Chapter # 3 (Tyaga n Arjun)

[CLICK HERE -> for CHAPTER 1 and CHAPTER 2 ]

Location: Thar Desert, Rajasthan, India. [26.92° N 70.5° E]
Status: Indian Territory
Time: 02:46hrs Date : NOV-7-2006


Siddarth awoke with a start. The low rumble of his stomach made him realize that he was hungry. He sat up in his tent, searching for his glasses and the water bottle he remembered putting somewhere nearby. His hands reached beyond his sleeping bag trailing over the cold desert sand until he found the water bottle. Sipping the water, he walked out of his tent into the moonlit desert-scape. Around him two other similar tents lay in silence. He mentally cursed himself for coming on this trip with the 'B' wing guys. It had been total chaos from the start. Only after a long drive into the desert for the camping trip they realized that no one had brought the food meant for the trip from the hostel. Thankfully, they had had some beer and snacks, which had kept them going for sometime.

Siddarth looked at the luminous reading on his watch. 15 minutes to 3 AM. He stood there savoring the clear and chilly night. Wiping his glasses, he pulled out a cigarette, lit it and sat on small rock that lay nearby. Several miles ahead lay the city that had been his home for the last 3 years and 7 months. Calling it a city was an overstatement in itself. It was a nondescript little town, which had nothing of importance except perhaps the only thing he and the others here had come for – a highly reputed engineering college. Hailing from Chennai, he had traveled across the country for this.

Siddharth took a deep drag on his cigarette. He blamed it on the academic rigor. Others just called him a 'nerd' – a reference that had gained a near 100% acceptance. After spending 3 complete years burying his head into textbooks and worrying about grades slipping by a hundredth, something snapped. Tired of it all, he decided that he was going to take life by the scruff of its neck. The trip was his first with these guys and was already turning out to be a bad idea. First they had forgotten the food, then he had puked before the bon fire after just a beer and now he was hungry. Feeling frustrated and angry he took another puff savoring the warmth against the chilly desert air.

Halfway thro his tobacco cylinder, he paused. He heard a deep growling to his right from the sky. 'Oh great, Now thunder showers', he thought. It was an extremely rare event that too, in this part of this country. However these weren't the clouds rumbling. He was pretty sure of that. It was growing louder by the minute and beginning to sound more mechanical. Curious, he stood up, walking towards the SUV and went around it. He scanned the night sky for the source of the sound that had become a deep roar. Whatever it was, it was big, and close. Still nothing was visible. Lighting another cigarette he rushed toward the nearby dune to get a clear view over the area. It was a deep whine now – completely mechanical. An engine – he was sure of that. He felt the familiar adrenaline rush that he felt whenever he heard the deep roar of engines – a fetish that had driven him toward mechanical engineering. As he climbed up the dune, he tried to figure out the source, just like he always did playing back the digitized engine roars on his computer. He had a library of thousands of digitized noises right from a TVS 50 to an F1 V12 engine to a thrust vector controlled twin turbo advanced Jet engine. But this was one sound he had never heard before. The noise had just got deafening.

As he reached the top of the dune, he spotted a flash of light far to his right but it was not clear. As he stood there with his hand over his eyes trying hard to focus into the night sky thro his glasses, the light source grew big in size and so did the noise.

Then it happened. Out of nowhere, a big black bird of steel swooped down into the desert about 300 metres before him. Siddharth watched the giant craft hit the smooth desert floor kicking up a huge wall of weathered desert sand up into the air like the high-crest waves of the ocean. Screeching and skidding, the craft dragged through the heavy sand leaving a huge trail of ashes until it finally came to rest. Siddarth stood there open mouthed - his cigarette blown into the wind – shocked and not believing what he was seeing. A Su-47 Berkut had crashed right in front of his eyes. It stood there, the dark beast with flames spurting around.

Siddharth would never know what made him move towards that black silent bird with such haste – but he did. As he breathlessly reached the craft, he heard the other guys running up towards him. The sound had woken them up. More proof that it was all real. He slowed down as he neared the still bird. The only sounds were that of a small electronic whine from inside. Then the cockpit door slid back and the dark silhouette of the pilot stumbled out. He took a couple of staggering steps towards them before collapsing into the sand.

The boys acted swiftly. The flames were beginning to gather momentum and soon the whole thing would blow up. As siddharth walked away from the plane, pulling the unconscious form of its pilot, a huge burst of flame spread across the flying machine. He stopped as if mesmerized. There in the light of those flames he saw before his eyes one of the most advanced fighter jets he had ever seen in his life. It was mean, sleek and deadly. More shockingly as the tail was illuminated he saw the three big letters emblazoned on it: IAF. Then it blew. Siddharth thought that it sounded like a small nuclear explosion........

......The boys managed to carry the unconscious pilot to the tent. In the light they got a good look at the man they had helped. He was dressed in Indian Commando fatigues. And stitched over on the right side on his chest were the words 'THE HAWK'. His shoulder was bleeding and a dried up streak of blood stretched from his mouth plus there were bullet wounds on his right thigh. And his left hand held something - a device which looked like a miniature hard drive. The 8 boys stood there staring at the man who had dropped from the sky, unsure of what to do, and frightened by the surreal nature of what was happening. Around them, the night sky over the Great Indian desert was clear and silent as it had been and the flames had begun to die on the crashed bird. Little did they realize the dangers they were going to face over the course of the next two days…..


At the same time, down south in God’s Own Country, a small fishing boat came into the fishing docks. The boat was moving slowly towards the small town of Parassala near Tirvananthapuram. Vallathol Narayanan, the docks watchman ever since it was built looked at the boat, scratching his head. The Motorboat spluttered and stopped near the artificial stretch of land built to host the tiny lighthouse for the town. No fishing boat comes in at 3 AM in the morning. Curiosity piqued Narayanan. He took a sip from his Brandy bottle, tied his scarf on his head and marched out to the Lighthouse to see what was wrong. He reached the lighthouse and flashed his dirty-yellow flashlight on the boat. The boat was empty. He walked into the water and reached the boat and climbed in.

Finding the cabin door ajar, he went in and flashed the light into the storage door on the floor. His eyes could see someone’s legs. Taking another sip from his Brandy bottle, he climbed down the stairs into the storage area. Halfway thro the stairs he stopped, frozen with fear. There lay in front of him two human corpses – rigged with bullet holes all over. He took a step back and turned fast to get out of the boat. A shovel came from nowhere and hit Narayanan’s head sending him headlong into the bottom of the boat. THE HOUND we saw driving the army SUV in the Island, climbed down the stairs to finish his job. THE HOUND never leaves anything incomplete… except for THE HAWK.

Chapter # 2 (Arjun & Raju)

[Please Read CHAPTER 1 before reading this.]

Location: Jaffna[6°54′N 79°54′E]
Status: Disputed
Time: 0205Hrs Date: SEP-9-1994

The 'A' team of the guerilla unit of the indian peace keeping force (IPKF) moved quietly into the sleeping town of jaffna. In total silence the 15 men, covered in dark camouflage clothing advanced towards the town centre. 6 similar teams were laying seige to the town from other directions. None of them had encountered resistance yet. It was deadly silent.

Captain Vijay crounched behind the palms and waited. They would now have to make a run into the open in order to capture the Jaffna university - the strong hold of the LTTE leadership. Intelligence reports had suggested that the LTTE leadership were meeting there. Vijay, along with 14 others waited for the signal. His radio crackled, "Team Alpha, Proceed to step 4"The Alpha team spread out into the open town centre towards the Jaffna university. They approached it in a sweeping semi circle. Vijay ran towards its west wall. Quickly he scaled the wall and dropped down silently on the other side. On either side of him other commandos materialised. They were in. They waited. Radio crackled again, "Alpha, No reistance detected. Proceed towards Building Z".Building Z was the main academic building. They expected to lay seige to it with the least resistance. The dorms would be a different matter though. The targets would be there. They expected some resistance there but that was Charlie's problem. The dark silhoutte of the Main academic building loomed before them like a dark monster. Total silence.

Vijay had a bad feeling about this. Ever since they had arrived at the beach quiet and easy, he had been queasy. At each step, he expected someone to break this comfort; open fire, but none had come so far. It had been too easy, too quiet - almost as if that had been the intention. His eyes surveyed the dark university windows that fronted the face of the building they were approaching. He slowed down. On either side other members of Alpha swept past him quickly gaining on the still building. Vijay stopped. Something just wasnt right. He surveyed the dark rows of closed windows and thought he saw a one of them open up slightly. That was when it all happened - a lot of things; simultaneously and rapidly. The lights came on with the force of a mid day sun.

Vijay saw team alpha caught in the middle of the open ground before the building. They started to scamper but were totally trapped. Almost simulatenously the sound of the deadly Automatics started. It was a bloody trap. They had been compromised. It was like being in hell. Bullets whizzed past Vijay as he ran back towards the west wall. His face was set in a permanent mask of terror. He had just seen all his team mates fall down to the ground like nine pins. He had never been more terrified before. Several minutes later, as Vijay sat with the wounded and bruised survivors, on the hovercraft back to the base, he realised that he was the only member team alpha to make it back. They had been sitting ducks. 60 soldiers killed in under 3 minutes. The whole operation had been a set up. There had been a leak. Terror slowly became anger.

Over the course of the 15 minute ride to the base, anger bacame hatred. Hatred for one particular man - the man who sold his country and killed his team. Several hours later as the town of jaffna came to grips with the reality, a street tramp, dressed in tattered and soiled clothes sat outside the Jaffna university. He was munching on some dry bread he had bought at the local bakery. No one paid attention to him nor did they notice his bleeding left leg.....

Chapter # 1 (Tyaga n Arjun)

[THIS IS A NEW ATTEMPT AT STORY TELLING BY TWO LUNATICS. ARJUN & TYAGA. YOUR VIEWS, SUPPORT AND SUGGESTIONS ARE NEEDED. ]

Location: Island 15312 [5.57° N 72.62° E]
Status: Classified (Indian Administration)
Time: 1830Hrs Date: NOV-7-2006

The Island was silent. The total area of the 15312 Island is 7 square miles. The eastern portion of the Island is marked by a small hillock rising for about 40 metres above sea level. Though there is a steep gradient of 9 degrees from the western coastal plains to the top, the opposite face is a steep 40-metre wall plunging into the Indian Ocean with sharp rocks jutting out all over the base. Overall the Island looks like the famous Indian Samosa cut into half. The top of the hillock spans an area of 2 miles flat.

To any unsuspecting viewer on the first sight it just looked like an uninhabited chunk of land in the Great Indian Ocean. Many thought that it was just a piece of land extending from the Lakshadweep archipelago. But many did not know the importance of activities going on in the island.

Covered with shrubs and grasslands on the eastern side, the vegetation improved as the elevation increased. The vegetation was quite exotic ranging from tundra trees to the typical palm and coconut trees densely placed on the top. This enormous canopy was a good cover for the one and only concrete structure on the top of the hill with a small-unpaved road connecting the building to one of the 4 hidden piers and barracks in the base of the hillock.

The Concrete structure was a 1.5-mile square block painted in military colors providing excellent camouflage and making it almost impossible for the naked eyes to spot from a distance. It was an engineering marvel in itself. The building housed 6 storeys. With the top floor used for storage and vehicle garages, other floors ran down deep into the ground. Though the top 3 storeys would be similar to any military base worldwide, the final 3 storeys marked the importance of this classified Indian Army Base known only to the top people in the government and Army Staff. Only the elite unit of Army was sanctioned to work in the base and it is the best-guarded secret of India.

The Island was silent. With the sun rapidly disappearing behind the hillock, darkness loomed over the Island. Apart from the usual eerie silence that was the characteristic of the island, there was something unusual about the building. The east wall of the building had a blast door with reinforced steel and lead. There were no windows on the other 3 sides of the building. The walls were concrete on 3 sides. But a portion of the wall for about 4 meters on the left side of the blast door was made of brick. It was initially used as the alternate access to the building while the blast door was being constructed. Since completion, the brick wall was left as it was and concealed for exits during emergency.

Everything was silent around the building. The whole island was dotted with state of the art security gadgets and it was monitored 24/7. The blast door was closed. The red LEDs marking the emergency situation was on near the blast door. Exactly at 1837hrs IST, the brick wall on the left side of the blast door exploded with a shattering noise that shook the building. From the broken wall came a black Indian Army spec-Scorpio smashing the remaining parts of the brick into smithereens. It thundered down the dark road towards Pier-1 and was driven with the skill of an F1 Pilot. Inside the Scorpio was 'THE HOUND', trying hard to concentrate on the path ahead. He was breathing hard with blood flowing from his forehead into his eye-sockets.

As the Indian Army-spec Scorpio swerved along the tricky mountain road to the Pier-1, the whole building exploded with a massive explosion shaking the island altogether. The flame emerged from the building plummeting the roof a mile up into the sky and erupting into an enormous mushroom cloud of fire. In moments pieces of the building and the materials inside it were raining down on the island and the waters surrounding it.

Just a few seconds before the explosion, the mountainous wall on the western part of the island had started moving. A portion of the wall had opened up a cavity in the mountain and revealed a rectangular hole – almost 50 metres in height and 150 metres in length - right at the centre of the wall. The epicentre of the explosion was at the 3 floor of the base and was at the blast door side of the building. The impact of the blast door forced the powerful forces to turn down inside the base and the flames rushed out of the cavity in the western wall. It was a majestic sight, and to any layman it would have looked like the mountain was breathing fire out.

The flames reached about 150 metres from the opening and started to fold back into the opening. Just then a black Sukhoi 47 Berkut MKI gunned out of the cavity like a phoenix out of the ashes. The pieces clinging on to the wings of the Su-47 Berkut MKI were still on fire and the big black and sleek bird looked like fiery eagle on its flight. Inside the cockpit of the worlds most advanced fighter jet was 'THE HAWK'. Soon the SU-47 Berkut MKI disappeared into the horizon shaking off the burnt pieces of the base into the Indian Ocean.

The Island would soon be silent once again, as the flames were dying out fast.



To be continued…