Line of Control - Tom Clancy [78]
He used that post to strengthen his support among the working castes while restoring his ties to the military. That led to his appointment as minister of Kashmir affairs and his membership on the Committee on External Affairs. That was where he became good friends with Dilip Sahani. Sahani was the officer in charge of the Special Frontier Force in Kashmir.
The men discovered they had the same concerns regarding the threat posed by both Islamic Fundamentalists and the nuclear research being conducted by Pakistan.
Two years ago, high-ranking officers and government officials who respected Kabir's Zone of Security plan got together and pressed the prime minister to name him minister of defence. Kabir asked the national commander of the SFF to come and work for him and then arranged for Dilip Sahani to take over that post. Together, the men plotted in secret.
New Delhi was content to build its own nuclear arsenal as a deterrent and collect intelligence to assess the across-the border threat. Kabir and Sahani were not. They wanted to make certain that Islamabad never had the opportunity to mount the very real threat of a jihad of mass destruction.
With the unwitting help of the FKM cell and a young member of the SFF's Civilian Network Operatives, they were on the verge of realizing their dream. If the field commandos had succeeded in their efforts to capture and destroy the FKM, the goal would be just days if not hours away. Now they had to wait.
Major Puri would not fail them. He would close in on the terrorist cell and then kill them in a firefight. The CNO operative who was with them would tell the story as she saw it from the inside. Even if she died in the fight, she would reveal to Major Puri with her dying breath how the FKM attacked the temple and the bus. How the lives of those Hindus were the first sacrifices of the new jihad. The people of India would believe her because in their hearts they knew she was telling the truth. Her grieving grandfather would back up everything that she said. And then the Indian government would respond.
Of course, the president and prime minister would attack Pakistan as they usually did. With words. That was how nuclear powers were supposed to act. If they replied with weapons the results would be unthinkable.
Or so the common wisdom went.
What the rest of the world did not realize was that Pakistan's leaders were willing to endure annihilation. They would sacrifice their nation if it meant the utter destruction of India and the Hindu people. Islam would still have tens of millions of adherents. Their faith would survive. And the dead of Pakistan would live on in Paradise.
Kabir was not going to give Pakistan the chance to attack India. He was, however, perfectly willing to send them to Paradise. He intended to do that with a preemptive strike.
The team that was in charge of the Underground Nuclear Command Center was loyal to Minister Kabir. The key personnel had been carefully selected from among the military and SFF ranks. They would respond to dual commands issued by Minister Kabir and Commander Sahani. When those orders came, nothing on earth could turn them back.
Kabir's plan was to hit Pakistan before they had fully deployed their nuclear arsenal. He would use a total of seventy nine Indian SRBMs. The short-range ballistic missiles each had a range of eight hundred kilometers. They constituted one-half of India's nuclear arsenal and were housed in silos located just behind the line of control. Eleven of those would hit Islamabad alone, removing it from the map and killing nearly 20 percent of the nation's 130 million people. In the days and weeks to come, radiation from the explosions would kill another 40 million Pakistanis. The rest of the SRBMs would strike at Pakistani military facilities. That included seven suspected silo locations in the Himalayas.
Maybe the American team coming into the country would have found them.
Maybe they would not. Regardless, their presence would be a powerful public relations tool for Kabir.
It would