* PROLOGUE *

This is outrageous, I found myself thinking, as I scrolled through the endless reports of terrorism. Something must be done. Eyes heavy from my phone's screen, I started to dream, letting thoughts, plans, ideas and scenarios wash over me endlessly, over each other, and drifted off into a sleep rife with those convolutions that the mind is capable of at night.

When I woke up in the morning, I was quite disappointed that it hadn’t been one of those nights when one can recall detailed dreams; but also quite strong was my desire to start doing something in a more practical manner about the scourge of terrorism that plagued my country.

CHAPTER 1

* SIX MONTHS LATER *

*NORTHERNMOST INDIA*

The evening had been cool and clear, and the night was expected to be even better. As seven-thirty drew closer, my mind raced. All our minds raced.

The seven of us sat in the middle of a large tent, in various stages of readiness, and in various states of mind. PS, HS, QY, AS, SK, SC and I. I looked at each, and wished I could know their thoughts better than I did. But then, I wish for a lot of things. I checked my watch and spoke.“Seven o’clock. Time to gear up, people!”

Everyone shuffled to their feet and retreated to the periphery of the tent, where benches and the ground bore the weight of our equipment.In the absence of any formal code of language, Hollywood lingo wasn’t unwelcome. We were all intelligent enough to know what the others meant.

The heavy tread of steel-toed boots approached, and the officer wearing them paused at the entrance to the tent, searching for eye contact with me. I gave a reassuring nod, held up all ten fingers to signal 10 minutes, and he let the canvas flap fall back into place before stomping away. I looked again at everyone, and QY’s eyes caught mine. He said, “Dude, you remember second year, or maybe third, I got one of these from home?” He smiled and held up a black ski mask, a balaclava.

I laughed out loud. By the time we had recounted the story of QY's somewhat unflattering nomenclature that had resulted from this object of clothing, we were all smirking at the irony of it and ready to go. I hefted my pack, and led the way out.

* THREE HOURS LATER *

I spun in as controlled a manner I could, trying to take as far a 360° view as possible, with the height advantage afforded by the chopper that I was rappelling out of, hovering about 5 feet above the tree-tops in the valley.

As soon as I found a footing on the ground, forcing my way through the last few, densest branches of the evergreen trees, I switched on all my headset's sensors and did a complete spin within fifteen seconds. The furthest range of the bio-sensors was a hundred feet, and there were no life forms larger than a speck on the head-up display I had on my visor.

I spoke clearly and distinctly, “Let’s go.”

Four minutes later the chopper was gone and we stood in an outward-facing circle, mapping out the best way to head to our target. While AS pinpointed our location and coordinated with support, we maintained a vigil on our scanners, thus forming a virtual hundred-foot circle around us. Two or three animals registered overall, and on AS’ word we all took a bearing NNW.

It was smooth going; I led at a quick and silent walking pace without bothering to switch on the shorter-range IR vision, since no life-forms were registering in our path.

AS said, “Support says there are about a half dozen terrorists, and there may have been a couple or more waiting for them beforehand, to welcome them.”

SC sniggered, "We'll give 'em the welcome they deserve", and it was heartening to hear the others laugh; I felt the mood lighten. We were nearing our target. It was one of the lights ahead, the way lights of the houses are scattered when one looks up at the surrounding mountains from a sparsely-populated valley.

It was just as the slope turned steeper when I halted. A solitary human figured on the scanner, about seventy feet ahead. PS and I switched to optical binocular mode and searched in the direction of the blip; moving a couple of yards ahead into a slight rise in the terrain gave both of us a sight of the man – on his shoulder was slung an AK-47.

PS and I looked at each other and nodded, despite the dark, both of us knew what we had to do. PS continued vigilance on the man while I tiptoed back to the team. I whispered into my mic, not because I feared getting overheard, but because I feared talking too loud in my excitement of finally being able to do something good in the real world.

“Found them, boys. Thank support, AS, spot on info, spot on drop. SK, this guy appears bored as hell, seems like he’s on sentry duty or something. PS, anything?”

“This guy’s got nothing to do, man. He’s playing around with branches.”

“Cool. SK, you and PS take out this guy, rest of us make a narrow sweep, and we regroup at this guy’s position? Everyone good to go?”Like before, I felt their nods more than seeing them, and various types of assenting breaths came through my headset.

“Okay then. Let’s go, 2-5, 360-bio, silent.”

SK headed up to PS, and they observed the sentry for a minute before heading out, about ten feet apart, guns hefted and safeties off. I walked sideways to my left, and switched the bio-sensor scanner to 360° mode. Within a couple of minutes, the two dots on my HUD ahead of me stood over the furthest dot; two more dots about ten and twenty feet to my right began, as I did, to converge on the three dots ahead. As I approached, two more dots registered further to my right, so I knew we were all accounted for. I risked breaking silence. “Check?”

PS and SK both said, almost simultaneously, “Check.”

I felt so happy I licked my lips – I hadn’t realized how dry they had become – and smiled to myself. Perfect!

“Awesome. Let’s meet up, then, bio-90, get the next of these rascals.”

We regrouped where PS and SK crouched over the sedated sentry, scanning the areas in front of us, PS with optical binoculars and SK with sensors. I checked the man who slept peacefully under the tranquilizer. A packet of dry fruits in the pocket of his worn, dirty kurta; a spare magazine stuffed at the small of his back into the waistband of his salwar. The pocket on his chest had a whistle. Thank goodness we had knocked him out before he had blown it - or it would have been a blown first mission for us, even before we had begun. I shrugged the feeling off mentally - down that road lay defeat.

He wore black shoes, made of sturdier canvas than those generally prevalent in the region. A plastic-strap watch with a plain analog dial, showing the time – 2215 hours. I instinctively checked it against my watch; I didn’t expect so much time had passed. It hadn’t; he was set more than thirty minutes ahead. Even so far from home, he wanted to keep the time he was used to.

There was nothing else on him, so I said, “AS, beacon this guy,” and got up to join the rest of the team in checking out the nearest huts, easily identifiable by the solitary, bare, yellow light bulbs that hung from two-ply wires and holders in front of the doors of the huts.

“Anything?”“No, no activity, let’s go up to the one on the right, up ahead, and check for people.”“Right, let’s go, 3-4, concentric arcs, watch the sides, okay? Alright then. Let’s go silent.”

There was no one in the hut as we took a good look around it, the three of us in front staying well clear of the pool of light thrown by the bulb. I spoke a single word, “West,” and switched my scanner back to 360°. I was relieved to see they’d understood; as we moved towards the next stone and wood hut with light blue whitewash on the walls, the team organized itself again in two concentric arcs, three in front and four of us now bringing up the rear, with me at the rightmost of the outer arc. I switched to the narrower angle mode and swept my right flank; no discernible life forms.

I focused my attention on the hut we were approaching; the three dots leading us were almost at the edge of my visor, meaning they were almost eighty feet ahead of me. Even the other three of my arc were twenty-thirty feet ahead of me. I cursed myself and picked my way through the foliage at a faster pace, making up ground as the three leaders congregated.

When we were all together, HS said, “Three inside, one outside, that one keeps walking on and off the scanner's edge in the north, and there’s a little movement inside.” He was gazing towards the hut, a few feet ahead of us, hidden in a spot that gave him visual access of the hut while keeping out of the feeble light of the bulb.

SC said, “If they’re busy, they probably will be for more time. While they’re preoccupied, I say we find the others.”

It was logical, and I heard a couple of agreeing noises. “Okay, then, HS, SC, QY stay here, we four head north from the left, do not engage unless absolutely certain of discretion; we do not want these three inside to come out running. Looks like they’re cooking, or something.”

On my visor's display, it seemed that one dot was sitting and the others were bringing him something from two different locations within the small hut. I looked around at the team, there were nods and shuffles as SC and QY moved themselves into better positions to join HS in sitting guard over the hut.

I retreated completely out of the light and started to skirt around the hut from the left, scrutinizing ahead and to my left. As HS had said, I soon saw a blip about hundred feet ahead of me, moving in short straight lines but always stopping and taking random obtuse and about-turns. It reminded me of how some people walk about while talking on the phone; I halted and whispered, “Wait.”

I turned around, saw SK about fifteen feet behind me, and whispered, “AS, come up here, check for audio.”

The second blip – beyond SK – moved towards me, and I turned aroundto keep the erratic blip within my visor. AS went a couple of feet ahead of me and extracted a small tube from the side pouch of his backpack. A soft click, like that of a torch’s slider making contact, emanated from his hand, and the front end of the tube opened out in a serrated cone - a parabolic mic.

AS slid up his visor to peer at the soft blue readings on the body of the tube, and I continued to check around us for any more activity or life, finding neither. After half a minute AS slid his visor back down and spoke in a hushed voice.“He’s on a low-grade satphone; I even picked up the crackling of the people on the other end. Could be a conference link-up, too. Support can probably trace it.”“Inform them. What’s this guy saying?’

I saw AS shake his head. “No go, even if I got closer, I couldn’t tell, his lingo is too rustic and unfamiliar. He’s not happy, though.” I discerned a smile in his voice, and smiled myself. There certainly were going to be many things this man had to be angry about in the very near future.

“Okay, let’s get back to the hut, sweep this side a little wider, and then start from the other side. Let this one finish his talk, we don’t want the other side to feel something’s gone wrong. AS, keep an ear on him.”

The rest of us retraced our silent way back to the previous hut; there was the usual occasional activity going on, though a bit slower, and when the two mobile dots didn’t move they huddled together on the edge of the hut furthest from the stationary blip. Without a word, I touched SC on his shoulder and indicated that we were going around the right side, while they were to hold their position. On seeing his affirmative nod, I waved to the three behind me in a wide, right-to-forward sweep, and we started out as before.

I circled to the right until I had the person still furtively speaking on his sat phone at the edge of my HUD, and then proceeded in a straight line to the hut. Approaching it going downhill, I got down on my hands when I reached the thin, zigzag strip of light that escaped through the centimetres-wide gaps between the brick wall and the corrugated roof. My vantage point put me level with the gap. Getting my face near the cold, sweet-smelling fresh earth, I slid up my visor to look inside.

The man who was motionless on our visors was seated at a rickety wooden table pushed flush against the wall, building a bomb.

The other two crouched behind his back, and I was looking at this from behind them. I crept back up, slid down my visor, and retreated about twenty feet to where I knew my three teammates were congregated, each scanning a different way, hence overlapping each others’ sensor ranges. I spoke calmly, though my heart raced like Usain Bolt's.

“There’s a bomb in the hut, being built; it’s in the trickier stages. These three are going nowhere. Observers, fall further back, hold tight till the four of us gets the other guy up ahead. We four, spread out within range of one another between the talker and the hut. Whichever way he goes once he stops talking and heads back, drop him noiselessly. No calling, just be sure of your aim. We on?”

Voices of assent. “Cool. Go silent.” I hefted my gun and started off.

The talker was moving less now, but he paced nevertheless. After ten-odd minutes of waiting in position, I whispered, “Anything?”

A couple of clicks of tongues and some negative uh-huhs confirmed my feeling that we were getting impatient. “AS, call support and find out if they did anything with this satellite link-up?” Just something to kill the time, like we had on the previous couple of preparatory excursions.

AS got an update from support: they had a fix on the location of this guy right in front of us, and that it would be a matter of a few seconds that they’d manage to trace the other party's location.

This side of the conversation was over. He started towards the hut, coming directly towards us.

I raised my gun to my shoulder and activated the infrared scope. The figure picked its way down the slope, I kept my sights trained on his torso, switched to night vision once and back to check for trees in my line-of-sight, waited for him to come within fifteen feet of me and let it fly. The man clutched his chest, drew in a sharp intake of breath, and fell over backwards.

I switched to normal vision and strode over to the body, drawing a small metal beacon from my right knee pocket, and thrust it deep inside one of the pockets of his kurta, so that the ground support teams would have no problem picking up his unconscious body for interrogation.

“The talker is out. Surround the hut.” I checked him for weapons and inside all his pockets, found a fat wad of currency in the pocket that had my beacon, that I stuffed back in – it would aid in wheedling information from the bastard – and laid the body out flat. No ID, of course.

Stepping over him to pick up the sat phone, I saw something glint on his chest; I checked again and realized with a smile that it was a little bit of the steel tranquilizer dart that hadn’t fully penetrated.

I swept the area ahead, where he’d been talking, visually and with sensors, and walked back to where I had peeked inside the hut, completing the circle of blips more or less equidistant from the hut.

I checked the inside through the little slit between the roofs and wall again. No change; the bomb seemed to be reaching a stage of togetherness. I smiled, in spite of myself. No problem. I straightened up and spoke. Crunch time.

“Check outside perimeter, maximum range. AS, call in support. We’re breaking and entering, shoot to down, no fire-explosives. Check in on outside perimeter scan. Go.”SC whispered, “Far south-east, possibly wildlife, small.”“Who’s at SC’s sides?”“SK.” “HS.”“Three of you, check it out. Slow and easy.”

A murmur of assents, and I kept my attention on the three dots breaking the circle and moving back down the valley. They turned back from the edge of my HUD, and I heard their discussion on the animal, a four-legged ruminating variety.

I turned back to the hut and cycled through all the scanners I had. Best to be doubly sure, when we had time on our side. Checking to my left to make sure we were all back in position, I whispered, “Problems, anyone?”

No silence had sounded better. “Go.”

I trod gently to the front door, PS beside me, thankful that we didn't wear the regulation-issue steel-toed boots that could be heard a mile away. About a metre away from the flimsy brown wooden ply panel, I switched to thermal HUD and surveyed the inside of the room at leisure. The bomb-maker was still at work, and the other two were still hunched against the farthest wall.

I shouldered my gun, aiming for the bomb-maker. PS tapped my shoulder; I took my left hand off the barrel and gave him a thumbs-up. Then I practiced shooting on entry, taking myself through thesequence of shots twice. Holding my gun ready, I planted my right foot firmly and hit the door with the flat of my left boot.

A minute or so later, I carefully examined the store of explosives they had: a low-grade RDX type. I heard AS directing the pilot of our trustworthy chopper closer until its downwash was a throb in our headsets, at which point in time I said, as loudly as I could without what I would consider impolite loudness, “Good job, people. Let’s get out, shall we?”

I suspected a few of us smiling. I smiled, too. Something is being done.

*CHAPTER II POSTED 15TH AUGUST. HAPPY INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY!*