By Dawn's Early Light (24 page)

NOON
CHAKLALA, PAKISTAN

President and Prime Minister of Islami Jamhuria-e-Pakistan Army General Pervez Musharraf walked into the national command authority chamber at the stroke of noon and took his seat at the head of the long, obsidian table. That fool of an American president Gerald Hanson continued his efforts to make diplomatic contact even though he'd been repeatedly insulted by a low-ranking official at the embassy in Washington. Musharraf almost chuckled aloud, but he restrained himself. Now was no time for levity. The U.S. was still their biggest ally
and
their greatest enemy. The enemy of all Islam.

Present around the table, which was in the Joint Strategic Headquarters compound, were his entire NCA membership: Army Chief of Staff Gen. Karas Phalodi; Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Tajuddin Khan; Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Naeem Baquar; ISI Director Maj. Gen. Jamsed Asif; Employment Control Committee Director Saiyed Ullah; Development Control Director Dr. Mohammed Malik; and Strategic Plans Division Director Army Gen. Javed Naqoi.

With Musharraf, these seven men were in complete control of Pakistan's immediate future and they all were acutely aware of the fact. They now had five city-busting thermonuclear weapons mated to five long-range guided missiles that would soon be operational.

The question on the table was what should be done next?

Musharraf fixed his gaze on each of them in turn, willing them to understand the gravity of what they would decide here. But he also wanted to instill in them the courage of Allah, because in his estimation they would need that courage and resolve now more than ever before in the history of their nation.

“Gentlemen, thank you for convening on such short notice,” Musharraf began mildly. “As you are very well aware, our decisions today will be critical to Pakistan's welfare,
In'shah Allah
.” God willing.

“
In'shah Allah,
” they murmured in unison around the table.

Musharraf settled back in his tall leather chair and turned to his army chief of staff, General Phalodi. “What do you recommend?”

“There is only one course of action open to us that makes any sense, General,” Phalodi began forcefully. “We must strike India now, and hard. She is our enemy and nothing will change that. Their bumbling atomic energy commission has not been able to develop a thermonuclear weapon. They've come up with fizzles. But that situation cannot last indefinitely.” He looked around the table for support. “I recommend that we strike now.”

“Where do we hit them?” Musharraf asked. Phalodi's vehemence was expected. The man wanted to be president. He had to make his mark.

“New Delhi and Calcutta to kill their leadership and as many civilians as possible. Then their nuclear weapons depot at Secunderabad, and finally their Bhabha atomic research center.”

“That is only four weapons.”

“We keep the fifth in reserve,” Phalodi replied without hesitation.

“Attack now and we will be destroyed,” ISI General Asif spoke up.

Everyone turned toward him. Musharraf nodded for his intelligence chief to continue. Asif had no ambition to become president or prime minister, so in some respects his opinion was even more valuable than Phalodi's.

“Because we refuse to reopen our dialogue with the Americans they may very well lend their support to India—”

“What else is new,” Phalodi interrupted.

Musharraf silenced his army chief of staff with a glance.

“America may give India its intelligence
and
military support,” Asif warned. “If that happens we could not win, even with our fine new toys. It would take more than five superbombs to damage India beyond retaliating.” Asif looked around the table. “That is, if we were allowed to launch.”

Musharraf raised a hand to quell any objections for the moment. “What do you recommend?”

“Our nuclear weapons were meant to be developed but never deployed. The U.S. dropped only two very small nuclear weapons on a nation they'd formally declared war on, and fifty-seven years later they are still being vilified for the act.”

“What do you want us to do, turn our weapons over to the Americans?” Phalodi shouted. Spit flew from his mouth.

“Merely having such weapons in our arsenal will be enough to insure that no nation, not India not the U.S., will ever dare attack us.” As Phalodi had done, Asif looked around the table for his support. “Having the weapons, but
not
using them, is the key to our survival.”

“What do you suggest, specifically, Jamsed?” Musharraf asked. It wasn't clear to anyone around the table whom Musharraf supported the most. It was a dangerous situation for all of them. It wasn't only Pakistan that could be lost here today, there were careers on the line.

“We must make a formal announcement of our capabilities.
All
of our capabilities. That includes our missiles and launch abilities. If need be, we can make the video of our test available to the Western media.”

“Madness,” Phalodi fumed. His face was red, his fists clenched.

“Not madness, but good sense. We will either be a part of the world community, or we will not. We can either take our place at the table of superpowers, or else those of us who survive will be reduced to picking through the rubble of our cities. After the World Trade Center and the counterstrikes on Afghanistan and Iraq, the Americans are fighting a different war.”

Asif's moderate position was something of a surprise to Musharraf and the others around the table. The ISI chief had always been a hawk. “What else?”

“The Americans obviously know that we are holding prisoners at Kandrach. Their rescue attempt proved that much. We must immediately kill the prisoners in such a way that it will appear they lost their lives during the rescue attempt. That will make it possible for us to return their bodies. All their bodies except for the woman's. We can never return her, or even acknowledge that we ever had her.”

Musharraf looked at the others. “Have there been any indications that the Americans know we have her?”

“None,” Asif said.

“That is all well and good,” Phalodi interjected angrily. “But a few prisoners are not our major problem. India is. And India will never attack us with her nuclear weapons.”

“Then why must we attack first?” Asif asked.

“To stop their agression in Kashmir once and for all.”

Musharraf held up a hand for Phalodi and Asif to stop their bickering. He turned to SPD Director Gen. Naqoi. The strategic plans division was responsible for recommending in broad strokes Pakistan's plans for its strategic nuclear weapons.

Naqoi was another man like Asif who knew his job and who had no political ambitions other than staying alive. He was a true man of God, a true believer in Islam. Pakistan's nuclear weapons were, as far as he was concerned, truly weapons for Allah and all of Islam.

“If we do decide to launch, and I will not argue against such a course of action at this time, then may I suggest an additional six targets?” Naqoi said. “At least six targets, which of course would suppose a further buildup of our weapons stockpile before we act.”

Musharraf was fascinated despite himself. “What are these six targets that we should also strike?”

“Why, that's simple, General. Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, and Riyadh.” Naqoi listed the cities without so much as a blink of the eye. No one could tell if he was serious or not.

“Insanity,” Phalodi said. “Do you want us at war with the world?”

Naqoi turned to him with a vicious sneer. “There is not much difference hitting those targets versus hitting New Delhi and Calcutta, you utter fool. General Asif is correct for a change. Brandish the sword, but do not swing it until someone else takes the first blow.”

Musharraf raised a hand again to cut off the discussion. Dissension tended to dilute power within a committee, concentrating it in the hands of the chairman. It was a situation that Musharraf had worked diligently to foster. It would start to pay off now. He would make the final decisions that the entire National Command Authority would take the blame for should the situation backfire.

“The American prisoners we're holding at Kandrach will be kept alive for now,” he said. “That includes the woman. We may use them as tokens of our good faith at some future date. Show our humanitarian goodwill despite their cowardly attack on our naval vessels operating under the law well within our own territorial waters.”

No one argued. They were past the discussion phase and they all knew it.

“All five of our thermonuclear weapons will be mated to their missiles, and will be dispersed across the nation, as we have planned. Four of the weapons will be targeted, as General Phalodi so wisely suggested, with the fifth to be held in reserve.”

Phalodi looked smug.

“There will be no further tests, of course, but as General Asif so brilliantly suggested, we will not launch our attack on India. Not yet, though it may become necessary very soon.”

Asif sat up a little straighter.

They were like children, the thought crossed Musharraf's mind. But very dangerous children.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Baquar looked up from some notes. “There is another problem that we must address here.”

“What is it?” Musharraf asked.

“The Americans have launched one of their shuttle spacecraft. They mean to repair their
Jupiter
satellite. If that is allowed to occur, then their intelligence services will have the capability of detecting our deployed missiles on their mobile launch platforms.”

“Our asset is in place in the Bay of Bengal,” General Phalodi reported. “At least that is what I have been told.”

“It is,” Asif said. “But the ISI feels that there is a considerable risk in attacking the satellite at this time. If the laser should miss the satellite, the beam could conceivably damage the shuttle, perhaps even injure an American astonaut. The Americans would retaliate.”

“Against whom?” Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Khan interjected. “The submarine does not belong to us. All of our boats are tied up alongside their docks. In very plain sight.”

“The satellite must not become operational,” Musharraf said. There were nods of agreement around the table. Asif and Naqoi were the only dissenters. Since neither of them had any ambitions beyond their present positions, their voices were not so important on this issue. “It will be a statement they won't miss.”

“Very well, General,” Asif said. “I merely hope that we find our way through this maze.”

“We will make it so, Jamsed,” Musharraf said. “Pakistan counts on us.”

2145 GMT
DISCOVERY

Space was silent, which made the slowly unfolding panorama of the blue earth all the more majestic for Paul Thoreau.

Discovery
was above and behind the disabled surveillance satellite. Her payload doors were in the open position, the heat reflectors deployed. The open bay was pointed earthward.

Susan Wright had moved them into a matching orbit with controlled burns of the orbital maneuvering system engines, while Wirtanen and Conners waited for the go-ahead to suit up. They would make the EVA for the repair mission, which meant that Dr. Ellis was only a passenger until the repairs were completed and they went on to the space station.

He hung upside down beneath the upper bay port side window in the overhead, while Thoreau watched from the starboard window. Ellis used a Hasselblad camera to take some stunning photographs of the satellite against the backdrop of the mid-Atlantic ocean.

The sky was relatively clear for this time of year, but a dozen jet airliner contrails crisscrossed the ocean between the U.S. and Europe and North Africa.

Each orbit took approximately ninety minutes to complete. In one and a half orbits from now, Conners and Wirtanen would be suited up and outside. They would be two hundred and fifty miles above the Bay of Bengal.

Everyone aboard was tense.

“Can you spot any damage?” Thoreau asked.

Ellis was shooting the slowly tumbling satellite through a 100mm telephoto lens. It was like looking at the wounded bird through a small telescope. “Nothing yet,” he said.

“They probably hit one of the guidance modules in the center bay. Just inboard of the solar panels.”

Discovery
was about two hundred meters out, giving them a perfect view.

He didn't know exactly what he was looking for. Certainly not blast damage. Even accounting for the distance, and the relatively low power of a laser portable enough to be carried aboard a small submarine, the beam would not have been very wide here. The damage would be the size of a pinprick compared to the six-ton satellite that was nearly the length of a school bus and almost as big around.

The
Jupiter
was tumbling at a rate of only a couple of turns per minute. Still, it was hard to brace himself in weighlessness so that he could steady the camera.

Then he had it.

A small blackened spot, maybe a meter or a little less from the junction of one of the solar panel wings that spread thirty meters to either side.

“I see it,” Ellis said, firing off photographs as fast as the camera's motorized drive would take them.

“I've got it too,” Thoreau said. He used a pair of 10X50 binoculars. “Inboard from the port solar panel.”

“Inside the
U
.”

“That's it,” Thoreau said. He turned around and handed the binoculars to Conners, who gracefully drifted to the window and braced himself for a look.

He had to wait for the
Jupiter
to slowly turn around, and he raised the binoculars to his eyes. “Got it,” he said, studying the damage. “They hit the beta package. About what we figured.”

“Stand by, I'm going to get us closer,” Susan Wright said.

They all reached out and grabbed a handhold.

She alternately hit short bursts on the attitude control thrusters, jockeying the shuttle into a position close enough for the remote manipulator arm to reach.

She took her hands off the controls and looked up. “Zero relative velocity. We're in position.”

“Nice touch,” Thoreau complimented her.

Susan Wright unbuckled from her seat and pushed herself up next to Ellis so that she could look out the upper window. “Cool,” she said. She glanced over at Conners. “Wanna trade jobs, Rod?”

Conners gave her a grin. “Not a chance, Mouse. That's my ride out there.”