North from Calcutta Read online

  NORTH FROM CALCUTTA

  A Novel

  By

  Duane Evans

  Pecos Moon, LLC

  Published in U.S.A.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue, activities, and events described are the product of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by Duane Evans.

  All Rights Reserved.

  First Edition: July 2009

  Published in the United States by Pecos Moon, LLC

  www.pecosmoon.com

  Cover Design by Gregory C. Gillam

  Layout Design by Christopher B. Hughes

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9819454-0-8

  ISBN 10: 0-9819454-0-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to my family.

  Acknowledgements

  It has been famously said that it takes a village to raise a child, and no less can be said about what is required to write and produce a book. It is a community project that involves writers, editors, graphic design artists, book designers, and many others who support the effort by providing constructive comments and encouragement. I am fortunate that in the case of North From Calcutta, I can count all of the people who served in those diverse roles as personal friends and that has added immensely to the satisfaction I have in seeing the publication of this book.

  I would like to acknowledge the following people whose advice, efforts, and work have been instrumental in the writing and publication of North From Calcutta. To Victor J. Banis who was the first from the literary world to take an interest in the story and who devoted much of his time in reviewing the manuscript, I owe a great debt of thanks. Similarly, I am indebted to Gregory C. Gillam, who not only designed the jacket cover, but also maintained a dialogue with me throughout the writing of the book, providing spot-on insight and constant encouragement. And a special thanks to my editor, Deborah Rhoney, whose technical skills and patience were needed in equal amounts.

  I would be remiss if I did not also express my appreciation to the members of the “Kingdom” Book Club who took the time to read the manuscript and discuss with me their comments and recommendations for improvements. Finally, I am grateful to friends and family who read the manuscript and provided constructive criticism, encouragement, and support.

  All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or any other U.S. government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. government authentication of information or CIA endorsement of the author’s views. This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

  Author’s Note

  The conflict over Kashmir, which serves as the backdrop to North From Calcutta, has its roots in the British departure from the Indian subcontinent in 1947 when the region was partitioned into the independent nations of Pakistan and India. The goal was to provide one country for Muslims and another for Hindus and Sikhs.

  At the time of the partition, Kashmir was considered an independent “princely state” and was ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, a Hindu. The population of Kashmir, however, was predominantly Muslim. Due to circumstance and events in the aftermath of the partition, Singh agreed to India’s accession of Kashmir. Fighting ensued, resulting in the first full blown war between India and Pakistan. It ended in a stalemate with India occupying over two-thirds of Kashmir and the rest of the territory being controlled by Pakistan. Two other wars were to follow in 1965 and 1971.

  To this day, Kashmir remains divided between the two antagonistic neighbors. The situation has become even more dangerous with global implications since both India and Pakistan are now armed with nuclear weapons. Additionally, the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism, or transnational Islam as some prefer to say, has further complicated the issue as groups representing this dynamic have become increasingly involved in trying to drive India from Kashmir.

  Both parties in this dispute make persuasive arguments supporting their claim to Kashmir, and no side is taken in this book about the rightfulness of either claim.

  Prologue

  In a remote valley deep in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, Abu Shafik sits on the dirt floor of a Lashkar-e-Taiba safe house, his back resting against the cool mud wall. To his left, a laptop computer is perched on a low table. On his right, an AK-47 lies beside him.

  Taking a deep drag from his third cigarette of the morning, he listens to the unseasonable winter rain falling outside and wishes he could get a few more hours of rest. He glances down at the black face of his watch and sees it is almost time to meet his subordinate commanders. They are anxious to know what’s going on, and he is anxious to tell them.

  Re-energized by the nicotine, Abu Shafik gets to his feet and picks up his AK. Stepping outside the house, raindrops bead up on his parka as he walks across the muddy compound to the building where the commanders wait.

  Six bearded men jump to their feet as he enters.

  “Sit down,” he orders.

  Over the next half hour, he lays out for them what transpired at his meeting in Islamabad with the Pakistani government officials, who said their goal was the same as the LT’s— to expel India from Kashmir once and for all.

  “We’ve heard this before,” one of his commanders says after Abu Shafik finishes. “Why should we believe them now?”

  Abu Shafik is not surprised by the comment. “These men are not from ISI. They are very serious in what they say. I personally inspected the weapons and equipment they have for us.” He pulls out a handful of photos from a plastic bag and passes them around, knowing the pictures of the weapons and equipment will give the commanders more confidence than his words alone.

  Sheik Osman, whom Abu Shafik regards as his best commander, asks, “How do our new-found friends expect to overcome the Indian forces? They have almost twice as many troops in the region as the Pakistani Army.”

  Abu Shafik smiles at the question. It was the same question he had asked the officials.

  “This has been taken into account and actions are planned that will remedy the situation. However, I gave my oath that I would not divulge the details of how this is to be accomplished until it is absolutely necessary.” He deliberately fails to mention that Sheik Osman himself will play the key role in carrying out the plan to resolve the imbalance of forces problem.

  “Commander, if you are satisfied that this has been properly addressed, then I am satisfied as well. I need not know the details,” Sheik Osman says.

  The other commanders grunt in agreement.

  Abu Shafik concludes the meeting, telling his commanders that they must be patient for the next couple of months until everything is ready. But when the order comes, they must act quickly to infiltrate their forces into Kashmir.

  As a final caution, he adds, “There should be no discussion of this plan with the men until our units are in place in Kashmir. Once that is accomplished and the opening attack is imminent, the men can be informed of what is to occur and the role they are to play.”

  Abu Shafik bids his commanders a personal farewell as each files out the door, returning to their temporary safe houses scattered throughout the area.

  The last commander to leave is Sheik Osman, who pauses at the door.

  “Inshallah, all of Kashmir will soon be under the flag of Islam,” he says.

  The two men embrace. “Go with God, my brother,” Abu Shafik responds.

  Sheik Osman steps through the narrow doorway, Abu Shafik watching him as he crosses the rain-drenc
hed compound toward the main gate.

  Just as Sheik Osman disappears from view, the low, gray clouds part and a burst of sunlight illuminates the courtyard.

  Abu Shafik has never believed in omens, good or bad, but he knows if he did, the sun’s dramatic appearance would surely be a good one.

  1

  Habits born of war are hard to break, and Tarek Durrani woke before dawn. His breath was faintly visible in the cold air that permeated the small guest room, and it instantly reminded him that he wasn’t in Cairo any longer. His return to Pakistan was not something he had wanted; he was an ISI field officer after all.

  Slipping on a heavy robe, he stepped outside into the quiet garden. Only a hint of the approaching dawn could be seen and the dark sky was still punctuated by dozens of shimmering stars. Tarek knew that these final minutes before the sun’s light appeared were the coldest of the day, no matter the season. He shivered, but it wasn’t the cold that provoked the chill that ran through him. Hard experience had taught him that the pre-dawn darkness was also a time for cunning, a time to take one’s foes by surprise—a time to kill or be killed.

  Even now, standing in his sister’s garden in Rawalpindi, staring into the black night and feeling its penetrating cold, if he let himself, he could be there again—watching, waiting, listening. Muscles tense, eyes straining, smelling the dew-covered earth, canvas, and leather. And for a moment, he was there again with the Mujaheddin in that bitter place…Afghanistan.

  Tarek had once hoped that his memories of the Afghan war would fade with the passage of time. They had not. The memories were too strong, and he knew he would carry them with him for the rest of his life.

  Deciding to return to the guest room to prepare for the day, Tarek opened his eyes from his contemplation just as the very first ray of sunlight hit the eastern horizon. Its piercing brilliance seemed directed straight at him, causing his body to flinch.

  Some people are afraid of the dark, but I’m afraid of the light, Tarek thought, as the spreading morning light quickly filled the eastern sky. He did not bother to remind himself that he had a right to fear a flash of light from out of the darkness, especially a brilliant stabbing light like the kind that can come from the muzzle of a Russian sniper’s SVD rifle. While the sun’s light might cause temporary blindness, the SVD could make everything go dark permanently. Tarek’s encounter with an SVD that cold morning in Afghanistan many years before had certainly caused his lights to flicker when the 7.62 round creased the side of his head, burrowing a deep swatch through his scalp, cauterizing the wound as it cut its hot path.

  It had been Tarek’s first mission for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, and the shot he took proved to be the opening round of a pre-dawn raid by an assault element of a company of Russian Spetnatz on a base camp of Mujaheddin fighters that he was traveling with. During the night, the crack Russian unit had patiently maneuvered into assault position without being detected. They were very good at what they did.

  Tarek struggled to shake off the stunning shock from the round’s impact, which had spun him around and knocked him flat. He heard the machine guns from the Spetnatz fire-support element open up on the camp. By knocking him down, the sniper probably saved his life; most of the Mujaheddin near him were killed or wounded by the machine guns that raked the camp seconds after he was shot.

  Lying on his back on the rock-strewn ground, Tarek slowly came to his senses. He had never been wounded before and was surprised at how much it hurt. Despite the pain, he probed along the wound with his fingers and quickly determined it was not life-threatening. He knew, however, the same was not true of the tactical situation he and his Mujaheddin companions now found themselves in.

  The Spetnatz commander had done his planning well, achieving complete surprise. Tarek and his comrades were pinned down by the fire pouring from two RPK light machine guns located on a small rise some 400 meters to the east of their encampment. The Mujaheddin had left three men on the elevated spot the night before to guard against the possibility of an enemy force occupying this key piece of terrain; these men now certainly lay dead, throats slashed ear to ear. Tarek knew that within a few seconds they could expect a barrage of small-arms fire from the assault force he suspected lay hidden among a thin line of boulders at the base of the rise. The assault force would likely begin its advance on the camp in teams of two with one man providing covering fire while his partner rushed forward a few yards before seeking cover.

  Surveying their defensive situation as best he could, Tarek assessed that 50 or so men who had survived the initial machine gun burst had taken cover among the rocks. They were not returning fire. Tarek knew it was critical that once the Russian raiders began their advance, they be met by a storm of return fire. Lacking that, the camp would be quickly overrun. He and the Mujaheddin would be finished.

  Tarek unfortunately had just run out of time to come up with a tactical solution. A burst of fire erupted from the boulders, the rounds tearing the air around him. Looking left, Tarek could make out the silhouette of Faruk, the Mujaheddin commander, crouched behind a boulder.

  Tarek crawled toward him through the crackling gunfire. “Faruk! Get your men to start firing. They will be coming from the boulders by the hill.”

  Faruk nodded, reached over and grabbed the shoulder of a teen-aged boy lying next to him. Gesturing and shouting, he ordered him to move around the perimeter to tell the men to direct their fire toward the boulders. The boy didn’t move. Seeing that he was dead, a bullet hole through his temple, Faruk grabbed the next closest fighter, this one alive, and repeated the order.

  He turned back to Tarek, “We must take out those guns on the hill or we’ll be dead before the sun rises.”

  Tarek nodded. “Where are your RPGs?”

  Faruk pointed to two men kneeling behind a boulder about 20 meters away. “Alim and Omar have the new ones,” he said. “I don’t know where the others are.”

  “Keep the men firing,” Tarek said. “We’ll take out the machine guns.”

  Faruk shouted at the two men, signaling them to go with Tarek. Nodding to Tarek, he pointed his AK-47 toward the Russian soldiers and began spraying them in long bursts of automatic fire. The return fire from the Mujaheddin began to pick up, keeping the Russians from advancing, at least for the moment.

  Tarek signaled for Alim and Omar to follow him, working their way around the right flank of the assault force. Somewhere ahead in the dark there had to be a Spetnatz security element posted to guard against just such a flanking movement, but Tarek hoped his small force would be able to slip by undetected.

  As the men skirted past the right end of the line of boulders, Tarek saw a slight movement in the shadows a few meters directly in front of him. He raised his AK to his shoulders and fired a three-round burst into the shadow, instinctively compensating for the tendency to shoot high in a night-firing situation. He heard the distinctive thuds of rounds impacting a solid meaty object.

  The sound of Tarek’s gunshots were lost in the overall din of the pitched gun battle. He and his companions quickly moved around the right flank of the assault force that was still stuck in the boulders, pinned down by increasingly effective Mujaheddin fire.

  Reaching the bottom of the hill’s southern slope, Tarek stopped, knelt down, and signaled for Omar to pass him an RPG.

  Alim and Omar dropped to their bellies while Tarek prepared the rocket launcher for firing. Checking that the grenade was fully seated in the muzzle of the launcher, Tarek insured the percussion hammer was properly aligned. He removed the protective grenade nose cap and extracted the safety pin. The RPG was ready.

  He turned to the two Mujaheddin, their faces shining with sweat despite the cold morning air. “Wait here. When you hear me fire, move up the hill and attack the machine gun closest to us. I’ll take out the far gun.”

  Both men nodded and continued to point their rifles toward the RPK’s located somewhere in the dark, further up the rise.

 
; Crouching low, Tarek headed across the hillside. As he moved between the RPK’s and the assault force, he used the slope of the rise and a few scattered boulders to provide concealment from the chattering RPK’s that continued to rain death on the Mujaheddin.

  As he maneuvered across the rock-strewn hillside, the sound of battle raging around him, Tarek glanced up at the early morning sky and realized the sun would be up soon. If the Mujaheddin were still pinned down when the sun rose, the Spetnatz would almost certainly call in a HIND-D helicopter gunship. There was likely one already orbiting on the other side of the mountains, waiting. It might have been called in already had the Spetnatz force not been so close to the Mujaheddin. In the darkness, with only a small miscalculation, the HIND’s awesome firepower could just as easily wipe out the Russian force as the Mujaheddin camp.

  Lower down the hillside, Tarek could make out some of the soldiers as they fired at the Mujaheddin. Although tempted to open fire on them, Tarek knew his priority was to take out the RPK machine guns. Then he could worry about the assault element.

  Finally Tarek arrived at a spot where he could see the leftmost RPK. It suddenly ceased firing. Out of ammunition? he wondered. He saw the reason for the pause: the gunner, aided by another soldier, was changing the barrel, the first one apparently so heated that the gun had begun to misfire.

  Tarek did not have a clear view of either man, just an occasional glimpse of heads and shoulders bobbing up and down over the rocks, a pair of gloved hands twisting the new barrel into place. But he could see a small rock overhang directly above their position.

  Placing the grenade launcher on his shoulder, Tarek quickly located the overhang through the image intensifier, but his movement caught the gunner’s attention. Having just finished refitting the RPK with a fresh barrel, the gunner simultaneously chambered a cartridge and swung the gun around, steadying his aim on Tarek.