Spy Story 5: The Cyst

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ramana
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by ramana »

I was expecting it! Good job Dileep.
BTW you give a very humane face to those who were forced to be part of the LTTE and paint a very adverse picture of their leader.

Cant wait to find out about the girl.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Readers, please remember that the entire story is told through the viewpoints of the characters. What you read about the 'leader' is Samuel's impression, as he shared with Dharmendra.

It need not be an accurate reality.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 43

Hassan Shanwaj stood dumbfounded in front of the partially closed bamboo gate and sweated profusely. The small shack that served as the security station just inside the gate lay deserted. The driveway paved with rough cut stones leading to the single story traditional eastern Malay style building had already accumulated a couple of days worth of dry leaves. Given the considerable number of trees in the yard and around, it was enough to almost cover the narrow pathway. The vegetable garden to one side was all wilted up in the sun, as they were not watered for a couple of days. There was no sign of any humans around.

Hassan was smart enough to see through it all. The Sub Inspector in Royal Malaysian Police was not stupid as some of his superiors in Kuantan seemed to think. The city bred people always had a bias against the people from the villages, and poor Hassan had always been at the receiving end of that. He hailed from a kampong in the western hills in the rural area. The regular fate for the youth in his kampong@ was to become a farm hand, or at best a factory hand by migrating west to the capital. Hassan dared to continue his education at Kuantan, and got entry to the police. But he was always kept as a second class citizen in the forse. He was always assigned to trivial things, like guarding some ‘politically important’ people such as the residents of this house. Worse still, he was assigned with some buch of useless excuses of staff to execute those duties.

And here lies the proof that those morons with whom he had to work have now screwed him real bad. Those guys must have got too much filled with the durians and slept off, while the people whom they were supposed to guard have given the slip. Poor Hassan now got to start worrying how to show his face to Dato$ Habibjan, the commissioner.

Hassan didn’t know when this ‘safe house’ was was established, or who were the residents. In this country, you don’t ask such questions. You are not paid to do that, but to obey your orders. At least most of them. But Hassan was smart. One look at the people, and he instantly figured that they were not muslims*. They spoke Malay with an accent too, like the hindu people he knew from Kuantan. But they were not hindus either. They did not worship the hindu gods. They were Christians. Hassan had seen them praying the Christian way during some of his visits to the house, with singing and dancing.

They had been his responsibility for the past year. When he took charge from his predecessor, all he got was praises about them. Nice people. Never made a problem. There were three people in the house. One couple in their fifties and their son in the thirties. The parents almost never went out of the house. The son had a motor bike, and used it to go to the nearby kampong sometimes. If you go strictly by the rule, none of them were allowed to go about freely. Someone from the guards should go with them whenever they go out into the locality. But there was an understanding reached well before Hassan’s time that they will not bother the young man if he goes out into the kampong alone. The kampong lied further up to the hills, so he can’t really go off much in that direction. In the rare occurrence of the entire family going out, official escorts from Kuantan would show up to take them.

That was not Hassan’s problem. He was just to make sure that everything went around smoothly.

And that is what went into hell today. He was going about his usual stuff in the morning, and the safe house was not at all in his mind when he got a call from Dato Habibjan, the commissioner. The man was too excited for a morning. Normally he just spends the mornings immersed in elaborate rituals of preparing and consuming tea and the choice cigars that he gets from his son in Merchant Navy. He was a nice guy in general.

“When is the last time you got news from Bukit Genas?” The Dato yelled at Hassan over the tinny phone connection. The man has a shrill, feminine voice, and over the phone, it seemed like a nagging wife yelling at you.

It took Hassan a few seconds to gather what the man was referring to. Bukit Genas was the small village where the safe house that Hassan was expected to manage stood. There was nothing else important in that godforsaken place.

“What happened, sir?” Hassan stammered. He couldn’t remember when was the last time he heard from those loafers on duty there at the safe house. Last week? Ten days? During the initial days when he took charge, he used to demand that the guards call him daily with reports. But after a couple of weeks, it became too boring for both parties. There was nothing really to report.

What came over the line in reply in colloquial Malay can not be translated. Sufficient to say that they alluded to the integrity of character of a couple of previous generations of Hassan. Hassan cringed at the insult, as if he was standing right in front of the Dato.

A monologue ensued from the Dato, beginning with a critical evaluation of the intellectual faculties of Hassan Shanwaj. After the first few seconds, Hassan’s mind wandered away from the offensive stream, getting on with the worry he had with the bad carburetor of the old Perodua Kancil he owned. The darned thing had spring a cough, and he had problem in keeping the engine live, whatever adjustment he tried. Taking it to the workshop was an ordeal itself, and it is going to be trouble living without the car for a few days.

The brains of people who work in positions that required them to listen to long streams of abuse invariably develop the capability to subconsciously filter all the abuse parts out, and gather the action items, and then alerting the conscious part about just those. Hassan, who was used to the treatment from the days of his schooling, had an exceptionally developed faculty for this. So, after the Dato ran out of breath and slammed the phone down, his brain had happily took the command, which was literally to ‘drag his sorry posterior to Bukit Genas and check those men of ‘incestuous vice’ on duty there’.

It took him almost an hour to get the trusty old Kancil to start, and another hour to negotiate the barely paved roads that led to Bukit Genas. Hassan was always an optimistic man. He had no clue why the Dato was so worried about the place. What bad can happen there? Floods? Landslides? Earthquakes? This is not the rainy season, and nothing else bad happens in these parts of the Pahang state.

It was when he reached the front gate of the property and honked the horn to get it opened that his heart sank and he started sweating.

The place was completely deserted. No sign of the residents, or the casual employee who was supposed to do the security duty. That was an arranfement by the constables, as they had better things to do than sitting all day at the shack. Hassan stood there, sweating and thinking how to present this calamity to his boss.

Kilometres away, in the city of Kuantan, Dato Habibjan Abubakr, commissioner of the RMP was also sweating, because he already knew what had actually happened at the safe house at Bukit Genas from his boss in KL. Unlike the stupid inspector he had the misfortune to work with, he knew what exactly that involves.

Not one, but several of the people who were under state protection in exchenge for their help in bringing down an international terrorist organization had vanished from their safe houses.


*Malays always refer to their ethnicity as “muslim”, and Tamils as “hindu”.
@kampong: Village
$Dato: A title, like knighthood.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 44

The India Desk at the state department of the US Government was a rather big affair, and finds a prominent place under the office of the Asst. Secretary for South and Central Asia. It was in fact the combined office for the few nations that are within the field of influence of India. Director Aslam Khan of the India Desk apparently held good rapport with Asst. Secretary Jack Brunner, but given the political situation of the region, the focus of the department was entirely upon the Iran task force. The INSB, that was the formal code for the India Desk, was not involved in that task force, though Dir. Khan was often a special invitee to the meetings, where they needed anything involving India.

Satyaprakash (Sap) Kondala, the unit chief for India section was trying hard to get the attention of the director. He had already made the request over the system, with the customary gist of the issue he wanted to discuss, but somehow, Mr. Khan was not finding time to attend to the request. When there are matters of jurisdictional chess, people like Sap had to play safe and involve the higher ups essentially to cover their behinds. And the current issue at hand involves both the CIA and the FBI, which makes things worse.

Sap knew that Aslam Khan was busy with the Iran team, but that was not his primary responsibility. There are developments at his own domain that needed attention. There are people who are paid to look after Iran. Even the Pakistan desk was fully involved with the Iran affairs now, just like the country they manage. Some work from the crisis did come the way of Sap, but much of it was being directly worked by the director with his high level counterparts from that country. In those entire melee, stuff that was not related to the Iran madness was always kept on the back burner.

But Kondala felt that this one really needed the attention by the director. Sap was a second generation American, born to parents who migrated from India. For him, no real ties existed with the native place of his parents, though he had visited there a few times in the past. He often used to muse that he knew more about his India from his job at the state department, than from his own personal ties. He considered objectivity to be his virtue, and always kept in mind that his lineage should not be thought to affect his judgement. He had the habit of always ensuring that he had enough rational cause for escalating an issue. The current one was one of them.

The possible revival of a recognized terrorist outfit was sufficient cause to break into the director’s attention, Sap thought. He should get hold of him on his way back from the SCA office. Like any good office savy subordinate, he placed one of his interns to hover around the copy machine, watching for the big man to come out of the SCA maze. She was supposed to ring Sap the moment Mr. Khan steps out into the corridor.

Director Khan seemed to be distraught, but he did pretend to snap out of it when Sap approached him as if it was purelt incidental. It was standard office procedure, so Aslam had to give a moment to listen to him. Sap presented his case as briefly as he could.

“Oh..” Khan said with a mild tone of displeasure. “I thought it should be the Islamists or at least the Maoists for them to worry this much.” Then, as if to compensate, he grinned.

Kondala winced as if he was slapped across the face by the boss.

“What do you want done, Sir?’ He asked, before Khan’s mind wandered out again.

“The usual..” Khan said, starting to walk briskly to his office. “You should have on file the whereabouts of the FBI unit that handled it originally. Forward them the memo. Copy to your friends at CIA. That should do it.”

Sap did not really know the finer details of the background. What he could readily gather from the executive summary was that there are a few individuals who sought asylum in the country as part of a deal made with India and the neighbouring countries. They were being granted protection for helping out in the war against the seperatists in the island nation. The CIA did all the liaison work, but since the asylum seekers are domestic jurisdiction, it was the FBI who arranged for handling them. Now, the Indians are raising concerns about some breach in the system, and requesting follow-up on them.

“You don’t want to take it upstairs?” Sap had to ask. The undersecretary was involved in the original plan, and might expect being briefed.

“Listen, son.” Khan stopped and turned to face Kondala. “They are fighting fire there. Don’t take your ‘dog poop in the grass’ problem in there right now.”

Then he abruptly turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Sap standing there feeling like a fool.


The FBI took two days to get back to him. The contacts have gone untraceable. They have requested the Homeland Security guys to search their database to see if they got any record. It is going to take some time.

As a personal advice, officer Frank Wei also added that if they wanted a faster action, they should get someone upstairs to speak to the DHS.

Sap didn’t see any merit to do that. He will wait for the report in due time.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 45

Disclaimer: I had already disclosed my terrible domain knowledge with military aspects. If the following few chapters seem stupid, I blame it on that ineptitude! It is all imagination!! Any corrections/suggestions are gladly welcome.

The C-130J was asked to squawk 7000, pretend to be a cargo flight and fly the international air route UG450 all the way to waypoint NABAM which was right in the middle of nowhere over the northern Arabian sea. This was the primary air route between Mumbai and the central Africa, making landfall at Mogadishu, and proceeding to Nairobi and all the way to Luanda on the Atlantic cost of the African continent. This route was not too busy on its own, but it does intersect a number of other air routes that go to the busy airspace of the Arabian Gulf. The imminent hostilities between the US and Iran had its impact on the commercial air traffic routing. A number of air routes that joined up with the Oman FIR over the Arabian sea were moved down south, clearing a vast area near the Iran and Pakistan cost for the carrier based air operations of the US and allies. There was also an air corridor left open, but currently unused, for the potential military traffic from the Diego Garcia base to the active area to the north. This was on a standbye, with an understanding that the US Navy that managed this corridor will inform the respective FIRs in advance before it was put to regular use. There was a system of liaison between the military and civil aviation authorities in the region in order to avoid conflicts.

The ARTC at Bandra controlled the airspace till NABAM, and it was a trivial matter to insert the herculese flight into their stack without anyone else knowing about it. The US controlled corridor went right in the middle of the Mumbai FIR over the sea, but there was no active request for co-ordination from them currently. Those guys needed that only when they have the heavies like B52s or tankers are going to use the corridor. The smaller details used their own sensors to stay away from the commercial traffic, and the civial aviation authorities barely knew of their existence.

Still, it was a bit of risk to send one of the prime assets of the IAF out there in such covert fashion. Nevertheless, it was a well calculated risk.

Once they are around NABAM, before they started to show up on the radar of Socotra that managed the Yemeni FIR, they were to turn on the military IFF, show up bright and clear on their scope and ask for vector to Nairobi. The flight plan for that segment is already filed through the system, but it was from the Royal Air Force of Oman. Once you get vectored to Mogadishu, even the Americans wouldn’t bother the flight. Only that poor controller at Socotra might have to panic a bit when the flight wouldn’t get back to him for handing over to Ethiopian controllers.

But that would be ‘their’ problem. If the Indian embassy at Sanaa didn’t sleep on their job, the alert will be promptly brushed under the carpet by the Yemeni authorities. It wouldn’t matter much either way.

Group Captain Ashok Majumdar didn’t know why the flight is being planned this way. He also really didn’t know what exactly was going on in the cargo compartment either. He was not provided with a load master for this mission. Some crates were loaded and strapped down by the ground crew, supervised by the mission commander. The alert mind of the group captain had told him that this guy is not one from his part of the service. It was doubtful that if he even belonged to any uniformed forces of the country. The garuds who showed up after the equipment was loaded have also apparently guessed this fact. They were showing some nervousness among themselves and passing glances at the flight commander for any signs. Ashok took the extra care with his poker face as he went around his final checks in full view of the assembled team and the three ‘strangers’. Squadron Leader Binoy Thomas, his first officer, didn’t have to face that trouble, as he was busy at the first officer’s seat in the cockpit.

Earlier, the briefing with the flight crew was simple and straightforward. Two of the ‘strangers’ attended, and were referred to as ‘Makar One’ and ‘Baaz One’. There are going to be two teams by that name, staffed by the garuds. The third ‘stranger’, who was the least military looking, hadn’t attended the briefing, but joined the flight line later. He appeared to be carrying himself a bit high, and Makar One was delebrately ignoring him. He was part of Baaz, and Baaz One was dealing with him with some element of respect. There was some kind of invisible tension between the two leaders on this regard, and Grp. Capt. Majumdar was a bit concerned about that fact.

There was no mention on who these people were, or what was were they going to do during the mission. The only brief was that, as the mission progressed, the two teams are likely to be para dropped somewhere near the African coast if the need arises.

The garuds, when they showed up at the flight line, led by the trusty seargents, showed no recognition of either of leaders, which was a bit troublesome for Ashok. In his entire life at the transport side of IAF, he had almost never flown a mission where the team didn’t really know their commanders. Once he was done with the paperwork and was back in the cockpit, he shared that tidbit with Binoy but soon, work needs called their undivided attention.

Flying the Indian airspace from Hindan to Santa Cruz was something the pilots of the Veiled Vipers would do even in their sleep. It will be a typical transport flight till they were required to change the squawk after they pass the low level radar at Mumbai international. There was no need to cause un necessary agony to the already overworked ATC there. They will wait till they fly out of the LACC funnel, somewhere at 75 nautical miles off the coast, right on the UG450 route. Bandra already has the flight placed on their stack, so that won’t be a problem. Ashok let Binoy handle the hassles of leaving the safety of the IAF restricted airspace over Hindan and joining up the busiest commercial air route of India. Once they were safely vectored at FL240 to Udaipur en route to Mumbai by the ever courteous operator at IGI, he opened the comm, and informed the folk in the rear that they could do whatever they need to be doing. They will be stopping briefly at Mumbai for refueling and to pick up some more equipment before taking off for the bigger leg over the ocean.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 46

Raghunandan Kulkarni knew Ramanathan from his Bali days. Any operative in his outfit who had to deal with maritime issues in the south east asia had to. But no one really knew anything in detail about the man. He was a special type of reclusive character. The guy never even gave out a last name, an address or a phone number. The only way you can get to him was via the company’s secure e-mail, and that too after your boss makes the introduction first.

Raghu had the opportunity to enjoy sharing a jar of arak beras and a bowl of assorted satays with Ramanathan in a sea facing cottage at Goa Lawah. It was kind of a welcome home treat by Raka Ngede, Raghu’s Balinese girlfriend, who was a partner in that resort. Raghu and Ramanathan had just finished dealing with a small problem with some Australians becoming smart about a shipment, and Ram had some time to waste before taking the flight off Denpasar. To answer Raka’s curiosity about his last name, Ramanathan claimed that his first and last names are the same, since his father was also named Ramanathan. Raka could not stop laughing and choking on the rubbery beef tongue satay. Ramanathan apparently took grave offense on that, and walked out of the cottage into the night, loaded with the arak and all. A bit concerned, Raghu had to call up his friend at the Denpasar airport to verify that the man in fact took the Air Asia flight to KL the next day.

A few months ago, they had opportunity to work together again, but Ramanathan showed no signs of remembering the incident.

Raghu already knew that the company would be calling in Ramanathan to help even before he boarded the flight out of the island. While he was in the lounge at Chennai, waiting for the connecting flight to Delhi, he got information that the guy has already reached there at the capital by the morning flight from Singapore. They met at the office, the new one opened recently at an office complex at Gurgaon. A warm handshake was followed by the usual grumpy muttering about how bad the place was, with all the heat and dust. But the real colours of the guy came out when the boss disclosed that a VIP was going to accompany them in the mission.

Ramanathan was a loner. He executed his missions on his own terms and his own style. He even prefers his own bunch of merceneries for his team whenever convenient. Even the company operative who owns the mission would only be accommodated when he couldn’t talk out of it. Some outsider is a strict no for him.

The fact that the said VIP was Jinendra Renaweera, the Deputy Minister, really drove him crazy, and he bluntly refused to take the mission.

“What are we supposed to do? Serve him champagne and babysit him?” Ramanathan yelled, ignoring the sly smile being played on the face of the boss. Apurb Bhattacharya I P S had known Ramanathan for a long time, from his days in the enforcement department, and was his handler at the company all through the years. He had anticipated this response and tried hard to avoid the trouble of taking the high profile politician from another country on a risky mission such as this. But the MEA could not be moved. President Dharmendra wouldn’t hear of it, according to them. If the man want to put his younger cousin and heir apparent in the line of danger, who is going to question? If you want the co-operation from the island, you got to take the man along.

Bhattacharya knew a bit of the internals of international diplomacy and its nuances. If they went ahead alone, without the co-operation of at least the majority of the stakeholders, any catastrophy during the mission would leave a lot of egg on the face of the country. The other nations, most of who had slept on the wheel, had happily agreed to everything proposed to them. However, those nations held only a minority interest in the issue. President Renaweera was almost an equal partner in this mess, and his demands must be met.

This little issue was bringing things really to the proverbial rock and the hard place. Finally, Dr. Malhotra, the big boss, had stepped in to try resolve it. After a chat with President Renaweera over secured telephone, he had agreed to take Jinendra along. There are good reasons that could not be disclosed, as he told Mr. Bhattacharya later.

The bright minds at the company, and also at the ministries of external affairs and home affairs, as well as their respective intelligence agancies, all had given the consideration why the president would make such a move. According to the field units in the island, the junior minister is the second most powerful man in the country, and held unshakeable confidence of the president. The consensus of speculation was, the president might be expecting some skeletons to fall from the cupboard, and want his trusted deputy to put them back before it gets any attention. This aspect was made clear to Raghu, and Raghu alone, in a separate briefing with Dr. Malhotra and Mr. Bhattacharya.

But Dr. Malhotra, or even the president who owned the company or the prime minister who signed the cheque, no one would hold any influence on Ramanathan! He was not really bound by any rules or obligations. He did not even waste a word. He just stood up, walked out into the corridor, and calmly lighted a cigarette.

Raghu had to leave, and wasn’t privy to what went on after that, as he had to go and prepare the VIP for the mission. Jinendra was not put under the diplomatic detail for obvious reasons. An officer from IB took his regular passport to the immigration counter and got it stamped, while the minister walked out like any other passenger out of the arrival gate of IGI. A BMW 7 series limo took him to the AP Bhavan. There he would check in as a guest of the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Raghu was not sure if the deputy minister knew him. It is likely that he did. Though Raghu was just one of the operatives at the capital, the intelligence czar of the small country is likely to know even middle level agents, especially based at the capital. He was also almost certain that his contact, Anuradha Samarasekara, must have found opportunity to put his name in her briefings. But when they met at the lounge of the AP Bhavan, there was no recognition on the face of the minister. When Raghu addressed him as ‘your excellency’, Jinendra laughed heartily and pointed out that it would look odd to use that in the current circumstances. “You can call me Jina”, the minister insisted. Raghu had a different image for the young minister from all the accounts that had been circulating a plenty back at his place. A ruthless hawk was the best description for him, but the man appeared to be a regular, sociable guy. Not any way different from the businessmen that Raghu meet as part of his day job.

But the bigger issue right now was, how to manage him while going on a covert mission that could be dangerous. Is he upto that?

Raghu, like all the operatives of the company, had gone through the basic training regime at the joint commando school at Mapusa. Their course was not as tough as the one the military commando force went through. They were not expected to face fully armed conflict in their line of work. But covert insertion and extraction was covered, as well as the advanced survival school. Basic weapons training was also formed part of the course. Any operative who had passed through that course, and kept himself in shape would be fine to go on the mission with the garuds.

But he had absolutely no idea on what kind of training the minister had under his belt.

Jinendra Renaweera was a well built man, with an athletic body. By the cursory look over, Raghu felt no bad signs or red flags. The guy seemed to be healthy, active and physically capable to take the strain. Raghu, like anyone else who is involved with that country knew the publicly available biographical information about the man. He was a lawyer by education, and a military or government career was not in his horizon initially. Once the circumstances put him in the middle of military affairs and an ongoing war, he had to adapt fast. It may have been government propaganda, but there used to be regular news about the man, who was the secretary of defense at that time, being in the front lines, fighting along side by side with his men. Photos used to be published in the newspaper, where he was shown in military fatigues and carrying a weapon. He was always been projected as a cunning military commander who brutally crushed the rebels.

But no one knew how much of that was true, and how much was bullshit.

Raghu, obviously, could not ask him about all that. But it has become his responsibility to see that the man really qualified for the mission. The only way was to casually propose to do some training together to familiarize with each other.

The NSG guys had set up a training centre in Dera Mandi. Raghu had friends there. That was the right place to see what the deputy minister is really made of.

The man did not disappoint him.
Dileep
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 47

Lieutenant Timothy (Tide) Jackson merrily continued to hum the tune that got into his head from the iPod right before the flight briefing on board the carrier. He had been showing the grumpy face that everyone in his squad was kind of competing to put up all day. Once back up in the clear tropical air in the cockpit of his ‘bitch’, the beloved F/A-18E Super Hornet, he could let go of all that pretension and be his merry self.

One of the Tophatters, the 14th Strike fighter squadron of the US Navy on board the USS John C Stennis, Jackson was an experienced naval aviator who was from the generation of pilots who joined up after the active combat was over with Iraq. He loved flying like any other fighter jock did, but todays order to take their boat down south, all the way to Diego Garcia came as a relief. Despite the belligerence shown all around in the government and military circles, a good number of his colleagues didn’t want the tension to escalate to all out war with Iran. They had been kept on their toes now for a few months by the political leadership back at DC, but now, the long anticipated break has come. They get a much desired rest and some peaceful time at the tropics.

Tonight, he was doing ‘point’, along with his friend Leutenant 2nd grade Harrison (Brut) Tinbaugh. Their job is to fly out ahead of the moving carrier group and make sure that the path is clear. Someone should be crazy to expect any trouble from the air in this region, but it is a job to be done. He was loaded up with the typical configuration of four sidewinders and two AMRAAMs. Just regulations, that’s all.

The night was rather clear, but there is a big difference in the definition of ‘clear’ in this part of the world than back home. The dust from the Arabian deserts and the pollution from the subcontinent make the air permanently hazy. The air will regain its clarity only near they approach the equator. Still the visibility is pretty good, even in the moonless night. The navigation lights of the airliners passing across below were visible for a long way. They were passing over the busy corridor that converges the traffic to the Arabian Gulf. Due to the military action to the north, some of the airways were closed there, making the available ones busier. He could see a steady stream of planes going east, carrying all those expat workers from the gulf home.

The commercial airliners are set to be filtered out by the display of his APG-73 radar, based on the IFF response they gave to the interrogation. That left much of his scope empty. There were only a couple of private planes going in the same busy gulf routes within the scan range. By rule, those targets are not to be masked, and he was required to keep an eye out for them to make sure that they do not deviate from the specified flight route. The years of training made him continue to hum the tune, while his subconscious was making the eyes scan the displays and also the sky out there. He was not expecting any trouble tonight. He looked forward to just fly along, and turn back to his boat for the comfort of his little bunk in the belly of the beast.

“Ping” the headphone alerted him from the reverie. The controller on board the carrier group was calling. Tide promptly hit the button to open the channel on his radio system.

“Point One..” the voice on the MIDS digital radio was crystal clear. “There is a bogey squawking VFR. Watch out for him for now.”

“Roger.” Tide muttered. He once again glanced at his scope, and found nothing yet. “You got a bearing?” he asked, while hitting the ‘zoom out’ key on the side of the scope.

“That would be one one zero.” The voice said after a second’s pause. “Range..” it paused again, as the controller punched out the numbers on his console. “two two seven”.

Tide rogered the information. It is quite far away, even for his powerful APG-73 to pick it up. “Nothing is on my scope.” He told the controller.

“It looks pretty big.” The controller said after another pause. “Maybe it is too far for you. Just keep an eye open for now.”

The radio chirped to indicate closing of the channel. Tide once again went back to his scope, trying to acquire the target on it.

“Who is flying VFR in the night?” The radio whispered. Brut from his wing was chipping in over the formation channel.

“Maybe some trucker got a few extra drinks and messed up his squawk wheels!” Tide touched the selector button and said with a chuckle. It was not an unknown occurrence to have pilots put in the wrong squawk code in their transponders and cause alarm.

The squawk code is a 4 octal digit code that is returned by the transponders on board an aircraft. When a radar is interrogating the aircraft, the transponder will send out this code, indicating its type of flight. The codes are not universal, except a few reserved by the ICAO. ‘7500’ is the most known code, indicating that the aircraft is under hijack. If a tracking station sees this code, practically all hell will break loose in the post 911 world. Fighter planes will be scrambled, the offending aircraft intercepted, and there is even the risk of the plane being shot down.

In the old generation equipment, the code is input by a set of thumbwheel switches. The wheels is rotated to select each of the digits. While the wheel is being rotated, which means they are being clicked through the numbers, the system will be cycling through various combinations. If the interrogation happens at the exact moment, the code sent out will be wrong.

This is not a problem in normal circumstances. Once the pilot finishes setting the code, the subsequent scans will return the correct number. But the case of the code ‘7500’ is different.

When a plane is hijacked, the pilot would try to covertly set the code. It should be assumed that the hijackers would be knowledgeable about this little problem, so, one of the first things they would be doing is to check the code and change it to something sensible. So, receiving this code, even just once, is considered to be a red flag. Hence, the standard operating procedure would be to assume the plane is hijacked, till the fact is reliably verified.

And verification is not an easy task. You can’t just radio the pilot and ask if he is hijacked. If the pilot is under control of the hijackers, he might respond negative. So, an elaborate scheme of verification is devised, involving a fighter plane asking the aircraft to follow it through a series of maneuvers.

A plane squawking VFR, ie visual flight rules, is not an alarming situation. The code 7000 is a general code that is used by planes that fly low outside the established air routes. But no one can really fly VFR during night over the ocean. It is normally the responsibility of the civilian air traffic control to call the plane and ask them what is going on. It is not really the business of the military to worry about them.

But Tide is flying point to the carrier group. The carrier group is one of the most precious strategic assets of the US Navy, and its protection is accorded the utmost importance. Anything out of ordinary will be looked at with wary eyes and thoroughly investigated. It would be Tide’s responsibility to make sure that the offending aircraft is benign and no threat to the carrier group.

Or, to neutralize the threat, if it is proven hostile. He was flying one of the most potent weapons platform of the world. Unless one of those Sukhois of the Indians come up, he can hold up on his own against anything in this region.

Tide started looking back at his scope more frequently. Any time now, the blip is expected to show up.

It finally did. He had to open the tag menu and enter the squawk number to get a callout on the blip. The bogey was keeping a straight vector at 240 with a speed of 320 knots. Tide did not have access to the civilian route chart, so he had to call it in with the controller to check.

“Uh… Standby..” the controller at the carrier group also didn’t have the route charts ready at hand. He had to get them from the rack. It took almost a minute to get the reply. “Affirmative.” The radio finally said. “They are on a known route alright, but I haven’t seen anyone flying that route anytime.”

It was decided that Tide and Brut should pay a closer look.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 48

“Makar Team!” Ramanathan called out loud, to get his voice above the whine of the four huge propellers and their turbine engines that were keeping up a good show right outside a few feet from them. Seargent Ram Naik answered for himself and the five garuds. Action comes the way of the Makar team first, and they get to do the tougher, and naturally, deadlier mission. Raghunandan Kulkarni and his Baaz team under the able leadership of Seargent John Devapakkiam were already huddling around a cargo pallete that was safely strapped down on the floor. Sheets of maps printed on A2 sized sheets and recon photos on non-reflective photographic paper were scattered on the palette. The bright bluish beam of the LED flashlight played around like a bee dancing around flowers. Raghu was holding a magnifier, and trying to explain some important parts of his mission by pointing out some features on the photographs. No one was paying any attention to the VIP on board, Deputy Minister Jinendra Renaweera, who was standing around the baaz team, holding onto a hand rail. For the first time after he had enthusiastically ambarked upon this mission, the lawyer turned politician turned intelligence officer was having second thoughts about the sensibility of this mission. He tried hard to put on a brave face, wary of the professionals around him figuring it out.

Seargent Naik was not exactly happy about the mission, and it showed in his demeanour. The garuds often work with inter-force operations, and working with total strangers wirking side by side with, or even commanding them was not an unusual experience. But Sgt Naik had never in the past worked with someone who did not give out his name and rank to them.

In the world of services in uniform, one’s rank is ones pride and identity. You are nobody, unless associated with your rank. According to the international conventions regulating uniformed forces, it is the only thing one obligated to give out even when captured by the enemy. It is something that makes you a fauji. Without that, one should feel like naked.

And his mission commander apparently doesn’t have one!

Naik was pretty sure about that. This guy is not just withholding it. He is not a fauji. He holds no rank. It was intuition of a man who was born at a cantonment hospital into a fauji family. He was sure that his colleagues on the team also felt the same. Teams like theirs have mutual understanding that boardered on ESP.

The other team, the Baaz, seemed to fare better. Being busy with their respective stuff, Sgt Naik could not talk to Sgt Devapaakkiam yet. Also, it was not considered a good practice for the two distinct teams to interact un necessarily. Still, Naik got a feeling that Devapakkiam seemed to be pretty alright with his own commander. They had been working hard with all those maps and photos right from the point the plane leveled off. John was standing with all his attention focused on the briefing. There was no sign of any discomfort there.

But John’s team don’t get to para drop into the dark ocean aiming at a ship. That was Naik’s privilege to do that. Not that he was overexcited about it or anything. It was a job that needs to be done, and he and his team were the ones who were supposed to do it. In fauj, you don’t consider much more than that. They are well equipped for such a mission. They have the weapons, ammo, comm gear, rations, all kitted up. The precision steerable parachutes are all neatly folded and strapped on. They also have the inflatable boat and extra supplies, all packed up and boxed, strapped down right at the rear of the hold.

The only regret he had was, he would doing it for this non fauji without a rank.

Sgt Naik could only assume that his commander knew what he was doing. Para dropping from a plane flying at 250km/hr itself is no joke. Though Naik and his boys had done that hundreds of times. They were all specialists in that. Still, the heart will invariably skip a beat as it waits in anticipation for the adrenaline to hit, just before each jump. It is a very dangerous operation. Probably more dangerous than the execution part of the mission, which was to overrun a ship that was taken hostage.

What kind of experience does this commander have? They will have to steer their chutes blind, based purely on the reading on the GPS device strapped to their arms. It takes a lot of training to be a precision jumper. People at sports events stand in awe when professional para jumpers jump from an airplane and maneuver their colourful chutes down into the middle of the stadium. It all looks too easy on TV. But the effort and lurking dangers behind that apparently easy task would be mind boggling.

Then try that in the darkness of the night, guided by nothing but your GPS reading!!

The equipment is yet another issue. The commandos jump heavily laden with their kit of equipment weighing tens of kilograms. You need to carry that weight on your person, and then steer the parachute through the combined weight of the man and the equipment.

Then there was this big package of the inflateable boat and its accessories.

The palette that held the boat and other stuff was not too big. They just weighed 225kg. But that is three times the weight of an average man. And packages can’t maneuver the chute. They just fall, and go to wherever the wind takes them. The normal practice is to let the equipment go first, let it free fall for most of its descent, and then follow its chute to land close by. But that isn’t going to work for this mission. First of all, you can’t see the chute in the dark. Secondly, you need to land not too far from the ship, at a suitable location. The commander had not talked about it till now.

“Well, he got to address that before the jump”. Naik thought. If he doesn’t, that means he have no clue what he was doing, and he and his boys are not going to jump trusting his incompetence. Things had not gone too bad till now. Though the guy lacked the aura of a fauji, he hadn’t commited any real blunders or raised any obvious red flags yet. Naik would give gim the benefit of doubt and hope he would not let him and his boys down.

“Makar Two!” Ramanathan called out, looking directly at Sgt. Naik. “Sir!” he responded, breaking his reverie and the line of thought.

“I am going to drive it down.” Ramanathan said bluntly, with a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

“Pardon, Sir” Naik didn’t think he heard it right.

“The boat!. I am going to drive it down to landing.” Ramanathan said with a twinkling in his eye. Naik was familiar with that maneuver. It is normally used with lighter portable equipment like mortars or RCLs. One would strap oneself to the package and fly the chute under the combined weight, and cut the package loose at the right moment, just before landing. It would be a tought job to drive this 225kg package.

“Yes Sir.” Naik said without emotion. Fauji or no fauji. This guy knows what he is upto, he felt.

He looked at his boys and smiled. They too smiled back at him.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by JTull »

I'm surprised this mission went to garuds rather than marine commandos.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

The reason is, Garuds are an unknown quantity in public domain ;)
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 49

A heavy jolt shook the C-130J unexpectedly. The sky was clear with no clouds, and no turbulence was expected en-route. They were almost half way en route to their first target, the way point NABAM on the international air route UG450. Grp Capt. Majumdar was flying the plane, but there was nothing to do really, other than continue to look at the various screens and dials. The auto pilot was doing its work. The radar was on standby. They will turn it on in SAR mode only towards the first para drop, to make sure that the target is there where it is expected. The RWR was keeping an open watch, and so were the other sensors including the radio system. Since India refused to sign the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) with the USA, some of the standard communication equipment, like the AN/ARC-222 Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS), with its HF and UHF/VHF modules and KV-119 IFF Digital Transponder were not included. A dumbed down version of the SINCGARS that did not support data interchange with US communication systems were provided, while the IFF was a DRDO product.

The jolt felt like hitting a small air pocket. It pushed the nose of the giant plane up for a moment, before the auto pilot recovering it smartly. Majumdar shook himself up from the monotony and muttered “What the eff was that?” He looked at the face of Binoy Thomas, his co-pilot. He too was startled by the jolt. A visual scan of the equipment didn’t show anything amiss.

“What the!”, Majumdar sweared as he noticed a dark shape that looked like anotheraircraft maneuver itself to a position in front and below of him. Instinctively, his grip on the yoke tightened, as he squinted hard to see what is going on out there. His heart started pounding hard at the totally unexpected turn of events. The dark night severely marred the visibility, but he could see the faint glow from the twin exhausts set close by.

It was a fighter plane!!

“Traffic! Dead ahead!” Binoy yelled as he too noted the bizarre and unexpected sight.

A pair of flares dropped out of the fighter. They lit up the sky as they descended, and in the light, they saw that it is a twin engine fighter. The engines were set close. Unlike the fighter jocks, the transport pilots were not really hard drilled on into identifying fighters, but they could easily guess it maybe an F-18. The navigation lights of the fighter too came on, making it easier to see, and it was indeed, an F-18. The identification markings were not really visible. The wings of the aircraft wobbled up and down, as the international sign for requesting attention.

“What the hell is he doing?” Majumdar yelled, as he punched the auto pilot off and held onto the yoke, struggling to keep his plane steady as it entered the wake of the plane in front.

“Use the guard, you moron!” Binoy yelled to the unknown pilot ahead. It is a requirement to call the aircraft on the internationally agreed band of 121.5MHz or 233MHz before taking action to directly communicate with it. Apparently, the fighter jock up front forgot about it.

“Landing lights” Majumdar ordered, trying to think for a reason behind this chaos. They had been minding their own business, flying calm and level. What business does this American fighter - it must be American, as no one else in this region flies the hornets - have to do with an Indian military transport over international waters.

The landing lights of the herculese came on. The fighter ahead, almost a kilometer ahead and a bit below in altitude, caught some of the light. It could be now identified as a US Navy Super Hornet.

“US Navy hornet ahead!” Binoy clicked to VHF and dialed the 121.5MHz international guard band and yelled into the mic. “State intentions.”

Nothing came back over the radio. Not even static, as the digitally tuned and audo enhanced radio has an excellent squelch system.

Binoy repeated the transmission. Still no response. The hornet just flew at the same relative position, and wobbled the wings again.

“Well, we saw him do the wobble. Got to acknowledge.” Majumdar muttered, as he turned the yoke to wobble his own wings.

“Captain.. What is going on?” Ramanathan’s voice came over the intercom. Both Binoy and Majumdar looked at each other. Majumdar shrugged in disgust.

“Will advice.” Binoy keyed the mic and said in an even, professional, but curt tone.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by JTull »

Time for Pune based pilots to earn their salaries.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

^^Nope. That would be Shankarovsky's style, not SpyStory's.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Rahul M »

very interesting chain you are forging here, saar ji.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dilbu »

I would love to see a couple of rambhas in the air at this point.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 50

“Try 233” Ashok Majumdar ordered to Binoy Thomas, as he concentrated on keeping his C-130J on level course through the buffeting slipstream of the super hornet flying ahead. Binoy clicked the UHF band. The dial automatically lit 233 to indicate the international distress frequency on UHF band. It is actually the harmonic of the 121.5 MHz, so that it has a chance of getting received on either band.

“US Navy hornet ahead! State intentions” He spoke into the mic and released the key. No response came. He tried a couple of times more, with invariable result.

The hornet was now flying level, with the nav lights flashing regularly, and illuminated by the landing lights of the herculese.

“Why the hell we didn’t get any spike*?” Binoy muttered, half to himself than to his commander, while moving his attention to the AN/ALR-56M Radar Warning Receiver. It was an excellent piece of equipment that the Americans had no problem in providing on the herculese. It did not really communicate with any outside source. It just received the radio frequency signals, primarily RADAR signals, analyzed them and displayed tactical information like type, bearing and in some cases, estimated range. Even though the Americans didn’t mention it, both sides were pretty sure that this device too would have been dumbed down from the versions flying with the allied forces.

“Maybe he is also in standby” Majumdar said in a sarcastic tone. Ashok Majumdar’s formative years as an IAF progeny were spent as a fan of the soviet aircraft. The Indian air force was almost exclusively equipped by the soviet planes, and his father, MWO Chandru Majumdar earned his pay servicing them. Little Ashok grew up hearing the heroic stories of the fantastic birds of soviet origin from his father and friends. It was only natural for him to discount all American planes, and the men who flew them. It was just an irony of fate that he ended up flying the C-130J, the first major American equipment to come to IAF for decades.

“Can’t be!! He is intercepting us. He can’t do that without classification first.” Binoy protested.

“American jocks!” the group captain snickered. “When did they start doing things as per rule?”

“He is not in his backyard! This is international airspace.” Binoy knew how his boss felt about the USAF, but he, from a younger generation, was from a generation fed on the ahock and awe of the gulf war.

“He is not monitoring the ‘guard’. Is there anything worse?” Majumdar quipped.

“I really wish we had a couple of Rhinos on our back.” Binoy lamented. “The yankee wouldn’t have dared to get within sight.” It would have been fun to watch that, and there are lot of enthusiasts back home who would love to hear about it.

“Such is service life, my boy!” Majumdar said philosophically. It was a subject of heated discussion back at home base, whether to use fighter escort for this mission or not. The transporter was not expected to encounter any hostile forces en route. The Royal Oman Air Force is the only air force worth mention in that region, and they are an ally and a party in the game. There nothing else that is worth a mention. So, why load the mission?

But strangely, the more important reason was the Americans.
Even though the staging area where the US and allied forces were rattling there sabers was pretty far to the north, a formation of aircraft with fighter escort would send red signals up the command chain. Fighters would be scrambled, and valuable time would be lost in pacifying the nerves.

The bright minds that planned the mission decided to take a gamble. Apparently, they lost. The Americans are messing up anyway.

The hornet wobbled the wings again. Majumdar, immediately acknowledged it by wobbling his own wings.

There was a knock on the cockpit door. Neither pilot seemed to hear it. After a few seconds, the knock repeated, with the same lack of response.

Then the door opened tentatively, and the face of Ramanathan poked in.

“What is going on, Captain?” He asked in the most pleasant voice he could gather.

Both pilots turned around briskly, surprised. The faces went dark immediately with indignation. Commander and first officer glanced at each other meaningfully.

“Please go back to the hold.” Majumdar snarled. “We have everything under control here.” He could not afford to take his eyes off the hornet for long, as he held onto the yoke, flying in formation. This is more difficult than a close formation, because of all the buffeting.

Ramanathan had only to look forward to see the flashing nav lights of the hornet ahead.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to have escort!” He said, hardly hiding the surprise. “The change was never mentioned in the briefing. Is that one of our sukhois?”

Daredevil marine mercenary or not, Ramanathan was fooled by the twin engines of the hornet. He was never a plane fan anyway. His speciality was the sea, and the vessels that sailed them.

Binoy Thomas laughed out loud, much to the chagrin of his commander.

“No, ‘commander’”, he said, not caring to hide the sarcasm. “That is a US Navy Super Hornet. Now please get back to the hold, and allow us to do our job properly.”

“What the?.. “ Ramanathan exclaimed. “What is a US Navy plane doing here?”

“That is what we too are trying to figure.” Binoy said, as he tried to continue his work on the RWR to find out why they didn’t see the spike. Apart from the training sessions that happened a year ago, he didn’t have much experience on the RWR. They never had to really even look at it during their routine flights.

Another cycle of wobbling wings went through. This time, Ramanathan correctly guessed its meaning.

“What is he trying to do? Is he intercepting us?” He asked, instinctively touching the shoulder of Binoy. The move startled the officer.

“Apparently, yes.” Binoy said. Majumdar glanced at him reproachfully. He wanted this intruder out of his cockpit this instant. He was now weighing if he should pull the rank and send this chattering maverick back to the hold to stay with his boys.

“Then, why isn’t he calling us on radio?” Ramanathan asked, ignoring Majumdar’s cold silence.

“He is not answering our call on the guard.” Binoy said. “You know, the distress frequency.” After some fiddling, he was successful to navigate the menu and the buttons to issue a re-classify command to the RWR, trying to see if that fixes the problem. Apparently, there was no luck, ad the console came back empty. No targets detected.

“Are we in range of the FAC?” Majumdar asked Binoy. He had decided that it would be better to ignore the pest in his cockpit. If someone from outside the force hierarchy was given command of a covert mission such as this, he must be a big shot. Better not to mess with him and end up in trouble later.

“We may be. Let me try.” Binoy said. A two man team had already been flown down to Socotra to act as forward air control for them. They were expected to set up shop somewhere out of sight of the Yemenis. They had a powerful radio system that was to be used once they were out of the commercial navigation control. But at this point of time, they must be already set up and monitoring the channels.

Ramanathan watched as Binoy handled the single channel integrated radio by pressing through menus and dials to set the radio system to the channel used by the FAC. It was an encrypted channel, which needed selection of modes and entry of secret keys. It took almost a minute to set up, after referring to some key cards that he took out from his pocket.

Finally, a menu item appeared by name “SWRD FSH” on the little LCD panel of the radio, which was selected and highlighted by a dial.

Binoy keyed the mic. “Sword Fish forward. This is Bird. Copy?”

There was no response.

Ramanathan was watching the whole process with extreme interest. He was used to all kinds of radios and radars used in ships, but he was totally new to airborne stuff. The densely packed switches, displays and dials was too confusing for a first time viewer. The radio was sitting to one side, with its backlit LCD console, and all the switches and dials around the LCD. It was a fully digital equipment that used the dials as an input device, unlike the analog radios where you actually tuned the system using the dial.

Ramanathan noticed that another entry on the LCD Panel that read “NATO BC” flashed a couple of times. It stopped for a few seconds and flashed again.

“What is NATO BC? He asked Binoy. “What?” Binoy interjected with impatience.

“What is that thing flashing on the radio panel reading “NATO BC”

“Oh. That is some NATO protocol stuff that came with the radio. We don’t use that.” Binoy said dismissively.

A tubelight flickered on somewhere in the minds.

Binoy clicked the dial to scroll down and selected the entry. The outline flashed, showing that they system is tuned and ready on that pre-set band and protocol.

For a few seconds, there was nothing.

Then, loud and clear, a voice in thick New York accent came over the speaker. “Unidentified aircraft heading two one fife, level two four zero . Identify yourself.”

*spike: code for RWR showing the threat.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Rahul M »

we want more !
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by ramana »

Clancy will have a fit and go back to insurance sales!
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Raja Bose »

^^+1000000 8)

Dileep, this story should interest publishers.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 51

“US Navy hornet, This is an Indian Air Force Transport. eye dee* please. Over.” Sq. Ldr. Binoy Thomas muttered into the microphone, trying to control his voice. He was in a mix of emotions ranging from anxiety to exhilaration in the past minute. He had to take a couple of breaths to calm himself before keying the mic to transmit his response. But when he did, it was a commendable show of calm and professional radio contact.

“Indian Transport, this is Leutenant Timothy Jackson of the United States Navy, Carrier Group USS John C Stennis. Declare$, over.” The voice of Tide came over the radio.

Binoy looked at Majumdar meaningfully. “You got control.” Majumdar said without emotion, as he adjusted his headset to take over the radio contact. Binoy took hold of the yoke. “I have control” he said, almost in a whisper, to complete the protocol.

“This is Group Captain Ashok Majumdar of the Indian Air Force, transport squadron seven seven. I am commanding a charlie-one three zero juliet transporter heavy. State your intentions please. Over”

The radio went silent for a moment. Majumdar turned to look at his co pilot, who was concentrating on keeping the plane steady. Without thinking, he also turned to look at the unwelcome intruder in his cockpit. Ramanathan was smiling, as if he was watching an action movie, and about to see some thrills.

“Indian charlie, hornet. Good evening, Captain.” Tide’s voice came on the radio again. “Please be adviced that you got another hornet abeam of you, with Leutenant 2nd grade Harrison Tinbaugh. Over”

The men in the cockpit of the herculese looked at each other. Almost counter-intuitively, this information was really comforting to the pilots. This means the fighters are not in offensive mode.

“Roger that, Leutenant. I got one of yours abeam Over.” Majumdar acknowledged the hornet and waited for the ‘intentions’ part. They were flying over international waters. No one held any power to mess with them.

It took a rather long time for Tide to come back. Maybe he was checking with his controllers, thought Majumdar. It was unlikely that they just happened to meet while on a joyride.

“Indian Charlie, hornet. We are investigating because you are squawking visual, seven zero zero zero, captain. And we have no record of your flight. Over.”

Majumdar looked at Ramanathan with a “you guys screwed up” look. He wondered which bright minds in the upper levels decided to do the covert mission this way. It was a fact that he had raised concerns about the squawk, but he hadn’t really pressed the point. These protocols were not really his problem

“That is.. uh… a mission requirement, captain” Majumdar said, making sure that his feelings didn’t get into his voice. “you are welcome to verify it though your command. Over.”

It was public knowledge, at least within the forces, that a liaison system was established to work out the possible interactions between the US forces in the northern Arabian sea and the naval and air forces of the neighboring nations. Apart from the regional powers namely India and China, other nations with any appreciable naval or air force presence, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Oman were part of the liaison. The convention is to advice the US forces, whenever any military craft is making a move in the region close to the action zone. However, the flight path of the current mission did not approach the conflict area, and unless the US forces have asked for clearing the corridor to Diego Garcia, there was no need to inform them.

This point was well briefed to the crew, to make them understand their position, just in case a situation like this arose.

“Stand by” came the curt reply. The hornet continued to fly ahead, and the hercules followed it. As long as they are on course, the team didn’t mind the hornet flying ahead. The buffeting from the wake was a bit of a problem however.

Minutes passed, while the crew and their unwelcome visitor waited in the cockpit of the hercules. Both pilots were searching in their long forgotten lessons about the protocol to be followed for communicating with another, neutral, military entity. Neither the group captain nor the squadron leader had any real clue about it. Binoy was in fact happy that it is the job for the commander to deal with it.

“What the hell!” Majumdar thought aloud, as if reading the thoughts of his first officer. “The yankee didn’t even use the guard. These guys think anything would be game for them.”

“Shouldn’t we ask him why he didn’t monitor the guard?” Ramanathan ventured.

The fact that it was his intervention that led to the discovery of the NATO Broadcast protocol which enabled them to communicate with the hornet was already forgotten, and Ramanathan’s status had already been moved back to that of the ‘meddling civy’. Still, they couldn’t yell at the mission commander to get lost.

And he had a point too. Both pilots were concerned that they couldn’t get him on guard. Another thing was the RWR. Why that did not work?

“Uh.. Indian Charlie.” Tide’s voice came once again on the radio. “Our liaison is trying to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, please state your intentions. Over”

Majumdar turned and looked at Binoy, and he in turn, glanced at Ramanathan. He nodded negative.

“Hornet, negative. I see no need to appraise you on our intentions. Over” Inside, Majumdar felt a shot of happiness in telling off the yankee.

The radio went silent for almost a minute.

“Roger that Charlie. You decline to state intentions. Standby.” was the reply after the delay. They could feel the arrogance in the tone. Binoy noticed that his commander was enjoying it.

Ramanathan could imagine the cogs turning in the US military system. He had some experience in dealing with a carrier battle group once, but that was on the surface. He had a general idea on how systematic the command structure of the US military worked. This little, benign, encounter would be now escalated to the rear admiral commanding the carrier battle group from his cruiser.

“Indian Charlie, we are being ordered to escort you. Please continue to monitor this channel. Over.” Tide’s voice had an added firmness to it.

“Roger that, hornet.” Majumdar put on the same tone. “you will escort us, wherever we go, and whatever we are going to do.” He turned and winked at Binoy. “Now, could you move away from my bow, please. We are getting your wake. Over.”

“Charlie, willco#. Over”, and the hornet slowly broke left away from the path of the herculese.

“Hornet, Please be advised that we called you earlier on Victor@ Guard earlier. Over.”

There was no response for a couple of minutes. But they thought they heard some clicks from their own guard receiver.

“Charlie. Victor unserviceable. Out” Came the reply.

“Bugger hadn’t turned that on!” Majumdar laughed. “That is how innocent people get shot down!!”

He had no clue how close he himself had come to being shot down.


*eye dee : Phonetic brevity code for identification.
$Declare: Brevity code for Requesting ID.
#Willco: Brevity code for “Will Comply”.
@Victor: Brevity code for VHF Radio.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by amisourav »

Is there a possibility that Indian C130Js are tweaked by Yankees to not get detected?
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 52

Neither pilot of the C-130J was happy about the fact that a pair of US Navy hornets are on their tail. They had correctly guessed that some very valuable asset, most probably the carrier group itself must be in the vicinity. Otherwise the fighters would not be wasting their time following a transport aircraft that was heading away from their area of interest.

They had two problems at hand, thanks to the meddling of the hornets.

Firstly, they were expected to change their identity once they reach the Yemeni FIR, controlled from the island of Socotra. They were expected to change their IFF to military mode, and report as a flight of the Omani Air Force. Right now, this would be impossible to do without the knowledge of the hornets.

Secondly, they had no clue what the hornets are looking for. They didn’t want to make any move that might be interpreted by the trigger happy rednecks - that was the impression of Grp. Capt. Majumdar – as hostile. The little consolation is that they had the radio contact over the NATO Broadcast protocol, so they would not fire those dreaded sidewinders without first asking. Or, wouldn’t they?

They will have to work something out in an hour or so. They expect to show on the radar at Socotra well before they hit the official hand over point. They will have to change their IFF before that happened. Changing the identification after the controllers notices the original one would be a messy affair.

And there was no indication on the whereabouts of the hornets. Where they still on the tail of the hercules?

There was no means of knowing, except by calling them over the radio. Of course, one should expect them to show the courtesy to call and inform before breaking the trail. But there is no rule demanding that. The APN-241 radar on board the C-130J, which is currently on standby, have no option to classify the targets themselves.

If the RWR was working good, that would have shown the hornets on tail. The AN/ALR-56M Radar Warning Receiver was a pretty good device, but like much of the other equipment on board this state of the art aircraft, that too appears to be dumbed down for export to the ‘not-in-the-innermost-circle’ country that was India. The training given by the manufacturers, Lockeheed Martin and BAE Systems, left a lot to be desired. Entire sections from the user manual were missing. The pilots had reported that while the training on the flight systems and the systems related to aviation safety was excellent, once they moved to the avionics, everything felt completely dumbed down. There were lots of options on the software that threw the familiar red octagon, claiming that the option is unavailable. On top of that many options were waved off as “not supposed to be there” by the trainers. Still, many were present when the delivery of the aircrafts were made.

The NATO BC mode was one among them that they discovered quite accidentally.

The smart airmen of the Veiled Vipers had already figured out how to configure the RWR to show the ARTC radars. Normally, such benign signals are filtered out by the devices, but it is possible to modify the filters to include them. In fact the filter system was a pretty complicated one, allowing a number of user selectable parameters, as well as parameters from the sensor fusion paradigm. The radar, IFF and RWR are all tied together to get a better threat perception to the pilots.

On ground at Hindan, the technicians had already configured the RWR to report the known frequencies of the ARTCs en route. This was important. When the hercules see Socotra show up on the list, they will have close to ten minutes to change their IFF, before Socotra start seeing their radar returns.

Binoy Thomas began to check the RWR to make sure that it is configured correctly. They had not verified the ARTC mode while they were in range of the Indian system. It might seem a bit stupid for the technically minded, but the operational folk in the air force trusted their airmen. They are pilots, not scientists or engineers. If the airmen told something is serviceable, they take that for granted.

Throughout the flight, they were flying with the device in standard tactical mode, which filtered out any navigation radars. In tactical mode, the hornets must have shown up brightly. But there was no indication. Somehow, the device failed to report the hornets as a threat.

Once the hornets went to the tail and the flight stabilized, Ramanathan had gone back to the hold, to take care of his mission. Though just instrumental, his help was invaluable in getting the radio working. Binoy felt that another pair of eyes might have helped in handling the RWR too. These new generation user interfaces were complicated, like some of the phones. These days, you can’t borrow someone’s phone to make an urgent call. Unless it is a known model, you won’t be able to figure out how to make a call with all the bells and whistles.

Despite all the sophisticated software control, changing the mode of the RWR was not simple. You need to first set the device in standby, click through the modes using a dial, and then mcommand the system to ‘reclassify’. This will reset the entire threat database, and start classifying them again. Binoy began scrolling through the pre-set modes using the dial. The mode he was looking for was helpfully named ‘ARTC’ by the technicians who had figured it all out back home. Incidentally, he found a mode by name ‘BUDDY’ towards the bottom of the list.

“Why not!” He thought. They had more than half an hour to figure it out. Another couple of minutes delay won’t harm. He selected the BUDDY mode and hit ‘reclassify’.

It took more than two minutes, by which time Binoy had fought his urge to change the mode a few times, but the display finally spat out a single line in green. ‘SHRNET/73’, and the flashing vector indicated directly 6 o’ clock.

“Son of a gun!!” Majumdar exclaimed when he was apprised of the development, and slapped Binoy’s shoulder hard.

The technicians of the Veiled Vipers will have a big project soon. Figuring out everything, which means ‘every bloody damn feature’ as the Air Vice Marshal put it eloquently, figured out on the C-130J.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by ramana »

Another example of Services "jugaad"!
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 53

Lieutenant Timothy (Tide) Jackson sat in the cockpit of his Super Hornet, trying to get into a comfortable position behind the lumbering giant profile of the C-130J transporter. It was a tough job to ride the backwash from four Dowty R391 propellers, each drawing a circle of 13.5 feet diameter and pushing air at least 2000 horse power each at the cruise speed. He had moved further back and above the hercules, with his wingman Brut joining up from behind once Tide have settled down.

Tide was still reeling from the feeling of embarrassment caused by the Indians indicating that he did not follow procedure, which was to hail them on the guard frequency.

According to the standard operating procedure followed by the US forces, the radio system called SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) aboard the airborne platforms of the US military would primarily use the highly secure and classified combat net system to communicate among themselves and their ground assets. There are also separate options to communicate within the flight formation, or within a mission team. There are also broadcast channels with various protocols, that could be received by anyone with the right equipment. Very basic AM and FM modulated channels, to be used when communicating with the legacy systems were also included in the design of these state of the art radios.

With all these gizmos and its numerous modes, Tide was not monitoring the ‘guard’ or ‘distress’ frequency. It was something basic that gets routinely ignored by the users of an advanced system. It was not unlike the people who do not think of checking the radiator fluid level in their cars. It was a need during the olden days, but not anymore. Even though the manuals still specified that pilots must always monitor the guard channel, it was very easy to overlook it.

In his entire career in the US Navy that spanned close to seven years, Lt. Jackson had never, ever used the guard channel himself. He was from the generation who grew up considering cell phones and GPS as regular fixtures of life. The military systems that always defined the cutting edge of technology didn’t have the need of a mode that was devised during the infant days of radio communication. Even when flying with the not-so-advanced’ allies forces, they had the compatible modes of communication, that could remain reasonably secure.

And he did follow the procedure by calling the Indian plane over the broadcast mode, which was for the NATO allies. It was the drilled in standard procedure for his unit. In all operational scenarios that they faced, this mode would serve fine. He had no doubt in his mind that the Hercules wouldn’t hear the hail. When there was no response from them, he was advised by the ground controllers down below that there is a potential that the plane is on an ‘unauthorized’ flight, which is the mild language for ‘stolen’.

A stolen aircraft in the vicinity of a carrier group was indeed a major threat. Tide and Brut were promptly ordered to intercept the aircraft and see what they are upto. They also had the weapons on standby. It was just standby, and not armed, because the offending aircraft was a transporter. There is no way a hercules could do anything mischievous when a hornet is around.

Tide promptly accelerated to overtake the lumbering giant, and got himself at their 12 O clock. As a good measure, Brut continued on the tail, ready to take the herc out if anything out of ordinary happens. Fortunately, the Indians were smart, and promptly acknowledged the flares. For reasons that remained strange to Tide, the Indians finally appeared on the radio, and made proper and verifiable contact.

Since they had neither the right, nor the need to interfere with a benign transporter of a friendly air force, Tide was ordered to follow them and make sure that they get sufficiently far out of the way of the carrier group sailing below. It was tough to make the hornet cruise at a slow speed to match the speed of the turboprop, and honestly, it was really a boring task for fighter jocks like Tide and Brut. They were counting the minutes towards the pre-set range, where they could tell the Indians to go on their way and break off return to the carrier. They were far from Bingo* level, so, they might be asked to continue their point duty for maybe an hour or longer. After that, an early breakfast and a warm bunk awaited them.

“Hornet, this is India Hercules. Copy? Over.” The voice of the Indian pilot came clear over the broadcast channel.

“Yeah, right!” Tide thought. Just when he thought that he could return from boring escort duty, the Indians want something from him.

“Hercules, Hornet here. Go ahead.” Tide pulled in the mic which was kept away, and answered the call.

“Hornet, could you please state how long you would be around? We need to do something we got to do? Over.”

“Hercules, Say Again?” Tide didn’t get what the Indian was trying to say.

There was a pause.

“Hornet, we are going to do some maneuvers. Mission requirement. Request not to shoot us down. Over.” The radio also captured a chuckle, which Tide found a bit annoying.

“Roger That.” Tide responded in reflex. These Indians are making fun of him. God knows what they waned to do, but for their own good, let it not involve turning around and approaching his mother ship.

“Hercules, standby.” Tide needed time to think before responding.

“Tide, what are they upto?” Brut chipped in on the formation channel. Tide turned the dial to change the mode to formation, to make that the default transmit mode.

“Dunno, Brut. Looks fishy to me.” Tide said, still unsure. The hercules is not a threat to the carrier group anymore, even though still five more minute’s flying is needed to reach the break-away point. After he breaks away, it is not his concern what they do, unless they come back to a hostile position to his carrier group. Good old Tide is not ready to trust these Indians. He needs to watch his back after he breaks away, and make sure that they stay away.

He turned his radio to link with his controller in the carrier group.

“Guardian, this is Point. Range check for bulls eye?” He asked, making sure it sounded like a casual query. With the GPS enabled moving map, his hornet have no need for a range check from the ground based radar. But once he turns around, he won’t be able to monitor the cunning Indians. If guardian can’t reach the Hercules, it is not a good idea to turn around.

“Range two niner seven bearing two four zero. Bulls eye two niner.” Came the reply. The high frequency secure digital link of the SINCGARS made it sound like the controller is speaking to him over intercom. They had twentynine nautical miles to go before they could break off from following the hercules.

The guardian’s AN/SPS-49 can see both the hornet and the hercules at these ranges. Even if Tide breaks away, the controller can watch the transport, and make sure that they stay away. There is no worry, and no need to suggest a change in the mission.

Tide turned the dial to broadcast.

“Hercules, the procedure requires us to advice you before shooting. You are being tracked by ground control, as well as other platforms. Over” He left the mic on for a second, so that it carried his laugh. That should be enough for now.

There was a pause from the Indian side.

“Hornet, roger. We appreciate the gesture. Out.” The reply still came in an even tone.

Give me five more minutes, and you will be on your own. Tide thought. Show any over smartness, and I have enough gas to come back and kick your tailpipes.

Then he noticed that the hercules initiated a slow right turn.


*Bingo: Fuel level that warrants return to base.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by chaanakya »

Brilliant.
Should reclassify BUDDY as BLOODY.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 54

The IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system was an old invention, dating back to the World War II. When Radar was invented, there arose a need to identify the target that is being detected by the radar. It started off with a simple device that returned a radio signal that was coded with a mechanical code assembly. As technology progressed the system too matured to add various modes to its operation, including the cryptographic techniques to make it respond only to the interrogation by the friendly radars. In a hostile combat environment, it is preferable that the IFF does not respond to any queries at all, as the radio emissions can be used to give away the positions.

The KV-119 digital IFF system is the standard equipment on board the C-130J Super Hercules aircraft. This device is one of the most advanced ones in the world, and had modes that enable it to interoperate with the US combat data networks. Since much of these communication protocols are classified and highly valued by the US military, these devices are not sold to other countries without the protection of an agreement called Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA). This is a very intrusive agreement that allows the US almost complete control over the platforms that are covered. India had refused to go through the process, and hence the KV-119 was not included in the C-130J aircrafts that were supplied to the IAF.

DRDO had developed an indigenous system for communication with airborne equipment, and it covered all airborne platforms operated by the armed forces in a phased manner. The C-130Js were fitted with the DRDO developed IFF, that enabled the system to work seamlessly with the data and radar networks of IAF.

The secret, military functions and protocols of the IFF, even though highly complex, and involved a lot of development effort, were in fact formed only a small part of the functional needs of the system. It still needed to support all the civilian and public military modes, so that it can correctly work with the open systems used all over the world. To the bare minimum, it must support the 4 octal digit squawk code system to identify itself to the civil aviation tracking devices. That is, whenever it was not on a combat mission.

The C-130J commanded by Grp Capt Majumdar was not a combat flight. It was a covert flight, but it still needed to work with all the civil aviation controllers en-route. As fate would have it, the flight also had to unexpectedly work with the US Navy as well. This brought in a bit of a problem for them.

They were needed to change their squawk mode to military, and claim that it is a military cargo flight of the Royal Air Force of Oman. It needed to be done without the knowledge of the air traffic controllers outside India. The interference from the US Navy had created a problem with this otherwise neat plan. It might turn troublesome if the US Navy see that the flight changes its identity in mid flight. You had two hornets on the tail, and a long range radar tracking them from a ship below. All of them would be really upset if they try to pull off something like that.

It was a nice little soup. A totally unexpected one to be in.

The Yemeni air traffic control maintained a FIR from their island of Socotra in the northern Arabian Sea. It is an unavoidable requirement that the hercules hail them and seek passage according to a flight plan that was filed with them. To avoid complexities, they must change the squawk codes before they start showing up on the scopes of Socotra. A quick calculation had shown that they won’t be able to get out of the eyes of the carrier group before they get into the area of control by the Yemeni system.

As an immediate need, Grp Capt Majumdar decided to turn right, and fly at a tangent to the pair of radars that he was trying to play with. But it too can’t continue for long. They must change the squawk and get into the specified flight path within the time window that would enable them to reach the drop zone on time. He was hoping that the hornet on his tail would give up and leave him alone soon.

Binoy had gone back to working the RWR. He had the difficult task of switching the mode constantly to display the ARTC radars in one pre-set mode and the fighters on his tail in another mode. Still, he couldn’t get the ground control radar of the US carrier group on his scope. He was pretty sure that is there, but the BUDDY mode of the scope didn’t show it. There was no time to mess with the settings to try figure it out right now. There is another point for the technicians at Hindan to worry about later.

“Bird, this is swordfish forward. Copy? Over”. The radio chirped. The link was not perfect, as indicated by the voice was full of digital artifacts.

Majumdar and Binoy looked at each other, with a “its about time” look.

“Forward, Bird. We copy. Over.” Binoy keyed the mic mic to the pre-set channel and responded.

The next transmission from the forward control was garbled. One of the problems with the digital enhanced radio is, the algorithms could never approach the human brain in deciphering noisy speech. A trained ear can easily decipher a garbled transmission over analog radio, while the digital system would just get you hisses and beeps.

When they came back on again, the forward control on ground at Scoctra wanted to know the status. Though Majumdar began with the usual “long story” lament, it didn’t take a minute to explain the situation, before the link went bad again. They couldn’t even get a ‘roger’ back to confirm that forward had, in fact received the transmission.

The cockpit went silent, as the pilots went back to their work. If you, for a moment, forget that they are now off course, and trailed by two hornets, the flight was just calm and unremarkable.

Binoy noted something on his RWR scope when he switched to ARTC mode.

“Sir, we are approaching Oman’s airspace! There is Salalah Control on scope.”

Majumdar looked at the display. The Salalah control radar had started to light up dead ahead. They have a real problem now.

“Do we still have the Yankees on our tail?” He asked Binoy, as he was the person handling the RWR flip-flop. It was affirmative. The tenacious Americans were apparently determined to see them to the end.

They didn’t have much choice now. Majumdar decided to turn further right, trying to avoid Salalah. He very well knew that the hornets are not going to like it. He had no idea how far he can go before they considered it hostile and warned him.

“India Hercules, this is hornet. Copy?” The dreaded call came in, much earlier than expected. Majumdar looked at Binoy and shrugged.

“Hornet, Hercules here. Go ahead please” Majumdar put the mic on, hit the key and responded.

“You are heading to the restricted zone. Please do not go beyond bearing three zero zero.” Tide advised over the radio.

“Shit hits the fan!” Majumdar interjected and looked at Binoy Thomas. Then, remembering that he is required to respond to the call, he keyed the mic. “Roger” was all he said.

They would be heading into real problem soon. They are practically boxed in by the radars at Socotra, Salalah and the US carrier group. They didn’t have much leeway to turn.

“Oh! God! Sir!!” Binoy cried, as he noted something on his RWR screen. Majumdar instinctively looked at the scope.

There was a bogey on the scope, bright as a star, almost superimposed on the callout of Salalah radar. The system chirped, as it finished classification of the bogey.

FLCN50/68 was the call out. It was an F-16 fighting Falcon Block 50, coming right at them with its AL/APG-68 radar blazing full power in scan mode.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dilbu »

[Salivating]
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Rahul M »

do
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by chaanakya »

Pakis ,

drooling :twisted:
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 55

“Unidentified Aircrafts at vector two niner fife level two four zero!” the voice in a clear Arabic accent came over the guard band receiver. “This is Royal Oman Airforce. You are approaching our zone. Please state intentions.”

Sq. Ldr. Binoy Thomas let go of everything and punched in the air. It was a godsend. He knew that the Sultanate of Oman is privy to their secret. Hopefully their patrols might know. At least you can ask the friendly force for their help to pass onto Yemeni space without messing with Salalah!

Binoy looked at Grp Capt Majumdar, who didn’t share the enthusiasm. “Shall I reply, sir?” Binoy asked timidly. Majumdar nodded negative. “Let the yankee answer.” He muttered with contempt.

There was no response to the call. It was repeated. Still with no response.

“The redneck still don’t have his guard on?” Majumdar thought aloud.

“That would be a problem.” Binoy said thoughtfully. If someone doesn’t answer the call of the falcon, there will be unnecessary complications.

They were fast approaching the 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone of Oman. They were already over the zone of Yemen, as measured from Socotra, but Yemen did not have F-16s to come up and enforce it. Oman, on the other hand, possessed a strong and modern air force, as well as the training and mindset not to let things pass unquestioned.

The flight rights over the exclusive economic zone is a matter of contention in the international relationships. It is really a grey area, where the will of the stronger nation gets the go. According to the recognized conventions, airspace of a nation is just like its territory. It extends to 12 nautical miles into the sea from the shore line. The 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone doesn’t offer sovereignty for the country. So, flight over that zone is not really illegal. In fact the United States does not recognize the concept, and would fly over other nations economic zones with impunity. Only the Soviet Union, and later Russia, had tried the same tactics back on the US, resulting in a number of games of chicken near Alaska.

But the convention doesn’t prevent the country from flying out its own planes to ‘see what is going on’ in their zone. In fact it is a given that any country that possess a good air force or coast guard air arm will send out its planes to make sure that the intruder do not play any mischief.

It was only natural for the Omani fighters to come checking out, but the timing seemed odd.

They are not close enough to the Salalah air base, where the air defense radar of the Royal Oman Air Force is situated, for an alarm to be raised. Sufficient time had not been passed for the Falcon to take off and fly all the distance. There was no real reason for the Omanis to run patrols over the sea during the night. The only possibility was, maybe they are keeping a watch on the situation up north.

A more plausible reason could be that they were alerted by the boys at forward control. Majumdar smiled at the thought. The falcon should be able to chase the hornets off, and give the hercules a nice introduction to Socotra. After all, they were supposed to be an Omani transport in the next segment.

The call from the falcon came once again over the guard band. Still, there was no response from the hornets.

“This is going to be a problem.” Majumdar thought aloud. “If someone doesn’t respond, sparks could fly all over us.”

The RWR chirped a higher note, as the callout for the falcon sported an orange outline. The radar on the falcon is now sending out monopulse mode to resolve guidance. This can’t be good in any situation.

Majumdar pulled the mic in and keyed it gingerly. “Oman Airforce, this is Indian Airforce Charlie one three zero Juliet heavy on a transport mission. We are being tailed by a pair of US Navy Foxtrot one eights. Un-invited, repeat, un-invited. Over.” Majumdar smiled inside, thinking what the hornet jocks would feel of his calling their beloved crafts with their model number instead of the globally accepted name.

“Good evening India Charlie. Assalamu alaikum. Greetings from Oman. You are welcome at our airspace. Standby while I talk to the Americans. Over.”

“Oman Falcon, Wa Alaikum Assalam. Standing by, over.” Majumdar turned to Binoy. “He knows.” He said with a wide smile and a wink.

“Fighter Aircrafts trailing India Charlie!” the voice came again. “This is Oman Air Force. You are about to enter our zone. Please state intentions.”

“They don’t listen to guard. Shall we tell them, Sir?” Binoy ventured.

“Shrapnel doesn’t discriminate.” Majumdar mused. “I will tell the yankee.” He donned the mic again.

“Hornet, this is Indian Hercules. You are being hailed by the Oman Airforce, on Victor Guard. For information. Over.” He said, not trying to mask the sarcasm in his voice.

“Say Again, hercules.” The reply came promptly. Apparently, the commander of the hornet was busy with something to fully hear the call. Majumdar repeated the exact sentence again.

“Hercules, hornet. Thanks for the heads up. Our Victor guard is unserviceable. Could you advice him to come on two three fife dot eight sierra?”

“What a moron!” Majumdar cursed under his breath. He pushed the button on his radio console to select VHF Guard again and keyed the mic. He had a feeling that the yankee might have his guard receiver off earlier, but it must be on now. He just didn’t want to admit that. Let him play the way he wants, he thought.

“Oman Airforce. This is India Charlie. The US foxtrots Victor Guard is unserviceable. They request you to come on two three fife dot eight sierra” Majumdar said in the best neutral voice he could get.

“India Charlie, Oman Falcon. US Foxtrots wants us to call on two three fife dot eight sierra band. Thanks for the help. Out.” Came the reply. Majumdar smiled.

Binoy turned his dial to 235.8 MHz, SSB modulation. They will keep an ear open to the game.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Sorry to disappoint. Pakis don't have Block 50, and they have no business flying out from Salalah.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dilbu »

Doh! as Homer Simpson would say.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by chaanakya »

Dileep wrote:Sorry to disappoint. Pakis don't have Block 50, and they have no business flying out from Salalah.
:((


Do carry on.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Rahul M »

it's better than having a paki plane there.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Mort Walker »

Dileep,

Great story and please keep writing. I'm sure you can publish this.
The radar on the falcon is now sending out monopulse mode to resolve guidance.
Should this not be to resolve range and bearing instead of guidance.
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by hpatel »

Wonderful
:-)
Dileep
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Location: Dera Mahab Ali धरा महाबलिस्याः درا مهاب الي

Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dileep »

Chapter 56.

“US Navy Foxtrot, Greetings from Royal Oman Air Force and His Majesty the Sultan. Over” The voice came over the radio like the announcement on a commercial flight, except the last word. The Single Side Band modulation saves a lot of power and bandwidth for the radio, but it really distorts the voice. After being regularly using the digital channels, this was really uncomfortable for the ears. Majumdar removed his headset in disgust, listening to the speaker instead.

“Oman Airforce Falcon, this is US Navy Hornet. Go ahead, over”. The Indian pilots couldn’t really recognize the voice of Lt. Timothy Jackson over the SSB, but the tone of arrogance wasn’t distorted at all.

The Omani pilot must be really pissed, thought Majumdar. The yankee is coming to his front yard, and coolly asking to proceed. Like he didn’t know what is going on.

“Hornet, Falcon.” The radio cackled. “You are closing in on Omani air space. Please state intentions. Over.”

“Falcon, hornet. We are over international waters. We have no intention to breach your airspace, over.” Apparently, the American had it all figured out by now. It didn’t take a moment for his response.

Tide was right. He had all the right to be where he was. The Omani pilot took more than a moment to make the next move.

“Roger that, Hornet. Standby” was the only response. Binoy looked at his boss quizzically.

Ashok Majumdar was still tense. It is likely that he would have been already appeared on the Radar at Salalah. The cover of the mission is already blown by the messy American, unless the Omani Falcon is really a friend, and willing to help out. He had no way of knowing that yet, and the only thing he could do was to wait and listen in on the verbal duel between the two bullies, in front of whom, the transporter was a sitting duck.

The radio went silent for almost a minute. Meanwhile, the radar of the falcon was steadily tracking the targets, with increased power. He was closing in fast.

“Hornet, this is Falcon. Please explain why you are tailing an aircraft belonging to another country? Over” Though garbled, the voice showed some breathlessness. The American didn’t copy it on the first attempt, and the message had to be repeated.

“That is going to get his goats” Majumdar told Binoy. He smiled. Both officers sharpened their ears for the show.

“Oman Air Force Falcon, This is US Navy Hornet.” The detailed call address was the forewarning for the killer. “You have no business asking, so please don’t. Over.”

“US Navy Hornet, this is Oman Airforce Falcon. Roger. You refuse to explain your purpose here.” The Omani pilot was surprisingly composed now. The transmission clicked off. Then, after a second, it came back with a simple “Standby”.

Another minute passed.

Majumdar noticed that they have now crossed the 200 nautical mile line from the cost. They are officially within the exclusive economic zone of Oman. He also noted that there is no way the Salalah radar would miss him now.

“Indian Air Force Transporter, this is Oman Air Force Falcon” The radio came alive again. “You have now entered the economic zone of the Sultanate of Oman. How can we help you?”

Majumdar and Binoy looked at each other. Did the mission blow? Is the guy an uninformed stranger who is just being nice to a benign transporter of a friendly country? Would they be asked to land at Salalah, for a nice cup of Khawa?

“Falcon, this is India Hercules. We would like a vector to Socotra, if this hornet on our tail wouldn’t object. Over” That might reveal if the Falcon is really there to help.

“Hercules, Falcon. With pleasure, CAPTAIN. You are our guests now, and in the best tradition of the Arab hospitality, we offer you our help and protection. Over.”

Majumdar wanted to jump up and down with joy. He said Captain!! The falcon is in the game, after all. He and his co-pilot fist bumped. The falcon obviously don’t want the yankee to know, that’s all.

“Falcon, this is Hercules. Thank you sir. Standing by for instructions. Over.” Majumdar had no clue how it is going to play out. He hoped that he wouldn’t witness the first ever Falcon V/s Hornet merge outside of drills. Do they dare?

There was no transmission from the hornet for a long time.

“Hornet, this is Falcon. Hope you copy that? Over.” The Omani pilot teased.

Still no response from the hornet.

“Did he break off?” Majumdar asked Binoy. Binoy checked his RWR. There was no blip for the hornet. He signed negative. Did the yankee leave without even a comeback? That was highly improbable. He might have turned off the radar or something.

“Let me confirm.” Majumdar moved the mic back to his mouth. “Falcon, Hercules. Is the hornet still on my tail? Over.”

“Affirmative. I can see them on my scope.” Came the prompt response from the F-16

The headphone of both pilots in the Hercules chirped with the dreaded, but familiar sharp tone. The Falcon’s missiles are now acquired them! The Hercules and the Hornet were so close, that both would think they are the ones being tracked. That also meant that if a missile is fired right now, it would be the Hercules, being bigger and in front, that gets hit.

“This is becoming serious, Sir!” Binoy said, as he clicked the RWR again to see that it was really the Falcon who is rattling the saber. It was. The call-out was red with a flashing border. The AMRAAM under the wings of the falcon is eyeing them steady.
“Hercules, this is Falcon. Stand by to break left on my mark.” The radio chirped. Majumdar instantly acknowledged it, as his reflexes were triggered by the tone of the call. The significance of it dawned upon him only moments later. Binoy looked at him in utter confusion.

“Indian Hercules.” The clear, digital voice came over the NATO channel. “The US Navy regrets the inconvenience. We are breaking off from your tail. Good night. Hornet Out.”

The radio chirped, as the hornet broke out from secure link of the NATO Broadcast network. The C-130J pilots had no means of confirming, but the hornets that chased them for the past hour or so, had finally broke off, and sped back to their carrier group, with an imaginary tail neatly folded between their engine nacelles
Dilbu
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Dilbu »

he he
Raja Bose
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by Raja Bose »

Dileep mullah, the tucking in of the tail of the hornet may be imaginary, the tail hook is not. :mrgreen:
JTull
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Re: Spy Story 5: The Cyst

Post by JTull »

Once the Hercules changed to 235.8MHz how are they able to communicate with Falcon and Hornets and also listen in on the chatter between the other two?
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