Line Of Control

By Gaurav Bhaskar

A journey through THAR that u will never forget Join the capable colonel as he is to investigate a mysterious message received from undercover agent.Meet  agent Varun and Param as they join colonel on the mission that will change so many lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gaurav Bhaskar
• Release date: Jul 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781540145116

Book preview

LINE OF CONTROL

Author:Gaurav Bhaskar

INDEX

––––––––

1  SOLDIERS OR WIZARDS

2THE DEAD CLUES

3 COLONEL’S CIRCUS

4 THE ONLY WINNER

5 THE ONLY WINNER-2

6 QUESTIONS

7 BLADE

8 HUNTERS

1 SOLDIERS OR WIZARDS

[PLACE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR OFFICE DEFENCE HEADQUARTERS, DELHI INDIA ]

In his office INDIAN NSA Asit doval  was staring at the communication  received.

Message  was simple once decoded My inlaws are coming for a visit,take good care of them.

As someone who had actually worked in field he was always quick in taking decisions,yet he could not decide who to assign this task.One thing he has learned after working in ministries is to pass the responsibility to others.

He has to do task yet he must be sure that it is handled by the best.

Only one person.

By virtue of his post the NSA is at the top of huge security setup in India,

and in Asit`s case his initial work as an undercover agent has been turned into stories and played on news channels for hours,giving him a cult status.

Yet when he spoke on the phone his voice was full of respect.

Sir!

Yes Asit,what can i do for u?

The  person at the other side was in his 50s of tall imposing height-his present designation was  written outside his office door:Director

There was a screen in front of him that showed asit’s face and displayed some info-

Identity confirmed -Location defence headquarters- No oddity in voice detected.

Sir,We have a communication indicating a potential threat.

D:I see,and your assessment?

A:Source has never been wrong before,so this becomes a top priority intelligence.

D:I will give this task to my team,send in the details.

A:Thank you sir.

LOCATION CLASSIFIED

Director was looking at the communication received from defence headquarters

It contained the simple decrypted message and  relevant data which was marked top secret.

The source of the message received was an undercover agent from across the border in pakistan.

Colonel Krishnadev popularly known as KD joined his superior.Director passed the infotainer to KD.Who took  a few minutes going through the data.

C:Sir,i don't like it.

Director; Neither me colonel however we are soldiers and we have to take the task,like and dislike are for teenagers,.

C- All i am saying sir we are soldiers not wizards.

At this remark director gave a rare smile.

D: So you think it's not actionable,he used the formal word this time.

C: I am ready to take the task sir but where is the data,no leads,it's so vague. They threw it our way so that they don't have to take the blame themselves.

Director cutting him out- Well colonel,take the task and if there are no leads than create some.

Yes sir. replied the colonel in a formal tone.There was no hint of  annoyance in his voice.

Colonel had one more thing to discuss with his superior.

Sir,we need to expand our team, so i had a list prepared.We can test them in field,if you permit.

D:Yes fine it will be a good opportunity.

With the mission assigned Colonel sought the tech guy in his team.A geek some would call him he was in his late 20s.He had undergone the mandatory military training but computers were his first love.Since he spent most of his times with the gadgets they started calling him gizmo and the name became popular.

C:We have a list of probables.

Yes sir.

Good update it and give it to me.

It took 10 minutes for the techie to update the list.While gizmo was updating the list the colonel was in deep thought.As soon  the prepared list was in front of colonel,he said, Call the others.

After a few minutes the small team was assembled .They had a look of anticipation on their faces-usually when they were called in for a meeting it was something critical.However the colonel had something else in his mind for them.

We are looking to expand this team.Here is a list of probables.I want you to go through this list,and give your opinion.

If the agents present in front of colonel were disappointed by this HR job given to them it did not show on their faces.

The agents took the list and headed to the meeting room.Leaving the colonel to deliberate on the primary task assigned to him.The reason he cited to his superior was genuine.

There was no data to start of in this case,and the problem was complicated by the fact that  India pakistan shared a vast border of about 3000 km.Both nations have a formidable nuclear arsenal and fought three official wars in the past.Not a day goes by without exchange of artillery fire and casualties on both sides. A leading defence magazine once dubbed it the most dangerous border in the world. If enemy is planning something than what -where, at least some clue is needed; there was none.

Colonel thought of the various strategies employed in such a scenario.His first instinct was to wait for a few days may be further communication arrives or some new development.

However his orders were clear he has to start immediately.

His second option was to tap the other intelligence sources,since both countries consider each other as the number one threat and thus work hard to obtain  intelligence.This was his most logical solution.And given his position he should have no problem in that. His agency has access to every bit of intelligence that India collected.

Colonel spent the next couple of  hours going through the intelligence reports,talking to officers, he kept writing down on a notepad,a dozen calls were made but no success.

So i am back to where i started,he said to himself.

Meanwhile in the meeting room the agents are going over the list of potential recruits.

We can see there are five agents present,we already met gizmo who is the tech expert.The probables in the list were from all over india,all had excellent combat training and field experience.They were under surveillance for many months prior to selection. Their career records,personal lives everything was on files along with surveillance footage.

The senior field agent among them said, let's put the details on screen .assign a score to everyone.

I think for the  tech probables- gizmo’s opinion should get greater weightage,one of them suggested.

That's fine with me.

In his office Colonel's original problem remained.He had spent few hours and exhausted his two options.

His third and only remaining option was what is called- Looking for Anomaly.In investigative circles it means some real hard work and end result is often nothing.

However once a course of action is selected the soldier’s way is to keep going till the task is complete.This organization has invested huge in data analysis. He called the tech guy from meeting and explained to him what he wanted.

That will be done sir, no problem.

How much time will it take.

"That will depend on the input data but i should be able to give you a report in three hours .:

That's it,colonel was surprised a bit.

Yes sir, we  have been working on a new data analysis software customized for this sort of task.Like all big countries we collect so much intelligence data from different agencies,to find out the relevant info from that is a consuming task.An efficient software is much needed.For few months I had a team of developers with me.Earlier we used to buy such software.The one we developed is more efficient and we have managed to add some new features too.

I see,what  features you have added?

Gizmo was surprised a bit,the colonel was not known to take interest in these things .

"Sir,this is a AI project.It has various predictive modules.this goes through intelligence data at a much faster rate and uses the AI to analyze them for links,we are also developing a terrain analyzing tool suppose you are in a terrain where you know some enemy moment was spotted .Once you put the terrain coordinates and satellite imagery in this it will calculate the probabilities plot the most probable routes,hiding places it should considerably reduce search time,However the AI for this is in early stages as it needs