Dragonfire (33 page)

Downing Street, London

Local time: 0600 Monday 7 May 2007

‘We’re going over
to Downing Street now, where Anthony Pincher is on the line. This is the Prime Minister’s first interview since news of the Pakistani
nuclear attack broke just under six hours ago. Thank you for joining us, Prime Minister. I know you’ve been up all night. We have heard about the terrible Pakistani missile strike on Kashmir.
Can you tell us the latest news about that?’

‘Thank you, Michael,’ said Pincher to the early morning presenter on BBC 5 Live radio. ‘That was a tragedy, but thankfully things have moved on, to try to stop more bloodshed.
As I speak an operation is underway to prevent any further use by Pakistan of nuclear weapons and, hopefully, force a ceasefire. I can’t say too much about it, but I am convinced that this
measure will go a long way to de-escalating the crisis.’

‘Are any British troops involved?’

‘No. Not in this operation.’

‘You’re implying, Prime Minister, that British troops are involved in another operation.’

‘I’m not implying anything, except to say that the task force headed by HMS
Ocean
currently in the Bay of Bengal has been put on standby should it be needed.’

‘But we are clearly supporting India, then?’

‘As callers to your overnight programme have been pointing out, India is a democracy. We hope it doesn’t come to supporting one side or another, but Great Britain supports democratic
rule against any other.’

Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore

Local time: 1430 Monday 7 May 2007
GMT: 0600 Monday 7 May 2007

‘John, I would
like you to regard this as a personal call,’ said Anthony Pincher.

‘Understood,’ said Singapore’s Prime Minister, John Chiu. ‘I have just been listening to you on the radio. It appears you have taken sides already.’

‘That’s what I wanted to discuss, particularly Burma.’

‘Yes. I couldn’t imagine that a tiny city state like Singapore would be consulted on the greater geopolitical issues. What about Myanmar?’ said Chiu, correcting Pincher on the
official name of the country.

‘There is a feeling among members of the Five Power Defence Agreement that China’s use of Burma – or Myanmar – as a military staging post for invasion threatens the
stability of South-East Asia.’

‘Which members? Britain? Australia and New Zealand?’

‘So far.’

‘You want to know my view?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s bigger than Myanmar, Anthony, and you know it. That is what makes it so bloody complicated. I believe that ultimately China is trying to find a way of controlling the Straits
of Malacca. The Dragon Strike campaign was merely a test of that. The Straits are one of the world’s most strategic choke points. Through them travels all the Middle East oil supplies for
Japan and China, which in ten or twenty years’ time will become more and more reliant on oil imports. They have, therefore, a practical and geopolitical motivation for eyeing the Straits, and
that combination has been the start of many wars. Should they ever succeed, they would also have access to the oil fields at the mouth of the Straits, and they would have to neutralize Singapore as
we are by far the biggest port in the area.’

‘How far away are they from achieving their goal?’

‘The whole equation has changed in the past twenty-four hours, so it’s impossible to say. The Malacca project has been underway now for fifteen years. In 1992, the Central Military
Commission laid out the principle of creating a blue-water fleet, with an aircraft carrier and submarines. Internal documents committed China to building “the world’s most powerful
navy”. A year later another document was issued outlining a doctrine known as “high-sea defence”. It states that China could no longer accept the Indian Ocean as only an ocean of
the Indians. I think the precise words were that the Indian Ocean was not India’s ocean. In 1996, the plan was given a boost, or jolt of reality if you like, when the Americans sent a carrier
group to the Straits of Taiwan and the Chinese realized they had nothing at all which could touch it. That alone eradicated any argument within the Communist Party about not pushing ahead with
naval modernization.

‘Now, you asked about Myanmar. China needs access at both sides of the Straits. To the east it can achieve it by setting up base on one of the Spratly Islands. To the west, it plans to use
the two Cocos Islands and the sprawling Hanggyi Island naval base which are at either end of the Prepari Channel. Hanggyi Island is on the Irrawaddy delta coastline. Great and Little Cocos Islands
are 240 kilometres to the south, and barely 15 kilometres from India’s North Andaman Island. If you look at the map these are key strategic positions for monitoring shipping in and out of the
Malacca Straits. Since 1994, Myanmar has officially leased the Cocos Islands to China. On Great Cocos it has built a maritime reconnaissance and electronic intelligence installation station. One of
its main jobs is to monitor the Indian missile test site at Balasore on the Orissa coast. The Great Cocos Station has a 50-metre antenna tower, radar sites and other facilities for signals and
electronic intelligence gathering with about a hundred Chinese staff working there. They’ve also dredged the harbour – it used to be a bleak fishing village – so that it can now
take the 4,200 tonne
Ludu
-class destroyer and anything smaller.

‘The Hanggyi Island base is far more sophisticated and has been built to take an aircraft carrier when China gets one, and strategic ICBM submarines. But it doesn’t stop there. China
has modernized ports in Sittwe in Western Arakan state and Zedetkyi Kyun or St Matthew’s Island in the south-east, which directly threatens the northern entrance of the Malacca Straits.
Basically, the Chinese military run the whole of that western coastline. It has equipped Myanmar with two
Jianghu
-class frigates with surface-to-surface missiles,
Hainan
-class
fast-attack craft, other warships, crew to operate them and squadrons of fighter aircraft, the J-7 and A-5M ground-attack aircraft. It has rebuilt the Meitktila airbase, near Mandalay, and the
smaller airfield at Lashio in the north-east. Both of those have been used in the operation against India. It has upgraded the road and rail system from its southern city of Kunming in Yunnan to a
number of Myanmar ports – Akyab, Kyaukpyu and Mergui and others. The whole programme is run from the Chengdu Military Division, the same one which handles Tibet.

‘Myanmar, or Burma as you call it, is nothing less than a military colony of China. So you ask me if Singapore is worried. What do you think, John? I’m as worried as hell.’

‘I have an idea which might help,’ said Pincher softly, sensing the frustration in John Chiu’s voice.

‘I’m not sure I want to hear it.’

‘And it doesn’t go further than the two of us?’

‘Agreed.’

‘Under the authority of the Five Power Defence Agreement, would your amphibious rapid deployment group want to take part in an operation to neutralize Chinese influence in the Indian
Ocean?’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘The agreement doesn’t cover it.’

‘It does if the stability of Singapore and Malaysia is threatened. From what you’ve just told me, it appears that stability is very much under threat.’

John Chiu was silent for at least a minute. ‘If we have to choose a dominant regional power other than the United States, we would go for China over Japan, you know. We could never accept
Japanese dominance after what they did during the Second World War.’

‘I’m not sure the choices are so stark.’

‘My answer, Anthony, is no. Singapore is a predominantly Chinese state. We will remain neutral in the international row. But you have my personal support and I suggest you try up the road
in Malaysia. Their cultural Chinese links are far more tenuous than ours.’

‘Understood.’

‘But there is one other piece of intelligence we have picked up in the past three hours. It appears that President Lin Chung-ling of Taiwan is planning a formal declaration of
independence.’

It took a few seconds for Anthony Pincher to change his focus to a completely different part of the world. He had thought he was fairly fluent in foreign affairs, but, as yet, he hadn’t
factored Taiwan into any of his thinking. ‘Why on earth?’ he asked.

‘If he feels that China is sufficiently diverted by Tibet, India and Pakistan, he will sneak it into an interview scheduled with CNN within the next twenty-four hours.’

Prime Minister’s Office, Canberra, Australia

Local time: 1600 Monday 7 May 2007
GMT: 0600 Monday 7 May 2007

‘The squad will
comprise two Australians, two New Zealanders, two Malays and the rest will be British. It will be under British command. All those involved have
trained with the Special Boat Squadron. Our men have also spent time with the American navy SEALS.’

‘The Malaysians are on board?’ the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Smith, asked his Defence Minister, Keith Backhurst.

‘They were very keen. The men have no identification and will be carrying a cyanide capsule in case of capture. I think some of it is one-upmanship over Singapore’s refusal to take
part.’

Smith laughed. ‘All right. Let’s do it.’

‘There’s one other piece of house-keeping we should wrap up at the same time,’ said Backhurst. ‘The Chinese also have a SIGINT site around Ban Sop Bau in Laos. It was
used to monitor Vietnam, but since those hostilities have quietened down, they concentrate on picking up traffic between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. If we take it out, Australia will
lead with the Thai and Filipino Special Forces. A unit left the peace-keeping force in Timor for Darwin yesterday and is about to arrive in Bangkok.’

‘You are keen to do this?’

‘The Timor campaign in 1999 was a turning point for many of us, Prime Minister. It was the first time we risked open hostility with an Asian neighbour in order to achieve a greater aim.
People died, but strategically and politically it worked. There is a sense that we must take charge of our own security and the expansion of China is a key element of this.’

Great Cocos Island Naval Base, Myanmar/Burma

Local time: 1830 Monday 7 May 2007
GMT: 1300 Monday 7 May 2007

Crew from HMS
Ocean
slipped the Special Boat Squadron’s Very Slender Vessel into the water from the amphibious loading hatch. Luckily the sea was choppy,
stirred up by the foreplay of yet another cyclone heading into the Bay of Bengal. The waves would help conceal the VSV from radar operators and the moody dark clouds hid moonlight which could have
lit them up in their final approaches to the base.

Sailing at 15 knots due south, the
Ocean
had taken just under a day to go from Cox’s Bazaar to a point 80 kilometres off Cape Negrais, the most westerly point of the Irrawaddy Delta
landfall. The
Ocean
slowed but didn’t stop to let off the boat. Decoy radio communications were carried out in an easily breakable code, which British naval intelligence had confirmed
that both the Chinese and the Indians had the ability to decipher. Messages concentrated on arrangements to sail west to join up with the American carrier group led by the USS
Ronald
Reagan
.

The VSV was like a 16 metre-long, covered canoe, with a 3-metre cross-section so that it could punch its way through the waves swirling off the coast of Burma. This was an all-weather vessel.
Whatever the conditions, it could put to sea and the storm approaching 320 kilometres to the south was not a deterrent. The two 750hp engines roared into life, and even in the heavy swell it was
soon heading east towards the Burmese coast at almost 60 knots. The special design enabled the 30g impact usually experienced by speed-boat passengers to be reduced to only 3g, meaning that the men
would arrive fresh for action and not exhausted by the buffeting of the waves or even suffering from sea-sickness. The eleven commandos were in a sealed section strapped into hydraulically braced
seats. The crew was in a separate cockpit, slightly raised from the main cabin.

The
Ocean
had slowed where it did as a decoy to the Chinese who were monitoring its movements. The most strategic base was at Hanggyi Island where satellites had detected the Chinese
Luhu
-class destroyer
Haikou
, and a
Jianghu
-class frigate,
Tianjin
, together with at least one surfaced
Kilo
-class submarine. Interestingly, the far more
sophisticated
Sovremenny
-class frigates had not been sent through the Malacca Straits into the front line of any naval war. They would have been lost to the Indian navy, meaning that the
ships in Hanggyi were dispensable.

But Hanggyi was too well defended and too active. Indian and Western intelligence agencies knew pretty much what went on there and if anything went wrong with the mission the men would be on
their own, facing certain death or capture and torture.

Their target was the base at Great Cocos Island, 320 kilometres to the south, far more secret, far quieter and only a few kilometres from Indian territory, to which they could make their escape,
if necessary. The mission was to blow up a ship if they found one, photograph the base and leave. Once the raid was underway, the Indians would be notified. A single compressed burst code word
would be sent to the
Ocean
, 270 kilometres away, passed onto Operations Headquarters in Northwood in London and then to Delhi. The whole process would take fifteen seconds.

Eight kilometres north of Great Cocos the VSV slowed to 20 knots, lessening the spray it was putting up, and making it easier to hide in the troughs of the waves. The long, thin design of the
hull made it almost invisible to radar. The engine was enclosed and the heat contained, making it far more difficult to pick out with thermal-imaging equipment. 450 metres out, the VSV cut her
engines, and the commandos went into the water with wet-suits and breathing apparatus. The port was in the Alexandra Channel on the southern side of the island. Working with maps compiled from
satellite photographs, the raiding party made landfall halfway down the sharp and rocky eastern coastline. The island was no more than 8 kilometres long and barely 1,500 metres wide. The men had a
clear run for the first 275 metres before having to take out the first Chinese watch post, killing the two guards on duty with silenced pistols. They took the tunic off one of the bodies for
intelligence to establish the Chinese units deployed. The beginning of the naval port was marked by construction work, wooded land freshly cut back, a crane and earth-moving equipment. They could
make out the darkened silhouettes of two ships in the harbour and figures on guard on the decks. More surprising was the hull, the conning tower well aft and an unusually wide, flat section of the
top of the hull.