"And if he doesn't cooperate?"
"Then he and his officers are disard, detained, and escorted out of Kashmir.
The Gilgit Scouts are offered the choice of integration into the Indian Army or honorable discharge.
No violence against British personnel unless they initiate it. We're not at war with Britain. We're asserting sovereign authority over our own territory."
Major Pritam Singh — a compact, fierce-looking Sikh with a magnificent beard and the quiet confidence of a man who had fought the Japanese in Burma — saluted and departed without further questions.
Vikram watched the column's dust trail disappear into the northern mountains and felt the familiar tension of a strategist whose plans were now in the hands of others.
The next seventy-two hours will determine whether India holds all of Kashmir or just the valley, he thought.
If Pritam reaches Gilgit before Brown can act, we secure the north. If Brown moves first...
He pushed the thought away. Planning for failure was important, but dwelling on it was paralyzing. The plan was sound.
The people were capable. The rest was in the hands of fate — or whatever cosmic machinery had placed him in 1947 to begin with.
Blackwood moved faster than expected.
Kao's intelligence network detected the British colonel's response within hours of the accession becoming known.
On May 27th, Blackwood sent an encrypted communication from Delhi to the British military attaché in Rawalpindi — a communication that RAW intercepted but could only partially decode.
The fragnts were alarming enough.
"...KASHMIR ACCESSION SIGNED... INDIAN FORCES DEPLOYING... NORTHERN AREAS AT RISK... RECOMND IMDIATE ACTIVATION... BROWN MUST ACT BEFORE..."
"He's trying to trigger the Gilgit mutiny early," Kao told Vikram during an ergency briefing at the guesthouse.
"He knows we're sending forces north. He's trying to get Brown to declare independence or hand over to Pakistan before our column arrives."
"Can Brown receive and act on Blackwood's orders in ti?"
"Unknown. Communication between Delhi and Gilgit is slow — there's no direct telegraph line.
ssages go through relay stations in Rawalpindi and Skardu. Transit ti is typically forty-eight to seventy-two hours."
"And how long before Major Pritam reaches Gilgit?"
"At current speed, approximately five days. The road is worse than we anticipated — two bridges are damaged and need repair before the vehicles can cross."
Vikram did the math. "So Brown could receive Blackwood's orders in two to three days. Our forces arrive in five. That's a two-day gap."
"Yes."
"Can we close it?"
"Not by accelerating the column — the terrain won't allow it. But we could send a small advance party by a faster route.
Horseback or on foot, through the mountain trails that the locals use. A team of ten to fifteen n could reach Gilgit in three days."
"What would they do when they get there? Fifteen n against five hundred Gilgit Scouts?"
"They wouldn't fight. They'd secure the telegraph station and the main administrative buildings before Brown receives his orders.
Cut his communications. Present him with a fait accompli — Indian authority, legally established, physically present.
By the ti the main column arrives, the situation is stabilized."
"Who leads this advance team?"
Kao t his eyes. "I do."
Vikram stared at him. "Absolutely not. You're too valuable—"
"I'm the only person available who combines the necessary skills. Mountain experience from my police training in the north.
Intelligence tradecraft to handle Brown diplomatically. And the authority — derived from Patel's direct mandate — to make binding decisions on the ground."
"If sothing goes wrong—"
"If sothing goes wrong with the Gilgit operation, the northern third of Kashmir becos Pakistani territory.
Permanently. That's not a risk I'm willing to take from the safety of a Srinagar guesthouse."
Vikram recognized the iron in Kao's voice — the sa quality he'd seen in Patel, the sa quality he'd felt in himself.
The willingness to risk everything for a cause that transcended personal safety.
"How many n?"
"Twelve. Selected from our best operatives and Colonel Thapa's mountain warfare specialists.
Light equipnt — weapons, communications gear, rations for five days. We travel fast, we travel light, and we get there first."
Vikram was quiet for a long mont. The strategist in him scread against risking RAW's founder and finest mind on a mountain commando mission.
The realist in him recognized that Kao was right — he was the only person who could pull this off.
"Go," Vikram said. "But take the communications equipnt. I want hourly reports. And Kao —"
"Yes?"
"Co back alive. India needs you more than it needs Gilgit."
Kao's expression softened fractionally — the nearest thing to warmth Vikram had ever seen from the man. "India needs both. I intend to deliver."
He left within the hour — twelve n, twelve horses, disappearing into the northern mountains as the sun set behind the Himalayas.
Vikram watched them go from the guesthouse window, the figures growing smaller against the vast landscape until they vanished entirely, swallowed by the mountains like stones dropped into an ocean.
The next five days were the longest of Vikram's life — either of his lives.
He managed the military deploynt from the Srinagar guesthouse, coordinating between Colonel Rana's forces in the valley, Major Pritam's column grinding north, and Delhi, where Patel and non handled the political dinsion.
Communications were frustratingly slow — field telephones worked intermittently, telegraph lines were unreliable, and the radio equipnt that Kao had left behind was temperantal in the mountain conditions.
Vikram slept in snatches — two hours here, ninety minutes there — sustained by kahwa, adrenaline, and the acute awareness that everything he'd worked for since his rebirth was converging on the next few days.
Reports from the valley were encouraging. Colonel Rana's troops had secured all major approaches from the west.
The Uri-Baramulla road was under Indian control, with defensive positions established at every strategic point. Muzaffarabad — the town that, in the original tiline, would beco the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir — was secured without incident.
The local population, predominantly Muslim, received the Indian troops with cautious neutrality — neither welcoming nor hostile.
Abdullah's endorsent of accession had given them reason to believe that India's intentions were genuine.
Reports from the north were fragntary and alarming.
Major Pritam's column was making slow progress — the road conditions were atrocious, vehicles breaking down on gradients that would challenge a mountain goat.
Communication with Kao's advance team was sporadic — brief, coded radio bursts that told Vikram they were alive and moving but little else.
On May 29th — three days after Kao's departure — a longer radio ssage ca through. Vikram decoded it with trembling hands.
EAGLE TO ARCHITECT. REACHED BUNJI. TWO DAYS FROM GILGIT. LOCAL POPULATION COOPERATIVE. NO SIGN OF SCOUT MOBILIZATION. TELEGRAPH LINE TO RAWALPINDI INTACT — REPEAT, INTACT. BROWN HAS NOT YET RECEIVED ORDERS. WINDOW STILL OPEN. PROCEEDING AT MAXIMUM SPEED. EAGLE OUT.
The window is still open, Vikram thought, exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Brown hasn't received Blackwood's orders yet. Kao is two days out.
If the ssage from Delhi takes the normal seventy-two hours through relay stations, Kao arrives first.
But if Blackwood found a faster channel...
He sent a reply: ARCHITECT TO EAGLE. GODSPEED. WILL DELAY BLACKWOOD'S COMMUNICATIONS BY ANY ANS AVAILABLE. ARCHITECT OUT.
Then he turned to a problem he'd been considering for two days: how to delay or disrupt the transmission of Blackwood's orders from Rawalpindi to Gilgit.
The answer ca from an unexpected source.
One of Kao's operatives — a young man code-nad Falcon, who had been monitoring British military communications in Srinagar — reported that the telegraph relay station in Skardu, through which all communications between Rawalpindi and Gilgit passed, was staffed by a single British telegraph operator and three Indian technicians.
"The Indian technicians," Falcon reported. "Two of them are Kashmiri Muslims — local n who took the jobs because the British paid well.
The third is a Hindu from Jammu. All three are aware that the Maharaja has acceded to India. The Hindu is openly supportive. The two Muslims are... persuadable."
"Persuadable how?"
"They're afraid of what happens to them if Pakistan takes over. Under the Maharaja's rule, they had jobs and status. Under Pakistani control, they'd be replaced by Punjabis.
If we guarantee their positions and pay under Indian administration, they have every incentive to cooperate."
"What kind of cooperation?"
"A technical malfunction. The telegraph equipnt at Skardu is old and unreliable. Equipnt failures are common and expected.
If the Indian technicians were to... experience a prolonged equipnt failure at a strategically convenient mont, Blackwood's orders to Brown would be delayed by twenty-four to forty-eight hours."
Vikram made the decision instantly. "Do it. Contact the technicians. Guarantee their jobs under Indian administration.
And arrange for the most convincing equipnt failure in the history of British telecommunications."
"Yes, sir."
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