Dragonfire

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Presidential helicopter Marine One, USA

  Local time: 1935 Sunday 6 May 2007

  GMT: 0035 Monday 7 May 2007

  Tom Bloodworth was interrupted in the middle of a conversation, notifying his office that he was en route from Camp David to Washington. He immediately passed the news on to John Hastings through the intercom on the Sikorsky VH-3D. ‘Pakistan has carried out a tactical nuclear strike.’

  ‘Battlefield or urban?’ asked Hastings.

  ‘Battlefield. It appears very precise and calculated.’

  ‘India?’

  ‘No word yet. We’re trying to get through to Dixit. But Chinese troops have also invaded India through Burma . . .’

  Conversation on board was difficult at the best of times. Hastings remained quiet for five minutes, juggling his policy of domestic focus to the nuclear war which had just broken out in Asia. Then he said: ‘Get me the details of our task forces in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. We’ll have a full crisis meeting of the Principals’ Committee on landing at the White House.’

  Prime Minister’s Office, Downing Street, London

  Local time: 0115 Monday 7 May 2007

  The British Prime Minister, Anthony Pincher, was woken by his Private Secretary, slipped on a tracksuit and gym shoes and came down from his flat above 11 Downing Street. The Foreign Secretary, Christopher Baker, had just arrived. John Stopping and Sir Malcolm Parton had been in Downing Street for fifteen minutes. The emergency alert had come through from the Permanent Operations Headquarters in Northwood, north London, which acted as a nerve centre for Britain’s military activities around the world.

  Next door to the Prime Minister’s office the powerful Press Secretary, Eileen Glenny, was at her computer, writing options for a statement to go out on the rolling news channels as soon as decisions had been made. She was determined to make sure her Prime Minister’s voice was heard before that of the American President, the Leader of the Opposition or any other European leader.

  Across the road, in the basement of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, officials from the relevant departments were setting up a twenty-four-hour operational working area, known as the Emergency Room. The lead department was Asia–Pacific, with Martin Andrews as head of the South Asian Department taking immediate control. He drafted in experts on nuclear proliferation, counter terrorism, consular affairs, for British nationals at risk, and liaison colleagues from the Secret Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and other involved regional departments, plus a representative from News Department.

  The BBC, CNN and three Web sites were displayed on screens around the room and officials were already contacting embassies, collating the scant information and trying to ensure that the European Community would speak with one voice. But already the French were being obstructive: they had sold Mirage aircraft to both India and Pakistan. Germany, which had been involved in India’s nuclear-powered submarine technology, was noncommittal. The smaller countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands were worried that Britain would charge in with its militaristic hat, without consultation, in the wake of whatever the Americans decided to do.

  Pincher opened up the Downing Street cabinet room and sat down. The Defence Secretary, David Guinness, was the last to arrive, having come straight from a briefing at the Ministry of Defence on the other side of Whitehall.

  ‘We have not yet detected any response by India,’ said Guinness.

  ‘Has anyone talked to Dixit?’ said Pincher.

  ‘He’s not answering his phone,’ said the Foreign Secretary.

  ‘The Indian offensive is continuing across the LoC in Kashmir,’ said Guinness. ‘Since Pakistan went nuclear, India has also pushed ahead into Sialkot, near Jammu in the north. It might have even fallen, and Indian armour has continued to shell the cantonment area of Lahore. Supply lines are being set up between the frontline and the Wagah border crossing.’

  ‘Meaning?’ said the Prime Minister.

  ‘Dixit must be gambling that Hamid Khan won’t carry out a second strike. He’s sacrificed his southern advance to make Pakistan a pariah state.’

  Eileen Glenny came into the room without knocking, took a seat next to the Prime Minister, looked at her watch and glanced at the four television screens banked into a bookcase in the wall with BBC News 24, BBC World, Sky News and CNN showing simultaneously.

  ‘I have three statements, Prime Minister,’ she said. ‘One, we condemn Pakistan’s first use, et cetera. Two, we condemn violence on both sides, abhor Pakistan’s first use and call on restraint from India. Three, we point up that India is a democracy and Pakistan is a military dictatorship.’

  Pincher tapped the bottom of his pen on the table and turned to the Defence Secretary: ‘I read somewhere that we had been in Bangladesh helping with relief efforts. What have we got there?’

  ‘A small task force, Prime Minister,’ said Guinness. ‘The Ocean is still off Cox’s Bazaar, after being diverted from exercises under the Five Power Defence Agreement with Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.’

  ‘Remind me about the Five Power Defence Agreement. Is it significant for this scenario?’

  ‘It was drawn up in the 1960s when we were in conflict with Indonesia. We have treaty obligations to Singapore and Malaysia, should they ask for our support. If either government feels threatened, they can call us in.’

  ‘Are the Australian and New Zealand navies with the Ocean?’

  ‘After the cyclone, the exercises switched to become a real-life military humanitarian operation. HMS Ocean is the command vessel. She has five hundred marines, most of whom are now ashore in the cyclone area, six Sea King helicopters and six Sea Harrier ground-attack aircraft. The Special Boat Squadron is also on board with one of its new VSVs.’

  ‘What do they do?’ said Pincher.

  ‘VSV means Very Slender Vessel. They go at sixty knots in all weather and have a range of seven hundred miles, although I’m not sure that it would be relevant to this meeting.’

  ‘It may be,’ said Pincher. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Prime Minister,’ interrupted Eileen Glenny, pointing up to the clock, ‘we have ten minutes max before the top of the hour and we need it to be you, not anyone else.’

  Pincher nodded, but looked back over to the Defence Secretary: ‘If Drake had time to finish his game of bowls in Plymouth, I certainly have the time to know what we have in the Bay of Bengal.’

  ‘The frigate Grafton and destroyer Liverpool are there with support ships,’ said David Guinness, ‘together with two nuclear-powered attack submarines, the Triumph and the Talent. The Australians have their diesel-powered Collins-class submarine, the Sheean. Singapore has a submarine in the exercise – I don’t have the name. After the trouble at the end of Prime Minister Mahatir’s rule, the one Malaysian submarine doesn’t work. They have sent up a frigate, the Jebat. Singapore did have a corvette, the Vigilance, which didn’t go on to Chittagong. New Zealand has the frigate Te Kaha and a support ship.’

  ‘Foreign Secretary,’ said Pincher, ‘have you been in touch with our European allies?’

  ‘The French and Germans are noncommittal. Neither has made a statement yet,’ said Baker.

  ‘The Americans?’

  ‘President Hastings is on his way back to Washington from Camp David. I understand he has called a meeting of the Principals’ Committee.’

  Pincher turned to his Private Secretary. ‘Get Hastings on the phone.’

  ‘President Gorbunov is just coming through from Moscow, sir,’ said the private secretary. ‘He says it’s urgent and is prepared to speak in English.’

  ‘Prime Minister, we must put out this statement,’ pressed Eileen Glenny.

  ‘Is there anything about China in there?’

  ‘The border skirmish with India. No. I think it’s too tangential.’

  ‘Like hell it is!’ said Pincher. He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking. ‘All right. Say this. The Defence Cabinet Committee
is monitoring developments. A British task force now helping cyclone victims in the Bay of Bengal was immediately put on full alert. We are liaising with our European allies. The Prime Minister is speaking personally to the Presidents of the United States and Russia.’ Pincher paused.

  Glenny prompted: ‘Whose side are we on?’

  ‘At the moment we’re neutral, Eileen. Tell them that, but also remind them that India is a democracy and both China and Pakistan are not. Our support has a natural channel through which to run.’

  ‘Is it wise to bring China in at this stage?’ said Baker hesitantly. ‘We don’t want to upset them unnecessarily.’

  ‘If you think Hamid Khan would have ordered a nuclear strike without first consulting China, Christopher, you should spend less time in your mistress’s bed and more time reading your brief. Yes, we bring in China right now, and that is what I will be telling Hastings and Gorbunov.’

  Eileen Glenny left the room, writing on her clipboard as she went. Pincher picked up the telephone call from Gorbunov.

  ‘President Gorbunov, thank you so much for calling. If any power centre is the key to defusing this crisis, it surely is the Kremlin.’

  ‘Thank you, Anthony,’ said Gorbunov in English so fluent that it was difficult to tell him from a Bostonian. ‘I am calling because I am worried about the Americans. I have just spoken to the Ambassador here, Milton Ashdown, who was boasting about the Americans being the only power with responsibility to intervene. It could be disastrous. This is not the nineties. I feel strongly that India and Pakistan, even China if it comes to that, must be allowed to sort out their own grievances.’

  ‘Not if nuclear fallout is concerned.’

  ‘Of course. But we can stop that. China holds the military tap to Pakistan. We hold it to both India and China. I can turn it on and off at will. But if the United States blunders in, Russians will regard you in the West as the common enemy.’

  ‘I am talking to John Hastings in the next few minutes,’ said Pincher.

  ‘Tell him that I will guarantee best efforts to stop an Indian nuclear retaliation, if he can guarantee keeping America out of this dispute.’

  ‘The conventional war will continue.’

  ‘And may the best man win.’

  State Department, Washington, DC

  Local time: 2045 Sunday 6 May 2007

  GMT: 0145 Monday 7 May 2007

  The land line was open to the Embassy in Delhi. A satellite link had been set up with Pakistan and the secure encrypted connection was being used with Beijing. The State Department’s Management Crisis Center was manned round the clock by three staff, specializing in foreign policy, security and the military. They liaised constantly with counterparts in the White House situation room and in the Pentagon.

  Ten minutes earlier, the Crisis Center had been elevated to Task Force level. Across the corridor, two rooms were being opened up. One was for consular staff to field calls about Americans living in Pakistan and China. It was linked by a sparsely furnished reception room with a few chairs and a photocopier to the small Task Force room with an oval desk in the middle and ten work stations, four on each side and one at each end. The single television on one wall was on split screens, taking in the rolling global channels together with Indian and Pakistani television.

  Just down the corridor outside the Crisis Center area, Joan Holden put down the telephone from Jamie Song in Beijing. The conversation was cordial, wary and noncommittal on both sides. She had also spoken to Christopher Baker in London, and the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Russia. Records of her conversations were being printed out, together with the latest reports from the embassies.

  With her informal manner, she had insisted the State Department meeting took place in the Crisis Center, so officers could keep an eye on their work. So far staff from the South Asia and East Asia Pacific Affairs Bureaux had arrived together with officers from the Department of Defense, Consular Affairs, USAID, the PolMil (political/ military) Division, and Medical and someone from Public Affairs to handle the press. Experts on nuclear, biological and chemical warfare were expected within minutes.

  After the Pakistan coup, the attack on Dharamsala and the SFF operation in Lhasa, the Crisis Center did not stand up as a task force, because no American lives were at risk. Pakistan’s nuclear strike and China’s incursion into India did not involve the American military and, at this stage, the State Department remained the lead Federal agency to handle the crisis.

  A message from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Geneva, which monitors all nuclear risk, came through reporting on the prevailing wind, the blast-danger area and the concentration of population. Joan Holden saw that thinly populated civilian areas were affected, and the blast and wind direction was such that the threat would have diminished by the time the dust cloud reached any significant town. Consular officials reported that no American citizens were known to be in the area.

  Holden’s executive secretary had already mobilized two thirty-seat aircraft to fly to Islamabad and Delhi in what was known as a non-combative environment operation. Each was medically equipped to evacuate seriously ill or injured American citizens, be they Embassy staff or civilians. There was strict procedure, known as the ‘no double standard rule’, which meant that all Americans would be treated equally.

  Plans were put in place for an ‘authorized departure’ from both embassies which would allow dependants and non-essential staff to leave. If the crisis escalated, an ‘ordered departure’ would take place and finally a special aircraft would be on stand-by to evacuate a core of staff who had to stay behind until the last minutes before closing the Embassy.

  Given that neither India nor Pakistan were considered hostile governments, Holden hoped she could keep events on track so that didn’t happen.

  She picked up the phone and talked directly to Tom Bloodworth at the National Security Council in the White House. ‘The IAEA say the fallout of the strike can be confined,’ she said, hoping he would take her lead to play it softly. Bloodworth’s job was to devise a plan according to presidential policy. Bloodworth could hand out hard truths. Holden had to be more measured.

  She walked into the Crisis Management Center. ‘I’ve got five minutes for a brief from each of you, then I’m off to the White House,’ she said.

  Pentagon City, Virginia, USA

  Local time: 2045 Sunday 6 May 2007

  GMT: 0145 Monday 7 May 2007

  A stream of military personnel moved back and forth along the Eisenhower Corridor on the third floor of the Pentagon building, where the Defense Secretary, Alvin Jebb, was preparing for the White House meeting. His personal staff handled the mass of queries coming into his office in room 3E880. Jebb had alerted the Military Command Center in the Pentagon that he would be going there straight after seeing the President. He asked that the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet him in a secure room known as the Tank, so called because going into it was compared to climbing into a tank.

  Jebb had just finished a conversation with the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC) in Hawaii, who controlled American forces in the Asia–Pacific, stretching from the American west coast to the Mediterranean. He had found the nub of what he needed to know. The brand new Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, with forty-three fixed-wing aircraft on board, had just entered the Indian Ocean where it was heading for a port visit to Trincomalee in Sri Lanka. It was travelling with an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, USS Higgins, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate, USS Rodney M. Davis, and an Aegis-cruiser, USS Vela Gulf, which was carrying a sea-based theatre missile-defence system, together with support ships and the SSN attack submarines USS Greeneville and USS Toledo.

  The carrier group could either continue its journey into the Indian Ocean or double back to the Arabian Sea. Its aircraft gave it a power-projection radius of more than 1,100 kilometres. Its cruise missiles could hit either India or Pakistan from where it was now. It was this carrier g
roup which would provide the core of any American military intervention.

  Jebb had already spoken to David Guinness, his counterpart in London, who had informed him about the British-led naval force in the Bay of Bengal. The last thing Jebb wanted was for his forces to get sucked into a nuclear war between two developing nations. He agreed with John Hastings that the United States had become overstretched as the world’s policeman and if two governments wanted to fight, they should be allowed to.

  The plan he was drawing up now was for a short, sharp hit at the nuclear facilities of both countries, like taking air-pistols away from kids in the school playground.

  The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

  Local time: 2115 Sunday 7 May 2007

  GMT: 0215 Monday 8 May 2007

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr President,’ said Tom Bloodworth, ‘we have no idea how the Indians will respond. Prime Minister Dixit is not taking calls, nor is any member of his cabinet. I have even failed to get through to Chandra Reddy, whom I consider to be a personal friend. They seemed to have shut down the Operational Directorate in South Block. We have picked up a new burst of highly encrypted SIGINT from near the village of Karwana about a hundred miles north of Delhi.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ said John Hastings.

  ‘If it means anything it is that the Indians have a war bunker out there, probably dug underneath a farmhouse or something. The signals have never been used before, so we would have no way of knowing before now. There is heavy cloud cover over much of India so it is impossible to check on any preparations for a nuclear or conventional response. As yet, we have not deciphered the code being used from Karwana, but we expect to have something within a few hours.’

  ‘By which time Pakistan could be one big nuclear wasteland.’

  The Situation Room where the Principals’ Committee had gathered was in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, a small wood-panelled room able to accommodate only about two dozen people. The key conference area was protected by bullet-proof glass. The Committee, led by the President of the United States, met in times of crisis and usually comprised the secretaries of Defense, Commerce, State and Treasury, together with the heads of the CIA, FBI and any other Federal agency involved. For this session, the FBI and the Treasury had not been brought in. But Ennio Barber, the President’s personal adviser, was there.