Possible Indian Military Scenarios - XIV

[vivek_ahuja]

Vivek saar, in above latest scenario, Wongchup stands for Jongchup, right ...?

Not sure I follow. There was a typo in some passages above where Jongchup was written as Jangchup. I corrected this in the manuscript. Is that what you were asking?

[vivek_ahuja]

“New strip coming up.”

The voice woke up wing-commander Nair from his catnap. He rubbed his eyes and brought up his comms mouthpiece up: “Right. On the way.”

He then looked out the rounded window to see the bright sunlight glistening on the snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas. Clear, bright, blue skies above the mountains. They were flying steady over the peaks. The drone of the engine noise was constant in the background, punctuated with occasional white noise and chatter of the crew. He unbuckled his seat-belt and walked over to the young flight-lieutenant sitting at his stations. Once there, he leaned over the young man’s shoulders and looked at the pixellated image taking shape on the computer screen in front of him.

“What do we have?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, sir. See this here?” the flight-lieutenant pointed a finger at the top right corner of the image strip. “That’s PLA supply convoys heading south towards the Chumbi valley. Same routine as always. Running late, though.”

Nair smiled. The pixellated clusters on the image strip in front of them was being collected in near-real time by the Indian derivative of the Israeli EL/M-2060 synthetic-aperture-radar. This large device was mounted in an external pod underneath the belly of their Bombardier Global 5000 aircraft. This radar differed from the standard airborne-warning radars in that it wasn’t meant to be used to track airborne targets, though Nair and his crew had tracked some Chinese and Pakistani helicopters on occasion.

No, the synthetic-aperture radar was meant for ground-mapping of targets, both moving and stationary. And there were two wasy of doing this. The current method being used by Nair’s crew was something they put into play in conjunction with the flight-crew in the cockpits. The aircraft would move close to the India-Tibet border, above the Himalayan peaks running east-west, and establish a race-track pattern of maintaining position. Nair would then direct the ground-mapping radar to be deployed facing north and collecting data in its “strip” search mode, which generated a strip of images of the ground region it was pointed towards. The resolution of these images was acceptable, but not entirely impressive. They could make out groups of tanks, trucks and convoys, but not smaller targets. However, if something of interest came up, they would then attempt to move to the “spot” mode and try to capture a high-resolution “snap” of the small region of interest. If they couldn’t do this with the aircraft maintaining an orthogonal heading, Nair would call up the flight-crew and they would break pattern for a more direct vector towards the “spot” and then “snap” it...

Of course, there wasn’t much that necessitated such an elaborate exercise these days. Nair and his crew had been on station in this mission for a few hours with nothing to show except boredom and clockwork Chinese logistics. The latter had regularly scheduled convoys that Nair and his crew would track. And for their part, the Chinese knew of Nair’s presence in the skies over the southern Himalayas. They couldn’t even be bothered to send up one of their fighters to try and scare Nair away. The Indian air-force and intelligence services had been doing these twice-a-month ground-target mapping missions for some months now, with little to show for it.

The fact of the matter was that the Chinese were keeping their heads down. They weren’t looking for a war. Not another one, at least. This time their response to the Tibetan rioting was far more methodical and precise. The PLA was maturing as a combat force. And the Tibetans didn’t stand a chance against it. But when it came to India, there wasn’t so much as a peep of noise...

“What’s this here? North of the river.” Nair pointed a finger towards the top-right corner of the strip image when it finished rendering on the monitor. The flight-lieutenant focused his eyebrows and moved the screen cursor over to that corner of the image and magnified it, such as it was. It showed large number of rectangular shapes scattered in lines north of the Yarlung river.

“Looks like a convoy of large vehicles, doesn’t it?” Nair offered. The young lieutenant nodded agreement: “yes sir. Looks like construction crew. You see this one here?” He moved his cursor over a particularly large and oddly defined vehicular shape. “This looks like one of the heavy digging vehicles the Chinese like to use in their major construction projects.”

“What are they building up there?” Nair asked as he cupped his chin with his fingers and stood up straight. He felt the aircraft turning as it reached the end of the current loop and backed up on its track to the east. “Maybe another dam?”

“No idea, sir,” the flight-lieutenant replied. “Perhaps if we increased our coverage a bit further west, we can capture the picture completely. This is just a ear we have here.”

“Right,” Nair said as he considered the proposition, “is there any military activity out there?”
“Looks civilian to me.”

“Then its not worth our time.” Nair stated flatly. “Log the location and a summary of our comments to go with the image for later analysis. If the intelligence folks want us to do a follow up, will roll that into the next mission planning.”

“Yes sir.” The flight-lieutenant started typing into the embedded keyboard of his station, jotting down some comments for this new Chinese activity.
“By the way, that location was northwest of Xigaze, right?” Nair said as he prepared to walk over to one of the other stations. He got an “affirmative” from the flight-lieutenant, so he walked off to one of the signals-intelligence operators. He heard the flight-crew chattering over the external comms before the static cleared on his line. It was the pilot from the cockpit:

“Just heard from Table-top-actual. They detected two Chinese fast-movers lifting off from Lhasa and heading south at high speed.”
That caused Nair to raise an eyebrow: “they are interested in us?”

“Nobody else out here for them to worry about,” the pilot said calmly. “Table-top-actual suggests that we return to the roost. There are no heavy-hitters up on our side today, so there is no welcome party for these inbound guests.”

“Agreed,” Nair replied into his comms piece. “We seem to have tickled the Chinese one mission too far. Time to head home before this gets ugly.”
“Wilco.” The flight-crew chimed off.

Nair looked around to his operators and shrugged his shoulders: “looks like we pissed off the Chicoms today. They have just scrambled two fighters to come see what we are doing. Shut down all comms and systems. We are breaking pattern and recovering back south.”

As the aircraft cabin tilted, Nair staggered over to his crew-seat and strapped himself in. His operators were already punching buttons and flipping switches to power down the synthetic-aperture-radar and other active signals intelligence antenna arrays.

Outside the windows, the shadows changed direction and Nair felt some weightlessness as the aircraft lost altitude and returned below the horizon of the Himalayan peaks on its way south.

[vivek_ahuja]

Not all Indian intelligence was gathered from the air or from space. A lot of the regular day-to-day Chinese activities were being tracked by a ground station of the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW; the Indian external intelligence service. This station was a new state of the art facility up in the shadow of the Manirang mountain in Himachal Pradesh, facing the Tibetan plateau.

At almost twenty-thousand feet above altitude, the perrenial snow and sub-zero freezing temperature made it an inhospitable place. But it also made the air extremely crisp and clear. The low densities of this high altitude offered immense advantages if one was predisposed to investigate the high-altitude scatter of ground-based and airborne communications emanating over the horizon in Tibet. And RAW was certainly predisposed for this. It made a lot more sense to place permanent stations in these peaks than it did to fly extremely expensive and high-tech aircraft on a continuous basis. From a station in these majestic peaks, the radio horizon was deep inside Tibet. And the quality of intercepts was high.

Consequently, this ground-station had been created by RAW with radio antennaes covered in white radio-transparent dome covers that made the housing station look like a high-altitude observatory more than a listening station. There were other domes with satellite dishes and other passive electronic signals intelligence equipment.

The station stayed operation throughout the year except when the weather made it impossible to maintain operations. The personnel here stayed on station for weeks at a stretch and went through a daily mundane schedule of maintaing equipment, collecting the vast amount of data that streamed into their hands and tried making sense of it. All of the data collection was automatic, of course. But the data processing was not. Sure, there were some algorithms for digital data searching available, but it still helped sort the mountain of data. Depending on the prioritization of the day, the personnel at the station would look for patterns and key phrases, sentences or even words uttered from the Tibetan plateau.

The signal sources were immense. Every radio communication, civilian or military, could end up bouncing off the upper atmosphere and reach the listening ears of this station. Sometimes the crews here picked up small groups of Tibetan rebels passing communications to each other. Other times it would be the Chinese state radio broadcasts. And sometimes it would be military communications, both terrestrial and airborne. The military communications were few and far in between. The Chinese had laid out so many fiber-optic communication lines that their radio chatter was subdued. The only radio intercepts dealt with small unit communications in the field, which was still useful, but no higher-level intercepts. Same was true of their airborne communications. The Chinese had clamped down on comms leaks in their aircraft through the employment of secure datalinks and directional satellite communications. The Chinese were close to rendering the Indian operations blind.

But the civilian radio operations in Tibet were far less sucure. They provided the more mundane activities in the region. And for the last few months they had been focused entirely on water, or lack thereof. The RAW operators in the listening station had been tracking all of these communications along with their dire predictions and the dejected overtones.

And then, something had changed in recent weeks.

The tone had changed. There was almost an upliftment of morale among the civilian officials in Tibet, at least on the water issue. But there had been no change in the water sources. Small indications pointed to a project underway to mitigate the scarcity of water in Tibet. The RAW operatives poured through the data and the shift in tone was almost perceptive. The Chinese were definitely excited by something.

And that only meant bad news for India.

[vivek_ahuja]

Gephel could smell the scent of old books and parchments. He glanced at the rows upon rows of scrolls that documented the humble history of the Tibetan people over a millennia. He decided to take one of the scrolls out and spread it on the wooden table between the aisles of the archives. As the document unrolled, it let off another strong scent of decaying paper. Much of the detailed scriptures were long since forgotten to Gephel, but he recognized the gist of it well enough.

As it happened, the document he had opened was a sort of short document written by one of the Lamas over a hundred years ago. It had an appropriate title...

‘The Path to Enlightenment’

Gephel smiled and shook his head. The path to enlightenment. Back when this document had been written, Tibet still enjoyed a sort of awkward protection with the British Raj in India. Its monasteries were free to pursue their theological and spiritual pursuits. This Lama author of this scroll was clearly pursuing his monastic ideals, unaffected by the happenings of the First World War on the other side of the planet. The mountains were pure back then, free of external interference except for the odd British mission or the wayward traveler in search of Shangri La.

If only you knew what lay ahead...Gephel thought.

“You are not supposed to touch these.”

Gephel turned his head to see a Lama staring at him from the entrance to the archives. He had the classic look of a monastery disciple. The bald head, the orange and yellow garbs and the peaceful serenity that seemed to envelop him like a halo.

Gephel carefully rolled up the document. “Sorry about that, I was simply absorbed by the moment.”

The Lama nodded but kept a stern face. He understood. Gephel was a fellow Tibetan living in exile in India, like every other free Tibetan still alive. The bond between them was strong. It had to be for their civilization to survive in these dark days.

Gephel finished rolling the document and placed it back in its place on the shelf. He faced the Lama again: “I am looking for Ngodup Sangyal.”

“He is here,” the Lama said and firmly but politely showed his hand towards a back door leading to a small garden behind the archives building. “Please.”

Gephel bowed gently and passed by the Lama towards the indicated door. The door led to some stone steps into the garden. A man in his late forties in a western shirt and trousers was waiting for him. His grey hair combed perfectly and he had an impeccable groomed look about him. The contrast with the Lama inside the archives was stark. Here was the Tibet of the twenty-first century mixed with that of the nineteenth century. A culture evolving within the same melting pot...

“Gephel,” Sangyal said as he put out a hand. “A pleasure to see you after so many years.”
Gephel shook Sangyal’s hand and smiled. “Same here. What has happened to you? Last time I saw you, you were still wearing a tongak with your head shaved!”

Sangyal grinned and put a hand through his hair. “The new Tibet, my friend. The world changes, and we change with it.”
“I am not sure that’s a good thing!”
“Well,” Sangyal noted soberly, “what choice is there?”
“True.”

Sangyal nodded his head towards a small path that went downhill. “Let’s take a walk.”

As the two men descended down the steps and entered the trees, the majestic Himalayas with their snow-capped tips towered in the background. The quiet murmur of the city of Dharamsala slowly died behind them. Gephel turned to see that the Lama that had escorted him out of the archives building now closed the door behind him. They were finally alone out here.

“So what’s on your mind?” Sangyal asked dryly.
“What is on everybody’s minds.”
“You came here to find out if we will fight the Chinese again,” Sangyal stated flatly. “Your friends in New-Delhi sent you here to ask us.”

“Will the boys fight again?”

“Perhaps. You heard what Beijing is doing up there,” Sangyal said as he shook his head towards the Himalayas behind him. “But we can’t do it alone.”

Gephel took a deep breath and then looked at the majestic peaks that now separated him from his former home. After a few seconds, he turned to face Sangyal: “what do you need?”

“The usual suspects,” Sangyal replied. “Comms, explosives and intel are the highest priority items. Anti-vehicle weapons are the other major need. Can’t take on the Chinese without some ability to take down their legions of vehicles.”

“What about guns, ammo and food?”

“We have that in quantity. You would be surprised to see the kind of stuff that is available freely these days in the world market. The low tech stuff we have. The high-tech stuff needs to be obtained, preferably from your friends in Delhi.”

“Hmm.” Gephel nodded and then looked Sangyal in the eye: “Do you have enough to get things going or are you dead in the water?”

Sangyal recoiled at the insinuation: “oh, we have enough to fight! With or without your help!” Sangyal smiled: “besides, we still have quite a bit of supplies left over from the Pathfinder missions.”

Gephel raised an eyebrow: “you didn’t get rid of that stuff after all this time? You folks had explicit orders to destroy the leftover stuff! Did you lie to us about that all these years?”

“We decided to hide it instead for a future time. Doesn’t seem so reckless now, does it?”

“It was very reckless! It still is,” Gephel responded angrily. “Even under today’s circumstances.” He then looked away and forced himself to calm down. He had underestimated the resourcefulness of his Tibetan friends. They were going to fight the Chinese. Gephel knew that for a certainty now.

“Right,” Gephel nodded after a few seconds of consideration, “you have enough to start a fire. But obviously things would go better if you were to get some support. What about manpower?”

“No shortage of volunteers there,” Sangyal admitted. “The youth all know what is happening in their occupied homes right now. They are itching to go if we can give them the tools.”

“Who’s leading them into Tibet?”

Sangyal smiled again: “Another friend of yours from the Pathfinder days.”

“And who on earth would that be? All of the men in my Pathfinder teams were accounted for ... except ... Major Ngawang?” Gephel uttered abruptly. He received a silent nod from his Tibetan colleague. “Oh god!” Gephel cupped his chin with his hand and then proceeded to rub his face as well. Major Ngawang had been one of his officers during the original Pathfinder missions into Tibet a decade ago. He had retired from the Indian Army after the Pathfinder missions had been terminated at the end of the precipitous war with China that had followed their forays. Gephel knew that Ngawang had become embittered with India in the aftermath of that war. Tibet had not been ripped from Beijing’s hands. And unlike Gephel, who had continued to serve his new adopted nation’s military, Ngawang had disappeared from view entirely. Gephel had tried making contact over the years, but had never been able to trace him down. There were always some tidbits of news of him smuggling Tibetan families out of Tibet and into India, but never enough to pin him down. And yet, here he was, clear as daylight, leading Tibetan teams into Tibet to wage war...

“He was the logical choice,” Sangyal added. “The major had been leading teams into and out of Tibet through all the locations that the Chinese didn’t even know about. It was either him, or you. But you...”

“Are what?” Gephel interjected. “Too old? Working with the enemy?”
“You didn’t want to be part of the Tibetan struggle anymore,” Sangyal said soberly.

“Perhaps because there is no path to victory here,” Gephel replied. “All the Chinese deaths we caused: what did it achieve? A nuclear war that devastated Bhutan. Tens of thousands of our fellow Tibetans tortured and executed in reprisals for our actions. Tens of thousands of Indian soldiers who died fighting the Chinese. And for what? Tibet remained with Beijing in the end.”

“And yet you chose to continue working for the Indians after all that,” Sangyal added. It was a verdict rather than a statement. A verdict that Gephel knew was shared by many others in his community here. Sangyal continued: “Ngawang was disillusioned by the Indians and came back to the fold. So did the others. You should have done the same ... but you didn’t.”

“I don’t have to explain my actions to you,” Gephel said as a wave of guilt swept up through his spine.
“Fine. Can you at least help us get what we need now?”

“I can make no guarantees,” Gephel added. “But I will convey the requirements. Before I leave, get me a detailed list of items and quantities you have on inventory now and what you will need.”

Sangyal nodded. “I will take care of it.”
“Good. What about Ngawang? Where is he now?”

Sangyal looked to the mountains behind them: “he’s out there. They have been out for almost ten days.”

Gephel was shocked. “You have already begun operations?”

Sangyal looked at Gephel: “Did you honestly think we would wait around for you and your Indian friends to decide the fate of our people? We have started with what we have on hand. If all goes well, you will be hearing about their actions soon enough.”

[sudhan]

Ahuja Saar, looks like the NaMo and DT have taken some participation off this superb thread of yours

I am anxious to find out how this story will pan out, so far it looks like Cerberus will be a Spec Op heavy story

I hope there are enough IAF vs PLAAF and IN vs PLAN narratives, those were thoroughly riveting..

[Aarvee]

Sir, waiting for your next post!

[vila]

Vivek Sir waiting for your next post is more painful than waiting in queue to withdraw money

[Ajit.C]

Guess Vivek must be waiting in the queue too

[vila]

Hope he has not been 'Trump'ed

[vila]

Now getting worried about Vivek Sir.

[Khalsa]

don't worry he does this... he will come out of his cave with a massive beard and overwhelm us with 6 posts every day for 6 days.
He is probably reading this and doing his evil laughs....

[vivek_ahuja]

Vila Saar,
I am still a lurker at the moment. Just been trying to find some time to do some writing, but without success. I should be done and back here in the next day.

don't worry he does this... he will come out of his cave with a massive beard and overwhelm us with 6 posts every day for 6 days.
He is probably reading this and doing his evil laughs....

not really, Saar. Just busy winding up some annual projects in my 8am-5pm alter-ego life. Gotta earn the daily bread and butter, no?

Interestingly enough, there are several senior work place folks who have read chimera and Fenix and follow the posts here, so if you must blame someone, blame them for not letting me get away to write some fiction!

Will returning to writing here in the next day or so.

PS: the beard is long, though!

[vila]

Glad to know Vivek Sir is fine and will soon come out with thunder .

[Yagnasri]

Happy to know that you are keeping well sir. Got both of the books with me now. Amazon.in

[Khalsa]

Vivek, my dear chap.

Yes earn the bread we must. I must admit this post is from work where I am currently having a coffee break and reading the website .
Kudos to you saar for balancing both lives and still produce one of the highest quality fiction on Military I have ever read.

God Speed to you sir.
May all our wishes and goodwill act like the airflow beneath the wings that pushes you up into the sky of success.

[Suresh S]

same thoughts here khalsa for vivek

[vila]

Vivek Sirrrrr

[vila]

Looks like MSS agents have kidnapped Vivek Sir . , the Chinese don't want to get another thrashing at the hand of Indians

[Atulya P]

Logged in after a long time, but no cigar

[hpatel]

Vivek, hope all is OK at your end; has been a long silence ...

[AlphaSierra]

Ab toh lagta hai ki New year ke baad hi kuch chatpata padhne ko milega..

[vila]

New Year main bhi kuch nahi mila

[vila]

Vivek Sirrrrrrrrrr

[BajKhedawal]

2+ months and no updates saar, please to write something!

[Mukesh.Kumar]

3+ Months. Vivekji has gone into Arihant mode

[dipak]

Up the thread

[hpatel]

Vivek,
Waiting patiently

[Mukesh.Kumar]

I have a sinking feeling that Vivek has been kidnapped by our Tallel and Deepel Fliends

[nits]

S400 based war scenario published at IDRW

[SKrishna]

^^^ An extremely amateurish scenario written more as a S400 propaganda that's pain to read. Worthy of trashcan only. No where close to Vivek's work. Not even worthy of being mentioned in this thread.

[Khalsa]

the link you posted

nits

remove and delete your post which references a hodge podge of copy and paste of all images and all paragraphs of english with F-16 and S400 in it.
WTF is this garbage piece

[nits]

As you deem fit Khalsa; i just pasted it as reference

[Khalsa]

thanks nits.
Just shocked at what IDRW allows ... utter crap.
All good mate leave it there actually for others to see.

[Mukesh.Kumar]

Sure of it now. The Cheelis have kidnapped Vivek

[Mukesh.Kumar]

Bringing this back to front page. Anyone here have any idea of Vivek's coordinates? Is anyone in touch with him?

[Mukesh.Kumar]

Vila Saar,
I am still a lurker at the moment. Just been trying to find some time to do some writing, but without success. I should be done and back here in the next day.

don't worry he does this... he will come out of his cave with a massive beard and overwhelm us with 6 posts every day for 6 days.
He is probably reading this and doing his evil laughs....

not really, Saar. Just busy winding up some annual projects in my 8am-5pm alter-ego life. Gotta earn the daily bread and butter, no?

Interestingly enough, there are several senior work place folks who have read chimera and Fenix and follow the posts here, so if you must blame someone, blame them for not letting me get away to write some fiction!

Will returning to writing here in the next day or so.

PS: the beard is long, though!

Paging Vivek ji. Itna bhi kya gussa. Ab toh ghar aajao. Dekho Cheeni bhai logo ne bhi jhamela chalu kar diya.

Seriously, Vivek hope all is right with you. Just sign in and give a nod for your hundreds of fans on BRF

[ParGha]

NSN Report (Beijing): On Tuesday the Chinese PLA Air Force interceptors shot down an intruding Indian Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle. The shoot-down of the surveillance aircraft was the second such incident in less than a week.

A PLAAF spokesperson, Colonel Laan Qin, issued an official statement, "India continues to violate our airspace and instigate splittist elements in pursuit of its Forward Policy. We will not let their expansionist succeed. The PLAAF will defend every inch of Chinese airspace and punish those who trespass against us."

China and India have fought two wars over the disputed borders, and each country claims territory controlled by the other nuclear-armed Asian giant. India's annihilation of China's long-time ally, Pakistan, and widespread water shortages in both countries and the fallout from the last war have exacerbated mutual mistrust and tensions on all sides.

===

"Two Herons lost in less than five days -- what are you cowboys playing at?" Raj Rajashekaran, the deputy NSA, began without preamble. A career Foreign Service diplomat with a long and successful career in Western Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, he often had the unenviable job of cleaning up after his boss, Brigadier (retd.) Raza, and Raza's uniformed stormtroopers' antics. But with Raza away in Moscow, the Director of Air Intelligence, was reamed mercilessly in the week's joint intelligence working session.

Air Commodore Rakesh "Rocky" Rao, felt transported back in time to Father Reilly's 8th Standard English class.

When the committee finally adjourned, Rao quietly walked up to his long-time mentor and on-and-off colleague, the IB deputy director, Satish Warichoo, and remarked, "But the drones were NOT shot down."

Warichoo raised a questioning eyebrow at his protégé and asset, and his precariously poised reading-glasses slid further down his patrician nose.

"The last few frames we got from the first downed UAV was tank-tracks -- or at least tracks of some sort of tracked vehicles. Then our ground station lost complete control. The second UAV was launched three days later per Army DGMO request, but we couldn't find the tracks. The ground station again lost control of the second UAV after loitering for eighteen minutes in the area of interest," Rao elaborated.

"A jammer of some sort?" Warichoo ventured.

"Yes, sir, quite probably" Rao worriedly confessed. With the destruction of the low-earth orbit IMSATs in the previous war, the UAVs were his only eyes and ears. Worse, UCAVs were a major component of the rearmament effort under the Cerberus Program; precious resources had been diverted from post-war rescue, relief, recovery and basic rearmament efforts -- if the UCAVs, one of the most resource-intensive projects in the program, turned out to be dud, it would be thousand times worse than actually having his entire fleet of 32 aging Herons shot down.

A dozen similar questions simultaneously shot off in Warichoo's mind, but the disciplined operations man quickly triaged them down to the three essentials: "Number One - what are the Chinese hiding here that was so valuable that they would risk prematurely showing their secret counter to the UAVs? Number Two - what, if anything at all, was this jammer? And Number Three - how do we exploit this knowledge without being ourselves exploited?"

[ParGha]

With GDF shut down and Ahuja MIA, just an attempt to kick this back into life and restart collaborative writing as in early PIMS threads.

[ParGha]

"The French must not trace this back to us -- god knows they are getting their pound of flesh, but if they or the Brits or the Italians smell a conflict, they will bleed us dry," Warichoo cautioned.

Rao was well aware of the Cerberus H2's as-yet-unresolved dependency on French technology and critical components; he could easily imagine the leverage the French, the Brits and the Italians held over H1 and H3. Unfortunately the only accessible satellite imagery of the Tibetan Bermuda Triangle (as his team had taken to call it) was through a French quasi-commercial venture, and it was impossible to know how the wires crossed over the Channel and the Alps.

After some thought, Warichoo finally declared, "I'll provide you the men, money and the leverage. You bring the lady in, and fix this. Meanwhile you will eat crow in the public. Go to Brussels, lie low as befits an defense attache put to the pasture, and run the investigation from there. Mistry and Pathania will arrange things from here."

===

The lady in question was one Karen Lovall, nee Katrina Seghal, a one-time low-level (and volatile) asset run by a Rao on a joint-IB/DIA operation many years ago. Satish Warichoo had broken and completely destroyed her traitor father, but she had redeemed herself through "extraordinary services rendered". Much against Warichoo's reservations, a young Sqd Ldr. Rakesh Rao and his DIA boss had let her run and rebuild a new life for herself.

Warichoo neither forgave nor forgot.

He had watched and counted in silence as "Kat" squandered her father's ill-gotten wealth, partying away from Ibiza to Dubrovnik. Later he admired from a distance how, when the money started to run dry, she became cunning and learned to control her volatile nature.

Kat -- now a "Karen Anderson" (oh, the sweet irony) -- had enrolled in the London School of Economics, and graduated into a plum job at a City investment bank. She studiously kept away from the high-profile roles that would trigger her risk-taking behavior, cunningly influenced the traders whose nature she knew all too well, and quietly rose up to head the research department. Along the way she had married Rob Lovall, a harmless academic from a cadet branch with a plush trust-fund cushion, and cemented her position in the society.

"Now is time to call in the Seghal family's debt along with every bit of accrued interest, and who better to do so than 'Rocky' Rao -- the man who undersigned her line of credit?" Warichoo thought, as he closed the file one last time with a recently updated picture of a strikingly beautiful woman with an amused and arrogant air.

Financial analysts regularly bought commercial and quasi-commercial satellite imagery for any random number of reasons in pursuit of the ever elusive alpha. They sought photos of crop-fields to support commodities traders, factory parking-lots for equity traders, troop movements for the bond traders... there was a market for every imaginable piece of information that could potentially give a trading house an edge, and the French were one of the favored vendors for satellite imagery. Now Karen Lovall, unbeknownst to herself, would soon be in the market for pictures of dry riverbeds in the Tibetan Plateau.

[Rahul M]

ParGha, I am still waiting to know what happened next.