Dragonfire (10 page)

‘Hamid Khan ordered it himself,’ said Jabbar as the doors closed. He repeated it in Chinese for Tang and the security chief nodded.

‘He is a great friend of China,’ Tang repeated.

‘You are offering to help us with Xinjiang and Tibet?’ said Jamie Song. ‘And we’ll help you with India.’

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London

Local time: 0830 Thursday 3 May 2007

‘India has officially
disbanded the Special Frontier Force, whose commandos carried out the operation,’ said John Stopping. ‘The decision was
apparently made before the attack on Dharamsala and Dixit is sticking with it.’

‘For which he should be applauded,’ said the Foreign Secretary. ‘But will it placate the Chinese?’

‘Beijing maintains the operation was ordered directly from Delhi. The Indians deny it and we believe them. We have reports of Chinese demonstrations outside Indian missions in Beijing,
Hong Kong and Taiwan. We assume the protests have been sanctioned at the highest level of the Chinese government, but they also contain a spontaneous element.’

‘I thought that Taiwan and the mainland were enemies,’ said Baker.

‘Only in rhetoric,’ said Stopping. ‘It shows us that Tibet – or should I say anti-Tibetan sentiment – is a unifying factor in Chinese nationalism. American and
Japanese satellites have identified Chinese troop movements towards the Indian border. Jamie Song, the Chinese Foreign Minister, has apparently told the German Ambassador in Beijing that they are
restoring the Sino-Indian border defences to their 1996 levels.’

‘What does that mean?’ said Baker.

John Stopping deferred to Sir Malcolm Parton, who explained. ‘India and China agreed on mutual troop withdrawals from the border area in November 1996,’ said Sir Malcolm.
‘Since they fought the war in 1962, they had been near battle-ready. In 1993, they signed a treaty of “peace and tranquility”, then in 1996 President Jiang Zemin visited Delhi,
and the two governments made a pledge that “neither side should use its military capability against the other”. Jiang Zemin spoke of India and China as “major powers in the
world” which had “a common responsibility to the whole of human society” to develop themselves as quickly as possible.

‘When China withdrew the troops, it freed up about two hundred thousand Indian troops to fight in Kashmir, infuriating the Pakistanis. Their former Chief of Staff, Aslem Beg, even
complained to the Chinese army. If the Chinese now reinforce that border – and it’s 2,500 miles long – India will have to pull troops back to China from its front with
Pakistan.’

‘It appears, Foreign Secretary,’ said Stopping, ‘that China and Pakistan have cut a deal to squeeze India.’

Christopher Baker tapped his pen on the tabloid newspaper lying on his desk, the splashed headline blazing up about his extramarital affair with a Foreign Office interpreter. The Foreign
Secretary stood up, taking his jacket off the back of his chair and slipping it on. ‘For God’s sake keep me informed on this one. I don’t want anything buried at the bottom of the
boxes. If India has both Tibet and Kashmir to handle I suspect she will become a very dangerous animal indeed.’

Foreign Ministry, Beijing, China

Local time: 1700 Thursday 3 May 2007
GMT: 0900 Thursday 3 May 2007

Jamie Song waited
until Teng Guo Feng, his Ambassador to Islamabad, was on the secure line, then picked up the receiver. ‘Did they receive the imagery?’

‘Khan himself was in the war room,’ said Teng. ‘Parliament is in emergency session, and Khan’s been summoned to the PM’s office.’

‘Good,’ said Jamie Song. ‘Speak to him now and tell him two things. Firstly, we are having some success in intercepts on the SIGINT from the Indian military command and will
let him have them shortly. Secondly, advise him that if our support is to continue, he must follow closely your political advice on how he handles his accession to power. No witch-hunts. No
revolution. No personality cults. No personal corruption. If China is to stay with him, he has to win international recognition and respect. Only then will he retain power.’

General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Local time: 1430 Thursday 3 May 2007
GMT: 0930 Thursday 3 May 2007

‘The Prime Minister
called,’ said Captain Masood softly, unwilling to disturb his boss’s train of thought.

‘Did he now?’ said General Hamid Khan. He remembered an afternoon less than a month before when protesters had marched on the Parliament building. The Prime Minister had demanded
that Khan give the order to open fire with live ammunition. ‘We must teach them a lesson they will not forget,’ the Prime Minister had said.

‘Let us wait and see what happens, sir,’ Khan had patiently replied. The demonstrators delivered their petition and left peacefully.

‘What moral excuse would I have for obeying that instruction?’ Khan confided in Masood afterwards. ‘Pakistani soldiers are not going to protect the ruling classes by killing
Pakistani people.’

Now, the Prime Minister seemed intent on interfering in military affairs again by demanding that Pakistan withdraw from the Kashmir conflict. If Khan agreed to that, the streets would run red
with the blood of the forces of Islam on the rampage. Kashmir was the outlet for their aggression, yet the Prime Minister could not see it.

Khan picked up another phone and dialled the number himself for the Chief of Naval Staff, who was in Karachi. ‘I think the present government—’ he began.

The naval commander interrupted: ‘You need explain no more.’

He then spoke on the encrypted military line to the three-star generals in command of IV Corps in Lahore, X Corps in Rawalpindi and II Corps at the central military headquarters near Multan,
known as the strike corps. He offered a face-to-face meeting with the Chief of Air Staff in Rawalpindi, but was asked to wait on the line. Then, without introduction, the voice of the air chief
said: ‘No.’ The line went dead.

Khan found the Deputy Chief of Air Staff at the huge Sarghoda airbase in the centre of the country, mixing with the F-16A pilots of No. 9 Squadron. ‘The Prime Minister has called an
emergency session of Parliament,’ said Khan. ‘We expect him to order our withdrawal from the Kashmir front.’

‘To save his own bloody cronies and US dollar accounts,’ replied Air Marshal Yasin Kalapur, a former fighter pilot. ‘I bet his bloody wife’s nagging him about not being
allowed to the London sales any more. Good luck, General.’

Khan got Masood to call up a map of Pakistan on the computer screen in his office. He watched as Masood used green to colour in sections of the armed services upon which he could count. In
Pakistan, the army controlled almost all military power. Technically, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was his senior, but that role was adviser to the Prime Minister. Hamid had a line of
command. The Chairman did not.

Hamid had spoken to three of the army’s nine corps commanders. The air force would hesitate, but the Deputy Chief of Air Staff would bring it into line. The navy, less important in the
first hours, was on board. He anticipated confrontation in Rawalpindi because it was the headquarters of many different sections of the military. He did not rule out exchanges of fire and
casualties. But the cantonments around Chaklala were Khan’s home turf and within twenty-four hours he expected that the trouble would be over. He shaded in neutral grey the corps commanders
he had not contacted at Mangla, Gujranwala and Bahawalpur, and he marked two areas in hostile red, Quetta and Peshawar, both near the Afghan border and both corps commanded by men who supported the
civilian administration.

Khan turned to Masood. ‘What time will all cabinet members actually be in the Parliament building?’ he asked.

‘At sixteen hundred, sir.’

Khan closed the country map and brought a city plan up onto the screen. He examined the images from the surveillance cameras around the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, the Supreme Court
Building and Parliament House, gleaming modern buildings with landscaped lawns, sprinklers and balustrade driveways. Unlike the monuments to modern government in New Delhi, the architectural
symbols of Islamabad had not been built by the departing colonial power. They were the creation of corrupt leader after corrupt leader. While citizens scraped for food and soldiers fought in the
mountains of Kashmir, the country’s leaders lavished money on buildings no Pakistani needed. Khan loathed the ruling oligarchies with their foreign education, property and bank accounts. But
he also loathed what seemed to be the only alternative: Islamic revolution and the repressive fanaticism which he had seen in Afghanistan and Iran.

Constitution Avenue, Islamabad, Pakistan

Local time: 1600 Thursday 3 May 2007
GMT: 1100 Thursday 3 May 2007

Hamid Khan arrived
for his meeting with the Prime Minister wearing full battle dress and travelling in an armoured personnel carrier. He led a column of ten M113 tracked
vehicles down Constitution Avenue to the Parliament building, from X Corps’s 11 Brigade, the unit responsible for security in the capital. The column broke into the administrative nucleus of
Pakistan, throwing a military cordon of roadblocks around it, sealing off the heart of the capital with a ring of battle-ready armour. Troops took up positions with heavy machine guns. Khan ordered
an APC every 200 metres and a main battle tank at the junctions.

The cordon ran right along Ataturk Avenue Ramna 5, north through Ataturk Shalimar 5. Two T-59 tanks blocked the junction with Kyayaban-e-Iqbal, then the cordon of APCs ran around the back of the
Prime Minister’s official residence, joining the narrow Nurpur Road and Fourth Avenue right down to the start of the diplomatic enclave, where Khan deployed another tank. Infantrymen with
bayonets fixed to their G3 rifles were positioned as a human barrier between the armoured vehicles.

He avoided going into the diplomatic enclave itself and ran the cordon west along Isfahani Road, past the Australian, French, Japanese and Egyptian Embassies until it got to
Khayaban-e-Suhrawardy. Troops moved into the main government buildings. Parliament House, the Cabinet Offices, the telephone exchange, the state-run television and radio complex and the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs all fell within Khan’s cordon. The most substantive roadblock was across the highway into Islamabad from Rawalpindi where four T-59 tanks, their 105mm gun barrels horizontal,
were parked across the road. An infantry battalion and two Huey Cobra helicopters were positioned behind them, with pilots ready in the cockpit.

Khan turned his 12.7mm machine gun towards the Parliament building. Commandos of the elite Cherat Special Services Group jumped out of the APCs and rushed in to reinforce troops who had just
secured the building and its grounds. Not a shot was fired. Not an order was shouted.

The strange quiet which had suddenly enveloped the government buildings was broken by the roar of six F-16 fighters, screaming in at less than 500 feet from their base in Sarghoda. The pilots
dipped their wings, circled and flew back again before heading north towards the Muree Hills.

Khan jumped down from his APC. He strode into Parliament House. Commandos, led by Masood, covered him from behind as if breaking cover on the front. He threw open the double doors to the
Parliament chamber and walked to the front, his men covering every terrified member with their small-arms, then spreading right round the chamber and taking positions against the walls. Their
machine pistols had full magazines, but no bullets in the breech, to prevent any soldier becoming trigger-happy. Khan himself was unarmed.

‘Sit down, everybody. Sit down,’ shouted Masood in both Urdu and English. ‘Don’t panic. This is a military takeover. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. You are
requested to stay calm, stay down and listen to what we have to tell you.’

Khan mounted the steps to where the Speaker sat and turned to face the Parliament chamber: ‘Mr Prime Minister, please lead your cabinet team down to the exit door at the right of the
chamber,’ he said. ‘Parliamentary staff, please assist my men in their job and do not attempt to resist. The remainder of the members must stay in their seats. Mr Prime Minister, will
you lead your team.
Now.
’

The Prime Minister had to be yanked out of his seat by his right arm. He was paralysed more by shock than any desire to resist. Other members shuffled in an obedient line towards the exit. Only
one, a Deputy Finance Minister, shouted in English: ‘This is a disgrace. I warn you, you will never get away with it.’ He was wrong. Fifteen minutes later, he was begging for his
life.

With the cabinet held at gunpoint in the lobby area outside, Khan turned his attention back to the members. ‘I have taken over government, not for power or personal gain, but to save our
country from bloodshed,’ he said. ‘Outside this lavish building, ordinary people are living difficult lives. You, the ruling classes, have let them down. When a citizen comes into
contact with the government he faces indifference and extortion. And when they march on Parliament to complain, the Prime Minister commands my troops to shoot them with live ammunition.

‘No longer are Pakistani soldiers going to protect the ruling classes by killing Pakistani people. This afternoon, the government of Pakistan was the enemy of the people. As from this
moment it will be their friend.

‘The educated youth believe that the solution to our problem lies with Islam, not in the ritual sense of beards, bombs and Jihad, but in the faith, discipline and loyalty which the
religion brings to people all over the world. Those are the guiding principles of military life. They will now become the guiding principle of our whole country.’

Khan’s speech was met with complete silence. No applause. No objection. He stepped down from the platform and spotted Masood hovering in the doorway, his expression indicating that all was
not well.

Outside the Parliament building, the members of the cabinet were being loaded into two trucks to be held in custody in a military barracks. The Deputy Finance Minister, Ahmed Magam, was refusing
to climb up.