by Unknown
'Just remember that in all our wars, we have never targeted each other's cities,' said Hussain. 'The fighting has been kept to the battlefield.' Hussain joined Qureshi at the map. 'After you have done this, they won't touch anything,' he said. 'How can they?' He stabbed his finger. 'You take off. You fly down the border within Pakistani airspace, you nip across and drop here, right on the Pir Panjal Pass. Not a person around for miles. You have minimum yield. There'll be an avalanche and not much else.'
Qureshi shook his head. 'But are we underestimating Mehta's will?'
'If he bombs us back, it will be in a similarly remote part of Pakistan. Then we will have had our nuclear exchange and we can get down to business.'
'You think that is what Musa and Memed want?' Qureshi said sharply.
'This is not the time to argue,' insisted Hussain, forcing a smile. 'We have made our decisions.'
Qureshi couldn't work out where Hussain stood. In twenty years together discussing the future of Pakistan, he now realized he might never have known the man's beliefs at all.
'Would you have shot me?' he asked softly.
Hussain looked out of the window, where the moonlight was outshone by the artificial illumination outside and half hidden by clouds through which Qureshi would soon be flying. The reflection in the glass showed Hussain's face, desolate and turned away as he mustered an answer. What arrangements had they each made to get to this place and this situation?
'I told Memed you would see it through. Musa wanted you dead,' Hussain said in barely a whisper. 'From the day we overthrew Nawaz Sharif in favour of Musharraf we have all trodden the same path.'
For some time, Qureshi looked at Hussain. It wasn't a stare: more an attempt at understanding. Perhaps it was a realization that he had never accepted how it would have to end; even that he had never imagined it would get this far.
Hussain pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. 'This is today's propaganda picture for the Indian press,' he said, handing it to Qureshi. Vasant Mehta was shown with various military commanders at the strategic command centre in Bhopal. In the background was a battlefield map, pointing out the positions of artillery and tanks along the Rajasthan border.
'Believe me,' said Hussain. 'What you are going to do tonight will usher in peace. We can turn on the tap and turn it off. It was you, Tassudaq, who organized the assassination of Khan. Such a short time ago, but you seem to have forgotten. It was I who commissioned the attack on the Indian Parliament. Musa called in Muda's mortars to destroy Vasant Mehta's home. The major attacks have been commissioned by us, not by any fly-by-night separatist group. And it was you, Tassudaq, who transported the weapons across to Pyongyang, so that Park Ho would also have the same option of carrying out a limited tactical strike.'
'Is he ready to go?' asked Qureshi. He picked up his helmet from the table and filled a cup quarter full with coffee.
'Memed has spoken to him.'
'Good,' said Qureshi, draining his coffee. He turned, held out his arms and let Hussain embrace him. 'I will not let our country down,' he whispered, patting Hussain on the back. Without another word he walked out of the door and back to his aircraft.
He stood by the cradle as a technician removed the rear plate of the bomb, took out the tiny green plugs blocking the firing signal, inserted cordite which would spark the primary detonation and screwed the plate back on to the outer cylinder. The bomb was lifted back under the fuselage.
Qureshi climbed into the cockpit. This time he brought the cover down, raised the head-up cockpit display and started the engines. As he taxied round, he looked for Hussain in the mess hut. But the lights were off and the building had become a shape across the darkness of the tarmac.
The control tower had been briefed. There was no radio contact. Qureshi pulled down his goggles, carried out a cockpit check and then moved the engines to full thrust.
The light on the head-up cockpit display showed that the wheels were up and locked away and he eased the aircraft into a gentle climbing turn to the north, making sure he kept well within the Pakistani fly zone so close to the border.
At 5,000 feet he ran into choppy, moist cloud, then at 7,000 he hit turbulence in a mass of towering cumuli, more dense than he had judged by watching them swirl around the moon from the ground. Once through, he flew under a brilliant dome of stars, with a sense of suspension between land and sky, a smell of aircraft electronics in his mask, feeling that the bomb was already separated from him, checking that the wind was blowing from east to west, his thoughts back with Tasneem, wishing it was over, and understanding, perhaps finally, perhaps too late, that it would never be over because of the path he had chosen and there would never be a final resolution.
In the middle world in which he found himself, such contradictory thoughts did not seem out of place.
At the point where he was to cross the border, Qureshi took the aircraft in a tight turn and descended steeply. It was now that, if he was detected, the fighters would be scrambled to shoot him down.
The target was rushing towards him, nestled in the mountains. He went lower and lower until the mountains seemed to brush at the plane's belly. He took the plane down until the threshold lights flashed, and then powered it, feeling the engines take the aircraft back up again, the mountains rearing around and releasing him back into the sky.
After he had passed through the cloud, Qureshi began to feel more relaxed. This was when the pilot of another aircraft would appear to kill him. But none did. Perhaps they thought he was performing a victory roll before crossing into India. They had no idea.
He reached the top of his shallow climb and checked his position. He put the plane into a leftward banking turn to gain another 5,000 feet. Then he gathered himself for the dive.
He began the descent lazily, then went steeper, then slowed again, and changed the angle of the incline so that the aircraft would not flip over on the sudden release of the bomb.
Gravity pushed his eyes back in their sockets. He began to sweat.
He broke through at 15,000 feet and kept heading down. The target was on the screen. Qureshi made three slight corrections. He was twenty miles from target. His ground speed was 420 knots. The G-force rushed through his body, sucking the skin of his face right against his cheekbones. The bomb sight locked on to the target. He waited eight more seconds, then released the bomb.
The aircraft jumped, suddenly much lighter, but he kept descending, pushing the aircraft until he had a visual sighting, then pulled the Fantan round in a loop to put as much distance as possible between himself and the nuclear weapon.
A bright light filled the plane from the fireball below, making the whole night sky shimmer. The aircraft juddered, then the second blast, the reflection from the forces hitting the ground, came seconds later and shook the Fantan still more. He kept climbing higher and higher. He could no longer see the ground, only a boiling cloud mushrooming, climbing like a hot-air balloon, drawing air inwards and upwards as it ascended, dragging behind it dirt and debris from the ground which clung together forming the stem of the cloud, getting taller and taller as if it were chasing him.
The plane bounced in turbulence. On the ground it looked as if smoke and fire were creeping up the side of the mountains. The bomb had exploded forty-five seconds after he had released it, 2,000 feet above the ground. On the edges of the mushroom cloud was a bubbling mass of purple-grey smoke. Inside was a burning core which made the ground burn like red coals.
Qureshi's hands and wrists ached from gripping the controls. He relaxed in his seat. They broke radio silence, at first the tower at Rawalpindi. Then Hussain's voice, a cry, dropping to a whisper, incredulous and confused. 'Kahuta,' he managed. 'He's betrayed us.' And Qureshi flicked the radio off.
The plane juddered as he levelled off at 16,000 feet, and he turned due east. He felt simultaneously sick and elated. He squeezed his eyes and opened them again.
A cannon shell from an attacking aircraft ripped through his wing.
Smoke filled the cockpit, laced with the smell of cordite. Qureshi ejected and in the few seconds he had in the air, he had a brilliant view of his plane going down in a fiery spin towards the red and blue glow of the mushroom cloud.
Everywhere else looked tranquil and at peace.
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43*
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Chunggang-up missile base, North Korea*
'I can do it,' said Kee Tae Shin, standing at the base of the missile. 'But are you certain this is what you want?'
Park Ho would have taken the question from no one else. Park understood Kee better than any man in North Korea. Park was the man Kee had called upon when his wife was dragged away to a labour camp. Park was by his side when gunmen from the previous regime broke into his apartment and shot dead Kee's son and daughter in front of his eyes. It was Park who had tracked Kee's wife to Khechen prison, where he found her on the workhouse floor between rows of sewing machines, her spine broken from beatings, and sleeping in her own urine. It was Park who had knelt down, snapped her neck, then loaded her body into a helicopter and flown it back to Pyongyang, where he appeared, carrying the corpse in his arms, at Kee's door, his eyes wet with tears. And it was Park who had stayed up many nights with the distressed and lonely Kee, guiding him back to his science and skilfully steering his motivation towards support for the regime that had destroyed his family.
Without Kee, Park would never even have been able to make the choice over which delivery system he would use. Kee was one of Park's more brilliant creations and for that Park was prepared to be questioned, as long as they were alone.
He put his hand on Kee's shoulder. 'We have to create the threat of mutually assured destruction, a scenario which stipulates that if we are challenged there will be such terrible consequences that few people are likely to survive.'
Kee looked up sharply, his eyes following the contours of the missile and pointing towards the top of the rocket. 'They know we have this weapon, but they do not know how far it can fly. They know we have nuclear warheads, and they know what happens when one is exploded. But they do not know we have variola major, and they do not know we have a delivery system for it.'
Kee turned as the door behind them opened and Li Pak was ushered in. Unlike Park and Kee, Li had a wife and a son, and therefore everything yet to lose. There was a subtle difference in Li's expression. It was one of nervous enthusiasm, still motivated by the thought of creating something. Park and Kee, on the other hand, were men driven by revenge.
'Tell him,' ordered Park, as soon as the door closed behind Li. Li's presence made the space between the two missile fins and the reinforced concrete wall much smaller. The air was heavy with stale smells of oil and rocket fuel.
'We have successfully activated the interleukin-4 agent with the variola major virus,' said Li. 'Its effect on a human being is rapid and devastating. At the moment, we believe the strain we have created is resistant to the common smallpox vaccinia vaccine, and we are in the process of creating our own antidote to the new strain.'
Although the information was for Kee, Li looked only at Park as he spoke, unable to conceal his excitement.
'Can it withstand the impact stresses of delivery?' asked Kee softly.
'The liquid formulation when deep-frozen is stable in aerosol form,' said Li. 'If the technology explained to me by Comrade Park works, then, yes, the virus will survive a traumatic delivery impact. We have also put in an additive which lowers the freezing point. Your technology will allow the smallpox agent to travel in a refrigerated warhead with thermal shielding to allow it to survive re-entry into the atmosphere.'
Kee nodded. 'That is correct. We tested it over Yokata, and no one picked up what we were doing. It was a complete test of our guidance and delivery systems.'
Park shifted to the door and knocked on it twice. It opened from the other side. 'Come,' he said to Li. 'Dr Kee has something to show you.'
In the small room outside, two oblong-shaped metal casings lay on a table. Kee picked one up. 'You put the liquid formulation in here,' he said, tapping the inside. 'Right in the centre is a barometric pressure trigger. On re-entry, the warhead would release each of these capsules into the atmosphere. They would descend, stabilized by a fixed propeller which would cause the capsule to spin. Between 100 and 25 metres above the ground, the trigger would free the virus from the capsule, but would not destroy it, creating a cloud of infection which would float to the ground.'
Li nodded thoughtfully. 'A trigger, you say?' he muttered. 'Explosive or mechanical?'
'Mechanical. Just enough to prise open the capsule,' said Kee.
Li picked up the second half of the capsule from the table and examined it. 'It should work,' he said. 'We have tested the decay of our viral particles in varying conditions of heat, humidity and light. It would work with even a tiny explosion, if you don't trust the trigger.' He looked up at Park. 'Are we to test this system as facility for a fine-particles aerosol?'
Park laughed. 'Even a test will be seen as an act of war,' he said. 'Give Kee six capsules to put in his warhead.'
Li looked bemused. 'But that is nothing,' he said.
'How much do you have?' asked Park sharply.
'We haven't even begun to mass-manufacture yet--'
'Precisely,' snapped Park. 'And it will take you weeks to do so. You need 20 tonnes to infect 4,000 square kilometres of territory, and only then will we begin to destroy the apparatus of the United States. And by then, they will have developed a vaccine.' He took the capsule off Li and put it back on the table. 'No, Dr Li, you will prepare enough of the virus to show them that we have it and that we can deliver it. This is a weapon which complements the nuclear deterrent. Its purpose is to destroy those elements of society left functioning after a nuclear attack.'
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44*
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Washington, DC, USA*
'We are treating this as a first strike, Jim,' said Mehta, his voice on an open speaker in the strangely empty Oval Office. 'The very fact that Pakistan had an assembled bomb contravenes the spirit of every agreement we ever made about our nuclear arsenals.'
West had not even attempted to replace Brock. The bond between the two men had been so deep that he preferred to keep his own counsel rather than work with a stranger. He had asked Tom Patton to oversee temporarily both the National Security Council and Homeland Security, and Patton sat back alone on the sofa, his arms linked behind his head, listening to the stubborn defiance of the Indian Prime Minister. Mary Newman, fresh from the attack in South Korea, was back on a plane and headed for Beijing. Chris Pierce was in New York, locked in an office at the United Nations with the Cuban ambassador. John Kozerski had perched himself on the window sill and quietly drummed the glass as he listened.
'You are telling me that you will retaliate?' West asked Mehta. He was sitting behind the Oval Office desk, one hand around a glass of iced water and the other tapping the end of his pen against a pad.
'Yes,' said Mehta. 'That bomb was meant for India, Jim--'
'It exploded over Pakistan, less than thirty miles from the capital city.'
'Because the pilot was crazy, that's why. He lost it.'
'Lost it?' exclaimed West. 'He bombed his own nuclear-weapons-making facility. To me that is not the act of a madman.'
'Can you assure me, Jim, that Pakistan has no more aircraft and missiles with assembled nuclear weapons ready to launch?'
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kozerski point towards the television screen, where pictures were showing the roads heading out of Islamabad clogged with people fleeing. Instead of a national leader appealing for calm, it was being left to the news presenters. The army appeared to have melted away, back to barracks. Every road out of Islamabad, except for that heading for Kahuta, was blocked with humans fleeing on foot and in animal-drawn carts, ending the chance of any vehicle making faster progress. When violence broke out, there were no police or troops to intervene. The fighting subsided naturally,
usually when one side or another had been killed.
'Have you seen the television pictures, Vasant?' said West. 'I'm looking at them now. This is a broken nation.'
'Cut it,' snapped Mehta. 'I have made my policy perfectly clear. Pakistan has made its intention known. It has assembled a bomb--'
'If you strike back--'
'You should have thought about that when you were propping up that dictatorship. Now listen to me, Jim, because I am going to tell you precisely what we are going to do.'
West beckoned Kozerski, who walked quickly over to the desk and pulled up a chair. West pushed over the pen and notepad and took a sip of water. 'OK, tell me,' he said.
'Until now, we have kept our nuclear weapon components in three different locations. Which is why all these years, Jim, there has never been a threat of mistaken nuclear exchange. Today, that is changing. Now the nuclear pit, the part which goes into the warhead, is at one place, mostly at the Babhu Atomic Research Centre near Mumbai. The warhead is somewhere else, and the delivery system - plane, missile or submarine - somewhere else again. We are bringing all those three together to assemble our weapons. We have 150 warheads, excluding the 2-kiloton type of tactical weapon used last night. In six hours time, our Mirage 2000 aircraft, the Jaguars and the Sukhoi 30s will be armed and ready to strike. Eight hours from now the Agni missiles will also be ready, including the long-range Agni 3 which we will declare to deter any interference from China. Twelve hours from now two Akula 2000 class nuclear-powered submarines will be at sea, each carrying a 20-kiloton warhead for missile launch.