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.
Hussein: We would have less than thirteen minutes to react, but it would take us twenty times that long to prepare the Ghauri.
Khalid: We had been relying on the North Koreans, who were developing a solid-fuel rocket known as the Taepo Dong. But since rapprochement has come to the Korean peninsula, the missile project has stopped.
Jabbar: In other words we have been left high and dry.
President: Your aim is to neutralize the Indian threat against Pakistan totally. Am I right in thinking this? No half measures.
Jabbar: I think we all agree that if our borders are secure and power is balanced, Asia will be a more peaceful place.
Tang: What is it you need?
Hussein: The East Wind DF-21 missile and launchers and the KS-1 theatre-defence missile.
Tang: The technology?
Hussein: The products themselves. We don’t have time to make them.
Khalid: The DF-21 is a two-stage solid-fuel missile which we need to match India’s Agni-11 missile. The KS-1 is a short-range ground-based theatre-defence missile, which can engage air-launched tactical weapons – in other words a strike by Indian aircraft carrying nuclear bombs. We would want to import complete batteries of twenty-four missiles, the phased-array radar-guidance station, four missile launchers on trucks and associated vehicles.
Song: It would surely violate the Missile Technology Control Regime – the MTCR. We have agreed not to sell missiles or technology that can carry a payload of more than five hundred kilograms a distance of more than three hundred kilometres. What are the specifications of the missiles we are talking about?
Khalid: The KS-1 has a range of forty-five kilometres and the warhead could be well under five hundred kilograms. The payload of the DF-21 is five hundred kilograms and the range is eighteen hundred kilometres.
Song: Impossible, then.
Tang: No. Not impossible. We have not signed a treaty, but merely agreed to adhere to the provisions of the MTCR. We will be breaking no international law and any sanctions put upon us will hurt the governments imposing them as much as they do us. A year after we adhered to the MTCR in 1987 we sold six DF-3s to Saudi Arabia. Range two thousand seven hundred kilometres.
Hussein: Price three billion dollars.
Leung: I am not completely happy. The idea that India and Pakistan can replicate the nuclear safeguards set up between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War is unworkable. The cost to America of maintaining a nuclear arsenal to match the Soviet Unions was five and a half trillion dollars. The cost to the Soviet Union was the disintegration of its economy. It seems that no one in India or Pakistan has thought through the sophistication needed to manage the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, where both parties come out of it intact.
Jabbar: No, General Leung. We know that if it comes to all-out war – either conventional or nuclear – Pakistan will lose. We are not seeking a Cold War scenario. And we would, naturally, pass on to you all our intelligence on India’s own nuclear weapons programme. It is far easier for a Pakistani to infiltrate than for a Chinese.
Hussein: We also want to put a tactical air-burst bomb onto our Hatf short-range missiles and possibly on the DF-21, if you give it to us. Or an enhanced-radiation warhead.
Tang: Neutron bomb.
Hussein: Correct. You tested the neutron bomb in November 1988 and we understand it became fully developed in the late 1990s – thanks to stolen American technology. If you remember, gentlemen, the most dangerous time that Pakistani and Indian tank forces faced each other was during India’s Operation Brass Tacks in 1987. India fielded a quarter of a million troops and thirteen hundred tanks and we genuinely thought they were going to invade. It was the first time that it seriously dawned on us that we needed the bomb.
Khalid: The deterrent effect of a neutron bomb against tank and infantry formations on the battlefield is very high. It is a small thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, which produces minimal blast and heat, affecting an area of less than three hundred metres in radius. Everything within that area will be incinerated. But a massive wave of neutron and gamma radiation is thrown out over a larger area. Tank crews would be disabled immediately – although some might take days or weeks to die. But buildings would survive, as could civilians living only a few kilometres away.
Jabbar: If we have a tactical nuclear weapon or neutron bomb, we are convinced that any war between us can be confined to the battlefield. If we do not, we would be forced to escalate straight from artillery exchange to nuclear exchange with no in-between.
President: You will give unconditional assistance against Islamic fundamentalism and all intelligence on India’s military activity against Tibet and its nuclear weapons development?
Jabbar: That is correct, sir.
[Interpreter’s note: Long silence. Deferring to the President.]
President: Then we have an understanding.
Bloodworth waited for John Hastings to finish before he handed him a folder of satellite photographs. ‘These were sent to me personally from Chandra Reddy, head of India’s external intelligence. They were taken by India’s IRS-ID satellites, which are pretty close to world-class. It means they don’t have to beg from the Israelis or us any more, like Tang said.’
‘You mean he got it wrong?’
‘Totally. The Indian satellites can photograph an object as small as five hundred and eighty centimetres and their panoramic coverage stretches for eight hundred and ten kilometres. They can also operate in three separate bands of light, enabling them to record objects in near darkness.’
&nbs
p; The President listened, spread the prints out on his desk and let Bloodworth carry on.
‘You can easily make out the shape of a ship in dock there. She is the MV Baldwin, Liberian-registered at the Chinese southern naval headquarters in Zhanjiang.’ Bloodworth stood up, leaning over the desk to point out the significant features. ‘You can see the head of a missile on the railway siding, here. And in this one four hours later, the Baldwin heading out to sea, we assume for Karachi in southern Pakistan. Loading began three hours after President Tao gave his assent.’
‘When will these be operational?’
‘More than a month, sir. But, if I may – ’ Bloodworth sifted to one caught underneath – ‘this is an Antonov 124, the biggest military transport plane in the world. This picture was taken at an airport near Xining in Western China, near the headquarters of the Second Artillery Regiment. If you look in the far right corner and you’ll see the fuselage and wing tip of another An-124. This truck here, we think, is carrying the KS-1 theatre-defence missile – possibly also some form of nuclear warhead.’
‘What you’re telling me is that these aircraft have already delivered their cargoes to Pakistan.’
Prime Minister’s Residence, Race Course Road, New Delhi, India
Local time: 0200 Friday 4 May 2007
GMT: 2030 Thursday 3 May 2007
‘Cancel the visit to Beijing,’ said Hari Dixit.
‘If you call it off now, the relationship will take years to repair,’ said Prabhu Purie, the Foreign Minister.
Hari Dixit screwed one of the satellite photographs into a ball and hurled it into the corner of the room. ‘They are blatantly breaking international law.’
‘But they regard the SFF attack on Lhasa—’
‘That was not authorized by my government. The force which carried it out has been disbanded. If we end up going to war over that, then we would have ended up going to war anyway, over something else.’ Dixit turned to the Chief of Army Staff. ‘Mr Krishnan, what is your view?’
‘At some stage, possibly months ahead, it will become public knowledge that you visited China, well aware that it was secretly shipping nuclear weapons to Pakistan. Unless those weapons are withdrawn – and I doubt they will be – India will have emerged as the weaker of the two new Asian powers. It is similar to the missile crisis when the Soviet Union tried to ship nuclear weapons to Cuba. I agree with Prabhu’s sentiments. He is correct about China’s reaction. But we have to face them down.’
‘Chandraji?’
‘I think China’s chosen this moment for a shakedown of the Asian powers. I don’t know why, sir. But I agree with the Chief of Army Staff.’
‘Prabhu, call our ambassador in Beijing and cancel my visit. Give him the reasons. We’ll convene a full meeting of the National Security Council and decide how much to release into the public domain.’
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Local time: 0700 Friday 4 May 2007
GMT: 2300 Thursday 3 May 2007
‘Prime Minister Dixit has called off his visit,’ said Jamie Song. Tang was already with President Tao when Song was shown into his office. No one else was present, an indication of Song’s membership of Zhongnanhai’s innermost circle.
‘Why?’ said Tao.
‘No reason given. There was no indication that they knew about our shipments to Pakistan.’
‘But the weather has been clear,’ said Tang. ‘Their satellites would pick it up.’
‘I don’t think that matters,’ said Tao. ‘If we wish to arm an ally against an aggressive enemy, then we shall do so. Tibet, though, is more sensitive because of the Americans. What did you tell Reece Overhalt?’
‘That I was Foreign Minister and Tibet was an integral part of China.’
‘Comrade Song,’ said Tao, insistent on retaining some old-style Communist Party formalities, ‘Comrade Tang and I were discussing the international repercussions of martial law; whether we should declare it in Tibet. I don’t believe it is necessary, but we would welcome your view.’
Song chose his words carefully. ‘I would certainly advise against using the term “martial law”. We will shortly – and by that I mean within the next twenty-four hours – have to make a statement about what is going on there. The cordon Comrade Tang has thrown around the city appears to be holding and no news is getting out. Yet the Western democracies are demanding access.’
‘When the West stamps its feet, China closes its doors,’ said Tao. ‘We have been through this before and survived, and a declaration of martial law would give an umbrella of legitimacy to our operation to crush dissent there.’
‘Nothing we do in Tibet has legitimacy in the eyes of the Western democracies. They tolerate it only through gritted teeth.’
Tao interrupted: ‘Comrade Tang, how long will the present operation last?’
‘We need to retain the seal around Lhasa for at least another two weeks to ensure that the splittist elements are neutralized.’
‘And if you loosen it? If, say, a European Union diplomat is taken to Lhasa for a day?’ asked the President.
Tang was silent for a moment, then began by addressing Song: ‘If Comrade Song can give me two weeks, I can ensure that the Tibetan problem is solved once and for all.’
‘How will you do that?’ said Song softly.
‘I don’t ask you the details of your foreign diplomacy,’ said Tang bluntly. ‘The incursion by India has given us an opportunity to act. We should not lose it.’
‘I am concerned about how our policy in Tibet will impact on our global position,’ retorted Song. ‘Since the 1989 Tiananmen incident and the Dragon Strike war, we have skilfully become a role model for the developing world. The myth that Western-style democracy is a panacea to end global poverty and civil war has been exploded by our achievements. Our human rights policy, once reviled by Western democracies, is now regarded as a necessity to keep economic development on course. Our citizens are proud to be Chinese and proud to be ruled by the Communist Party, and I would not like to see this ruined because of a sudden iron-fist campaign in Tibet.’
‘What would you prefer, then, Foreign Secretary?’ said Tang. ‘UN/NATO forces running Lhasa?’ The security chief cleared his throat and spat into the spittoon by the side of his chair.
‘That is precisely what I am trying to avoid,’ snapped Song.
President Tao held up his hand. ‘Comrades, we are losing our focus. Chinese sovereign territory has been violated from the Indian side. There has been an armed incursion deep inside our country. It is only right that we defend ourselves, and the international community will have to accept that. The problem lies in their interpretation of what we are doing in Tibet. The Indian incursion was the catalyst for a much larger terrorist uprising, which we have to put down. Yet we have seen in places like Serbia that Western democracies only permit an iron fist if it is clenched by one of their own. President Milosevic acted out of principle and paid the price. We will not make a similar mistake. We have been forthright in putting down the rebellion, and we have reinforced our border with India in order to prevent a similar incursion happening in the future. Comrade Song, you are quite right in suggesting we make a statement within the next twenty-four hours and that is why I have arranged for the Defence Minister to brief us.’ President Tao stood up. ‘A train is waiting to take us to the Western Hills.’
The three men travelled in silence, mainly because of the noise: Muxidi, Gongzhufen, Yuquan Lu, then just as the metro line should have come to an end at Pingguoyan, the train only slowed, went through the station and picked up again. The sides of the tunnel were more roughly hewn and illuminated only by the light of the train. Further along, a few kilometres before the Summer Palace, the tunnel widened into a vast brightly lit chamber. In rows of three, and forming a line which stretched more than 1,500 metres, was a column of tanks and armoured vehicles. When they ended, the train passed the quarters for the troops stationed down there, with some working in vehicles and others relaxi
ng on bunks.
Tao and Tang shuffled, indicating they were almost there, and Song readied himself. The train door opened onto a narrow platform, no wider than three feet, and they walked straight into a lift, which took them down another level. Song stepped out into a chamber, lit crudely with fluorescent light and split into two levels. This was the nerve centre of China’s defence policy, which had served as the war room for all its military operations in the past half-century.
The man waiting to greet them was General Leung Liyin, who was both the Defence Minister and the Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). Apart from President Tao himself, who was Chairman of the Military Commission, Leung was the most powerful military voice in China and the CMC had direct command of the Second Artillery Regiment, which controlled the nuclear forces.
If anything, Leung was more hawkish than Tang and less diplomatic, making him an unlikely candidate for higher political office. At Central Committee meetings he pushed China’s expansion to the limits, floating and reviving old territorial claims and causing naval stand-offs with South-East Asian neighbours. The journey out to the Western Hills and the mere presence of Leung at the meeting suggested that the Chinese President had far more up his sleeve than a measured response to the raid on Drapchi prison. Leung ushered them across the chamber. They had to duck under a gigantic computer-generated map of Asia. Then they were shown into a small conference room.
‘General Leung will explain his military strategy for the present situation,’ said President Tao. ‘As we discussed in Zhongnanhai the situation in Tibet has a danger of spilling over to adversely affect our foreign relations. This must be avoided. Yet it is unacceptable that we allow the splittists in Lhasa to gain the upper hand because of international pressure. Comrade Tang’s operation will continue as he sees fit. General Leung has devised a staggered response to India’s incursion into our territory.’
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