Dragonfire (40 page)

‘I’ve just been speaking to Japanese Prime Minister Wada,’ said Defence Secretary Alvin Jebb. ‘He says Japanese warplanes have been patrolling an area to the north of
Taiwan. He has both signals and electronic intelligence that a missile launch is imminent from Tonghua against the Okinawa facilities. That would be a strike against American forces,
sir.’

‘They wouldn’t do it,’ said Hastings, more to himself than in answer to Jebb.

‘This thing is getting a momentum, sir. I wouldn’t be so sure.’

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Local time: 0900 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0600 Tuesday 8 May 2007

The Cold War
years of President Gorbunov’s early career had centred on the few seconds that a nuclear exchange might become real. For decades the Soviet Union was
on a constant exercise when conflict could suddenly break out from existing manoeuvres. The aim had been to exhaust and confuse, such that a decoy deployment staged for the enemy satellites could
within seconds become a genuine step towards attack. For years in Moscow and finally as Pacific Fleet commander Gorbunov had lived and breathed it like a ritual. He could still recite weapons codes
and coordinates. He knew without notes the sites which would be used for first strike and the surviving sites which would handle the second strikes. Even now, as President, he insisted on having
the daily positions put on his desk of the
Typhoon
-class strategic missile submarines patrolling under the ice of the Arctic Circle. He had even insisted on changing the lax practice of not
reconfirming the area known as the
polynya
every twelve hours. This was a patch of clear water, surrounded by ice, through which the missile could be launched. Gorbunov wanted the submarines
no further than fifteen minutes from the nearest
polynya
.

Like China and America, Russia’s intelligence-gathering machine picked up the Chinese missile launch. But unlike President Hastings, Gorbunov had arranged for a line to be kept open
between his office and the Chinese operational command in the Western Hills. He was, after all, the main supplier of China’s military hardware. On a separate telephone, he had a line to Hari
Dixit, now back in the Prime Minister’s office in Delhi’s South Block. Neither party knew Gorbunov had direct access. More than any of the other two leaders, Gorbunov knew the
split-second decision-making needed in nuclear warfare, and he had no intention of being called in at the fifty-ninth second, when a missile was midair and about to strike.

‘Is it nuclear?’ he said to his aide-de-camp, who checked on the line to the Western Hills.

‘A conventional strike against missile sites at the Eastern Air Command in Shillong,’ came back the reply. Gorbunov immediately repeated the message to Hari Dixit, then was on
another line to John Hastings in the White House.

‘What about Okinawa?’ said the American President.

‘I have nothing on that,’ said Gorbunov.

‘Well, if you’re in touch with General Leung, tell him that if one piece of ordnance hurts one American, I will destroy his goddamn war machine for the next five thousand
years.’

Gorbunov didn’t pass on the message, but it confirmed very much what he feared. The orders which he personally would give over the next few minutes would also set back
Russian–American relations for more than a decade. Ever since the end of the Cold War, however, the relationship had been one-sided, driven by the whims of Western money and Western
democracies and caring little for the feelings of the Russian people. It was not an honourable position for the Motherland. Gorbunov was about to risk a change for the better.

The cornerstone of Russia’s strategic force was the intercontinental ballistic missile, the SS-27 Topol-M. Because of funding problems, the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering State
Enterprise (MIT) – the sole Topol factory – could only produce ten to fifteen missiles a year. Russia had in service far fewer than the 450 missile level needed to maintain parity with
the United States under the START II treaty. For the purposes of conflict, however, the figures were largely cosmetic. Gorbunov had about 150 missiles, enough to shift substantially the global
balance of power.

The 45-tonne missile had had more than a dozen successful test flights since 1995. In December 1997, the first two Topol-M systems were put on alert for a trial period in the Taman Division at
Tatischevo in the Saratov region, 725 kilometres south-east of Moscow near the border with Kazakhstan. Since then Russia had converted about a hundred silos of the defunct RS-20 missiles for use by
the Topol-M. The plan was to have an equal number of silos and mobile launchers, which could be driven both on and off the road. Since coming to power, Gorbunov had insisted on a programme of
constant exercises with the Topol-M mobile launch system. Tests in 1998 showed that the Topol-M could be converted to carry at least four manoeuvrable warheads and it could be launched with a short
engine-burn time helping it to escape satellite detection.

By 2005, the Topol-M was deployed at Saratov, at Valday, 770 kilometres north of Moscow, in the silos in the southern Urals and Altay in Siberia. Gorbunov had also maintained a conflict launch
capability at the Plesetsk test site, 800 kilometres north of Moscow, and at Kamchatka in the Far East.

He planned to use the Strategic Rocket Forces to the full, three hundred thousand troops divided into six separate armies, each comprising three to five divisions. The soldiers looked after
security, transportation and above-ground maintenance. Officers manned launch stations and command posts underground. In total, Russia had three hundred launch control centres and twenty-eight
missile bases, although some had been mothballed in the past ten years because of arms reduction. While the SS-27 Topol-M was the cream of the force, the SS-25s were better tested for road mobility
and the SS-24 was the missile transported by rail. Two-thirds of the mobile missile force was deployed in the west of Russia to be used against Western Europe and one-third was still east of the
Ural mountains for use against China. Either sector could strike the United States. All were in constant combat readiness with Gorbunov receiving daily reports of any maintenance problems which
depleted his nuclear capability. Right now he had 4,486 nuclear devices at stationary, railway and mobile launch complexes and 672 launchers ready to be used. Before he gave his orders he set up
quick response system between the Sixth Directorate of the Headquarters, Strategic Rocket Forces and the Twelfth Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, which represented the nuclear weapons line
of command, with open lines from his office to both directorates.

Then he instructed overt activity at several nuclear storage and launch sites. Missiles were moved around by road and rail. They were brought out into clearings and elevated for launch. It was a
crisp clear day over large areas of Russia and the American satellites were passing overhead.

Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi, India

Local time: 1130 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0600 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘Eastern Air Command
outside of Shillong is a bloody mess,’ said Chandra Reddy. ‘We have lost our command and control ability for the operation in
Arunachal Pradesh.’

‘Casualties?’ asked Hari Dixit.

‘In the dozens, sir. The cantonment is outside the town. We’re still checking, but there are no reports of large-scale civilian casualties. Air Marshal Ravi Thapar is among the dead.
He refused to go into the bunker.’

‘Damn fool,’ muttered the Chief of Army Staff, Unni Khrishnan.

‘John Hastings wants to speak to you from Washington,’ said Prabhu Purie, the Foreign Minister. ‘Joan Holden urges us not to respond.’

Dixit drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Does she now. I will not be speaking to Hastings, and tell Holden this. We pulled back, on an American assurance which proved to be hollow. We have
taken heavy casualties at Shillong. I have lost a personal friend, and our ability to conduct an operation against the invading Chinese troops has been severely weakened. If I was a suspicious man,
I would imagine that the United States and China were working together against India. Certainly, that is what our free press will make of it. So tell Holden that the democratically elected
government of India reserves the right to do whatever it chooses to neutralize the threat from China.’ He turned to Chandra Reddy. ‘Can you get me Gorbunov at the Kremlin?’

When the Russian President was on the line, he said, ‘We may have to embark upon full-scale war with China.’

‘That does not surprise me,’ said Gorbunov.

‘I would like an assurance that our arms supplies will continue.’

‘You have it. I have anticipated the conflict and we have transport planes, engineers and technicians standing by to fly in spares and new equipment. But I must tell you this. We are doing
exactly the same for China. We are abiding by our existing contracts, giving no more and no less. Should I withdraw supplies to you both, China would win because of its superior sea-launched
submarine capability and land-based missile arsenal. It is also more able to absorb casualties. My policy is that whatever the stakes and whatever the outcome, this conflict must be confined within
Asia without interference from Russia or the United States.’

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, China

Local time: 1400 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0600 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘The loyal forces
of the Second Artillery Regiment of the People’s Liberation Army have intervened to stop a splittist declaration of independence by illegal
groups in the province of Taiwan. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and is an internal matter for the Chinese government. Meanwhile, fishermen on the islands of Pei-kan, Nan-kan and Pai-chuan
have asked Chinese troops for help in building cyclone shelters for their boats. The People’s Liberation Army is now working on that task, despite being attacked by a small number of
terrorists who are holed up on the islands. Chinese fishermen on the island of Kinmen [Quemoy] have also asked for help and Chinese troops are on their way.’

Prime Minister’s Office, Tokyo, Japan

Local time: 1500 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0600 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘John, you can’t
sit on the fence,’ said Prime Minister Wada, on the phone to the American President. ‘You have obligations both to Taiwan and to
Japan. Matsu has fallen and within twelve hours they may have taken Kinmen. A carrier group arriving in twenty-four hours is just not enough.’

‘Taiwan has nothing to do with our treaty obligations to Japan,’ said Hastings.

‘To be frank, it does. Taken in isolation, I might be able to agree with you. But given what China is doing in India, it is imperative that its aggression be contained.’

The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 0115 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0615 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘We’re exchanging real-time
SIGINT and ELINT with Taiwan,’ said Tom Bloodworth. ‘We’ve identified targets along the eastern coastline for
cruise missile attacks. We have an
Arleigh Burke
-class cruiser within range and a first strike of Tomahawk cruise missiles is ready to go. The Japanese have picked up ELINT that the Chinese
may deploy a SATCOM jammer against the US NAVSTAR Global Positioning System.’

‘They’re that sophisticated?’ said Hastings.

‘We don’t know. They may try. But anyway we’ll be deploying the TLAM Block III system which incorporates jam-resistant GPS receivers. It will also mean we don’t have to
use the terrain features to guide the missile to target, which would take time to prepare. That’s why we’re ready to launch now.’

‘I suppose it’s no good me suggesting we don’t,’ said Joan Holden.

Ennio Barber answered before Hastings could. ‘We have to go to the American people with at least one strike, Mr President. The polls want us to hit much harder. The talk shows are full of
retrospective stuff about us being soft on China and coddling dictators. If we don’t hit back at them we lose it all.’

‘Ennio has a point,’ said Alvin Jebb. ‘Although I admit it reluctantly. A superpower which fails to use that power in time of crisis is no longer a superpower.’

‘And we’ll lose the election,’ added Barber.

‘I understand the domestic political angle,’ said Holden. ‘I disagree with Alvin about losing superpower status, and I am not sure what we will achieve with one missile
strike.’

‘We force through a ceasefire. It’s a message of force,’ said Jebb.

‘Tom,’ said Hastings, ‘what is your view?’

‘It won’t force a ceasefire,’ he said. ‘The Chinese will not back down, because if they do they will be embarrassed. But I don’t see that we have an alternative. If
we strike over Taiwan, we might send a message to the Indians that we’re out there and that they don’t have to nuke China to survive. That’s what we’ve got to keep our eye
on. After all these years, Taiwan is turning out to be a sideshow to the real conflict.’ Bloodworth suddenly became distracted by new information on his computer screen. ‘Sorry, but
we’re getting reports of unusual deployments around the nuclear missile silos in Russia. Mr President, I think you had better talk to Gorbunov.’

Foreign Ministry, Beijing, China

Local time: 1430 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0630 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘If American missiles
hit the mainland, we’ll be expelling you,’ Jamie Song told his friend Reece Overhalt. ‘The Embassy and your residence are
surrounded by anti-American protesters. Don’t even try to get back there. I will give you a car with Foreign Ministry number plates to take you to the airport. We’ve given permission
for the Gulf-stream chartered by your Embassy to stay on the tarmac until you need it. I will send in Public Security Bureau police to the Embassy to help evacuate staff. I will do that now. They
will be taken to the airport and put on any commercial flights out. CNN might be saying that the demonstrations are staged. Believe me, they are not. We’re even worried that they might get
out of hand and turn into a protest about our close relationship with the United States.’