Dragonfire (34 page)

Two commandos photographed it using infrared lenses and, as a backup, one camera on long exposure with ordinary low-light film. Others took positions to ensure a safe escape. Four divers slipped
into the water. They swam in pairs, attached to each other by a buddy-line, relying on the line to relay signals.

Then the mission was discovered. One of the Malay frogmen had trouble with his set. It’s thought there was a leak of the carbon dioxide chemical in the oxygen rebreather. The Malay, who
was swimming with a New Zealander, managed to give the signal of drowsiness, which could end up with a black-out. There was a risk that the blackness of the water, the noises under the surface of
ships, propellers, generators, boats passing overhead could lead to an anxiety attack. The New Zealander had to let the Malay get to the surface to breathe fresh air as soon as possible.

He kept his nerve for the few seconds needed to finish the job. Luckily, the ship had a metallic hull, meaning that he could set his magnetic limpet mine on a short fuse. It was later identified
through photographs as an old
Jianghi
-class frigate. Only the registration number 533 was visible on the photographs, listing it as the 1,700 tonne
Shaoguan
. Once the mine was
attached, he pushed up to the surface, helping the Malay as he swam. They came up using the curves of the hull around the area of the propeller for cover. But it was exactly the time that a
searchlight flitted across the water, picking up the ripples, then the movement and finally reflecting off the glass of his face mask. It was bad luck, which could have happened to anyone.

When the divers failed to respond to his challenge, a Chinese guard opened fire. The New Zealander fired four shots with his special Heckler and Koch underwater silenced pistol. The commandos on
land divided into two groups as planned in the event of interception. The two photographers plus two cover men back-pedalled to the place of landfall. They sent a single burst message to the VSV,
which came in on full engines to pick them up. Nothing that the Chinese had in the base could catch them and it would have been useless to put up an aircraft. The VSV waited just 90 metres
off-shore for a second message. If it did not receive it within fifteen minutes, it was to head back to the HMS
Ocean
.

The remaining commandos kept the Chinese troops pinned down with sniper fire, while the divers tried to escape. What happened next was one of the most remarkable stories in Special Forces
operations. Two companies of Chinese troops were sent out against the three snipers, while the port was lit up with searchlights. The Malay frogman, still disorientated, was shot dead within
seconds. The New Zealander cut the buddy-line and went deep, with the other pair of divers. A single burst message sent to the VSV was relayed on to
Ocean
, then to Britain’s
joint-operations command at Northwood. The British Defence Secretary, David Guinness, personally telephoned Unni Khrishnan, who broke normal protocol by contacting the Commander of the Far Eastern
Fleet at Port Blair in the Andaman Islands. A high-speed interceptor boat, capable of 40 knots, headed out from its base at Landfall Island to the territorial boundary just south of Little Cocos
Island. Reddy then spoke to Unni Khrishnan who ordered the scrambling of ground-attack aircraft from Port Blair. They were over Little Cocos within minutes, using cannon to spread confusion among
the Chinese. What the pilots hadn’t banked on was the effectiveness of the Chinese air-defence system, which shot down two Indian aircraft before being taken out.

At the height of the airstrikes the
Shaoguan
exploded in a wall of fire. The three surviving divers had cleared the area, surfaced and commandeered an ageing
Carpentaria
-class
river patrol craft, shooting the lone Burmese guard from the water before boarding. The New Zealand diver took over the 20mm heavy machine gun while the other two started the engine. They were
spotted as they were gathering speed heading south out of the harbour. The New Zealander opened fire and was killed in the return fire. After that the boat reached its maximum speed of just over 25
knots and had a clear run to Indian territorial waters.

Attempts to intercept the commandos with a Chinese fast patrol boat from Little Cocos Island was cut short by an Indian MiG-27 pilot who blew it out of the water.

Of the three snipers, holding back the Chinese ground troops, one Malay was killed, an Australian escaped and another New Zealander was shot and captured. It was his anonymous face which would
later appear on television screens throughout the world as China used him to try and change the course of the war.

Western Hills, Military Headquarters, China

Local time: 2130 Monday 7 May 2007
GMT: 1330 Monday 7 May 2007

President Tao chaired
the meeting in the conference room which looked out onto the main operations centre of the Chinese military’s war headquarters. General Leung
Liyin, Defence Minister and General Secretary of the Central Military Commission, was giving a gloomy summary of China’s incursion into India. Also present were Tang Siju, the General Staff
strategic planner, who was mainly tied up with Tibet, and the Foreign Minister, Jamie Song.

‘We are cut off in Arunachal Pradesh,’ said General Leung Liyin. ‘The Indians have moved their airpower from the western front with Pakistan to the east against us. Our
satellites show Indian aircraft at Kalaikunda, Barrakpore, Hashimara and Bagdogra in West Bengal and Tezpur and Chabua in Assam. Airports in Sikkim, in Gauhati and Jorhat in Assam and Itanagar in
Arunachal Pradesh are supporting fighter and transport detachments. The main air-defence squadron is operating out of Hashimara, using MiG-23s and MiG-27s with maximum weapons loads because of the
short range of the strikes. Indian airstrikes have cut the road north and destroyed the bridges, and are wearing down our positions. Artillery barrages are continuous. They have airdropped
thousands of troops behind our lines. Some are Tibetans from the Special Frontier Force, which India said it had disbanded. None has been taken alive. They commit suicide with cyanide capsules
rather than face capture.’

‘Will we hold the territory?’ said President Tao.

‘At the present level we can hold for two or three days. We need to bring aircraft in from the north and the east to use against the paratroopers. Until we do that we cannot begin to
repair the bridges.’

‘It would mean weakening our defences along the Taiwan Straits?’

‘Yes. If we were to bring an effective force to rout the Indians.’

‘The Prime Minister of Singapore kindly telephoned me warning that President Lin might exploit our difficulties. He didn’t say what, but Singaporean intelligence is second to none in
East Asia. He also warned that our South-East Asian neighbours were uneasy about Myanmar’s role in our dispute with India.’

‘It’s none of their business,’ said Tang.

‘Comrade Song, could you let me have your assessment.’

‘It sounds as if Singapore is speaking with a forked tongue. Naturally, Taiwan will be planning the most effective measures to humiliate us. You don’t need to be a spy to know that.
I would also expect the Association of South-East Asian Nations to be worried about our relationship with Myanmar now that conflict has broken out. What I’m unsure of is whether Prime
Minister John Chiu is acting as a messenger for the United States or on his own initiative. His warning, however, points up dangers in continuing our campaign.’

‘We must also remember that as soon as we appear weak, internal forces of dissent might appear,’ said Tang. ‘I would forfeit Arunachal Pradesh and concentrate on Tibet and
Taiwan.’

‘Are we in danger of losing Myanmar’s support?’ asked Tao.

‘It depends on Japan and ASEAN,’ said Jamie Song. ‘If ASEAN withdraws its tacit support for the regime and if Japan withdraws its aid programme, the regime may look at its
options.’

‘I disagree,’ said General Leung. ‘Myanmar is run by a military government which relies on us for its international defence and its weapons. If Myanmar abandons us at this
time, the government will fall within weeks.’

‘How can you be sure of it?’ said Song.

‘I will make sure it happens, and they know it.’ General Leung broke off abruptly as an aide walked into the room with a message on a computer printout. The meeting was silent as he
read it, then passed it onto President Tao. ‘This is a signals report from Little Cocos Island. The naval base at Great Cocos Island is under attack.’

‘By India?’ said Song

‘That is unclear. It says that one of the enemy has been captured and he has a white face.’

President Tao slammed his hand on the table and shouted at Jamie Song: ‘Call Ambassador Overhalt and tell him that while I have tolerated direct American participation in the action
against Pakistan, I will not tolerate it attacking our military bases. I want a full explanation within thirty minutes, or we’ll send a missile into Guam.’

Song retreated to a quieter spot to call Reece Overhalt. When he returned to the meeting, he said: ‘The Americans know nothing about the raid. They were not involved.’

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Local time: 1700 Monday 7 May 2007
GMT: 1400 Monday 7 May 2007

Instead of angrily
picking up the telephone, President Gorbunov of Russia paced his office, hands behind his back, with music from Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812
Overture’ playing loudly around him. He had just received news of the American non-lethal airstrike on Pakistan and was watching BBC and CNN commentators announcing that Pakistan no longer
existed as a functioning nation. The UN, backed by the European Union and the United States, had revealed that it was drawing up plans for running an interim government with a peace-keeping force
of thirty thousand to ensure basic facilities such as power and water were functioning. Gorbunov had just absorbed that when another message came through about the Indian airstrikes against Chinese
positions in Arunachal Pradesh, andthat was followed up by news of the raid on Great Cocos Island.

Gorbunov’s bipolar world of the United States and Western Europe balanced by a strategic alliance of Russia, China and India was collapsing salami-style, slice by slice, with no defining
event. This was why Gorbunov was deep in thought, because if no single event was great enough to force him to act, he would have to decide where the point of no return lay. If he waited beyond
that, Russia would lose any power it had, switching within hours from the role of statesman in an unstable world to that of a pariah blocking peace.

He debated as to whether he should first call President Tao in Beijing, Hari Dixit in India or John Hastings in the United States. Alternatively, he could muster support from the second-rank
powers such as Iran, Syria, Indonesia or even muddy the waters by talking to Anthony Pincher in London, the French President, Jacques Duquan or the German Chancellor, Willhelm Braun.

If Gorbunov knew anything about politicians, it was their inability to handle embarrassment in a way which few military men would contemplate. A blindness enveloped a politician in a corner, and
the two men fighting in the scramble for Asia were politicians through and through. The man with the most to lose was President Tao in Beijing, because Chinese culture had promoted shame high on
the league table of faults. They called it ‘face’, and a Chinese losing face was like a Russian losing his soul. While Russia was still searching for her soul, China was close to
becoming embarrassed internationally, and that would make her the most dangerous country in the world.

President Tao had only made one misjudgement in his planning, and even then the odds of events unfolding as they did were high. Tao had not anticipated India’s ability to move its airpower
from Pakistan to the eastern front at precisely the time China’s forces inside India were so vulnerable. It was an easy mistake to make. Very few analysts would have predicted America’s
use of non-lethal weapons against Hamid Khan – particularly when he had pledged not to make another tactical nuclear strike. But then, Gorbunov himself was taken aback when Khan launched the
missile into Srinagar. Such were the patterns of war, and it was a war which might be far from over.

The only man who could let the Chinese down without embarrassment was Hari Dixit. Gorbunov’s call came through as Dixit was flying from the bunker in Haryana back to Delhi, the nuclear
threat from Pakistan over. It was a disjointed conversation, picking up the crackle of the helicopter’s intercom.

‘Can you call it quits with China, Hari? Make peace. Pakistan is defeated. There’s no reason to fight.’

‘If you can broker it, Vlad, I’ll do it. We can’t give away Kashmir and we can’t expel the Dalai Lama. We can negotiate the border disputes, starting with reducing troop
levels. We can negotiate what they’re doing in Myanmar.’

‘Can you give them an honourable withdrawal from Arunachal Pradesh?’

‘I can hardly hear you, Vlad. Tell President Tao that I’ll order a ceasefire now, right now, as long as his troops don’t try and fight their way out. If he agrees to back off
and talk, then we can wind everything down.’

The line to Beijing was much clearer and the Russian President was patched through to the military headquarters in the Western Hills.

‘India has called a unilateral ceasefire in Arunachal Pradesh,’ Gorbunov told Tao. ‘You can withdraw to the former border, claim victory if you want, and then begin talks on
everything else.’

‘You don’t understand, Admiral Gorbunov. It’s very difficult,’ said Tao slowly.

‘Then explain it to me.’

‘We are within a hair’s breadth of losing Tibet unless we send in the army like you had to in Chechnya. The insurgency is far more entrenched than we had ever thought. The SFF and
other rebels are using India as their base. It would be impossible for us to make peace with India while this is going on.’

Gorbunov had not been directly involved in the Chechnya campaign – but he was well aware of the deeply entrenched national sentiment involved. Tao would prefer to lose in Arunachal Pradesh
rather than be seen to compromise in Tibet.