Dragonfire (7 page)

Reddy gave the instruction and the two men waited while the call was being put through.

‘They’re not answering,’ said Reddy.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Dixit.

‘They’re playing games. It’s what we did to them during Brass Tacks in 1986. They thought we were going to invade and we didn’t pick up the hotline.’

‘Meaning . . . ?’

‘It’s not the Prime Minister,’ said Reddy. ‘It’s Hamid Khan. He’s testing our resolve.’

Briefing

Pakistan

Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947 with the partition of India, and the Islamic republic was proclaimed on 23 March 1956. During the Cold War it was regarded as a staunch ally
of the West, but since then wove a chaotic tapestry of Islam, Western-style democracy and military dictatorship. Forever feeling threatened by India and ruled by dishonest leaders from within,
Pakistan had not yet developed into the Islamic success envisioned by its founders. It was getting poorer and more violent. At the turn of the century, it had recently proclaimed itself a nuclear
power and a military government had been installed. Under constant international pressure, Pakistan embarked upon another experiment with democracy, but it failed to pull the country out of its
morass. Once again, the army and Islam emerged as attractive alternatives.

General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Local time: 1645 Friday 4 May 2007
GMT: 1145 Friday 4 May 2007

‘Don’t answer it,’
said General Mohammed Hamid Khan.

‘It’s the Prime Minister’s hotline,’ said Captain Mohammed Masood, his aide de camp.

‘I have instructed the Prime Minister’s office to let it ring.’

Khan paced up and down in front of a large map on the wall of the underground bunker which he had made his permanent office in Chaklala, the cantonment area of Rawalpindi. Right now, the whims
of a dishonest Prime Minister were the least of his concerns. There were more powerful forces moulding Pakistan’s future that Khan planned to bring to bear over the next few days, forces
which would end the decades of corruption which had kept his country in the Dark Ages.

‘Get me General Tang Siju in Beijing,’ Khan ordered, and when the call came through the brief conversation gave him all he wanted.

‘Your support is a mark of friendship to the People’s Republic of China,’ said Tang.

Khan then ordered Masood to drive him through the evening traffic to the run-down tenements of Aabpara District in Rawalpindi. For dangerous journeys Masood often doubled up as Khan’s
driver. He needed a man whom he could trust completely and who, like him, came from a military family of long standing.

The plain-clothed commandos from the Cherat Special Services Group fanned out on the narrow roads around Khan’s destination. Although their weapons were concealed and they dressed raggedly
in an attempt to disguise themselves as the poor, their purposeful movements gave them away immediately as fighting men – but they were identified as mujahedin, whose breeding ground was in
Aabpara, not as commandos from the Pakistan army.

Khan stayed in the car while Masood climbed the stairs of the decrepit building. The bodyguards of the Islamic cleric whom the general had come to see challenged Masood and ordered him to hand
over his side-arm. Masood responded by drawing the weapon, removing the safety catch and levelling it at the head of one of the bodyguards. He was acting precisely on orders given by Khan.

Khan got out of the car and silently climbed the stairs behind Masood. Then everyone heard the unmistakable clatter of a Huey helicopter gunship overhead.

‘Tell Mullah al-Bishri to open the door,’ snapped Khan, ‘or the armed forces of Pakistan will burn down this street.’

The bodyguard knocked on the door. It opened, and Khan pushed his way through into the room. It had no furniture apart from a low coffee table against the far wall. A red carpet was spread all
over, with smaller carpets thrown on top of it and hanging on the wall. The man sitting cross-legged by the coffee table was one of the world’s most powerful Islamic leaders. He didn’t
get up, but waved his hand for Khan to sit down and join him. Masood and the bodyguards stayed outside and the door was closed.

‘Yahya was like a son to me,’ said the Mullah. ‘He was doing you no harm. He was fighting the Jihad and I’m told you gave orders for him to be killed.’

Khan did not answer.

‘He was killed in Egypt by a single gunshot wound to the head in the Upper Nile town of Asyut. The gunman came from the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of Pakistan. I know because we
caught him and he said it was you, General, who ordered the death of a freedom fighter.’

Mullah al-Bishri was the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the oldest and most deeply entrenched Islamic groups. In a way it was a loose umbrella group for the numerous groups which had
based themselves in Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami had the biggest network, but others could prove to be equally important in balancing power. The Hizb-ul Mujahadeen was one of the oldest militant
groups, made up mostly of Kashmiris. The Sunni Islamic Lashkar-e-Tayyaba represented some of the poorest areas of Pakistan. The Harkat-ul-Mujahedin was an international brigade of fighters,
Afghans, Algerians, Egyptians and even guerrillas from Saudi Arabia, people who could pose more of a threat to the stability of the country than the Indian army. And increasingly Khan was seeing
the defiant Tehrik-e-Jihad in operation, fighters who came to prominence in 1999 in the battle for Kargil.

He sensed that even Mullah al-Bishri was having trouble maintaining his authority. Al-Bishri had been an ally of Zia-ul-Haq and of Nawaz Sharif, the two Pakistani leaders who held greatest sway
over the political arena in the last two decades of the twentieth century. But since then the political landscape had changed dramatically. Over the years, Al-Bishri’s own views had hardened,
reflecting the country’s lurch from a moderate to a fundamentalist Islamic society. He now argued that there were no national frontiers for true believers and that, after the victory in
Afghanistan, the next natural battlefield was Kashmir. He predicted that Kashmir would soon be won and had ordered the recruitment and training of young men to fight in the Central Asian republics
and even take the Jihad across China’s western borders into Xinjiang. One intonation at Friday prayers or one command to his followers throughout Pakistan could bring millions out onto the
streets. It was he, more than any other man, who could depose the civilian government, and it was Al-Bishri to whom Khan had to turn for support now.

But the balance of their relationship was delicate. While Khan was a military commander, Al-Bishri would always be an opposition force, a grass-roots activist, a criticizer, but never an
achiever. Khan, acutely aware of the cleric’s power, also resented it. Al-Bishri’s ultimate aim was to form an Islamic combination of Central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi
Arabia to create a formidable global force. Yet Khan knew it would never happen. Saudi Arabia bought its cars and fridges from Japan, Europe and America, and its missiles from China. If Pakistan
ever interfered either in China or in any oil-producing country in the Middle East it would be abandoned to the whims of a Hindu India. Khan accepted this. Al-Bishri did not.

When Khan was summoned to his run-down house in Aabpara, the message said he should be there within the hour, showing how out of touch al-Bishri was with the schedules of the outside world. The
cleric was an academic, steeped in the Koran and in Islamic writings, far away from the world of satellite telephones, laser-guided missiles and the international banking system used by his
fighters. He was their moral compass and their religious legitimacy.

‘I am told that the Prime Minister is about to declare himself Amir-ul-Momineen, leader of Muslims,’ said Al-Bishri. ‘They say that power has gone to his head.’

‘I have heard the same,’ said Khan.

‘But I hear also that you favour cancelling the Shariat law and bringing back a colonial-style judicial system.’

‘Yes,’ said Khan bluntly. ‘The Shariat will not encourage foreign investment in Pakistan.’

‘The Shariat is the law for the Islamic people of the world. We do not need their foreign investment.’

‘The Shariat is a law ordained in the Koran and Sunnah, the words and deeds of the prophet. Whenever there is no precedent in either of the two sources, then jurists use independent
thinking [
ijtihad
] to deliver their verdict, and this is variable from jurist to jurist. This is not understood or used by the West, and many Muslims consider it unsuitable for trade and
business.

‘Sometimes, jurists have resorted to using either analogy [
quias
] or consensus [
ijma
] to arrive at a decision. Out of the 6,666 Koranic verses, only three hundred have any
legal connection, meaning that Shariat jurists have a large scope for interpretation. The international banking system and long-term investors would not operate under such a legal system. Their
money will only go where it feels safe, and unless it is protected by the rule of law it will go elsewhere. In order to modernize our country, we may have to compromise on some of its
ideals.’

‘Saudi Arabia lives under the Shariat and is friendly with the West.’

‘Saudi Arabia has oil.’

Al-Bishri sipped his tea and was silent for some time. ‘You have studied your subject, General.’

‘Yes. I have thought a lot about it.’

‘And part of your thinking was the killing of Yahya?’

‘China is worried that we are sending mujahedin to cause unrest across its western border. I have to assure them that we are not.’

‘What have you told them?’

‘We will try to ensure that no mujahedin, whether they come from the Sudan, Saudia Arabia, Bangladesh or Aabpara, will wage war against the People’s Republic of China.’

‘And in return?’

‘They will supply us with enough weapons and political support to defeat India.’

The cleric nodded, then said: ‘You are a clever young man, but I fear our people will not understand you. China and investment are not things they know about. The Islamic revolution is a
tide, General Khan, which ebbs and flows. It is flowing towards Central Asia and no one can stop it. Not you. Not me. Any man who tries would be a fool. However, perhaps there is a way we can stem
the tide at least for our time on this earth, and it is the only way I can guarantee my continued support.’

‘What is that?’

‘Give us Kashmir, General. If you give us Kashmir, you will be the hero of the Islamic world.’

The President’s Office, The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 0830 Friday 4 May 2007
GMT: 1330 Friday 4 May 2007

‘Is there anything
else?’ said the President of the United States. John Hastings stood up, clipping his fountain pen into his jacket pocket. The weekly
meeting with the National Security Agency had been routine. His astute National Security Advisor, Tom Bloodworth, had run through the agenda quickly, knowing that the President had elections to
think about and a spate of race riots in Washington itself. After the Balkan campaign and with a secured peace on the Korean peninsula, the President had assured the American people that he would
keep his eye more on domestic affairs than his predecessor.

‘If individual nations are to mature into modern, developed societies, they must learn to take control of their own affairs,’ he had said in his inaugural speech. ‘Western
Europe and America did not reach their present level of wealth and stability without spilling the blood of their own people. Both England and the United States fought horrible civil wars and just
because they were many hundreds of years ago does not make the suffering any less for those who took part. We had no NATO or UN to intervene then, and maybe that was the right way to sort out our
problems. Since the Western democracies began to see themselves as the policemen of the world, civil war and slaughter has not lessened. The Rwandas, Kosovos and Cambodias continue.

‘My words might sound harsh to some. But by trying to help we have, in fact, failed to help. So perhaps if these societies so intent on being enemies with each other know that no one is
going to come to their aid, they will think twice about starting a war.’

So far President Hastings had kept his word. In the first two years of his presidency the television networks had become less interested in covering stories of Third World massacres and
refugees. It was an electoral gamble, but not a blind one. Hastings ran for the presidency after resigning his post as the chief executive of one of America’s biggest news networks. He
understood the link between journalists and power, believing that underneath the bravado of many top reporters was the yearning to be a politician.

The first story to test his policy occurred in Liberia, when every man, woman and child in three villages was slaughtered. He refused to answer questions on the massacre, saying he hadn’t
been properly briefed.

‘Why not, sir?’ shouted a young women from what had been his own network.

‘Just as I haven’t been briefed on the 20,614 murders in our own country last year. Nor have I seen the file on the twenty-seven murders which took place in New York last week. That
violence is the result of poverty, racism and hatred, no different to the motivation which has created the slaughter in Liberia. The killings there do not threaten American national interests, nor
are they a threat to world peace. What do I say to Marilyn Deane, the mother of Brent Deane, aged fifteen, who was gunned down in a Washington DC drugs war last week? What do I say when she asks me
to make her neighbourhood more safe? Do I turn round and say: “Don’t bother me now, I’m comforting a mother in Liberia”?’

With that retort, condemnation of Hastings’s policy petered out and the networks which had been flying crews and satellite dishes into Liberia, anticipating American involvement, pulled
out. The massacres continued, but the story ended.

After their assistants left the Oval Office, the President poured his National Security Advisor a coffee and moved from the coffee table on the blue wool carpet in the middle of the room to sit
back behind his desk.