Operation Whitewaters: The Wrath of the Unknown Enemy – III

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and any resemblance to any events or characters is purely coincidental.
The author is inspired a bit by some of the James Bond Movies but nothing in content is copied.

Continued from : Operation Whitewaters: The Wrath of the Unknown Enemy – II

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The urgent late night meeting
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Present day: Scene: An Army cantonment area where XVII Brigade is in transit and is camping for a few days.
This is close to India’s North-West border and in state of Punjab.

21:10 Hrs:

“Captain Ranbir, Major Dheeraj has convened an urgent meeting at 21:30 Hrs. You and your five subordinates are to be there on time.”, the messenger conveyed the message to Capt. Ranbir at the door of his tent and walked away at a lightning speed.

At 21:30 Hrs, seniors and a few of the junior Army men gathered at a meeting.
‘Gentlemen, be on high alert. Ask even the Engineers and Doctors to keep their guns loaded and by their bedside.
Hari, get the supplies of the cookies and first aid kits near maxim.
Devesh, beef up the outer perimter security and send an extra armed man on those four observatories.
And Captain Ranbir, Dock 200-B is to be under watch all 24 hours. Get all file and document movements recorded, even if it means noting down a few things outside the Electrorecorders.’

‘Is the threat real, Major Dheeraj, asked Nagesh, one of the junior members.’
‘Don’t worry Nagesh, we are well prepared. But remember Assymetric, proxy wars are a bigger headache and at times more testing than a scenario where a direct conflict breaks out.’

‘Also, keep a watch on any consignments- be they as innocent looking as Biscuits and Sweets entering from the adjoining Cantonment area. Remember in the city of Rahimganj, one of the attackers came disguised as a courier boy.
So, every fruit or vegetable vendor, delivery boys etc is to be watched.’

‘Right sir.’
‘Right Sir!’
And after everyone’s acknowledgement, the meeting dispersed.

A silent night about to turn turbulent
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Circle 65 was not a shopping arena. Nor was it the name of any circular road. This was one of the inner security areas, guarded by some 20 sharpshooters roaming around, and 10 rotating shift men.
Apart from this, the brilliant and ever alert and restless Captain Ranbir used to come every 1 or 2 hours on a round, and apart from closely scruitinizing, he also chatted with different men.
They liked him, apart from his umpteenth time repeated story about his childhood chase of a few Hen and dogs.
The set of 4 rooms that they had to guard was Dock 200-B, which had rooms with records of a lot of arms and ammunition, wages and expenses documents and somewhere hidden were a few maps and plans.

At 23:05 Hours, in a small room near Dock 200-B centre was Rifleman AjitKumaran. He had recently come from near Mysore and even the mild Novemeber night cold made him uncomfortable.
Time to make some more coffee. He set out for the pantry room, made some coffee and sat down.
He heard some noise for a few seconds, then it died.
He sipped coffee again, and sat down, he opened and started reading a novel.
He had just read two pages, when he heard a sound again.
He went out of the room towards the balcony of the first floor room, where he was stationed.
He even took out his binoculars, but could not see any untoward movement.

‘Nothing untoward’. Howeverm just as he was walking back to room, he smelt a smoke somewhere.
He went around and found that a small room surrounding the Documents was giving out some pungent smell and some smoke.
He immediately opened it, but it was too late. The smoke filled the entire area and AjitKumaran fell to the floor.
Then after five minutes there was a loud explosion and one could see wood and steel fragments flying.
The alarms rang in the entire area.

Outside the Brigade Transit camp, a man in high boots and a leather jacket and face covered came out with a backpack
out of a tunnel.
He ran towards an empty road, almost four Kms. where a jeep was hidden behind some tall grass.

The silent night had turned bitter and turbulent !

—–  To be continued —-