ground.

  Abdul raised his face to look at his assailant. “Please, no,” he begged.

  The assailant just laughed and kicked him hard in the side. A streak of pain sizzled through his abdomen. He whimpered in agony. The other five terrorists had now reached the first assailant and they stood laughing, jeering at his helplessness. They all had their guns trained on him.

  Abdul clutched the side of his body and looked up at the terrorists with horror.

  Was this how his life would end?

  Chapter 1

  India-Bangladesh International Border

  “Approaching target zone. Switching to Night Vision.”

  Roshan Gupta’s heart thudded like a pneumatic hammer. The blood vessels in his ears throbbed, echoing his fears. The night was dark; the light from the half-moon inadequate. The visibility extended to only a few feet. He peered through the darkness. The shadows of the trees and the waist-high grass appeared like enemies lying in wait.

  Roshan slid down the visor attached to his ballistic helmet. Immediately his world changed to white and green. The jungle looked bright and sunlit; the visibility had improved drastically. He could now see till far in the distance. The only gripe was that everything in the visor showed up in various shades of green. The visor was fitted with Night Vision technology.

  Roshan looked around in a slow circular arc. His heart eased out with each beat. There was no unnatural movement; the forest was quiet except for the ambient sounds. An occasional frog croaked in a nearby swamp, crickets chirped in the trees and flies buzzed around his ears. He swatted them away.

  “Keep a sharp lookout, boys.” Armaan Ahmed, Roshan’s group leader of the covert mission whispered as he slithered through the grass a few feet ahead of him.

  Roshan mentally acknowledged his superior’s order and scanned the jungle one more time just to make sure. He didn’t want to make any mistakes. This was the moment he was waiting for a long time. An exceptional service record during his tenure in the Army wasn’t enough for him; he hungered to do more. Now as part of the Defence Intelligence Agency, it was the first time he was involved in a ‘strategic’ operation. This was the next level stuff for pros, he told himself. It was his first mission with the DIA and he wanted to prove himself.

  He looked at his team members. There were four of them and he, Roshan Gupta at twenty-six years, was the youngest of the group. Armaan Ahmed, the group leader and Baldev Bakshi were experienced veterans; both in their forties. Their exploits during the Kargil war were legendary. The fourth member Namit Seth was their tech guy. His primary role was to give technical data during the planning and operations stage. His secondary role was to provide backup. In other words, he would take out the targets himself only when needed.

  They had received intelligence that a group of six top-level ISIS-affiliated terrorists based ten kilometres inside Bangladesh planned to carry out a major terror attack across the border in India. The sources said that the terrorists were scouting recruits for their attack. The Director General of the Defence Intelligence Agency had ordered a cross-border operation and the task was assigned to their group.

  During the mission briefing, Namit told Roshan he didn’t remember the last time, he had to provide backup to Armaan and Baldev. The veteran duo were enough. They could each pump out four headshots in less than two seconds. It was Roshan’s first covert ops and he was glad he had a strong team.

  They had been airdropped close to the border and then quietly sneaked through the dense jungle and crossed the border and made their way to the target zone ten kilometres away. Now close to the target zone, they had slowed down, wary of alerting their adversary.

  Roshan heard Baldev whisper at his side. “Target at eleven o’clock, one hundred metres ahead.”

  Roshan looked at the direction indicated by Baldev and saw a small clearing ahead. He could make out a man standing guard among the green shapes. Behind him, the dark outline of a tent was visible. Roshan squinted through the scope of his Dragunov SVD sniper rifle and the man’s profile zoomed up.

  “Target in my sights, One.” He addressed Armaan. “Waiting for your order.”

  “Let’s close in.” Armaan said.

  They crouched slowly among the undergrowth taking care to stay below the waist-high grass. The moon was behind the clouds and it was pitch-dark. The six hostiles were battle-hardened, but Armaan had said that the darkness and the surprise factor would work in their favour.

  Roshan parted the grass and observed the tent in the clearing that housed their target. They were thirty metres from the tent. Armaan gave a hand signal and they stopped. He waved Namit to spread right, and Baldev to approach from the left. Roshan watched both of them sneak in opposite directions through the grass leaving Armaan and him alone. He focused back on the guard. The man hadn’t noticed their approach.

  Armaan gestured to Roshan and pointed towards the terrorist. Roshan realized that Armaan was telling him to go ahead for the kill. Armaan was giving him the privilege of initiating the operation as well as testing his skills at the same time. Roshan already started to like Armaan’s leadership. The best way to learn was to be tempered in the fires of experience. And Armaan wanted to know if his nerves were made of steel. He would not disappoint Armaan.

  Roshan took a long, deep breath and visualized his previous experiences. He had been in impossible situations prior to this and had survived. Taking a headshot in a quiet jungle with a cool breeze waving through his hair? He could do it with his eyes shut.

  Roshan looked through the scope of the Dragunov SVD. He could see flies buzzing in a circle above the guard’s head, appearing like white flying specks in the green haze of the night vision. The Dragunov was equipped with a suppressor and custom-made subsonic bullets that kept the noise to a minimum. Roshan held his breath, focused the red dot on the man’s head and gently squeezed the trigger. A silenced spit emitted from the Dragunov and the recoil shuddered in Roshan’s palms. A spurt of blood erupted from the man’s head and he slid down to the ground, dead. Roshan turned his sights to the tent. There was no movement. He roved his sights in a wide arc and scanned the general area. The tent was silent; the crickets still chirped undisturbed in the night.

  A pause of two seconds. Then Armaan gave him a hand signal. Move to the tent.

  They sprinted through the trees and made their way across to the tent. Roshan’s pulse quickened with each step they took in the direction of their objective. This was the moment of reckoning.

  Armaan had mentioned during the briefing that the slightest mistake could ruin a mission. He wondered if they should have waited a few more seconds before approaching the tent. What if the terrorists had woken up and were waiting for them? They could be walking into a trap. And he would be killed in his first covert mission.

  But it was too late to back out now. He saw Armaan switch to his handgun as they ran. Roshan also pulled
out a silenced Glock 17 from his holster. The Glock was better than the Dragunov for close quarters combat. They were approaching the tent, its canvas door rolled down to prevent the chilly night wind from entering. They stopped in front of the tent. Roshan’s pulse thundered as he levelled his Glock at the tent expecting an ambush. But Armaan was calm; he raised three fingers and wordlessly counted down.

  Three. Two. One. Go.

  Armaan ripped the tent door open with a swift jerk and rushed through. Roshan closely followed behind gripping his gun tightly, his heart about to explode with the adrenaline rush of imminent battle. The next couple of seconds were a blur as he quickly looked around and found the terrorists sleeping on the ground. He dimly registered that the faces matched the Intel they had received. Roshan’s hands twitched with the nervous energy of a combat situation as he pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession hitting two terrorists straight through the head. He heard three spits at his side and turned to look. Armaan had finished the rest of them.

  Roshan glanced down at the bodies. All five terrorists were dead. Each sported a bullet in their head. It was a textbook kill. Swift, silent, and effective. The rush of blood swirled down. He felt no emotion at their deaths. They were out to kill innocent people. It was either the six of them or the sixty or so that they would kill. For him, the choice was easy. He felt no compassion towards terrorists who masterminded the deaths of defenceless, common people.

  “Good job.” He heard Armaan say. Armaan had a smile on his face.

  It took a moment for Roshan to realize that they had accomplished their objective. Armaan’s words made his chest swell with pride. The mission was complete.

  His first mission.

  He had played on the pro level and had succeeded. This was the beginning of something new. Only a fraction of soldiers made it this far. Roshan took a deep breath. He had proved himself good.

  “Thank you,” he replied.

  Armaan glanced at his watch. “Let’s exfil out of here.”

  They came out of the tent to find Baldev approaching them. “All quiet. Let’s go,” he said.

  Armaan looked around. “Where’s Namit?”

  Boom!