by Unknown
'We have to keep control of our oil,' said Yan softly, catching up with him. 'With Russia, we can control that area. With the United States we will have to fight for it.'
'Yes,' said Song. 'I know.'
China was using six, maybe seven million barrels of oil a day, 50 per cent more than a decade ago. Half was produced in China. Half was imported, and as oil consumption grew, so would the imports. Its suppliers had become its allies. The more wretched the country, the more China could step in with aid and weapons and cut deals for oil. Yemen, Iran, Sudan and Libya were among the unhealthy relationships Jamie Song was nurturing to fulfil China's energy needs.
But real long-term security lay in securing access to the oil and gas fields in Xinjiang, Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia. It meant building eastbound pipelines from there to the great trading centres of Hong Kong and Shanghai on the southern and eastern coastlines. It would spread wealth to Xinjiang and draw it into China's own economy, but it needed peace for a quarter of a century at least for it to work.
If Song carried out his threat and ended China's alliance with Pakistan, all that could be put at risk. His footsteps disturbed a lone winter bird from its tree. Where did it come from? Song remembered a sparrow he had killed for food as a young man. It had filled him with shame. China had no birds left, because no one had enough to eat. This bird - and he didn't even know what species - flitted in front of him, dipped down to skim the ice, found it too hard and decided on a bush, thick with icicles and stark branches, on the other side of the lake.
In watching it, Song envisaged a tawdry mess of political misjudgement all around him. It was a picture of madness, filled with black waters, icy and unbreakable, and cries of distress from ships all around. There was no voice of sanity. Each was sinking; each determined to save itself, and, in doing so, each destroying the other.
In the tranquillity of Zhongnanhai, the fury of Vasant Mehta rang in his head. What you owe this country after supporting those bastards for forty years, the Indian Prime Minister had shouted.
Yes, China had bankrolled Pakistan, allowing it to create havoc in Kashmir in order to keep India weak. The more Indian troops were tied up there, the fewer China would have to deploy on their own disputed border. The more the spectre of war hung over India, the less chance it would have to grow into a powerful nation. While India and Pakistan fought, China was able to modernize and become the Asian superpower.
But now, supposing Pakistan turned its wrath on China? Suppose the United States used Pakistan to weaken China as China had weakened India? What if Xinjiang echoed with car bombs, firefights and the cries of torture victims as the Kashmir Valley had for two decades? What would happen to the money and expertise China needed for her pipelines? What would happen to her influence in the Central Asian states who, mistrustful of Russia and sceptical of America, saw China as a beacon of stability? What would happen to her eastern and southern flanks, with arrogant Taiwan, and with the wealthy provinces restless for independence?
Yes, he felt for Vasant Mehta. But to help him would be to hurt China. In threatening Qureshi, Song had acted out of guilt, out of compassion, out of a naive vision. But he had not acted as a statesman.
Yan, the reliable sentinel, allowed Song a few seconds to languish in his complex and dark vision, before touching him on the elbow. 'We can't do it,' he said cryptically, offering no reason, except that he knew Song would agree with him.
'Is our aircraft still in Islamabad?' asked Song firmly.
'It is,' said Yan.
'Tell Qureshi to load it up with any activists who have links with Xinjiang. They can be our sacrifical lambs.'
'Excuse me?' said Yan, querying Song's terminology.
'It's a phrase. I need terrorists to present to Mehta.'
'Very well,' said Yan, doubtfully.
Song began to walk on, but stopped after a couple of steps and turned round. 'Do you have a telephone on you?' Yan brought a handset out of his greatcoat pocket and handed it to Song. 'Give me a bit of space, will you?' asked Song. 'I need to talk to Kozlov privately.'
Song didn't bother with the video link. The screen on a portable satellite telephone was not clear enough to make it worth it. And besides, he had no wish to have to interpret the facial nuances of the Russian president, distorted by difficult light and technology.
'Andrei,' said Song, in Russian, as he was put through. 'Is India going to war with Pakistan?'
'It may, but I hope not,' said Kozlov.
'If it does, you will guarantee India's arms supplies?'
'Of course, as you will to Pakistan no doubt.'
'Of course,' agreed Song, although Kozlov may have picked up his split-second hesitation as he was meant to.
'As we would guarantee our arms contracts with China, Jamie,' added Kozlov pointedly.
'Providing we weren't marching on Moscow,' joked Song.
'Or Delhi,' said Kozlov, spicing his quip with a hard fact.
Song liked Kozlov, and had befriended him long before he came to power. When Song was steering his software company through stock market listings in the United States and Europe, Kozlov was living in poverty in an unheated apartment in Vladivostok. In the late nineties, Song had read one of his provocative papers, published only on the Internet, warning that the Russian Bear was being tempted into the claws of the American Eagle. He kept track of Kozlov's writings through the precarious last years of Boris Yeltsin, the election of Vladimir Putin and the rapid swing behind America in the War on Terror.
'Large sections of the Russian public do not share Mr Putin's confidence that Russia will be rewarded for its support of American interests,' Kozlov had written. 'US troops now surround our nation. From western Europe, through the Middle East, to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Moscow has surrendered influence to Washington.'
One argument specifically caught Song's attention. 'America has a military presence in 132 of the 190 member states of the United Nations. Each of the emerging powers, Russia, India and China, find American armour closer and closer to their territory. Whether they are warships in Sri Lanka, airbases in Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan, or sales of hostile submarines to Taiwan, the encroachment of the American empire is reaching areas we had never thought possible. Unless it is stopped, the pressure to follow American cultural and political values will become overwhelming.'
Song immediately arranged for Kozlov to come to Beijing as a guest of the China Association for Friendly International Contacts, which Song had adopted as his own intelligence-gathering think tank. Song learned about Kozlov's difficult family life, the desertion by most of his family, the loyalty of his gifted musical daughter, the friendship with Alexander Yushchuk. Kozlov's conversations were taped. His room was bugged. His telephone calls back to Yushchuk in Vladivostok were recorded. Song used his private resources in the United States to put together a psychological profile of Kozlov. The profile found Kozlov was determined, stubborn, arrogant and had a high regard for his own beliefs. He was not a team player and spoke his mind, often to his own detriment. It was enough for Song to ask Kozlov, a discredited academic, to share a drink with him, then Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China.
Song rarely drank. At diplomatic receptions, he nursed a single glass of wine throughout, barely sipping it. But for Kozlov, he threw all that to the wind and got drunk with him. They discussed how Russia and China could develop, free of American pressure, and how it could be done without war. Kozlov quizzed Song about China's economic success. He asked how it could be applied to Russia. They talked about political dissidents, freedom of the press and underworld corruption. Nothing was decided, but Song had forged a bond with the Russian. Kozlov had turned down his offer of money. He wanted no political support. He had insisted on fighting the campaign for Russia's soul with his own resources. Yet, within an hour of his election victory, Kozlov had called Song and thanked him for his foresight.
'Andrei,' said Song, his voice becoming quieter and more serious. 'We need t
o meet privately.'
****
29*
****
Delhi, India*
The passengers from the Singapore Airlines flight clustered at the end of the escalator and shuffled slowly towards the immigration desk. A faded sign, high up and hanging crookedly on the dirty cream wall, welcomed them to India. The hall smelt faintly of spices and carried something of the night about it. Indian international air travel revolved around the hours when the human body was at its weakest.
The man whose British passport described him as Jonathan Desai said nothing as the officer, his fingers yellow with tobacco smoke, flicked through the pages, looking for the visa. When the officer looked up to check the passport photograph, Desai tilted his slightly tinted spectacles downwards to show his eyes, but not enough to reveal a cut under his right eye which was still bruised. With the thud of the stamp, Desai took his passport back and moved through.
He carried only hand luggage, a worn, black canvas briefcase and a laptop in a black case, both slung over his left shoulder, leaving his right hand free. He eased his way through the melee in the baggage hall, nodded at the customs officer who waved him on, and raised his hand to the moustachioed attendant from the Imperial Hotel holding up a sign with his name on it.
Outside he was engulfed by the chill of winter, the cold air, acrid with the smells of cheap burning coal and wood smoke. The attendant made small talk, and Desai obliged. It was a long time since he had been to India, he said. He ran a business from London. Was business good? No, said the concierge, it had never recovered to the glory days of the 1980s. The War on Terror and the conflict in Kashmir had made life difficult. Desai slipped him a 1,000 rupee note, just as the jeep pulled round and the driver opened the door, offering a hot face towel.
In his first-floor hotel room, he pushed open the windows, which looked out over the kidney-shaped swimming pool and a row of palm trees in the garden. From somewhere beyond came the sounds of holy men, beggars and those who slept on the streets. But the driveway beneath was empty apart from the beam of a night-watchman's flashlight.
Desai kept the main light of the room off, and used the fluorescent lamp over the bathroom mirror. He undressed, hanging his beige cotton trousers and light checked shirt in the wardrobe. He showered, shaved, put on the white towelling hotel robe and fixed himself some coffee.
The hotel safe in the wardrobe was closed with a code, known only to Desai and the hotel room boy, who had punched it into the safe's memory. Desai opened the safe. Inside was an Australian passport in the name of Ben Dutta, a driving licence and two valid credit cards, MasterCard and American Express. His date of birth was given as 22 April 1977. Place of birth was Manly, New South Wales, Australia. A box of business cards described him as Managing Director of Maximol Computing, with an address in north Sydney. He felt towards the back of the safe where he found a black box the size of a cigarette packet with the battery unattached and the aerial wrapped in polythene beside it. He felt around for the weapon he had asked for, but it wasn't there. A message to tell him the location and the identification features of the vehicle being used was also missing. The back-up for it was to have been sent by email. For under no circumstances should the telephone, mobile or landline be used.
Working on the lowered lid of the toilet seat, he opened the laptop case and removed the computer. He unfurled a telephone cable and ran it to the socket under the desk. While it was booting up, he drew the curtains across the window and wedged a hardback chair against the handle of the door. Before boarding the plane in Singapore, he had reformatted the computer's hard disk and reinstalled the factory software, together with the latest AOL programme, to which he had signed up using the name and credit-card number of Ben Dutta.
When he logged on, one message was waiting. It told him the operational names of the men with whom he would work, and the schedule of the Indian Prime Minister.
Desai, Dutta, or in fact the man who thought of himself as Hassan Muda, put on a beige loose-fitting top and pants, a common dress for all classes and castes in India. He slipped his identity documents into an inside pocket, took the reformatted computer hard disk, left it in the safe and closed it using the same code. He pulled off the bed covers, crumpled them and dropped them back to give the bed the look of having been slept in.
He unfolded a detailed street map of Delhi. He preferred to walk, rather than leave a witness by taking a taxi ride. Security around the parliament compound was still tight. But it also attracted the curious, as had Ground Zero in New York. If he was stopped, he had his reasons, his passport and his hotel key. His only risk was to be his exit from the hotel. Muda drew back the curtains. The driveway was still empty. He waited five minutes and saw no sign of the nightwatchman.
With his bag slung over his back, Muda eased himself out and jumped one floor down on to the grass. This was the back of the hotel, with kitchen flues and rubbish carts. He walked quickly past them. The gate at the end was ajar. Once through it, he was on the streets. It was peppered with sleeping bodies and the odd car, shrouded in a mix of early-morning mist and pollution.*
*****
Vasant Mehta looked across the table with incredulity at what he was hearing. He brushed his hand over the linen tablecloth, then glanced out of the window where groundsmen were lighting a fire of dead, dried leaves at the bottom of the garden.
'No brown faces at all?' he said, repeating it in order to clarify it.
'That's right,' said Lazaro Campbell. 'All volunteers. All Caucasian. No documents. No traceability.' Campbell buttered a piece of toast. He had flown to Delhi from Australia and had been holed up in the US embassy for the past two days, discussing the plan with Brock and finally confirming how to handle it on a conference call with Jim West and Chris Pierce. Campbell's idea had just been to go in. But Brock, judging that his protege was still fired up with the success of Brunei, argued that Pakistan would be a much more difficult target. And Jim West insisted that Mehta be brought on board. He would not do it without Mehta's agreement.
'No accountability. But the job will be done,' assured Campbell.
'Deepak,' said Mehta. 'You are very quiet.' His face carried a barely detectable expression of understanding, that here in front of them, there might be a way out, if only it could be made politically acceptable. Mehta had invited his Chief of Defence Staff to the breakfast precisely because he expected Suri to disagree with him.
'I am quiet because it is for you to determine the political fallout from such an action,' said Suri slowly, nursing a cup of tea in both hands. 'And by fallout I mean the reaction to allowing another nation to fight a war that should be fought by India. The all-white-skin scenario may leave a bitter taste.'
'With all due respect, Mr Campbell, you don't look that white-skinned yourself.'
All three men turned to see Meenakshi walking quickly into the room, carrying a heavy cardboard box in both arms. A corner of the box had become caught on her blue sari, and it was skewing across her shoulders. Campbell stood up, freed it and helped her lower it on to the table.
'Thank you,' she said, smiling.
'A pleasure, ma'am.' Campbell had seen Meenakshi briefly earlier that morning. While he was walking round the garden with Mehta, she had appeared on the back verandah, sleepy-eyed in a nightdress, her hand on her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun.
She had filled a bird tray with water and sprinkled food grain on it, before examining the unexpected guest from a distance and stepping barefoot on to the lawn to introduce herself.
'I've never seen anyone out here with father so early in the morning before,' she had said, shaking Campbell's hand. 'You must be a very special visitor indeed, Mr Campbell.'
With that she had vanished back into the house, and, thought Campbell, off the agenda. Except, now, she must have been listening to some, if not all, of his highly classified conversation with the Indian Prime Minister and his Chief of Defence Staff. Campbell, younger than his hosts by a generation,
glanced at Suri for guidance, his eyes reflecting the uncertainty he felt at Meenakshi's presence.
But it was Mehta who spoke. 'She's fine, Campbell. She might even knock some sense into your damn head.'
Meenakshi picked up a breakfast knife and sliced open the box. 'You're from Washington, I understand,' she said, carefully unpeeling the lid. 'Do you know Lizzie?'
'Lizzie?' asked Campbell, hiding his irritation that the meeting was so abruptly being disturbed. In ten minutes, Mehta was due to leave. Once gone, the momentum would be lost.
'Lizzie West. Jim West's daughter,' smiled Meenaksi. 'She thinks the Pakistanis are going to gas us, so she borrowed these from the White House secret store and FedExed them over. Apparently, they're better than ours, Deepak,' she finished, looking reprovingly at the Chief of Defence Staff.
Her hands plunged inside pulling out air-bubble padding. On the top were three masks. Below that four pairs of rubber boots and at the bottom was a pile of vacuum-packed nuclear, biological and chemical warfare suits.