Chimera (82 page)

The PM was not interested in these minute military details, however.

“
Yes, yes! I get it!
” he replied with obvious irritation in his voice. Chakri and Iyer both backed off and held their temper. Ravoof did the same, although he didn’t like the way the PM spoke with Iyer now that he had been forced to do something against his wishes. Chakri noticed the look on Ravoof’s face but did nothing. He agreed with the man, after all. The PM continued: “
Has
the point been made or not?”

“We sent the message to their foreign office via Bogdanov in Moscow as planned,” Ravoof said. “Whoever is in command over in Beijing would have got it by now. Hopefully they will understand the rules of this deadly
game
.”

“
Or
we will get another round of missiles thrown at us!” the PM retorted and then turned to the NSA, sitting across the room: “When are we departing to Palam?”

“Within a few minutes sir.” The NSA replied. “The aircraft is ready and we are awaiting the helicopter.”

“Good,” the PM replied as he got up from his seat. He did not fancy having done to him what they had done to the Chinese CMC a few hours before…

“Sir, what are my orders?” Iyer asked from the other end of the line.

“Be prepared for anything,” the PM replied, “but for god’s sake do not lob any more nukes at them or else you will take all of us down as well. We have enough to soothe the public anger in the coming days, but right now we need to diffuse the situation quickly.”

“Yes sir.” The line clicked off.

“You might want to know,” Chakri replied as he too got up from his seat and joined the PM, “that the second Chinese Division up in the Chumbi valley surrendered to us an hour ago. General Suman has accepted their terms for surrender. The valley is ours.”

“Chakri,” the PM said as he looked up to the roof at the sound of incoming helicopters, “do you honestly think any of that matter now in the slightest? Bhutan has been
nuked
and thousands of our soldiers are dead. We have retaliated and killed thousands of theirs and destroyed two relevant airbases. The fallout from Bhutan is already drifting southwest. We will be forced to evacuate dozens of villages in Bhutan as well as Assam and maybe even Sikkim.

“And in retaliating the way we have done, you all have made me do something I wish I would
never
have to do. This conventional victory of yours has been sullied by this huge nuclear mess.
Nobody
in this country is going to remember what we had almost achieved. But what they
will
remember is the nuclear fallout and the explosions. I just hope that whoever is in command in Beijing at the moment will have a bit of sanity left. For our sake as well as theirs!”

NEW CHINA NEWS AGENCY

DAY 15 + 1420 HRS

“Rumors speculating of changes in the upper echelons of the Central Military Commission and the Politburo were strongly denied by the committee representative, Lieutenant-General Chen. He explained that given the serious nature of the war, the committee had moved to its wartime locations as per protocol and will remain there until the blatant Indian nuclear aggression against the Chinese people and the peace loving people of the Kingdom of Bhutan is not silenced. General Chen notified the media that General Liu and President Peng was not available for answering questions at the time.

“General Chen also denounced Indian use of nuclear weapons and explained that the explosions in Bhutan were Indian nuclear warheads detonated by retreating Indian forces as our courageous soldiers advanced to rid the decades old Indian hegemony over the Bhutanese people. General Chen confirmed that thousands of Bhutanese civilians and hundreds of PLA soldiers from the elite high-altitude mountain troops were killed in these explosions. In spite of such losses, the People’s Army stands ready to offer help to the Bhutanese people in this time of distress.

“Earlier this morning, the Indians also attempted to disarm our missile forces by preemptively attacking locations in northern Tibet. This blatant aggression will not go unanswered! The people of China have a right to live in peace without fear of nuclear aggression and the Indian usage of nuclear weapons will not go unpunished. With Russia and the United States of America once again vetoing China’s demands in the UN Security Council yesterday for immediate sanctions against India, China must control the threat on its southern borders on its own. China has demanded an unconditional Indian termination of hostilities or India will find itself soaked in an ocean of blood of its own citizens!”

JUNWEI-KONGJUN

BEIJING

DAY 15 + 1410 HRS

“Those
bastards!
” Wencang threw the phone speaker back to the wall mounted phone, causing everybody in the operations center to jerk their heads behind at the large bang noise behind them. Wencang had a menacing look on his face as he watched them staring at him in silence.

“
That
bad?” Chen asked.

“They just
nuked
Korla!
Korla!
And
Uxxaktal!” Wencang shouted at Chen, releasing his rage on his old comrade.

“26
TH
Air Division,” Chen replied calmly as he evaluated their losses.

“And the 19
TH
Division,” Feng added as he walked into the room with some papers in his hand.

Wencang balled his fingers into fists, turned back to the wall phone and leaned down to grab the hanging speaker. He stood up after taking it and called up Dianrong at the NCC: “Get me 813
TH
Brigade commander on the line right now!”

Chen and Feng turned away from the papers in Feng’s hand as they heard Wencang talking.

“
What
are you doing?” Chen asked. Wencang ignored the question, his knuckles white from rage.

“General, what is your launch readiness?” he asked on the speaker.

“
Wencang!
” Chen shouted but dared not approach closer.

“Good,” Wencang continued on the phone. “Prepare strike package ‘Typhoon’ on my orders. Keep the activity hidden as much as you can. I want launch readiness within the hour. Report back to me when you are ready!”

As he slammed the phone back into its place, Wencang turned around to see Chen and Feng standing there in stunned silence.

“What on earth did you do?” Chen said more as a statement than a question. He knew exactly what nuclear strike package ‘Typhoon’ was.

“I gave the Indians what they were begging for,” Wencang replied as he fished into his pockets for a smoke using the cheap cigarettes he always had handy on him. It was a habit he had picked up from his years out at Korla all those years ago. He lit one up and turned to Feng:

“Get in touch with the Foreign-Minister and inform him that we are evacuating and moving to the N-C-C. I want him to call me to get a draft of a message I want sent to the Indians via Bogdanov. And
this
time let’s be more careful with the evacuation for all our sakes! We can’t afford any more carelessness like this morning! Go!”

“Sir!” Feng saluted and walked out. Wencang turned to Chen:

“Liu had a good idea in taking out the Indian satellite before the launches. Let’s see if we can’t blind them
permanently
this time before Typhoon wipes their miserable little existence from this planet!”

“You
want
to do this?” Chen asked calmly as Wencang took a long puff of the cigarette and released the smoke into the room.

“
I
did not bring them here,” Wencang replied, “but they forced my hand. Theirs is
not
the only country that has to worry about saving face!
Our
people will hang us, you and me, from this ceiling here if we sued for peace now. That opportunity is long gone.”

“But they struck us with
only
two warheads.” Chen continued. “Surely
that
is a message? Otherwise why just two warheads? They must know what will follow? And
we
launched the first strike here! They
had
to respond and they chose two far away airbases! Why?”

“You give them credit for intelligence,” Wencang replied. “I don’t!”

“Their actions thus far have indeed
been
intelligent, Wencang. Think about it! You and I know more about their intelligent military operations against us than anybody else in Beijing!”

Wencang thought about that as his cigarette smoke filled the room…

MOSCOW

DAY 15 + 1530 HRS

“So they got our message?” Ambassador Tiwari asked as he took the paper from Bogdanov.

“They did,” was the short answer to that question from the Russian Minister. “And they responded with this.” Bogdanov nodded to the paper in Tiwari’s hand as the latter removed his reading glasses and then glanced over the details quickly.

“They have to be joking!” Tiwari said with surprise.

“Indeed,” Bogdanov said with a grunt. “Going by the rhetoric that General Chen laid out for their state media two hours ago, I thought we might have been too late! The president ordered full readiness on our part in case Beijing began lashing out on other parties in the region as well.”

Tiwari grimaced as he folded that paper and put it back on the table between the two men.

“Don’t bet your money yet!” he replied to Bogdanov. “We are not out of the woods. We want to know what they have in mind before we commit to anything at this point!”

“Just
get
them to start
talking
, Tiwari!” Bogdanov stressed emphatically. “If they are talking, they are not lobbing nuclear warheads at each other. That is all there is to it at this point!”

“I agree.” Tiwari nodded. 

“And if we are lucky,” Bogdanov continued, “we might all make it out of this mess in one piece…”

JUNWEI KONGJUN

BEIJING

DAY 15 + 1830 HRS

“You sure it will work?” Chen asked.

“It
has
to,” Wencang said as he leaned for the phone and pressed the speaker. He waited while the prearranged process took place from the foreign ministry office. It would take a minute.

“You know,” Chen said as he took his seat on one of the other chairs around the big conference table in the room, “as much as I am responsible in convincing you to put Typhoon on hold, I fear very much that our people will never accept this.”

“They will have little choice on the matter,” Wencang replied plainly as he waited for the connection process to complete. “
My
worry is the Indians. Let’s just hope they are as smart as you make them out to be and take what is on offer without holding for more.”

The call went through a few seconds later. Wencang sat straighter in his chair and looked to the phone on the center of the table.

“This is General Wencang, commander of Chinese military forces and acting President for the People’s Republic of China. I have Lieutenant-General Chen from the People’s-Liberation-Army-Air-Force and other representatives from the Chinese government and military here with me.”

“General, this is the Prime-Minister of the Republic of India. And I have my cabinet and military commanders on this end,” the PM said. He noted that Wencang was fluent in English. That would make this conversation go easier and leave little for misinterpretation.

“Very well, Mr. Prime-Minister. You know the reason for this call. I think this war has gone on
far
too long and taken the lives of
far
too many of the young men and women on both sides. Following your nuclear strikes against an airfield known to me like the back of my hand all these years, I would say you are extremely
lucky
that I had commanders here who could see past my rage. Else I might very well have wiped your nation from the face of this planet!”

“General,” the PM replied, reading from the notes that Ravoof and Chakri had prepared, “I think we have demonstrated time and again our capability for sharp precision strikes against the Chinese leadership, notwithstanding your state media broadcasts. I am sure you have the capability to launch devastating nuclear strikes against our nation, but if that had been your only concern, I think we would not have been here talking right now. You know very well that we will launch and take out all your major cities as well.
Millions
would have died on
both
sides. And all for nothing!”

“I agree, Mr. Prime-Minister.” Wencang said neutrally. “As much as I would like to see your country brought to its knees on the battlefield for what it has done to mine, I would not like to end the lives of millions of Chinese civilians in doing so. That said, I think it is prudent to set the ground rules for this conversation. I will go first,” Wencang stated.