Dragonfire (12 page)

‘Foreign Minister, what are your thoughts?’ asked Dixit once he had convened the meeting.

Prabhu Purie took a few seconds to answer. ‘My instincts are to follow the moderate line set down in
The Times of India
, although it would not be a popular one in the present
climate.’

‘True, there is a groundswell for us to play tough. It is a case where the line between mob rule and democracy blurs.’

‘We do have a chance now to create a formula agreeable to both sides,’ said Purie. ‘Something to be implemented when the Dalai Lama dies.’

‘The
Hindu
is wrong,’ growled Chandra Reddy, ‘and now is not the right climate in which to start.’

‘What they are saying,’ pressed Purie, ‘is that if we want a normal relationship with China, which would include secure borders, trade, equal punching weight on the global
stage, we have to sort out Tibet. We could begin by guaranteeing cooperation on sealing the border and checking on infiltration, rather like the Irish government agreed with Britain over Northern
Ireland.’

‘Then every time someone slips through, we are blamed for conspiring,’ said the Chief of Army Staff, Unni Khrishnan. ‘With all due respect, we would be creating a diplomatic
nightmare.’

‘And what about Togden?’ said Dixit.

‘If they haven’t caught him by now, I suspect the SFF will get him out,’ said Reddy.

‘I suggest we hand him over to a third government,’ said Purie.

‘Isn’t that playing it too safe?’ said Dixit. He picked up the
Pioneer
, glanced at its populist front page, tossed it back on the table, then paced back and forth at the
end of the room. ‘The Chinese are going to bleed this for everything they can. If we give an inch now, before they even begin to cut us up, we will be left with nothing. It was a cock-up, not
a conspiracy, but you can be sure they will treat it as the latter.

‘There is also a wider element, of values, democracy and where India is heading as a society and as a country. Correct me if I am wrong, but Lundrup Togden is an innocent man. He is a
monk. A man of God. He should not have been in prison. The Chinese run a repressive regime in Tibet which is condemned by the democratic world. Therefore, should he choose to seek sanctuary in
India, we have no choice but to give it to him and damn the consequences.’

‘Even without him,’ said Reddy quietly, ‘I think the consequences have already begun.’ He withdrew a number of folders from his briefcase, each marked in black felt pen.
‘These are satellite pictures from overnight, some courtesy of the Americans, some courtesy of Indian technology,’ he explained. ‘They show irregular movements of men and
equipment towards our border.’

The members of the National Security Council were on their feet, leaning over the photographs spread out on the table. ‘This is in the west. The circled area is a leftover from the 1962
war on the Thag La Ridge where invasion began. The land is claimed by us, but is under Chinese control and is technically a demilitarized zone.’ He brought out three more pictures.
‘This is a closer image of the town of Qizl Jilga, and this, gentlemen, is a fleet of helicopters flying in at around 0300 hours this morning.’

Reddy pointed to another. ‘The town of Zanda is only two hundred kilometres from Dehra Dun. This is unmistakably a column of armour. These look like 155mm artillery guns, but I am getting
confirmation. This photograph is of an army barracks just outside the town of Garyarsa from where a mountain road leads directly to Namgia just across the border.’

He turned to another envelope. ‘This file is even more interesting. The formations you see here are infantry. The image next to them is of a troop transport plane. The town is Mazar, in
Chinese territory, but worryingly close to Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and only four hundred kilometres from Srinagar. This is not the terrain for tanks, but here and here you will see armoured
build-ups, north of the Sikkim border, along the Indus Valley at Demchok and at Chusul in Ladakh.’

‘One would have thought they were preparing for this,’ said Dixit.

‘So far,’ said Reddy, ‘it seems they are using their reserve supply of border forces. We have no evidence that any reinforcements are being brought in from outside the
area.’ He opened the last file on the table. ‘Now we move more than six hundred and fifty kilometres to our eastern flank. These are similar sort of activities, here around the town of
Lhunze and here near Nyingchi.’

Reddy unfolded a larger map of the area, showing the locations of the two Chinese towns. ‘They are here and here. This is the border with Arunachal Pradesh and it’s only about two
hundred and forty kilometres across until you get to Burma, a staunch ally of China’s and no friend of ours. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as its own sovereign territory. Only six months ago
the New China News Agency said it had a “sacred mission” to reclaim it, as it has with Taiwan. We only officially created the state in 1986 and during 1986 and 1987, after a stand-off
with the Chinese we moved our forces closer to the border.’

‘If I might add,’ said Purie, so softly that he was barely audible, ‘we have an enormously strong advantage over Pakistan. With China, I am not so sure.’

‘Go on,’ said the Prime Minister.

‘If we make it clear immediately that we have every intention of going to war with Pakistan if necessary, we will have complete international backing. True, we are a democracy, and they
are now a military dictatorship. But the reality is more than that. In diplomatic circles it is known as the Tiananmen effect, drawn from the Chinese killings of democracy protesters in China in
1989. No major power will risk its overall relationship with India because of Kashmir. We are simply too big. That is not, however, the case with Pakistan, particularly since Khan himself has
indicated the pariah characteristics of his own government. If it comes to the brink, Pakistan will be left to swing in the wind.’

‘But China?’ said Dixit.

‘While we threaten to demolish Pakistan, Prime Minister, you get on a plane to make a visit of peace to China.’

The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 1400 Thursday 3 May 2007
GMT: 1900 Thursday 3 May 2007

Tom Bloodworth rang
to ask for a meeting with the President and was let straight in to the private office.

‘Could you spend five minutes reading this transcript, sir. It explains why Hamid Khan took power with such confidence. It was sent to me personally from General Shigehiko Ogawa, head of
Japanese intelligence.’

John Hastings looked up impatiently, irritated that crises in far-off lands were drawing him away from domestic agenda. ‘Not if it’s to do with the coup in Pakistan, Tom,’ he
replied.

‘It’s more than that, sir.’

Bloodworth handed the President a copy of the transcript and kept one himself. ‘Jabbar is Pakistan’s Ambassador to Beijing,’ explained Bloodworth. ‘Hussein is the
Diplomatic Attaché. Dr Malik Khalid is an eccentric and brilliant missile physicist from Quaid Azam University in Islamabad, and now the predominant figure involved in the missile programme
against India. He flew to Beijing on instructions from Hamid Khan thirty-six hours ago – before the coup. Tang Siju is one of the most powerful hawkish generals in charge of strategic
planning. Tao Jian is marked in the transcript just as President and General Leung Liyin is the Defence Minister. You’ll see there were others present, but we don’t have an
identification on them.

‘The meeting took place in an office off the war room in the General Staff Headquarters, an underground bunker in the Western Hills just outside of Beijing. The verbatim transcription is
from the interpreter’s own notes. The non sequiturs and gaps are where the interpreter couldn’t remember the true record of conversation.’

They began reading through in silence and Hastings had to admit to himself that it was a remarkable piece of intelligence gathering.

Jabbar
: You ask why? India must understand once and for all that the threats to our existence must stop.

President
: And you want us to give you practical help. Perhaps, Ambassador, for the benefit of those who were not with us earlier in Zhongnanhai, you could explain the
thinking behind your policy.

Jabbar
: We are aware that Tibet could within days, even hours, become a flashpoint. Diplomatically it is your weakest area of policy. You also have the other
vulnerability in the far-western Muslim region of Xinjiang, which has suffered a spate of bombings and riots. Islamic unrest on your western borders and a terrorist campaign in Tibet is your
nightmare scenario. It would suck your resources away from development and the economy, wreck your nurtured friendships with the Western democracies and throw China itself into a separatist
war.

I have told President Tao that Pakistan will use every means at our disposal to stop foreign insurgents operating in Xinjiang. By that I mean we will intercept them in their countries of origin,
be it Afghanistan, Iran, Algeria or wherever. We will intercept them on their way to Xinjiang and, if you wish, we will offer our unique expertise to work with the Chinese security forces on the
counter-terrorist operation in Xinjiang itself.

Leung
: You’re saying you will encourage the holy war in Kashmir, but fight against it in Xinjiang. It seems an ideological contradiction . . .

Jabbar
: You disagree with the policy, General?

Leung
: Not at all, Ambassador. I think it is an admirable example of pragmatism.

Jabbar
: My colleagues General Hussein and Dr Malik Khalid will explain in detail how we think you can help Pakistan.

Hussein
: Until recently China used commercial SPOT and LANDSAT imagery surveillance, which was basic and unsatisfactory. Now, thanks to help from the French and the
Russians, your new space surveillance system has just become operational. It’s outdated by Western standards, because you have yet to get real-time satellite reconnaissance. But with the
launch of the new military photo-reconnaissance satellite two months ago, you are now receiving good intelligence around the Asia–Pacific region. We need constant guaranteed round-the-clock
access to it.

You have been helpful in the past day in providing material about Indian troop movements along the Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan border. We need that to continue, together with imagery of Indian
nuclear installations, air-bases for nuclear-capable aircraft, mainly the SU-30MK, and anything which could threaten the security of Pakistan.

Tang
: The Indians get everything they want from the Israelis, who get it from the Americans. I see no problem with this.

President
: Agreed.

Khalid
: [Inaudible because of soft voice] . . . all know the areas I will be talking about well enough.

In any nuclear exchange, the Indians have two weapons of choice. The Agni is the intermediate-range missile. Agni, gentleman, means ‘fire’. The missile project began in 1979 at the
Indian Defence Research and Development Laboratory in Hyderabad. The first successful launch was in 1989. The second test in 1992 failed, but tests in 1994 and 1999 were successes. Since then,
three more tests have been carried out and we believe this is now a highly sophisticated weapons system. The first stage missile [sic] is solid fuel. The second is liquid. It can carry multiple
re-entry nuclear warheads and its range is two thousand five hundred kilometres, meaning it can hit anywhere in Pakistan and a significant area of China.

In a limited exchange with Pakistan, they would choose the Prithvi, their short-range missile. The name means ‘earth’. Design started in 1983. The first test was in 1988 and it has
three versions with ranges of a hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty and three hundred and fifty kilometres respectively. All three are now operational, launched vertically from an eight-wheel
mobile truck. One Prithvi fired from Indian territory could destroy Rawalpindi within eight minutes of launch with a single 500 kilogram warhead.

Sarghoda, here, [Interpreter’s note: Khalid was using a map projected onto a screen] is our main airbase, command and control centre and assembly centre for our 500 kilogram uranium
warheads. It is also just two hundred kilometres from the Indian border and vulnerable to attacks from both the Agni and the Prithvi. We have the Hatf series, capable of ranges of eighty, three
hundred and six hundred kilometres. Hatf means ‘deadly’. We claim the design to be indigenous, but the technology as you may well know is Chinese and originally Russian. The Hatf 2 is a
version of the M11 and the Hatf 3 is from the M9, which we also call the ‘Shaheen’.

Our counterpart for the Agni is the Ghauri, which we bought off the shelf from North Korea as the Nodong 11. Its range is one thousand five hundred kilometres against the Agni’s two
thousand five hundred kilometres. But since we brought in the Ghauri, the Indians have modified the Agni to create a completely solid-fuel rocket. The first version of the Agni operated with the
liquid-fuel engine design from the Prithvi. The test in 1999 was with a new second-stage solid-fuel booster. The third stage is the warhead re-entry vehicle capable of carrying a payload of a
thousand kilograms.

Jabbar
: Perhaps Dr Khalid could explain to us laymen the difference between a solid-fuel and liquid-fuel missile?

Khalid
: Liquid fuel has the advantage of greater accuracy, The fuel tap, as it were, can be turned on and off to vary the firing distance. It has the disadvantage of
mobility. We need at least fifteen vehicles to accompany a liquid-fuel rocket for maintenance and control and we need time to fuel the engines at the launch pad – several hours of preparation
have to be allowed.

Hussein
: Not much of a deterrent.

Khalid
: The solid-fuel Agni can be launched within fifteen minutes of an unexpected alert. Several missiles are kept permanently inside specially modified goods trains.
From the outside they look like regular trains. The missile itself is twenty metres long and for the launch it would slide out of the back of one rail car, then be raised by a hydraulic piston. The
first-stage rocket motor burns out in less than a minute at an altitude of around twenty-five kilometres. The second stage motor goes a minute later at just over a hundred kilometres. The missile
keeps going up to around four hundred kilometres before re-entering the atmosphere. It is built to withstand heat of up to three thousand degrees Celsius. The total flying time to its target two
thousand five hundred kilometres away is thirteen minutes.