Maelstrom Rising by G. D. Bakshi

Author:G. D. Bakshi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

18

THE FOUR HORSEMEN

1 November, 0700 hours: NSA office, 7 Race Course Road, New Delhi

THE NSA SEEMED TO have little time or patience for the sideshow in the Maldives. Davar was focused – and quite rightly so – on the most serious threat the country had ever faced in the history of terrorism. This was the Ghazwa-e-Hind in earnest. The terrorists had stolen a nuclear warhead and would probably try and use it against a high-value target in India – maybe New Delhi, Mumbai or Bengaluru. However, it seemed too stupid an idea – something that risked starting a nuclear war. Any government that would come up with such a reckless plan would be called insane. Was Pakistan involved? Or was there some level of covert connivance on the part of rogue elements within the Pakistani army and the ISI with a plan hatched essentially by the ISIS? That was a distinct possibility.

The NSA was livid. This was taking the terror offensive too far. Even if a single nuke went off anywhere in India, he was crystal clear that the country would react instantly with a nuclear strike on a Pakistani city with a matching profile. That could prompt a full-fledged nuclear exchange. So be it. India would not stomach a nuclear strike as part of Pakistan’s terror offensive.

The best option right now was to prevent such an attack on our cities from taking place at all. If so, the problem they faced was to identify how they could get the nuke to our cities.

The staff at the Special Forces Command had outlined a matrix of options to define what battle indicators to look for. What, then, were the options? The terrorists/hijackers could take the warhead overland to Afghanistan. But that was taking it farther away from Indian targets. That would be okay if they planned to hit Russia, countries in Central Asia, Israel or even America. Assuming that India was the target, what were the delivery vectors? Could it be a suitcase bomb sent in a truck or a train – the Samjhauta Express, maybe? Could it be delivered through an aircraft flying from within Pakistan itself, or from a third country? Could it come via sea? If so, how? In a trawler or dhow, or even a small fishing boat. The Strategic Forces Command was asked to explain the precise size and weight of a 20 KT device, so that everybody concerned could be educated on what to look out for. A plutonium warhead would have some 5 to 7 kg of plutonium while a uranium warhead could contain some 20 to 25 kg of highly enriched uranium. Besides, it would need to have a casing and triggering mechanism with the ring main circuit of conventional explosives to push it into a critical mass and start the chain reaction. This appeared to be a plutonium device probably fit for the Babur cruise missile.

Radioactivity checks were being conducted on all vehicles of trans-LoC trade traffic. Then, on the pretext of road repair and upgradation, they stopped all trans-LoC trade for a week.

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