Operation Hellfire

By Siddhartha Thorat

After the success of “Operation Fox-Hunt”, Sanjay Khanna is back in
action. And this time the stakes are higher.
Hurt and pushed to the back foot by Indian political actions in
Kashmir, the Pakistani Military establishment is angry and decides
to strike, hard! Their man for the job, Major Mansoor Khan of the
Pakistan Army is given a target. A deadly weapon from an old conflict
is summoned back from its exile to deliver a crippling blow that will
change the history of the subcontinent. Mansoor and his men have
their tasks cut out. With a handpicked team and a well-oiled plan,
they are on their way.
Can they be stopped in time? Will the Indian security agencies be
able to detect and neutralise the attack? Operation Hellfire unfolds
across the crystal-clear waters off Thailand to the mountains of Chakrata in India, via the dusty
expanse of Afghan countryside through the intrigue filled city of Quetta, right through to the heart
of India, Delhi. A heady mix of thrilling detective work combined with high octane explosive action
keeps you turning the pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Srishti Publishers
• Release date: Aug 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9788194241430

Book preview

hard!

Prologue

Looking out of his window on the fifth floor, Nasser Rashid said to himself, This is life! He was staying in Hotel Sun Dance in Pattaya, where he could see the dawn breaking over the horizon and a smattering of tourists on the beach enjoying the sunrise. It was still early and there was little traffic outside. He could see some city workers and other early birds, people who cleaned up the mess that tourists brought on their city, already at work. Nasser subconsciously moved his hand over his face and realised that the beard wasn’t there anymore. He had shaved it off just before flying to Bangkok from Karachi via Dubai a week back. He reached for a pack of cigarettes and looked for a lighter.

Nasser Rashid was in his late thirties. He was born in a traditional military family in the Pakistani Punjab. He dreamt of a military career like his father, more glittering perhaps, a retired Lieutenant Colonel, by joining the Pakistani Military Academy in Abbottabad. As with many plans of men and mice, it didn’t work out quite that way. Nasser found himself kicked out within three months of joining the academy for assaulting his instructor. I would have hit him again, if he didn’t have his rank, he had told the enquiry commission. With his dream in tatters, Nasser, dejected and in humiliation, went into depression. He started visiting the local mosque frequently and stopped living at his father’s parental house. His parents’ repeated efforts went futile. He found a place near Muridke, where he could do odd jobs and share an apartment with two young men down on luck. They spent time doing odd jobs and running through their savings.

These three boys in mid-twenties frequented the mosque and were duly noticed by the local Mullah. He took them under his wings and what followed was a year of indoctrination against real and imagined enemies of the faith. The following weeks found them in a camp run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, well known as LET. The LET is one of the most ferocious militant groups operating out of the snake pit that Pakistan has become. It was created in the early nineties by the Pakistani establishment in order to take control of the Kashmir jihad from more secular Kashmiri groups. But today, it has operations in India as well as in Afghanistan.

The training was tough and the food inedible, but Nasser loved it. He felt like a soldier again, not for Pakistan, but for god. The training went well, and the three boys were identified as potential leaders by the Ustads – trainers for both, the militants and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) handlers. It was only a matter of time that the three boys found themselves crossing the Durrand line, the Afghan–Pakistan border, into Afghanistan. The Americans were already there and the Taliban and Al Qaida were being hunted by drones and American Special forces. The losses at Al-Qaeda end were spectacular and the new recruits were welcome.

The three boys were trained in prevailing tactics and were sent immediately to the Kunduz area for operations. Within a few weeks, it was all over for Taliban. All three boys had demonstrated a will to fight and an ability to lead. The unit they were part of was under direct control of ISI and when the going got hot, General Musharraf sent in the Pakistani Air Force aircraft to evacuate them. History knows the event as Kunduz airlift.

Back in Pakistan, the three men were reassigned to operate on the India front. Few months down the line, they were infiltrated into Kashmir. The combat experience and reassignment to Afghanistan two years later as team commanders was a high point in their careers. The three men continued their war against the Americans and the Indians in rotating postings and survived.

In 2019, as the Prime Minister of India was about to take an oath of office, Nasser led a team of Taliban and ISI special forces unit to assault the Indian mission. The ISI wanted to send a spine-chilling message to the new Indian administration. The attack was thwarted by alert Afghan and Indian forces guarding the mission. A fighter had been caught alive. Nasser escaped to fight again. All through the next year, he was involved in sending fighters across the Kashmir Line of Control. He was no longer required to be at the point of action, he was now a valued leader.

It had been a long year and the three friends – Nasser, Imran and Firdous had decided that they needed a vacation. Their plans overlapped smartly with a meeting being held by ISI in Bangkok, with leaders of home-grown Islamic radical group from India, the Indian Mujahideen (IM). The ISI wanted the three men to find better ways of coordinating between Lashkar and the Indian Mujahideen. The meeting had gone off very well and the Indians would soon send a team to Pakistan for training.

After the meeting, the three friends had headed to Pattaya. The last three days had been filled with raucous fun and a series of sexual escapades.

Baby, come back to bed, Nasser heard and looked over his shoulder. He quickly stubbed his cigarette and smiled. The nubile young woman and others like her were the reason they had selected Pattaya to unwind. The stunning and beautiful girl had come on to him the previous night. His ego had been sufficiently massaged and he had agreed with her proposition to head into the ocean on a chartered boat for a night of fun, and well, more fun. She had even arranged a boat and promised him that there would be two more women to entertain him and his buddies on the boat. But that was in the afternoon. He went back to bed. He wasn’t even paying for her and the boat. This was turning out to be quiet a vacation!

The four men in a Toyota Hulix could clearly hear the conversation happening in the room of the hotel. The room had been bugged and the Thai girl they had hired and trained for a classic honey trap operation was doing exactly as planned. There was another Hulix with four men, waiting across the parking lot.

I think he has fallen for it, hook, line and sinker, Vikram said as he turned to his boss, Sanjay Khanna, who was heading the operation. Sanjay seemed tense. The three stooges were to get on the boat in afternoon, which was still five hours away. Anything could go wrong between now and then, to say nothing of the operation itself.

Earlier that week, a ten-member team of Indian secret service, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), had landed in Thailand on a tip off regarding a meeting between the Indian Mujahideen and Lashkar operatives. An informant in the IM had passed on the information that important operational commanders of the Lashkar would be involved.

A painstaking surveillance had been mounted from the airport to the hotel. The IM operatives had been followed and then when the Lashkar men had come by, they were identified. The three, especially Nasser, were people the Indian agencies wanted to get hold of for their operations, in Kashmir and in Afghanistan. The room had been bugged and the conversation had led to the information that the three Lashkar boys were staying back in Pattaya for the next few days. Sanjay had been informed and had flown to Bangkok to take personal command of the operation. They could not commit violence in Thailand, not if they ever wanted to have Thai Special Branch Bureau cooperation again. So a simple plan had been drawn up. The Navy had been approached, they were informed that a task force on visit to Vietnam with INS Delhi as a flag ship was in the Gulf of Thailand, and relatively near to Pattaya coast. It had been directed to head to a location outside Thailand’s sovereign waters off Pattaya. The task force had full complement of Marine commandos and two Sea King helicopters to help. If RAW could get the men out of the sovereign Thai waters, the Navy would deliver them to India. The plan was audacious but simple, and its simplicity meant it could be workable. Sanjay was a big believer in a quote in the book The Last Don, ‘Keep it simple or very complex. Nothing else in between.’

The woman in the room was Ju, a Thai girl who often worked for Indian agencies in Thailand for setting up honey traps. She was slim with long legs, and a slender profile. She had a thing for hair colour and thongs. A chance assignment requiring the capture of a Mumbai gangster had the RAW run into her. And now, for the last three years, she had been a very valuable asset.

Sanjay looked at the time and used his satellite phone to connect with the Navy in the command centre at Port Blair. He spoke only one line.

Package on time. Call courier with orders to stand by for further communications.

The call was logged in and the Navy sent out signals to both, the ministry and the task force.

Ju looked up and saw Nasser dressing up. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt saying, I love Pattaya. There was a big red heart on it. It looked like a typical thing a tourist would wear. But what he reached for next wasn’t something a tourist would carry. She saw him reach out to his suitcase and pull out a satellite phone and a pistol, his muscles visible through the T shirt. She was confused; he was supposed to be unarmed.

What’s that baby? she crooned as she reached out to him. Nasser shook her hand away and pointed a 9mm Beretta at her, Tools of trade, sweetie, he sneered and made a mock action of taking a shot.

Where did you get it? she asked incredulously. He shook his head as if he didn’t want to answer, but as she got up and rubbed herself against him, he muttered, Local Thai friends gave it to me. Me and boys always pack a gun. Many enemies, you see. And they went for another round. But Ju was frightened; she had been told they’d be unarmed. She and her friends would be alone with these men on the boat. She hoped that the men at other end of the bugging devices had picked up the conversation.

There was a knock on the door. Nasser opened it and his two friends gave him a big hug. The men crudely pointed towards Ju and made suggestive signals and laughed. Both were carrying small backpacks and Ju guessed they must be carrying guns too.

Come on, let’s go! she said with finality and picked up her purse and the keys to her Toyota Fortuner. The men watched open mouthed as she pulled the car from parking and asked them to hop in. In Pakistan, only the rich would have a car like that.

The Fortuner moved out of the parking lot, Sanjay’s truck following. The other Hilux took up position in front of the Fortuner. Pattaya, in fact Thailand, was full of Hilux and Hilux type pick-ups. They wouldn’t be spotted, hopefully. Both the cars had RAW agents, natives of India’s Northeast states. They wouldn’t fool the Thais or other Southeast Asians, but he guessed that the Pakistanis wouldn’t know better. He was the only odd man out and stayed out of sight in the back seat with large glasses and a cap. He had heard the conversation regarding the pistol and that worried him. Their quarry was doubly dangerous. He sent a text message to the Navy, informing them of the new development.

Ju noticed that Imran’s back pack was bigger and she had felt it while he was loading it into the car. It had felt like a machine gun of some sort. Firdous seemed to carry a similar pack. She thought of making a phone call, but didn’t know what she could say without arousing suspicion. The men were talking excitedly among themselves, unaware of the stalking Indians. The Indians in vehicles behind and ahead of them were contemplating the challenge posed by the new deadly variables in the equation. Vikram had seen the two men with the bags too. He had guessed that the bags might contain weapons.

The small party reached a jetty, the Hiluxs pulled away and a lone car followed. Another of the surveillance teams.

While the Pakistanis loaded into the speedboat named White Shark, a Monterey 328SS with two 4.5 litres Mercrusier engines, the Indians had too climbed into a similar boat named the Sea Queen. The Sea Queen had a radar and would follow the White Shark just over the horizon. It also had two fast inflatable boats and a receiver for the transmitter in the White Shark.

As the White Shark turned into the ocean and sped towards the horizon, the Indians followed. Sanjay tapped out a signal on his hand-held, which alerted the Navy that the operation was now in progress.

On the boat, as it moved towards the international waters, a full blown party was on. The Pakistanis were truly enjoying themselves, taking hands at the wheel and generally having a blast with booze and cigarettes, in between pawing the girls. The men, Ju noticed, kept their bags with them at all times.

As the boat moved outwards into the open seas and darkness fell, Firdous motioned his girl towards the cabin and winked. The girl followed him while others laughed. Only Ju knew what was planned.

At 2000 hrs the boat crossed into international waters and put down the anchor, just as the crew had been instructed.

At the same time, tracking the boat and knowing where it would be anchored, INS Delhi had reached just over the horizon a couple of hours ago. The attack was planned for 0300 hrs to achieve surprise and reduce commotion.

Sanjay and the team had steered their boat to INS Delhi, jumped into the inflatables to reach the Naval vessel and climbed aboard. The Marine commandos were ready and checking the equipment. Each of the commandos were dressed in digital camouflage, bullet proof Kevlar armour and carried a personal weapon, Tavor 21, an Israeli assault rifle. Each man also carried an automatic pistol, a 9mm Glock and a commando knife. This was one of India’s least known special forces. This particular unit had been recently deployed in the Persian Gulf and off Somali Coast for action against pirates. The men seemed relaxed and confident. The engineering drawings of the boat which had been rented, and detailed pictures had been mailed to them two days earlier. They had spent the whole day studying the pictures. In Vietnam, they had actually been able to board and checkout a similar boat and had flown in earlier in the day by a Sea king chopper. They had a plan ready.

Sanjay briefed them about their quarry and that they were armed, perhaps lightly. The commander in charge of the MARCOS shook his head and replied, Nevertheless, we must be prepared for the worst. Sanjay also instructed them that the three-men crew and the three ladies on board were all agents and were not to be harmed in any way.

The boat party was in full swing with all three terrorists drunk and unruly. The food was plenty and one of the crewmen had lighted a marijuana joint which fascinated the terrorists. Ju kept looking at the watch. She had been instructed that at 0300hrs, she was to take her friends and move to the starboard section of the boat and wait in full sight. She was happy that the men continued to get excessively drunk, in fact Firdous had almost passed out and Nasser was smoking a joint that the crewman had given him. He was a part of the three-men team manning the boat, all RAW agents.

By midnight, the other two militants were drunk too and pawing the girls. The party was truly peaking earlier than expected.

On board the INS Delhi, another problem had surfaced. A Chinese warship in the region had spied the Indian ship and was now making way towards it