The multi-part saga of a potential doomsday scenario
Rajasthan, India:
The three white horses, lined up one behind the other, stepped in perfect unison, as they simultaneously moved forward. Dirt was blowing in small circles in the distance, on the rugged, brown, and flat semi-desert terrain. The sun was shining straight overhead in all its glory. Despite the scorching heat, the local villagers gathered out in great numbers to witness the honoring of one of their favorite sons. The rider on the third horse was dressed in full ceremonials; red headgear with the crossed sword katar insignia, olive- black uniform, multicolored blue/yellow/red-lined ascot and kamarband, with white anklets on his shiny black boots. He was still familiarizing himself with the surroundings, having recently returned to his ancestral village for the first time, since leaving the hospital. On his broad chest, he proudly wore the Vir Chakra he had earned for successfully and gallantly commanding fifteen soldiers in combat, much of it hand-to-hand and face-to-face, in the battle of Three Pimples on the night of 28 June 1999, in Dras Sector, during the Kargil War.
Colonel (retd.) Raja Lalchand, on the lead horse, at the age of seventy-eight, was followed by his son Major General (retd.) Mahesh Rajput and the Colonel’s twenty-eight year old grandson Captain Vijay Chauhan. All three were current or past members of, “Queen Victoria’s Own” 2nd Rajputana Rifles. The current ceremony was a combination of military and family tradition, which had seen at least one member of this proud family represent the historical 2nd battalion of the Rajput Regiment, since its inception two hundred years ago.
Beads of sweat were clearly visible on the riders’ faces, as they dismounted from their horses to greet the crowd. “What are you thinking about, son?” his grandfather whispered. “Or should I say, who are you thinking about?” he said laughingly. Vijay smiled and said nothing. He had always admired his grandfather. And he knew the feeling was mutual. He was his grandfather’s favorite grandson. Family traditions were very important to Colonel Lalchand. It was only at his grandfather’s insistence that Vijay had agreed to participate in this ceremony. But it was clear his mind was wrestling with other issues.
“Pooja will make a good Army wife,” he thought to himself. “She had grown up in a military family, and knew the ups and downs of the Army life. And she had looked after him so well, while he was recovering from his battle wounds.” “Most importantly,” he thought, “She is not ambitious. She does not have a career that will get in the way of my career.” He was all for Indian girls pursuing professions. He just did not want his wife to pursue one. “Maybe it is time to get married and raise a family of my own,” Vijay quietly concluded.
Vijay had always enjoyed playing with his little nieces and nephews, whenever they visited India. His grandfather had insisted on all his grandsons being named after famous Rajput warriors. Vijay could not help but smile when he thought about two noticeably overweight, soft-spoken and balding physicians in San Francisco named Dr. Prithviraj Chauhan and Dr. Rana Sanga.
Vijay Chauhan, or Captain Raja Vijay Chauhan Rajput, as his grandfather regularly referred to him, at the young age of twenty-eight, already possessed a resume, officers many years senior to him coveted. After graduating number one in his course at the National Defense Academy, he had been selected to attend the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England. He graduated with academic honors from Sandhurst in 1995, as the top overseas cadet. Amongst other accolades at Sandhurst, he had the distinction of partnering Prince Charles as a member of the Highgrove Polo team, at a charity match in Gloucestershire.
Immediately after being commissioned, Vijay had requested to be assigned to his ancestral Rajput Regiment. Four years later, the 5’11, muscularly built and fair-skinned (courtesy of his Pathan mother) Captain had just become the youngest gallantry award winner in the history of his distinguished family. A family, which, in its heyday, owned 80,000 acres of land between the cities of Naugar and Sikar, northwest of Jaipur. Vijay’s movie star good looks and noble upper-class upbringing had earned him the nickname, “Prince,” amongst his military colleagues. His family loved him, his fiancée adored him, his jawans idolized him, and his superiors respected him. Added to this, with a handicap of +3, he was already a member of the Indian Army polo team, and a candidate for Position 2 on the Indian national squad.
“A retired General as a father, a serving General as a future father-in-law, a Sandhurst education, and now a gallantry award,” he calculated silently, “There shouldn’t be much that can stop me from reaching the highest ranks of the Army, now.” He was underestimating himself. Vijay Chauhan’s family, friends, and fiancée had already concluded that their young polo-playing prince was destined for things far greater than merely becoming the Commander of the second largest Army in the world.
“Enough daydreaming,” he said to himself. “My injuries are almost completely healed, and it is time to get back to the Regimental Center in Fatehgarh.”
Ramon Airbase, Southern Israel:
Colonel Michael Maoz unbuckled himself, took off his flying helmet and handed it to the ground crew who was standing on the adjacent ladder. He rechecked the cockpit instruments and radios to ensure he had switched off all of them during the engine shutdown procedure. The ground crew smiled when he saw his commander accidentally hit his elbow on the canopy. The mild-mannered Colonel gently rubbed his elbow and stepped onto the ladder mumbling, “I am getting too old for this.” The temperature outside the cockpit was much hotter than inside. He took off his packed parachute, adjusted his g-suit, and motioned the ground crew to hand his helmet back to him. He signaled the other three formation pilots, who had landed before him and were waiting on the tarmac, to meet him in the squadron meeting room for the mission debrief.
With over four thousand fighter flying hours to his credit, Michael Moaz was one of the most experienced pilots in the Israeli Air Force. His distinguished career included forty-eight combat missions and four air to air kills. He had recently returned from an instructor assignment as a member of the elite Red Team, flying F-16s with the USAF Aggressor squadron, at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was now commanding the fighter flying wing at one of Israel’s most important airbases. “The Americans are good pilots,” he thought to himself. “But they lack combat experience. I would take my pilots over theirs, any day.”
Just as he was about to step into the briefing room, he heard his cell phone ringing. It was his Base Commander on the line. “I will be there in five minutes, Sir,” was his prompt reply. He cancelled the debrief, quickly walked out of the crew room, stepped into his blue Mustang, and drove over to the Base Commander’s office. There was a three-star official car parked outside the office, indicating that a Lieutenant General was visiting. Michael adjusted his cap, knocked on the door, stepped into the office, and saluted the two Generals, crisply.
“Hello Michael, how are you,” inquired the Base Commander. “I am fine, Sir,” replied Michael, as he took off his cap, revealing his receding blond hairline. “How are Jenny and the kids,” asked the guest, General Yitzhak. “The kids are in elementary school, and Jenny is visiting her parents in New York,” replied Michael. “So have you crossed three thousand yet, Michael,” inquired the Base Commander, a one-star Brigadier General named Benjamin. “Yes, two days ago,” replied Michael, indicating he had just joined the elite group of handful of fighter pilots in the world, who had more than three thousand flying hours on the Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon. “Can you fly it in your sleep, now?” asked General Yitzhak. “I could do that when I was twenty-two,” came the quick reply. They all laughed together.
The Israeli Air Force is a very small close-knit group. After having lived as neighbors on military stations for years, all the pilots knew each other personally, The Lt. General in the office, along with the Brigadier, had known Michael since he was a bright-eyed cadet at the Israeli Air Force Flight School. Israeli fighter pilots are the first and often last line of defense against enemies. Some of these enemies are at a distance of only one-and a half minutes of flying time. Due to the importance of its pilots, the Israeli Air Force goes out of its way to be extremely protective of its personnel. The pictures of Israeli pilots are not allowed to be shown in any newspapers nor on any television shows.
“So, what did I do wrong this time, Sir,” Michael asked with a smile on his face. “Nothing, I just wanted to see my favorite student, again,” replied Yitzhak. Michael knew something was up. It was not routine for Generals to pay personal visits to Colonels. Usually, it was the other way around. “You know Michael, you are the last of the Sixteen still actively flying,” said Yitzhak. Within a split second, everything seemed crystal clear to Colonel Moaz. Twenty years ago, General Yitzhak, at that time a Colonel, had been the leader of the most famous air attack ever flown by Israeli Air Force. Lieutenant Michael Moaz, at a ripe age of twenty four, had been the youngest pilot in that legendary formation. “Do you have one more left in you, Michael?” General Yitzhak inquired, as he simultaneously motioned him to his official car, as if he already knew the reply. “Change out of your flight suit. We need to meet Prime Minister Shariel in two hours,” ordered the General.
Palo Alto, California:
The six-bedroom house, high on top of the Los Altos hills, west of Palo Alto, had a beautiful view. It only cost him five million dollars to build. Half of that money had been spent on buying the adjacent land to ensure no one else could build a house in the neighborhood. At the time of purchase, it was one of the few remaining hilltop plateaus still available in West Palo Alto. The spare land had been utilized to house the car collection, and build a mid-sized swimming pool for the kids. Rafi Qureshi, still half-asleep, stepped into his warehouse-sized garage. He was dressed casually in white Reeboks, blue jeans, and his gray University of Denver alumni sweatshirt. It was always difficult to chose which car to drive. He liked them all. Today, it would be the dark blue Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet. He threw his small suitcase into the passenger seat, pressed the garage door opener and sheepishly started to drive towards the front gate of his hilltop mansion complex.
The view was magnificent. He could see the complete San Francisco skyline towards the northeast. The Golden Gate Bridge, far in the distant, was surrounded by the early morning fog. “I spent my whole youth trying to get out of the village hills and into the city,” he reminded himself. “And now I have spent my whole adult life, trying to get back into the hills,” he smiled.
It was early Saturday morning, and Highway 280 was empty, as usual. He preferred it to Highway 101. The former was a longer but a more scenic drive. Within seconds, he was all alone on the highway, driving eighty miles an hour towards the San Francisco airport. He leaned forward to turn off the voice navigation system and to turn the CD player to full volume. “Damn, this guy is good,” he mumbled to himself, as he hummed, “Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo” along with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Silicon Valley, located on the San Francisco peninsula, stretches from San Jose at its south end to San Rafael in the north, Santa Cruz hills to the west, and the Coast Ranges towards the southeast. On a good- traffic day, it takes less than one and a half hour to drive from one end to the other. The total area of the Valley is a mere 1500 square miles, with a population of two and a half million. Yet this small piece of land is the engine driving the whole US economy. The US economy is the engine driving the world economy. And an extremely tiny group of people, including Rafi Qureshi, is the engine that drives the Silicon Valley economy.
Of the over eleven thousand hi-tech companies in Silicon Valley, over one quarter are owned or run by Asian- Americans; 2000 of these by Chinese, 750 by Indians, and another 75 by Pakistanis. Rafi Qureshi, sat by himself, at the top of this pyramid of Silicon Valley super-tech Asian-Americans. His technology incubator firm, “Harris Merkins Caufield & Jones Capital Investments,” or, “Hindu Muslim Christian & a Jew” as it was affectionately know in the Valley due to the religious persuasions of its four executive partners, had invested over 700 million dollars, in one hundred and forty hi-tech companies stretching from San Jose to London to Tel Aviv. Thirty one of these companies had successfully gone public, resulting in a total market value of thirty seven billion dollars. HMC&J itself traded publicly on the NASDAQ stock exchange, with a net market capitalization of nearly one billion dollars. Rafi Qureshi, owned 9% of the incubator, and large amounts of stock in its publicly traded off-springs. More importantly, from his rather small office on Sand Hill road in Menlo Park, he sat on the board of directors of fifteen of HMC&J’s most prized companies.
The airport security guard checked the pass, and politely signaled the blue Porsche towards the small private parking lot next to the SFO executive jet tarmac. Rafi Qureshi parked the car, picked up his suitcase and tossed the keys to the attendant. He hurriedly walked towards his parked airplane. The co-pilot had been waiting for him for an hour, and had already completed the pre-flight inspection. “Sorry I’m late,” said Rafi. “No problem, Sir,” replied the pilot rather loudly. “It’s good to see, one of us is awake,” Rafi said smilingly, as he opened the cockpit door, and climbed into the Captain’s seat. The Cessna Citation X was the fastest aircraft ever built with non-government dollars. It seated twelve passengers, plus a crew of two. There were no passengers on this flight, however. The co-pilot started rattling out the pre-flight checks. Rafi was two steps ahead of him, and had already started the engines. The two powerful Allison AE3007C turbo fan engines come online, and started roaring. In less than five minutes, the Citation X executive jet was in an extremely steep vertical climb over the San Francisco Bay. Rafi slowly banked the aircraft into a gradual right hand climbing turn. He leveled off at twenty-five thousand feet over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, trimmed the airplane to a cruise speed of 500 knots, and laid down a course for New York’s JFK airport. “I don’t want to spend more than three hours in London for refueling. So make sure you get enough sleep in New York,” he ordered his co-pilot. “You will be flying the leg to Riyadh. Prince Talha is expecting us there on Monday, at 11 a.m. San Jose time.”
To be continued ……..