A New India
Chapter 146 - 146: The Strike on Chagai

The night was still, and the air over Chagai Hills in Balochistan was still and tense of what was about to happen.

Ajay Singh crouched low, feeling the rough gravel beneath his palms as his team of R&AW operatives prepared for the most critical operation of their lives.

They had trained for months, but tonight wasn't about training, it was about execution.

Every man here knew that failure wasn't an option. They were about to strike at the very core of Pakistan's nuclear ambitions.

The Chagai Hills nuclear research facility, hidden deep in the mountains, was the heart of Pakistan's secret nuclear program.

For weeks, the world had been watching, guessing, and fearing.

But only India knew exactly what was being built here, and it had to be stopped, tonight.

Ajay's radio crackled. Ravi, the tech expert, whispered, "Power grid... going down in three, two, one... blackout."

The facility's lights flickered, then vanished into darkness.

The noise of generators ceased. The silence was immediate and suffocating.

The blackout had begun.

They had fifteen minutes before the backup generators would restore power, fifteen minutes to dismantle Pakistan's nuclear future.

"Go," Ajay hissed into his radio. His voice was sharp and urgent, piercing the silent sir.

His team, six highly-trained men who moved like shadows, slipped silently toward the facility's outer wall.

Months of surveillance had given them every detail they needed, guard rotations, blind spots, camera angles.

The perimeter was tightly guarded, but no security system was perfect. And tonight, they were the flaws that would unravel the entire structure.

Elsewhere The wind had kicked up dust along the ridge where Ravi lay prone, his sniper rifle aimed at the facility's entrance.

Through the scope, he tracked the movements of the guards, their dark figures barely visible against the blackened landscape.

His trigger finger was tense, ready. Every breath he took was measured, slow.

"One guard at the gate, moving left," Ravi muttered to no one in particular. "He's mine."

The guard, a soldier in his early twenties, stopped to light a cigarette, the flare briefly illuminating his face.

That moment was all Ravi needed. The rifle kicked softly against his shoulder, the silencer muffling the shot.

The guard's head snapped back with a sickening thud, and he dropped where he stood.

The cigarette fell from his hand, still burning as the blood pooled beneath him.

"One down," Ravi reported, already shifting his scope to the next target.

Inside the Facility

Ajay and his team breached the facility's perimeter, slipping through the gap they had identified weeks earlier.

The first objective was clear, get to the reactor, plant the explosives, and get out.

Every second mattered.

They approached the first security checkpoint, where two guards stood at attention, rifles slung over their shoulders.

Ajay signaled to Rahul, the team's second-in-command, with a brief hand gesture.

Rahul moved silently through the darkness, a blade in hand, his movements as fluid as the wind.

Before the guards even had a chance to register the danger, Rahul was on them.

The first guard felt nothing as Rahul's knife slid across his throat, cutting deep.

The second guard had just enough time to widen his eyes in shock before Rahul plunged the blade into his chest, twisting it with brutal efficiency.

The guards fell in silence. No alarms. No gunfire.

Just two more bodies in the shadows.

"Clear," Rahul whispered, wiping the blade on the guard's uniform before moving on.

Ajay checked his watch.

They had twelve minutes left before the generators kicked back in.

"Charges set on the exterior," whispered Suresh, another member of the team, as he planted explosives along the facility's foundation.

His hands were quick but steady, attaching the small devices with military precision. "Moving inside."

Ajay led the team through a narrow passageway leading into the core of the facility.

The halls were quiet, eerily so, with only the soft red glow of emergency lights to guide them.

Every step echoed faintly in the distance, but Ajay's mind was sharp, focused.

They reached the reactor room, a massive structure of metal and wires that made noise ominously, even in its powered-down state.

This was the heart of Pakistan's nuclear ambitions, the very thing that would shift the balance of power in South Asia. Ajay's pulse quickened.

"Plant the charges," Ajay ordered, his voice low and firm.

The team worked quickly, placing explosives along the reactor's base, targeting the critical areas they had memorized through months of planning.

If these charges went off, Pakistan's nuclear program would be set back years, maybe even decades.

Ajay felt responsibility of whole country pressing down on him, but his hands remained steady.

For knew that this is the moment, Now or Never.

Outside the Facility

Ravi had already taken out four more guards. Each shot was clean, precise.

The men fell before they even knew what had hit them.

"There's movement near the southwest tower," Ravi whispered, adjusting his scope. "Looks like... shit, two more guards."

He lined up the shot, his breath held.

The first guard crumpled to the ground, a perfect headshot.

The second spun around, his hand reaching for his radio, but Ravi was faster.

Another squeeze of the trigger, and the guard fell, his radio clattering uselessly to the floor.

"All clear," Ravi reported. "Get ready for extraction."

Dalbandin Safehouse

At the same time, miles away in a small town near Dalbandin, a second R&AW team was carrying out the other half of the operation.

This part wasn't about explosives, it was about assassination.

Ten Pakistani scientists, all crucial to the nuclear project, were sleeping soundly in a secure compound.

They had no idea that their last moments were approaching.

Rahul Mehra led the team into the safehouse. The first guard at the entrance barely had time to turn before a silenced bullet pierced his skull.

His body slumped against the wall, blood pooling beneath him.

Rahul's team moved quickly, taking down three more guards with brutal efficiency.

They entered the house, moving room by room.

Each scientist was targeted with cold precision.

Some were asleep, unaware of the danger. Others woke just in time to see a flash of steel or the brief spark of gunfire.

None of them screamed.

The operatives ensured that each death was swift and silent.

In the final room, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear project, was sitting at his desk, scribbling notes.

He didn't even hear Rahul enter.

A quick, suppressed shot to the back of the head, and Khan slumped over, his pen falling from his hand.

"All targets neutralized," Rahul whispered. "We're done here."

Back at the Chagai facility, Ajay and his team had reached the extraction point.

They were on a ridge, watching the facility in the distance.

Ajay checked his watch. Two minutes.

The charges had been set. The scientists were dead. The mission was complete.

"Here we go," Ajay muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

A moment later, the night sky erupted in a series of blinding flashes.

The ground beneath them shook violently as the explosives tore through the facility's infrastructure.

Fireballs shot into the sky, the heat so intense that even from their distance, they could feel it.

The reactor, the control rooms, the labs everything was obliterated in seconds.

The thunderous roar of destruction echoed across the hills, drowning out the wind.

Ajay watched the facility crumble, a satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "That's it. Let's move."

The team retreated quickly, disappearing into the rocky hills as the flames consumed what was left of Pakistan's nuclear dreams.

Hours later, in a safehouse deep in Afghanistan, Ajay and his team gathered around a small table, their bodies weary but their spirits high.

The adrenaline was still coursing through their veins, but for the first time in weeks, they allowed themselves to relax.

Ravi leaned back in his chair, a satisfied grin on his face. "Hell of a job, boys. Hell of a job."

Ajay chuckled, taking a sip of water. "We did what we had to do. Pakistan's nuclear program is dead in the water."

Rahul, who had led the assassination of the scientists, simply nodded. "We've set them back by years. They'll feel this for a long time."

There was no champagne, no grand celebration.

Just a quiet moment shared between men who had done the impossible.

They had struck at the very heart of Pakistan's ambitions and walked away without a scratch.

"Here's to doing what needed to be done," Ajay said, raising his glass.

The others joined him, clinking their glasses together.

The mission was over.

As the night grew darker, they knew one thing for certain, while this battle was won, the war was far from over.

But this is not what they should consider. It is for the authorities in Delhi to think about.

For now they have done something that will establish R&AW name acorss all the intelligence world.