by Unknown
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42*
****
Islamabad, Pakistan*
A swirl of dust and smells of Pakistan swept up from the runway as Hassan Muda stepped off the short internal Pakistan Airways flight from Karachi. He no longer carried the passport under the name of the Briton, Jonathan Desai, or the Australian, Ben Dutta. Muda arrived as a Kuwaiti businessman, Mohhamad Al-Shammari, wearing an open-neck blue shirt, denim jeans, trainers and a white linen jacket, which hung far enough beneath his waistline to conceal the Beretta 9mm he had picked up in Karachi.
Muda had specifically asked for an M1911 .45, and if not that, then a gun from a list of alternative .45s, specifying that he must have the larger-calibre weapon. But in the rushed transit through Karachi, the airport worker had thrust into his hands a cotton bag stuffed with a change of clothes and the pistol, wrapped in green cloth, at the the bottom. Once airborne, Muda had gone to the toilet and seen that it was a Beretta with a silencer attached to the muzzle.
He checked the magazine, left the breech clear, and slipped it into the back of his jeans. The Beretta, once the standard sidearm issued to US ground troops, was delicate and unreliable. It frequently jammed, and the bullet was too light, meaning that he would need at least two shots for his target to fall, possibly three with the decelerating effect of the silencer.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps to wait for Ahmed Memed, who was carefully coming down from the plane, making sure his robe did not get caught on the metal, but also taking his time, breathing deeply to savour the cool winter air of Islamabad.
On the tarmac, he gripped Muda's arm. 'It's good to be back,' he said. 'Very good.'
It had been a long fight from Pyongyang. Soon they had left behind the boulevards of modern Islamabad and edged their way towards Rawalpindi, where the poverty was more acute and the smells became hostile and caught in the throat. Set back from the road was a factory of some kind, its row of chimneys belching smoke out into a clear blue sky. At a gritty road junction, they turned left and drove through a residential area, the houses bigger and the compound walls higher, protected by bored guards with old weapons. Muda recognized where they were. They were waved through into the Pakistan air-force base, driving far inside, across two runways, and pulling up outside a two-storey building, with a corrugated-iron roof and concrete walls.
He let Memed go in first, then followed him through two sets of doors into a dowdy mess room, with smells of stale tea and tobacco, then left past an open door, a glimpse of cracked tiles and the familiar smell of sour urine, into a hallway with notices pinned on to a board, some yellowed with age, others freshly put up, and finally left again, through another set of doors and down two flights of stairs.
When Memed entered, Qureshi embraced him, and kept holding his shoulder as he introduced the cleric to the three military commanders with him.
'Gentlemen,' he said enthusiastically. 'Here is our moral light. Without his authority, I doubt any of us would have chosen the courageous path we have.'
He turned to Memed himself. 'May I introduce you to my colleagues Brigadier Najeeb Hussain, General Zaid Musa, Admiral Javed Mohmand.'
Muda was not mentioned. He stepped back to the wall near the door. On the other side was the bodyguard who had been with them from the airport. He had noticed two other men outside. The windowless room carried a smell of fresh paint, and there was a dry chilliness from the air conditioning. To Muda's right was a blackboard and screen. A raised platform of dark timber stretched out from there for about six feet. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished: half a dozen armchairs, a coffee table, a table near the wall with a television and in the corner furthest from him a desk with a computer.
'Let's sit,' said Qureshi, amiable but in command. He guided Memed by the elbow to an armchair covered with a faded blue linen. For just a moment before Qureshi took the chair next to Memed, Muda spotted indecision on his face.
Mohmand approached Memed, with hands clasped in front of him. 'Welcome. Welcome,' he said. 'In this terrible situation, we need guidance from a man of wisdom.' The bodyguard near Muda shuffled his feet. His tunic was too loose for him to be wearing body armour, and the neck was open. Mohmand stepped past Memed to take Qureshi's hand, then shifted back again to take the seat on the other side of Memed. Hussain and Musa, remaining silent, were left with the chairs opposite, edging them round so that the five men formed a circle.
'President West has stopped short of declaring war on us,' said Qureshi. 'A short time ago, he contacted me directly.' Musa looked sharply across to Qureshi, but did not meet his eyes. Muda detected surprise, which rippled through his expression to anger and then a look of betrayal. Zaid Musa seemed to be a man who knew how to keep his distance. Hussain's head was lowered, happy to let Qureshi lead for the moment.
Only Mohmand reacted. 'Then your leadership is acknowledged,' he said enthusiastically. 'Congratulations.'
To Muda, Mohmand was a man who lacked discrimination and spoke without a thought of the results.
'But we talked before the murder of Peter Brock,' said Qureshi, the darkness in his look enough to sober Mohmand. 'I suspect that whatever leeway we had for negotiation with Jim West then might by now have narrowed considerably.'
'Negotiation,' whispered Hussain. 'I'm not sure that is what this is about.'
'Let me finish,' countered Qureshi. 'We need to absorb the facts.' He coughed, and glanced up at the air conditioning vent. 'According to West, we have three choices. We let the US in to take over our nuclear forces and be subject to inspections Iraq-style. We can let the Chinese do it - although the UN would still be involved with inspections. Or we can brace ourselves for an Indian invasion. Of course, none of these options is acceptable. But what is acceptable, gentlemen?'
'Could we strike a deal with the Chinese?' asked Hussain. 'You were the last to see Jamie Song.'
'We might,' said Qureshi slowly. 'It might stop the immediate threat of war. But it would be messy.'
Mohmand leaned forward, impatient to speak again. 'Aren't we missing the main point here? Our war is with India, surely. Not with America. The threat comes from Vasant Mehta's emotional response to something we had no control over.'
Muda eased himself away from the wall against which he was leaning, and slid out the Beretta. His eyes shifted right, and he saw that the bodyguard had noticed his movement. Muda took a tiny step forward, pretending to shift weight. The bodyguard smirked. Muda had received no instructions about the bodyguard.
'It was not us who attacked the parliament,' said Mohmand. 'Nor did we mortar his house. We have committed no act of war, and Jim West has to--'
Muda raised the pistol and fired twice. His shots hit the bodyguard in the centre of the forehead. Even before he had dropped, Muda took three steps into the centre of the room, and shot Mohmand three times - once in the forehead and twice in the area of the heart. Muda twisted his body, just a fraction, keeping the pistol raised and was about to fire on Qureshi when Memed, with the faintest wave of his hand, signalled him to stop.
There was nowhere Qureshi could have gone. To have fumbled at the leather cover of his pistol holster would have been a ridiculous act of bravado. Across the room, the bodyguard had died without a sound. A single trickle of blood drained from the back of his head. Mohmand was dead, but the bullet had missed his brain stem, so the body was moving and a gurgling sound came from his throat. The armchair's blue linen cover was soaked in blood.
Memed had not moved. Muda stood there, his gun trained on Qureshi. Memed tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, his expression a mixture of nonchalance and impatience. Muda was cool and professional, his gaze riveted on Qureshi's holster. Qureshi wondered where he had received his training. Probably at some camp in Afghanistan or Indonesia, backed up by evenings of watching paramilitary videos.
'Hassan Muda designed the mortars fired on Race Course Road,' said Hussain. Zaid Musa stood up and, with Muda, lifted Mohmand's body to the corner of the roo
m and laid it next to the computer table. They left the corpse of the bodyguard by the door. Musa plucked a handkerchief from his tunic pocket and soaked up arterial blood which had got on to his sleeve.
Qureshi said nothing. Witnessing the cold-blooded murder of two human beings, no matter how far they themselves might have been removed from innocence, left nothing but a numbness in his mind, particularly as he himself had been within a second of receiving three bullets from Muda's silenced pistol into his skull and chest, he presumed, just as Mohmand had. He looked at Musa, who returned his stare with unflinching certainty. Qureshi remembered the false sycophancy with which Zaid Musa had greeted him on his return from China. By reading the faces around the room, he became certain of one thing. Mohmand's death had been planned well in advance. As for his own, Qureshi just couldn't tell. But the moment he ordered the assassination of President Khan, he had expected to meet a violent death as well.
'Tassudaq Qureshi is my friend,' said Memed. 'I have known him for many years. I have eaten with his family.'
His words left a silence in the room. On a flicker of the eye from Memed, Muda lowered his pistol.
'If you are not with us, you will have to go,' said Hussain, his voice casual, almost comforting. As he paused, he pursed his lips.
To read Hussain's meaning, Qureshi needed context. His mind had cleared, and, like the pilot he was, he meticulously channelled away extraneous information and concentrated on what was in front of him.
'This is not about India, as we all know,' he said. 'It is about Pakistan, Islam and our nuclear strength.' He looked not at Hussain, nor at Memed, but at Zaid Musa, whom he guessed had ordered the killings, including his own - and had been overruled in the final seconds by Memed. 'We did not work all these years to create our weapons only to give them away to another power.'
'Park Ho is ready,' said Memed. 'Our alliance with him is an experiment which worked, thanks to your guidance, Tassudaq.'
Hussain's face relaxed with a noticeable expression of relief. Musa eyed him suspiciously, making no secret of the fact that he believed Qureshi's statement to be hollow, or, more realistically, that Qureshi had to be removed in order for Musa to take the mantle of leader. Qureshi's mind was filled with different strands of thought, bursting through. Images of his love for Tasneem and for his tempestuous daughter Farah, the blood on Mohmand's uniform, the Fantan tactical 5-kiloton toss-bomb attachment, the news broadcasts of Khan's assassination, the simplistic threats of Jim West - Qureshi was amazed how he could process them all to create the balance and single-mindedness that emerged.
He had trodden an intricate and tarnished road, but as he watched Muda lift the flap of his linen jacket and return the pistol into the back of his trousers, Qureshi allowed himself the luxury of relief when a man knows he will never have to make another major decision in his life again.*
*****
Qureshi was offered an F-16B with a navigator, but he refused. The F-16 might have been the aircraft of choice, but it was too sophisticated for the job, he had argued. Yes, it was versatile enough for ground attack, but its primary role was air defence, and he had confounded them with details, challenging them to let him do it his way, with the system he had devised and with the aircraft he wanted.
When disobeying orders, it is best to act alone. The aircraft he chose was a single-seater and he knew it well.
Winter coal smoke drifted across the corner of the tarmac where the old Chinese-built A-5C Fantan was parked, red stoppers in its two WP6 turbojet engines, with four technicians working on sockets under the centre line of the fuselage. The Fantan was the first Pakistani aircraft to be successfully modified for the delivery of a battlefield nuclear weapon. It was the aircraft which Qureshi felt the most at ease in handling. He had stood firm, and even Zaid Musa had acknowledged that he should have his way.
Nor had he let them dictate the type of bomb he would deliver. Qureshi, an airman of a bygone age, preferred the lowest technology available so he had ordered the 'gun bomb' with 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium-235 from the Kahuta nuclear weapons complex just thirty miles away. In the low night temperature of Islamabad, the metal casing felt chilled as Qureshi brushed his hand along the cylinder jacket - such a small weapon compared to the missiles and conventional bombs the aircraft was designed to carry. It was barely ten feet long from its flat snub nose to its stabilizing base fins - less than a fifth of the aircraft's overall length.
Qureshi had been a young pilot in the late 1970s when the Pakistan air force had learned of the project to build Kahuta and provide the nuclear deterrent that would enable Pakistan to survive as a nation. His commanders had been furious that they had not been consulted, pointing out that the site was only four minutes' flying time from India and impossible to defend.
But they had been overruled. Nuclear scientists, working on the weapons programme, commuted from Islamabad where their families were well housed and their children educated at the best schools. They were close to the seat of government where decisions could easily be sought, yet they worked in such a desolate and mountainous area that it was never included on the tourist route, and soon all foreigners were banned from the area. At the time, he was flying training sorties right up against the Indian border, including practice runs for defending Kahuta from enemy attack.
Qureshi searched for some kind of symbolism - resolution even - in what he was about to do, and tonight, on the tarmac, in his flying kit and with just the specialist technicians to load the weapon, he chose to think of the success of Kahuta and the ingenuity with which Pakistan's bomb had been created.
Inside the bomb itself was a bullet of U-235 which would plunge down against the U-235 target rings on detonation. As with his aircraft, Qureshi had chosen technology that in essence had not moved much further on since the Hiroshima bombing in 1945.
The bomb was hoisted below the fuselage and slid gently into place. The technicians' fingers spread across the outer casing to make sure it remained protected. Four adjustable rubber braces were brought in to secure it and the bracket clipped in under it. Apart from the 23mm cannon, Qureshi had ordered all other armaments to be taken off the aircraft. Without its air-to-air missiles and 500 kilograms of conventional bombs, the A-5 would be lighter, faster and easier to handle.
He climbed into the cockpit and checked the radar and fusing system which would determine exactly when detonation took place. He set the barometric-pressure fuse at 2,000 feet and made ready four radar fuses which were designed to bounce signals off the ground to set off the detonator once there was an agreed reading between two of the signals. Such safeguards ensured that the weapon would not explode prematurely. As an extra precaution the radar signals would not begin to be emitted until the bomb had been released, so that the signals did not confuse the fuselage of the aircraft with the ground.
Qureshi flipped the bomb-release switch, which was mechanical and not electronic. The bomb slumped down on to the braces, and the technicians lowered it on to the cradle of the trolley. Qureshi climbed out of the aircraft and walked alone across the tarmac, carrying his helmet under his arm and using the lights of an officers' mess hut to guide him to his destination.
In any other circumstances the room would have been welcoming and might even have induced a warm feeling of nostalgia. He could never remember it even having a fresh coat of paint. The wall carried yellowed photographs from action sorties going back to 1971, when East Pakistan had been lost and had become Bangladesh.
Only Najeeb Hussain was waiting for him, standing by the window, away from the stark light, and watching Qureshi approach. The others were in the command and control bunker under the base. Hussain was a friend, as much as any friendship could survive the pressures of leadership. As Qureshi came in, Hussain put his hand on his shoulder and indicated a pot of steaming coffee. Qureshi glanced up at the wall map.
'I've sent Tasneem to London,' he said softly.
Hussain nodded. 'I understand. What reason did you give?
'
'She's looking for a job for Farrah.' Qureshi let out a small laugh. 'A couple of nights back, we talked about Farrah's future. I have to tell you, Najeeb, she is the most reckless girl, but she is my favourite. A father shouldn't say that, I know, but this is a night when such things can be said.' He walked over to the map and ran his finger down the border with India.
'Farrah's still in Lahore,' he said. 'She won't leave. What pressing reason can I give her?'
'Lahore will be fine. It is too close to the border. They won't touch it,' said Hussain confidently.
'Javed is in France,' said Qureshi, almost as if he was reassuring himself. 'Akbar, Zeenat and Bashir are at boarding school in Karachi. They won't touch Karachi, surely?'