CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

Captain Khandelwal was hurled across the control room as an avalanche of water exploded through the port bulkhead. His exec, Lieutenant Joshi Ramesh, was smashed against the conning tower ladder by the waterfall. In seconds, watertight doors imperfectly seated in concussion-warped frames gave way, and the Indian submarine began its final dive into darkness.

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Keith Douglass

1654 hours, 23 March Bridge, U.S.S. BkkOe

White water fountained high into the sky a mile off Biddle’s starboard side, accompanied by a bass earthquake nimble felt through the ship’s hull and decks.

“Bridge, sonar! Torpedo has gone ballistic. Passing two hundred yards astern.”

Parrel’s eyes stayed riveted to .the plume of seawater, now cascading back across a troubled sea. “Make to the LAMPS helo,” he said. “Lay more buoys and listen for the sub. Stand by to recover survivors.”

But he already knew there would be no survivors. He’d saved the Biddle . . . but sent a submarine and seventy-eight men to their deaths.

The political repercussions would be spreading out already . . . and far more quickly than the base surge from the underwater explosion now rocking the Biddle.

1710 hours, 23 March

Admiralty Offices, New Delhi, India

The Indian rear admiral studied the teletype message in his hand and felt tears of loss and anger bum his eyes. There was precious little information there, but the statement needed no elaboration.

INSS KALVARI SUNK BY US FFG, PERRY CLASS. NO SURVIVORS.

The message, transmitted from an IAF MiG-25 reconnaissance aircraft overflying the area, included coordinates positioning the loss one hundred miles west of Bombay, in international waters but well within the usual Indian patrol zones.

Kalvari sunk by a U.S. frigate! Why had the American opened fire? Why?

The admiral crumpled the message in his fist, then stood at his desk. It seemed plain enough. The Americans were coming

ARMAGEDDON MODE

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to the aid of their Moslem ally after all. The Indian Parliament might have something to say about that. The war fever gripping the entire nation was like nothing he had ever seen before.

And Rear Admiral Ajay Ramesh would win his vengeance for the death of Joshi, his son.

CHAPTER 4

1829 hours (1759 hours India thne), 23 Math

SO ton southeast of Derawar Fort, Thar Desert, Pakistan

The sun had set moments before, leaving the sky a glory of yellow, pink, and blue. General Abdul AH Hakim was less interested in the sky than in a spindly tower silhouetted against the sunset some tweaty kilometers west of the bunker.

The Great Thar Desert stretched from the swamps of the Rann of Kutch in the south clear to Haryana State and the Punjab, straddling more than eight hundred kilometers of Indian-Pakistani border. Until this day it had been a barren waste of sand and gravel with but one significance to Pakistani military strategy: more than once the Thar had proved to be a superb barrier against the Indian army. Now it was going to have a second significance, one arguably far more vital than the first.

“One minute, General,” an aide said at his side.

Hakim grunted in reply. His mind was on the border, some fifty kilometers further to the southeast. A hostile border, now that the Indians had finally stopped rattling their sabers and actually drawn them.

Not that the New Delhi regime’s army was anywhere that close. As always, the Tharparkar, as Hakim thought of it, was a natural barrier more formidable than endless fortifications, minefields, and interlocking fields of fire. While there were rumors of enemy armor massing near the Jodhpur-Hyderabad Road far to the south, the nearest Indian troops were probably at the Rajasthan Canal, fully a hundred kilometers from this lonely outpost on Pakistan’s frontier.

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It was a pity, Hakim thought with a rare flash of humor, that the pigs weren’t closer. Much closer.

“It’s been a long road, Abdul.”

Hakim turned to face die speaker. General Mushahid ul-Shapur was a powerful man, a member of Pakistan’s ruling military clique and Hakim’s own patron at Islamabad.

“It has indeed, sir.”

“But a worthwhile one. Today, the nations of Islam take their rightful place with the superpowers of this world. No longer will the kafir of India seek to dominate us by force of arms!”

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