Line of Control (36 page)

    She'll have a very good reason to get out the facts about the attack."

    "Mala Chatterjee?" Herbert said.

    "She's so soft on terrorism her speeches turn even bleeding hearts into a lynch mob.

    She napped her lips while hostages were being assassinated in the Security Council."

    "Chatterjee has far too many enemies of her own," Hood agreed.

    "At this point her involvement would only make things worse."

    "I'll say it again, Paul. Maybe the Russians would be willing to help rein India in," Herbert said.

    "They want to be seen as serious peacemakers." "Possibly," Hood said.

    "But even if we went to them, wouldn't time be a problem?"

    "Time and recent history," Plummer said.

    "Pakistan has very close ties with Afghanistan. There are still a lot of Russian leaders who would like to see both countries pounded flat." "But a continued stalemate between India and Pakistan means a continued weapons buildup," Herbert said.

    "Money talks. New Delhi would still have to buy weapons and materiel from Moscow."

    "True, but then there's the point that Paul raised," Plummer said.

    "The same debate that we're having would keep the Kremlin busy for days if not longer. We don't have that kind of time."

    "Well, Ron, I'm kind of running dry. and getting a little frustrated,"

    Herbert snapped.

    "And I'm just doing the devil's advocate thing. Bob," Plummer replied defensively.

    "We can run some of these proposals up the flagpole in Moscow and at the Pentagon, but I don't see any of them getting the kind of support we need."

    "Unfortunately, that's the problem with crisis management instead of crisis prevention," Hood said sadly.

    "Once you're in it there are not a lot of options." "I count exactly one," Herbert said.

    The intelligence chief was right, of course. With all the resources the United States had at its disposal, there was only one asset standing between India, Pakistan, and a possible nuclear exchange. One asset currently out of touch, under equipped and on his own.

    General Mike Rodgers.

    

    The Siachin Glacier Thursday, 9:11 p. m.

    During the flight from Washington, Mike Rodgers had read a number of white papers on the Siachin Glacier. The most interesting was written by a Pakistani intelligence officer.

    Dubbed "the world's highest battleground" by both the Indian and the Pakistani press, the Siachin Glacier has no strategic value. Long claimed by Pakistan, the glacier reaches nearly eighteen thousand feet in height, the temperatures drop below minus thirty-five degrees Celsius, and the near constant blizzards and lack of oxygen make the region "subhuman," as one Indian report put it. No one lives there and no one crosses it on foot.

    The glacier became a war zone in 1984 when Indian intelligence officers began showing up in the region. Their thinking, apparently, was to force Pakistan to assign human resources to the region, thus making them unavailable for war in habitable Kashmir and along the line of control.

    However, Pakistan discovered the presence of the Indian reconnaissance teams early in the process thanks to a mountaineering advertisement that appeared in an Indian magazine. The full-page ad showed recent photographs of the region without naming it. The text offered experienced climbers excellent compensation and the adventure of a lifetime to help lead tours through "uncharted territories."

    Pakistani counterespionage operatives began tracking and capturing the Indian recon teams. The conflict escalated and soon the region was drawing resources from both sides of the dispute. Nearly twenty years later, thousands of troops and aircraft from both sides were assigned to patrol the massive formation.

    If they were out there now, Rodgers could neither see nor hear them. He had been in many isolated places during his long military career but he had never experienced anything like this. Standing at the foot of the glacier he was not just alone, surrounded by mountain and ice, but he could only see as far as his flashlight let him. And he was unable to get anything but static on his radio. He shined the light up the sloping white ice. The foot of the glacier reminded him of a lion's paw. There were long, large lumps of dirty white ice about ten feet high with crevasses between them. They led to a gently sloping area that rose higher and higher into the darkness. The formation made him feel fragile and insignificant.

    The glacier had probably looked exactly like this when the first humans were tossing sticks and berries at each other from trees in the valley.

    Suddenly, Rodgers's radio beeped. He grabbed it quickly.

    "Yes?" "The target is up there," said the caller.

    The transmission was broken and the voice was barely recognizable. But Rodgers had no doubt that it was Brett August. The colonel did not know how long he would be able to transmit. So he got right to the heart of the communication without wasting words.

    "Copy that," Rodgers said.

    "Team of four," August said.

    "Girl and grandfather, Friday, and one cell member."

    "I copy," Rodgers said again.

    "I'm at the foot of the zone.

    Should I go up now?"

    "If you wait till sunup you may miss them," August said.

    "I'm sorry." "Don't be," Rodgers said.

    "Will try and keep enemy busy," August went on. His voice began to break up.

    "Storming here-cell exhausted.

    Ammo low."

    "Then bail out," Rodgers said.

    "I'll be okay."

    August's response was lost in static.

    "I've got a good head start," Rodgers went on. He was shouting each syllable, hoping he would be heard.

    "Even if they enter the valley now they won't catch up to me. I'm ordering you to pull back. Do you read? Pull back!"

    There was no response. Just a loud, frustrating crackle.

    Rodgers turned down the volume and kept the channel open for another few moments. Then he shut the radio off to conserve the batteries and slipped the unit back in his belt.

    Rodgers hoped that August would not try to stick this one out. Going back down the mountain might not be an option for August and the others.

    But finding a cave and building a fire would be a better use of their energies than hanging on to a slope and trying to draw the Indian army toward them. Unfortunately, Rodgers knew the colonel too well. August would probably regard retreat as abandonment of a friend as well as a strategic position. Neither of those was acceptable to August.

    The plateau was also the place where the Strikers had died.

    That made it sacred ground to August. There was no way he would simply turn and walk away from it. Rodgers understood that because he felt the same way. It made no sense to fight for geography without strategic value. But once blood had been spilled there, one fought for the memory of fallen comrades. It validated the original sacrifice in a way that only combat soldiers could understand.

    Rodgers took a moment to walk along the bottom of the glacier. It did not seem to matter where he started. He had to pull himself up one of the "toes" and start walking.

    There were collapsible steel bipoint ice cram pons in his vest.

    Rodgers removed them and slipped them over his rigid boots. The two-pronged claws on the bottoms would allow for a surer grip on the ice.

    He strapped them on and removed the pitons from another pocket. He would hold them in his fists and use them to assist his climb. He would not take the time to hammer them in unless he had to.

    Before he left, Rodgers secured the flashlight in his left hand shoulder strap. There were powerful cadmium batteries in the specially made lights. The bulb itself was a low intensity scatter-beam in front of a highly polished mirror.

    They would definitely last through the night. As he rested the toe of his left boot on the "toe" of the glacier, he took one last look up the mountain of ice.

    "I'm going to beat you," he muttered.

    "I'm going to get up there and finish the job my team started."

    Rodgers's eyes continued up through the darkness. He saw the stars, which were dimly visible through the wispy clouds.

    Time seemed to vanish and Rodgers suddenly felt as if he were every warrior who had ever undertaken a journey, from the Vikings to the present. And as he jabbed the base of one crampon into the ice and reached up with a piton, Mike Rodgers no longer saw stars. He saw the eyes of those warriors looking down on him.

    And among them the eyes of the Strikers looking after him.

    

    Washington, D. C. Thursday, 12:00 p. m.

    The embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is located in a small, high-gated estate on Massachusetts Avenue in northwest D. C. Ron Plummer drove his Saab to the gate, where a voice on the other end of the intercom buzzed him through. He headed up the curving concrete driveway to a second security checkpoint at the back of the mansion.

    Plummer pulled up to the white double doors and was greeted by a security guard. The man was dressed in a black business suit. He wore sunglasses, a headset, and a bulletproof vest under his white shirt. He carried a handgun in a shoulder holster. The man checked Plummer's ID then directed him to a visitor's spot in the small lot. The guard waited while Plummer parked.

    As he hurried back to the mansion, Ron Plummer ran a hand through his untamed, thinning brown hair and adjusted his thick, black-framed glasses. The thirty-nine-year-old former CIA intelligence analyst for Western Europe was not just feeling the pressure of his own part in this drama. The political and economics officer was also aware of how many things had to go right or the Indian subcontinent would explode.

    The National Crisis Management Center had not had a lot of dealings with the Pakistani embassy. The only reason the ambassador. Dr. Is mail Simathna, personally knew them was because of Paul Hood and Mike Rodgers. After the men had ended the hostage stalemate at the United Nations, Simathna asked them to visit the embassy. Plummer was invited to join them. The ambassador claimed to be paying his respects to a brave and brilliant American intelligence unit. Among the many lives they had saved were those of the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations and his wife. But Hood and Plummer both suspected that Simathna simply wanted to meet the men who had embarrassed the Indian secretary general That feeling was reinforced when the visit received considerable coverage in the Islamabad media. Hood was glad, then, that Plummer had come along. Op-Center's PEO gave the appearance of substance to a meeting that was conceived to make a statement about India's ineffective contribution to world peace.

    The security officer turned Plummer over to the ambassador's executive secretary. The young man smiled pleasantly and led Plummer to Simathna's office. The white-haired ambassador came out from behind his glass topped desk. He was wearing a brown suit and a muted yellow tie. The sixty-three-year-old ambassador had been a front line soldier and bore a scar on both cheeks where a bullet had passed through his jaw. He had also been an intelligence expert and a professor of politics and political sociology at Quaid-E-Azam University in Islamabad before being tapped to represent his nation in Washington, D. C. He greeted Op-Center's political officer warmly.

    Plummer had not told Ambassador Simathna why he needed to see him, only that it was urgent.

    The men sat in modern armchairs on the window side of the office. The thick bullet-proof glass muted their voices.

    As Plummer spoke he sounded almost conspiratorial.

    The ambassador's lean face was serious but unemotional as Plummer spoke.

    He leaned forward, listening quietly, as Plummer told him about the Striker operation from conception to present, and Hood's fears about the actions of India's SFF. When Plummer was finished, the ambassador sat back.

    "I am disappointed that you did not come to me for intelligence on the nuclear situation in Kashmir," the ambassador said.

    "We did not want to impose on your friendship," Plummer replied.

    "It means a great deal to us."

    "That was thoughtful of you," he replied with a little smile.

    "But you have come to me now."

    "Yes," Plummer replied.

    "For your advice, your confidence, your patience, and most of all your trust. We believe we have a good chance to keep this under control but the hours ahead will be extremely difficult."

    "One could describe nuclear brinkmanship in those terms," the ambassador said softly.

    "Your Strikers were quite brave, going into the mountains the way they did. And the surviving members give me hope. Nations are not monolithic, not even India and Pakistan. When people care enough about one another great things can be accomplished." "Paul Hood and I share your optimism," Plummer said.

    "Even at this moment?"

    "Especially at this moment." Plummer replied.

    Throughout the exchange Plummer had watched the ambassador's dark eyes.

    Simathna's mind was elsewhere. Plummer feared that the ambassador was thinking of alerting his government.

    The ambassador rose.

    "Mr. Plummer, would you excuse me for a few minutes?"

    Plummer also stood.

    "Mr. Ambassador, one more thing."

    "Yes?"

    "I don't wish to push you, sir, but I want to make certain I've made the situation clear," Plummer said.