Dragonfire

by Humphrey Hawksley

  The other nuclear-capable airfields were known as satellite bases for emergency landing and recovery during both peacetime and wartime. Khrishnan hoped that once Pakistan realized the wrath it had unleashed, bombing these would be unnecessary.

  Connaught Place, Delhi, India

  Local time: 0900 Monday 7 May 2007

  GMT: 0330 Monday 7 May 2007

  Journalists disputed the exact time the riots broke out. Many claimed to witness the first killing, depending where they were in Delhi, or in India at the time. The sturdy communities of Old Delhi, living cheek by jowl in the hot narrow slumlike streets, were old hands at bloodshed, and there it took the same course as it had for generations. The Hindus claimed they were attacked by Muslims. The Muslims insisted they were the innocent party. Nevertheless, after the first flash of violence, slaughter began on both sides.

  It may well have been the Hindus who struck first, aggrieved that an Islamic nation had unleashed the bomb on their armed forces. But the issues soon gave way to grievances and blind revenge for a cruelty which had occurred just minutes before. In the mixed slums of other main cities, Calcutta, Bhopal, Patna, Hyderabad and many more, hostilities broke out in the hours after the nuclear strike. Bombay, ruled by a grass-roots Hindu movement, saw some of the worst atrocities against Muslims, allegedly encouraged by the state government itself.

  But if the real political issues of communalism and nuclear power were played out anywhere it was in Delhi’s Connaught Place. Before the rioting started, a small group of about three hundred people gathered there with anti-nuclear placards. They spaced themselves in groups of about ten right around the outer pavements and stood silently, as if waiting to be engulfed by a mushroom cloud.

  ‘The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that man has ever made,’ read one leaflet they were handing out, words taken from the author Arundhati Roy, whose writings had made her a figurehead of the anti-nuclear campaign. ‘If only nuclear war was just another kind of war.’

  It was a strange morning in Delhi. In the first instance, roads out of the capital became clogged with refugees, most on foot or with animals, so that within a few hours Delhi was, in effect, cordoned off with no land route in or out. Government announcements appealed for people to stay at home or go to work as usual. They had some effect, and factories reported that about 50 per cent of staff had turned up. The security forces were exemplary, with hardly a man going sick or choosing his family over his duty.

  News of the Pakistani attack had been widely broadcast, but very few understood the meaning of ‘tactical battlefield strike’ or that they were in no immediate danger. The population acted as if it was living out its final hours, so great was the ignorance about nuclear warfare. Hospitals were overwhelmed with people complaining of radiation sickness. Violence broke out when doctors tried to send people home. Many shops opened as usual, and hawkers around Connaught Place imaginatively created potions and masks which would ward off a nuclear death. Thousands flocked to the temples and shrines looking for solace. Others, looking for someone to blame, killed and rioted.

  Soon, however, when the searing of the sun and the cloudless May sky carried through the morning unchanged, impatience and irritation set in, as if India had been cheated of her final Armageddon. Then there were announcements of India’s retaliatory strikes, creating a lull in the tension and new excitement. India was neither destroyed nor victorious. Nor had the war ended. When the holocaust failed to appear, the acute personal emotion of waiting for death diminished and tedium set in. The fatalistic citizens of the Indian capital resorted to getting on with the routine of their lives. Those frustrated with pent-up fear and aggression took to the streets again.

  The anti-nuclear protesters stayed their ground throughout, understanding more than most the issues involved. But they appeared too knowledgeable for the situation. There was an air of the ‘I told you so’ about them, as they pushed leaflets into hands of the public and tied their placards to lamp-posts. Nor did they suggest any solution which Indians could have accepted. Should it declare away its nuclear weapons as a result of the Pakistani attack, then India might as well ground its air force and surrender.

  The movement had never been a powerful one and the activists protesting that morning were from the educated and liberal middle class. They were brave to be out. Their arguments against nuclear weapons were well thought out and made sense against the backwardness of India. But nations stumble forward more in folly than in wisdom, and the eloquent voice of writers like Arundhati Roy cut little ice against the raw pride of an impoverished nation.

  Her name was Shanti Tirthankara, aged twenty-three, a graduate in civil engineering, with a special interest in rural irrigation. She was attractive, bubbly and outspoken, with long, dark hair, which blew back and forth across her face as she read from an article by Ms Roy. Coincidentally, her father, a wealthy businessman from the Jain community, had an office and large rambling apartment in the old buildings of Connaught Place.

  Shanti Tirthankara died on the streets where she had grown up. Quite a crowd had grown up around her. ‘The air will become fire,’ she read in Hindi. ‘The wind will spread the flames. When everything there is to burn has burned and the fires die, smoke will rise and shut out the sun. The earth will be enveloped in darkness. There will be no day. Only interminable night. Temperatures will drop to far below freezing and nuclear winter will set in. Water will turn into toxic ice. Radioactive fallout will seep through the earth and contaminate groundwater. Most living things, animal and vegetable, fish and fowl, will die.’

  A single rifle shot hit her in the heart, fired by a policeman, and no one found out why because he was beaten to death minutes later. A mob surged, spontaneously, disorganized, horribly cruel, tearing down the anti-nuclear placards, beating the activists and fighting the police at the same time. Petrol bombs were thrown into shops and black smoke curled up on the clear, hot morning, the latest evidence of India’s precarious existence.

  Connaught Place was burning just as it had done in the great watersheds of history before and Indians died as police bullets tried to bring their great civilization into line. But as the rioters were cleared from Connaught Place, the debris and the bodies left behind, they found another common target for their anger. Communities throughout India were not suffering from nuclear radiation, but from the aggression of misplaced blame. Eight hundred metres to the south-west down Parliament Street lay Parliament House and the offices of government.

  Three policemen died as the mob broke through the cordon. Rioters died in the hail of fire which followed. But by now, the mob was thousands strong, many running with burning rags and petrol bombs to attack the seat of power.

  General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

  Local time: 0830 Monday 7 May 2007

  GMT: 0330 Monday 7 May 2007

  ‘Sargodha and Multan are out of action, sir,’ said Masood. ‘We have lost communications. Kahuta is paralysed. We have lost twenty-three of our thirty nuclear-capable airfields. The pilots have taken the aircraft wherever they can to avoid them being destroyed. Most are in Kabul and Kandahar in Afghanistan, Saravan, Zahedan and Khash in Iran and Kashgar in China. Sialkot is vulnerable and we are facing defeat there. Lahore remains under artillery bombardment.’

  ‘The good news?’ said Hamid Khan.

  ‘We are winning decisively in the Kashmir Valley. The Indians have lost thousands of men and dozens of helicopters. They were ill-prepared.’

  ‘What of Rawalpindi?’

  ‘The Chaklala airbase is badly damaged and unusable at present. Apart from that, we do not appear to have been a target.’

  ‘Good,’ said Khan. ‘So far it is as I had planned.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir?’ said Masood, looking confused.

  ‘We have lost nothing which we need if Pakistan is going to be a modernized state with no external enemies. Airfields can be rebuilt. But we are winning Kashmir and
now we must talk to the world.’

  ‘Do you want President Tao in Beijing?’

  ‘No. We will have no communication with China. The signals will be picked up. Get me John Hastings in Washington.’

  The Oval Office, The White House, Washington, DC

  Local time: 2235 Sunday 6 May 2007

  GMT: 0335 Monday 7 May 2007

  ‘Hamid Khan is on the line and wants to speak directly to you.’

  John Hastings sipped from his cup of Chinese herbal tea, which he hoped would keep him alert, yet calm, throughout the night. In any other circumstances he would have refused the call. Ennio Barber would have warned against the President of the United States speaking directly to a military dictator who had just started a nuclear war. But as Hastings was learning fast, a nuclear war was like no other. The rules had not yet been written.

  ‘Unless you bring your powers to bear, Mr President, Pakistan may soon cease to exist as a nation,’ said Hamid Khan.

  ‘You forfeited that right by your actions last night.’

  ‘You are correct. I have forfeited my right to rule Pakistan and I will never again be accepted by the Western democratic nations. But you cannot condemn the people of Pakistan for my actions. They are being blasted by the full might of the Indian air force. They are threatened with a far more powerful nuclear strike. Muslims are being slaughtered in India and riots have begun here in Pakistan. Only the United States has the influence to call an immediate halt to the Indian offensive. Once there is a ceasefire, you have my guarantee that I will step down from office.’

  ‘And who will take over?’

  ‘An interim leader who has full international support.’

  Hastings put Hamid Khan on hold and called Tom Bloodworth along to the office.

  ‘So far all the strikes are conventional,’ said Bloodworth. ‘Specifically against legitimate military targets. Far more than ours were in Serbia. If anything, India’s response has been remarkably measured.’

  ‘Will Dixit go nuclear?’

  ‘I sense not. Not if Pakistan doesn’t strike again.’

  ‘General Khan, are you still there?’ said Hastings.

  ‘Yes, Mr President.’

  ‘I want a statement from you right now on Pakistan radio and television that you will not use another nuclear weapon in this conflict. It must be short, unequivocal and in both English and the languages of Pakistan. When we hear that and have it translated, I will call on India for a complete ceasefire.’

  ‘But people are being killed—’

  ‘Then get a move on and make the statement.’

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London

  Local time: 0345 Monday 7 May 2007

  John Stopping, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was woken by the telephone ringing on his secure line. Only a handful of people in London knew the number, together with a small circle of colleagues in the international circles in which he mixed. Stopping’s career in the diplomatic and intelligence services had forged trust and friendships lasting many years. Often he suddenly found them adversaries amid unpredictable events of foreign policy.

  Stopping automatically checked his watch and saw he had been dozing on the office couch for less than twenty minutes. He was surprised but delighted to hear the voice of Chandra Reddy on the other end.

  ‘John, I think we need to look ahead and perhaps we could do each other a favour.’

  ‘Only the greatest optimist would try to look beyond nuclear conflict,’ said Stopping. ‘Why is Hari Dixit not taking any calls?’

  ‘He is trying to stop a nuclear war, John. He can’t do that if he’s yacking on the bloody telephone to every head of government who wants to get involved. Don’t tell me that Margaret Thatcher chatted to Indira Gandhi during the Falklands conflict.’

  ‘Given that you’ve just been nuked, Reddy, you sound in remarkably good form.’

  ‘I need Britain’s help. No one else can do it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Can we agree that Pakistan would never have done this without China’s backing?’

  ‘Let’s say we do.’

  ‘And that China’s incursion into India was timed to coincide with the flare-up in Kashmir?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Then, until a shot is fired across China’s bows, the war in Asia cannot be stopped.’

  ‘This is a diplomatic, not a military issue.’

  ‘No, John. It is one for men like us.’

  Stopping kept quiet, allowing Reddy to continue. ‘The Chinese have been building up the port facilities at the Burmese naval base in Hanggyi. In the past two months they have sent two warships there, the Kaifang, a 3,600 tonne destroyer, and the Anqing, a 2,500 tonne frigate. Both ships are expendable. They know we could blow both of them out of the water. They also have three or four Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines in the Andaman Sea. We spotted them going through the Malacca Straits, but now have no idea where they are. In a conflict like this, the presence of those ships is a clear incursion into our theatre of influence.’

  ‘But not illegal,’ said Stopping.

  ‘Kosovo changed the frontiers of international legality.’

  ‘I still don’t see how we can help.’

  ‘You have HMS Ocean coming down from Chittagong towards Hanggyi Island right now. On board is a unit from the Special Boat Squadron together with a VSV; length 53 feet, three crew plus room for eleven commandos, capable of 60 knots with two 750 b.h.p. diesel engines and stealth technology which enables it to avoid radar and infrared heat sensors and a range of 700 nautical miles. If they went in to destroy the Chinese ships and whatever else they find in Hanggyi, China would think twice about continuing to stir things up on the subcontinent.’

  ‘You’re out of your mind,’ said Stopping.

  ‘You know I’m not. I estimate that by late afternoon, our time, the Ocean will be within VSV range of Hanggyi. Send them in at nightfall. The war could be over by midnight.’

  Prime Minister’s Office, Downing Street, London

  Local time: 0345 Monday 7 May 2007

  ‘I am not speaking to you as a member of the House of Lords, but as a businessman, a private citizen and an Indian.’

  Like John Hastings, Anthony Pincher was drawing himself a completely new set of guidelines. Right now, in the middle of the night, with conventional diplomacy failing, Pincher accepted that he needed to explore unorthodox methods to reach a peace. Military action of any kind against India or Pakistan could create a fearsome backlash which might easily prompt more use of nuclear weapons. That was why when Lord Thapar called from his mansion in Hampstead to announce he was on his way to Downing Street in his Rolls Royce, Pincher instructed that he be let straight in.

  Lord Thapar had been ennobled by Pincher as a recognition of the contribution of the Indian community. Both in Britain and the United States they had overtaken any other immigrant group in economic performance and had become a serious lobbying machine, fielding candidates for parliament, making inroads into the City and, most dramatically, contributing enormous expertise and ideas to the information technology revolution. Lord Thapar himself was a second-generation Indian in his mid-sixties, whose wealthy parents had found themselves a victim of the partition, lost everything and decided to emigrate to Britain. While they struggled, impoverished, against the pressures of racism, they ensured that Mani Thapar was given the best the English state education system could offer, such that he won a place at Cambridge, went on to study in France and the United States, then built up a multi-million-pound empire. Only after his wealth was secure did he begin serious investment in India itself, winning business and political friends, and persuading the inward-looking governments to ease up on their investment laws. Hari Dixit was the Health Minister in Andhra Pradesh when Mani Thapar pioneered the building of a pharmaceutical factory there. The two men became close friends, with Dixit using Thapar as his conduit to the West, which he then regarded as arrogant, colonial and interfer
ing. Dixit understood as little about the workings of international business as Thapar did about the aspirations of the rural Indian. They both learnt keenly from each other.

  Anthony Pincher was acutely aware of this relationship when Thapar called. He had just finished speaking to an exasperated John Hastings in Washington, who was still unable to get hold of Hari Dixit. With the rolling news media it was becoming a humiliating political issue. Reports coming from France and Germany indicated that Europe might find it difficult to approach the crisis with a united front. Already, there were enough divisive issues over trade, currency and customs control. A nuclear exchange, albeit in Asia, could be the one which finally caused a split.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me at such an inhospitable hour, Prime Minister,’ said Thapar while taking a seat. ‘I felt I had to get my oar in early.’

  ‘Anything you can do would be appreciated.’

  ‘I will be blunt, then. We are all aware that Pakistan and China are in cahoots over this. Burma, too, but it is such a basket case that it is barely relevant. I can get a message right now to Hari Dixit to take his hand off that bloody nuclear trigger, if you come out in support of India. Without reservation, of course. We don’t have time to go through the “we are friends with both nations” business, like the Americans did with you in the Falklands.’ Thapar checked his watch as if to emphasize what he was saying. ‘If either Dixit or Khan give the order now, there could be a city destroyed in eleven minutes.’

  ‘It is something we would need to discuss with the Americans and our European partners.’

  ‘My friend Ratu Keni Vohra is at this minute with Joan Holden in Washington. Other meetings are going on throughout Europe. India is a democracy, Prime Minister. China and Pakistan are not.’