Chapter XLII: Operation TAKE HOLD, Part II
0400hrs, 17 December 2013 Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
"There are only two kinds of people in this world. Good people who do good deeds. And bad people who do bad. That's the only difference in human beings. There's no other difference." Razia Khan, My Name is Khan.
Meanwhile, in India, Comrade Ramesh had his team of ten insurgents in a minibus, ready for the time to strike. He held his AKM (most people couldn't tell the difference between the AK-47 and the AKM, but whatever) against his chest, pounding with nervousness, but he was ready to do his duty.
The steamy air felt gross, but this was so much better than squatting in the jungles of Orissa somewhere. Well, as good as squatting in a minibus could get, and at any rate, his comrades that he had left behind there were suffering all the same from Indian military assaults, unrelenting ever since Operation Green Hunt had started in 2010. Ramesh sighed. Those were the days…tromping around the jungle, spreading the word of Chairman Mao around, making sure everyone had what they needed. The villagers in Koraput district, where he had been stationed, always needed clean water, education, a way of earning money, and protection of their land. That was which the Naxalites had provided. Until it all got messed up.
"Are you all ready, comrades?" he asked the people sitting in the back of the minibus. They all nodded their heads in acknowledgement. He had heard some loud pops and bangs in the distance about an hour ago, but they had stopped after a couple of minutes. Ramesh was sure that it was nothing.
"Very good then comrades. We shall begin."
The doors opened up on the minibus and they started their attack. Ramesh lead his team from a side alley to Commercial Street, keeping low and quiet in anticipation of this event.
Commercial Street was exactly that; it was filled with lots of clothes shops, specialty stores, wedding planners (always important, even more so in India), mobile and electronics outlets, and even the odd restaurant, the main one being Café Coffee Day on the south end of the street. Of course on the side streets leading to and from Commercial Street there were chaiwallas, people hawking bindis, bangles and brooches, selling newspapers, and the like.
Despite it only being 0400 in the morning, it was kind of a good time to place an attack. Not too many people to get in the way, but there were some innocents were around to become a statistic. Plus, the response time of the authorities would be drastically reduced at this time in the morning, and by the time his team had cut a swath of destruction, he would be safely…
"Comrade, the police are here!"
"What!" He could scarcely believe his eyes. There was a line of police cars in front of them, with several officers armed with rifles and pistols.
"Swipe them away!" he ordered. His team opened fire on the police, scattering some of them, but some stayed and fought on, firing their Enfield bolt-action rifles and at his team. It only took them a couple of seconds for Ramesh's team to clear out all of police out of the area, but the plan was already starting to fall apart. Instead of slicing a path destruction from Commercial Street to Brigades, Ramesh's team was now fighting for their life as multiple police units swarmed in. They were only armed with light weapons, but when twenty or bolt-action rifles are firing from all different angles it didn't matter how well armed you were, it only took one bullet to kill you.
"Comrade!" one of the squad members called out. "We've lost two members already!"
"Keep pushing forward!" Ramesh yelled out, firing a burst from his AK at a police officer hiding behind a newspaper stall. He went down.
Several teams were actually supposed to be attacking this area, actually, due to its high commercial value and military presence. But someone had got to them first.
That someone was the 108th South Indian Defence Force.
"All units, this is Devi Actual, radio check," Lt. Iyer said over her radio. She, Col. Krishnan, and her XO, Major Elizabeth John were at a temporary operating post in Cubbon Park, less than a kilometer away from Commercial Street.
"Durga 52 reporting in," Sgt. Prasad replied. She, along with Corporal Shetty were with a squad of soldiers from their unit near Dispensary Road, right up from Commercial Street.
"Kali 53, reporting in."
"Lakshmi 54, reporting in."
"Radha 55, reporting in."
"Padma 56, reporting in."
"All units have reported in Ma'am," Lt. Iyer said to Col. Krishnan.
"Very good." Krishnan wiped the sweat off her forehead (despite it being winter, it was still very humid outside), removing the black beret that she usually wore. Like most of the soldiers, she was wearing a variant of the MARPAT uniform that the US Marine Corps wore, along with a tactical vest and P226 strapped to her leg. "Standby."
"Roger, standing by," Prasad replied. "Hey, Shetty."
"Yeah," Shetty said, hefting her MG4 machine gun from one arm to the other.
"That gunfire sounds pretty close," Prasad noted. "Take Jyothi and see if they need help."
"Aren't our orders to stay here?" She coughed, mainly from all of the dust that was in the air.
"Shetty…" Prasad glared at her.
"Fine, fine. Hey Jyothi! Come with me!" The two women ran down the street to see what was going on with the police units over there. Shetty peered around a corner, looking down a side street that ran toward Commercial.
"Uh, it's not looking good over here!" she yelled into her walkie-talkie. She saw a police officer go down, hit by a burst of AKM fire. "The police are outgunned by the terrorists!"
"Great." Prasad rolled her eyes and hit the transmit button on her radio. "This is Durga 52, to Devi Actual, over."
"Go ahead, Durga 52."
"Actual, we have a major situation developing here on Commercial street," she said, running toward Shetty's position. "Police units are being forced back by insurgent forces and might make a break for Safina Plaza, over."
"Standby, 52, we're still cleaning up the mess over here by the High Court," Iyer said back. "Colonel!"
"What is it?" Krishnan was still looking over those maps and calling out orders to the other units. There were spots of hostile activity in and around the park, the High Court of Karnataka, and the Shivaji Nagar bus station.
"52 says that the police on Commercial are having a hard time keeping the insurgents back."
"Then have them engage them," she replied calmly.
"Got it." Iyer lifted the receiver back up. "Durga 52, you are clear to engage the hostiles. Over."
"Received! Out!" Prasad slapped Shetty on the shoulder, which was the indicator to move forward. "Take them out!"
Shetty moved around the corner, sticking close to the wall on the left side while Prasad had part of her squad (fire team "Alpha") set up a bounding overwatch on the left corner. She sent fire team "Bravo" further down Dispensary Road to try and outflank the approaching terrorists.
"Alpha team, move forward!" She aimed her M16A4 down the road, complete with M203 grenade launcher and optics on the rail mount.
"Contact, at one o'clock!" Shetty yelled out. She fired a burst from her MG4, which sent the hostile contact fleeing backward.
"Comrade, there are more of the police! And they are heavily armed!"
Ramesh scurried around some of the police cars and tried to make a turn onto Dispensary, but was blocked off by Prasad's fire team Bravo rounding the corner and laying down a wall of fire that killed two more of his men and sent the rest tumbling back.
"We can still get around them if we swing around Dispensary and head up to Safina!" he yelled to the six surviving members of his team. "Kill anyone who stands in your way!"
One of his comrades got a lucky shot off on one of fire team Bravo's members, collapsing her in an alleyway.
"Fuck!" he heard the team leader yell. "Durga 52, this is Bravo, we have a person down!"
"Keep up the attack!" he yelled.
The alley was more like a narrow street than a simple place between buildings, and Ramesh's comrades moved aggressively forward, their AKs pumping out death. Brass sprayed everywhere, cling clanging on the ground. Ramesh's gun clicked empty, and he ejected the magazine to put a new one in. One thing that the movies never seemed to show was the badass looking way you could reload an AK; you had to rock the magazine front to back when inserting it into the chamber. Even better, you could knock the empty magazine off by hitting the magazine release and popping the next one in, expediting the reloading process. It was just another trick that Ramesh had learned in his Naxalite days.
The opposing team was at a disadvantage, with a squadmate down, one of them had to pull the other out of the line of fire while the other two engaged the hostile force, providing a base of fire. The machine gunner for Bravo team aggressively switched from firing short bursts to firing a longer, more concentrated bursts of fire, trying to pin down Ramesh's team.
He wasn't having any of that though. "Move forward!" he encouraged. "For the revolution!" Firing another burst, they kept forcing the fire team back.
Fire team Alpha was running up Commercial Street, having spotted Ramesh's team take a side route and straight into Bravo.
"Bravo, hold on, we're coming toward you!" Prasad yelled into her radio. The sound of gunfire intensified as they approached Bravo team's position. A long burst of machine gun fire was met with several barks of multiple AK47s firing back.
"I'm falling back, we can't hold these guys off any longer!" came the response. "We're moving up Dispensary road and taking up a blocking position."
"Affirmative," Prasad replied. "Hurry it up!" she yelled to the rest of her fire team.
They finally got to the side street, and dashed past the fallen brass and empty magazines that the terrorists had left behind. Prasad spotted the other fire team crouching behind some dumpsters, one of them administering first aid to their fallen squadmate. She winced in pain, lying there with some blood pooling out on the ground. It looked black in the pre-dawn light.
"Chandra, how is she doing?" Prasad asked the team leader.
"Madhuri is fine, the vest saved her from any serious injury, but she also took a bullet in the leg," the TL replied, putting a bandage on the wound. "You'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" Madhuri replied. She brushed back the twin French braids that had fallen in front of her shoulders during the gunfight. "It looks really bad."
"Hey, I'm sure you'll make it out," the TL smiled to her.
"Okay," Prasad said, taking a deep breath in, trying not to panic at the developing situation. "We're going to Safina Plaza to get the bad guys."
"Be careful," the TL said. "One of the men, I think he was in charge, was really dangerous. He started giving orders and then they all charged at us like they were mad."
"Understood. Stay here and take care of her."
"Alright."
Prasad took her squad up the road to Safina Plaza, another shopping area within Shivaji Nagar. Safina Plaza was actually a two story shopping center, built sometime last century with the expansion of commerce in mind. The management rotated stalls in there; so every couple of weeks there was a new display. Last month it was a bunch of saris, dupattas and lungis being sold there; this month, provided if it survived, was going to be handmade items and gifts from the all the various different states in India.
"Hold up here!" she yelled in front of the taxi and bus stop in front of the plaza. She looked around the area, but the terrorists were nowhere to be found. No guns pointing from the second floor, no terrorists at the entrance, and no evidence that they might have come in there. But Prasad just had a gut feeling that they were in there. That's where she would go if being hunted down by a hostile force; in there, there were lots of places to get the drop on an unsuspecting target. The stairwells, the sharp corners, the open center in the middle of the building…it was a nightmare in there.
"Okay, Jyothi, go with Shetty around to the left entrance and try to see if they're in there."
"Why do I have to go with…" Shetty complained, but Prasad wasn't having it from her.
"Hey! Go!"
"Fine, fine, let's move out." Shetty and Jyothi both ran around to the left, seeing if any of the terrorists had left or were still in the building.
"Durga 52 to Bravo," Prasad said, talking into her radio. "How's Madhuri holding up?"
"She's doing good, Devi Actual is sending an ambulance unit to pick her up."
"Good." Prasad was relieved to hear that help was on the way for their fallen comrade. Switching gears, she contacted Lt. Iyer. "Devi Actual, this is Durga 52, come in."
"Go ahead."
"We've tracked the location of the terrorists to Safina Plaza near Infantry Road and the Army Area, over."
Iyer nodded at the information, writing down on a piece of paper and handing it to Col. Krishnan, who was still looking at maps and trying to get the situation contained.
"Chief Minister, I understand…" she said over her mobile phone, trying to block out Iyer's conversation. "We are doing the best we can to contain the situation here…I know it's bad, but it could have been much worse if we had not received information from a government source…"
"And what government source would that be?!" Chief Minister Krishna Gowda screamed on the other end. He was part of the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party, sometimes known for going off on the deep end when it came to certain religious or national defence issues.
"Sir, it was someone in the Japanese government. I don't know who it was, but they knew our operating procedure, our equipment, even my name and personal history, sir."
The CM sighed and wondered what the hell this cruel world was coming to. He was going to be damned if some foreigners from Japan told him what to do. But they had informed the 108th of the situation and at last, his pet project could finally have some merit…and more funding. Which meant more prestige and perhaps a run for the Prime Minister's office. Hell, he would take the President's office, even though that didn't really do much in terms of actual power.
"Alright, just take care of the situation. I'll get back to you."
"Understood." Krishnan hung up the phone and went back to her maps
In the meanwhile, Iyer was talking to Prasad.
"Received. Army personnel from the Madras Engineers are locking down the area and should be there to assist in ten minutes. Over."
"Affirmative. We'll try to contain the situation here, out."
But Prasad was not going to let the army do that. She and her team, along with the 108th South Indian Defence Force had blunted and destroyed the majority of the cells attacking Bangalore, and she was not going to let some pissant terrorist group stand in her way, let alone get taken down by the army and have them take all the credit.
"What the hell is the Army doing anyway?" Prasad said into her radio. "They have a base right behind me."
"Uh, they're busy, a suicide bomber took out the entrance to the Army Area, over," came the response from Iyer.
"Great."
Prasad lifted her M16A4 to the firing position and moved up the stairs that led to the entrance of Safina Plaza. "This is Durga 52, I'm going in."
"That's a negative, do not engage…"
Prasad turned the radio off. That was enough of that.
She continued forward, her weapon at the ready. She stopped at the first hallway; it was a couple of meters away from the entrance, with a staircase in front of her that lead to the second floor, a bunch of stores on her left and an empty showroom on her right that usually held stalls for vendors and the like. Prasad suddenly saw some movement in the showroom. Two men, AKMs and tactical vests. They were stumbling around in the dark and were not paying attention to their mission, which was probably to watch the entrance.
Since they hadn't noticed her, Prasad had some time to get the kill shot in. She flipped the sight for the M203 and registered the distance from her to the terrorists; about fifty meters away. Close, but not too dangerous. She shifted her left hand from underneath the barrel of her M16A4 to the trigger of the M203; she had already loaded a round beforehand. Sighting in, she pulled the trigger and sent a 40mm grenade spiraling toward their position. A loud, startling bang echoed in the empty showroom, and the two men fell back, dead.
"This is Durga 52, two tangos down."
No response.
"This is…oh dammit." She had to turn the radio back on, duh.
"This is Durga 52, two tangos down," Prasad said.
"Uh…roger," Lt. Iyer replied. "Did they attack you outside?" Iyer guessed that Prasad had entered the building and had started to engage the insurgents. She would have a talk with her after this entire mess had blown over…if she survived.
"Yes," Prasad said, lying blatantly. "Yes they did."
"Understood," Iyer said. "Continue to patrol the area outside Safina Plaza, army units are ten minutes out."
"Roger. Out."
"Tamils," Prasad rolled her eyes and released the transmit button on her radio. "They'll believe anything these days." She continued onward, looking for more targets.
"Ramesh, they're picking us off like flies. We've only got you, me, Padma and Shashil left," one of the squadmates told Comrade Ramesh. They were holed up in a jewelry store on the second floor, the shiny diamonds and precious stones glistening in the moonlight. Ramesh had seen Prasad come in and take out two more of his men…his men! The police were nothing compared to what these soldiers were.
"Dammit!" Ramesh hissed, punching the floor in anger.
Downstairs, Prasad heard a loud noise, then some scurrying about.
"Durga 52, Durga 52, this is Bravo, come in, over,"
Fuck, that stupid radio, she thought to herself. She took cover behind a wall that was next to the stairs and pressed the transmit button.
"Yeah, I can hear you, Bravo," she whispered into it.
"The ambulance is here and they're taking Maddie away. What are your orders, over?"
"Get to Safina Plaza and set up a blocking position near the entrance, facing the Army Area, over."
"Roger."
Upstairs, things were getting panicky.
"Ramesh, we need to move! They're calling for reinforcements and we'll be trapped in here!" The other squad members were taking up positions by the stairs, aiming their AK-47s and AKMs downrange.
Ramesh cursed the day he had met Jadeite; something inside of him wondered if this was all a setup to get rid of the remain Naxalites in the area. He sighed and started to move toward to another stairwell that was near a parking lot (well, more like a huge bike rack for motorcycles and stuff). As he did so, there was a loud explosion, and he turned around to see the last three members of his squad blown up in an explosion. There was the thudding of some boots coming up the stairs, and for a moment, he saw the soldiers that had been giving him trouble. They were clad in a weird, boxy, green/black camouflage, with heavy tactical vests, M16-type weapons that were rarely found in India other than some military units, and helmets in the same camouflage pattern as their uniforms. They were completely different than the soldiers he had fought against when he was a Naxalite, and it showed.
"There's one of them, over there!" Bravo team leader shouted out to Prasad.
"I see him!" Prasad lifted her M16A4 and sighted it on the silhouette opposite of her. She fired a burst.
"Ow!" Ramesh exclaimed, dropping his AKM and clutching his head with his left hand. He looked at it; the hand was bloody.
"Did you get him?" Bravo TL asked Prasad.
"I don't know," she replied, still keeping her M16A4 at the ready. "Move up, and I'll cover."
"Got it." Bravo team stacked up and moved up the stairs and toward the opposite side of the second floor, checking the bodies of the three terrorists as they went.
"I've got some blood, an AK, but nobody here," the TL yelled.
"Shit," Prasad muttered. "Keep looking!"
Ramesh had made his way down the opposite flight of stairs, stopping only to check the corners to make sure those soldiers didn't get him like the others. He had come this far, and had seen his revolutionary brothers shot down time after time, only for him to escape and raise a whole new army to fight the imperialists. Such was the nature of insurgent warfare. Ramesh found the exit, finally, and ran out. Alpha team, who was supposed to be guarding that exit, had rushed in and missed seeing him by a scant few seconds. He made his escape into the darkness, running as fast as he could away from the madness.
"Alpha, what the hell are you doing here?" Prasad yelled at the fire team as they came charging up the stairs.
"I thought you needed help!" Shetty yelled back.
"Fuck! You're supposed to be guarding the west exit! Now that one terrorist has gotten away!"
"I didn't see anything!" Shetty protested.
Prasad threw up her hands in frustration and shook her head. "Dammit, the LT doesn't know we're in here, and if we let one get away…" She thought for a second, before turning to Bravo's TL.
"Wait, you said that you found some blood?"
"Yeah? Why?"
"Because he might have left a trail. Shetty, take Bravo and see if you can find anything. I'll stay outside and keep the Army guys busy."
"Alright." Shetty motioned to Bravo team, and they went sprinting after the blood trail that Ramesh had left behind.
"Durga 52, this is Devi Actual, come in, over."
Prasad reached for her radio. "Yeah, this is 52, go ahead."
"Army units are arriving at your location, from the Madras Engineers, assist their operations in the area."
"Roger, out."
Prasad ran back down the stairs and dashed toward the entrance, just in time to see a couple of Army trucks pull up and start unloading soldiers.
"Who's in command here?" one of them yelled out (in mangled Kannada). Prasad recognized him instantly as a Sikh; with their distinctive Dastar (or turban), long, uncut beards and a Kirpan sword (or representation thereof) hanging by his side, the Sikhs were as badass as they came. Except, well, maybe Gurkas.
"I am," Prasad yelled out. The Sikh came over, touting his INSAS rifle, along with a couple of other soldiers.
"I'm Havildar (Sergeant) Vikram Singh, Madras Engineer Group, what's the situation here?" he said in very bad Kannada. It was obvious that he was from up north.
"He said…" one of the soldiers that had come over with him started to say, but Singh glared at him. Now it was clear that soldier knew Kannada.
"There were some terrorists in there, but they have been cleared out," Prasad replied, trying not to give away too much. "We engaged them from the outside and took down several of them, but we're looking for some more that might have escaped."
"Hmmm," Havildar Singh replied, trying to keep up with the rapid-fire Kannada that sounded so strange to his Punjabi ears. He turned to the other soldier. "Sepoy Shinde, what the hell did she say?" he asked him in Punjabi.
Shinde hated being the go between the locals and the Army units; since there was so many different languages, translators were in high demand, and since he spoke the odd combination of Kannada, Punjabi, Hindi and English, he had been pressed into service by his overbearing and patriotic father, who had fought in the IPKF in Sri Lanka, and against the Pakistanis in the Kargil War.
"She said that they cleared out the building since there were terrorists in it," he simplified it down for Singh.
"Really? I'm impressed. I wasn't quite sure that they were up to that task, being trained by those mercenaries from America and all."
"He said that he was impressed by your work." Again, Shinde kept most of the unnecessary comments out.
"That's nice," Prasad replied coldly. "Tell him that he can take his force in and make sure that everything is secure."
Singh didn't take that comment very well. "That's all well and good, but can't you guys secure the building while we go after the terrorists? You know, let the real soldiers do the work?"
Prasad needed to get away from this conversation really fast, and fortunately for her, it came in the form of a message from Bravo team.
"This is Bravo, we've found the blood trail and are in pursuit of a suspect, heading toward Cubbon and MG Road, over."
"Roger that," Prasad said. "Excuse me, we've just found the terrorist, now if you would excuse me, I have a war to fight."
With that, she ran off, leaving the confused Shinde to explain to a very angry Singh why they were in charge of the cleanup operation.
"Where are they?!" Bravo yelled out to Shetty.
"He's headed over toward the rickshaws, on Cubbon!" she yelled back, trying to get a bead on the man running away from their squad. He was about 100 meters away, bleeding from the head, with a pistol in hand. So far, he hadn't shot at them, but if he did…
The man turned around and fired off a shot, the rounds zipping by and changing the ROE completely from pursuit, to takedown.
"This is Durga 52, I'm approaching from your five o'clock!" Prasad said into the radio, another 100 meters behind the pursuit team. She cringed as the target fired off some more bullets, and moved slightly to the right to avoid the ricochets bouncing off of the asphalt.
"We've got him!" Shetty aimed her MG4 at the fleeing target, and lowered her sights on the man's legs. Of course, that was not a very good idea, and it was a tactic that was not to be used unless in a desperate situation, but a massive terrorist attack on the Republic of India? Yeah, that counted.
Right in front of the man however, there was an auto rickshaw. More importantly, there was an auto rickshaw driver in it, starting his day early. Before they had any time to react, he had hopped in and told the sleepy driver to gun it, throwing a 100 rupee note in his lap. The driver, being a responsive one (especially to money), quickly threw his sleep away and drove off, irregardless that the man he was transporting had just snapped off some shots at local law enforcement. Hey, from where he was sitting, they could have been common thugs for all he cared.
"Stop!" Shetty yelled out. She fired a burst from her MG4. This only spurred the driver on, and within a couple of seconds, the driver and his passenger were gone.
"Goddammit!" Prasad cursed, arriving at where the rest of the team was gasping for breath, on the sidewalk near MG road.
"We almost had him," Shetty groaned, hefting her MG4 from the firing position to the ready position.
"Great, how am I going to explain this to the LT?" Prasad looked around. There were fires on the horizon, from early on in the night when the 108th had intercepted terrorist cell activity, and from the ones that they had missed as well. They couldn't win them all.
"Alright, let's get back to Safina and regroup," Prasad said to her team. "I'll try to explain everything to Lt. Iyer and we'll get this sorted out. Good job out there," she reassured, despite the setback. "We even got a compliment from the Army." Well, as good a slighting remark from a pompous Sikh would have to suffice, for now at least.
"Move out," she ordered. The troopers started to jog back to Safina plaza, their gear and weapons rustling in the pre-dawn darkness, illuminated by the fires from the attacks and streetlamps that lined Cubbon and MG road.