Dragonfire (41 page)

‘I’m urging them not to strike,’ said Overhalt. ‘If you can hold off the invasion of Kinmen, we can hold off the strikes.’

Song let out a tired, cynical laugh. ‘Xinhua has announced it. China always does what it says it’s going to do. We are the most predictable government in the world. Besides, you have
no choice. If you don’t strike, you lose it all, to Japan, to India, to Russia and to us.’ Song got up. Despite his bloodshot eyes and drawn features, he looked immaculate in a
tailor-made dark suit. ‘I’ve promised to do CNN,’ he said. ‘It’s only next door, so hang around and watch it. It’ll probably be my last interview before Congress
passes a new Trading with the Enemy Act with China.’

CNN
: Foreign Minister, thank you for coming on to give us the Chinese perspective on the Taiwan dispute, and I would like to start on as optimistic a note as we can
muster. Can you give us a timetable for the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Taiwan?

Song
: I hope I can. But I would just like to make clear to the American people what we did and what we are trying to achieve. Our missile strike was very specific. We
targeted the building and people inside who were about to issue a declaration of independence. We have always said we would take action and we did. For defensive purposes we will be putting
military garrisons on islands previously occupied by Taiwanese troops. These are known in the US as Kinmen or Quemoy, and Matsu. They are about a hundred miles west of the island of Taiwan and
dangerously close to our eastern coastline defences. Those operations are still ongoing and I believe the Taiwanese are putting up limited military resistance. I would expect us to be in full
control by midday tomorrow.

CNN
: Xinhua said that you were helping local fishermen build typhoon shelters.

Song
: I don’t edit Xinhua. You want to know what’s happening and I’m telling you. This is too big to try to pit me against our official news agency.

CNN
: All right, you occupy the islands. Then what?

Song
: We will not strike Taiwan Island again as long as there are no further moves to declare independence. The National Assembly never passed the law. The celebrations
did not go ahead, so I see no reason for conflict.

CNN
: Except that the people of Taiwan want independence.

Song
: They have it. They have more independence than the Kashmiris, the Chechens, the Texans, the Catholics of Northern Ireland and the Tibetans. All we are saying is
this: Taiwan will not get a seat in the UN because China is a permanent member of the Security Council and we will veto its admittance. If John Hastings wants to recognize Taiwan’s
independence, China will break off relations with the United States. The same applies to any other government. What I suggest is that President Lin grows up. Instead of trying to score personal
points for himself, he allows time for us to sort out the Taiwan question. It may not happen in my lifetime or his. But it could emerge peacefully, if he lets it.

CNN
: The opinion polls in the US favour American intervention.

Song
: Intervene in what? Unless you declare all-out war in China, I can’t see what you can do. You strike one airfield on our east coast and we have a hundred more
we can use. Just think what it took to get a deal with Serbia in 1999, and that’s the size of just one county in one of our coastal provinces.

CNN
: The feeling here is that Chinese aggression—

Song
: Stop right there. Taiwan took advantage of a time when both President Hastings and President Tao were preoccupied with the much more serious problem with India. It
was Taiwan, not us, which pushed the independence issue, knowing, and let me repeat that, knowing full well that both Japan and the United States could be militarily drawn into the dispute. If that
is not the height of political cynicism and irresponsibility, I don’t know what is. I just hope the American people understand that when they send their young men and women to risk their
loves in conflict against us, it would only be to boost the ratings of a phony Taiwanese politician.

The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 0145 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0645 Tuesday 8 May 2007

John Hastings turned
away from the television screen. He said, looking at Bloodworth: ‘Can we live with that? Has he given us the makings of a deal?’

‘Overhalt says Jamie Song is not in direct contact with the President. He certainly doesn’t have the authority of General Leung.’

‘We’re evacuating the Embassy staff on the basis of an ordered departure,’ said Joan Holden. ‘Apparently, the British Embassy has been burnt, with one diplomat dead.
We’ve offered to take out their staff as long as it doesn’t conflict with our “no double standard” rule. We have a line open to Reece at the Foreign Ministry. He seems to be
camping in Jamie Song’s office.’

‘It’s not a deal,’ said Ennio Barber. ‘It’s an interview on CNN. Might I suggest that one missile strike could get President Tao to the phone? Once that
conversation has taken place we can have a deal which won’t cost us the election.’

‘I don’t like his reasoning,’ said Bloodworth. ‘But Ennio’s idea might just work. I suggest two Tomahawks into two DF-15 launch sites in Fujian province. Our IMINT
will throw up the coordinates.’

‘All right,’ said Hastings slowly. ‘Do it.’

Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China

Local time: 1445 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0645 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘Two cruise missiles
have hit the control tower and runway at Xiamen civilian airfield,’ said General Leung. ‘We should respond by targeting
Okinawa.’

‘Not yet,’ said President Tao. Holed up with the military, Tao had managed to cling on to the authority of his presidency. As soon as he emerged, leaving the general to his own
devices, he would lose it. ‘A missile launch on Okinawa would force us into a war which has no decisive end. It is against our doctrine of
yizhan ershang
, winning a victory with one
strike. Let us try to follow the line which Comrade Song outlined on CNN. Let them strike us. We will use our air defences to intercept the missiles. We will not strike back. We will try to secure
Matsu and Kinmen by the morning, and challenge the Western democracies to recognize Taiwan if they wish.’

General Leung: ‘Then I suggest you tell President Hastings that. We occupy Matsu and Kinmen. Taiwan Island reverts to the status quo. They send no more missiles against our
facilities.’

The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 0200 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0700 Tuesday 8 May 2007

John Hastings had
been on the telephone to President Tao for four minutes, using interpreters and patiently letting the Chinese leader run through his prepared script.
Then Tao cut into his own lecture with what Hastings could only later describe as a high-pitched yelp. At the same time, Tom Bloodworth’s voice broke through the hum of the war room:
‘Indian missile. The Agni. Launch pad north of Allahabad. Waiting for coordinates.’

Tao left his line open but never returned to it. Analysts later described as gold dust the disjointed conversations recorded in Washington from the Chinese war headquarters. They confirmed that
China did have real-time satellite surveillance over India, which picked up the launch at exactly the same moment as it came through on Bloodworth’s screen. The analysts also discovered
– although only much later, when the conflict was over – that Tao himself remained in charge, and they were able to break down the command structure and the relationship between him,
General Leung and their subordinates. But most significantly, ninety seconds after ending his conversation with Hastings, Tao’s voice was identified as initiating the command. Although
Tao’s mood and motive were hotly debated for months to come, it was widely believed that his decision had been made some time earlier and that India’s missile launch was only the
catalyst with which he chose to activate it.

Operational Directorate, South Block, Delhi, India

Local time: 1230 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0700 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘Target the Chinese
garrison in Namya Ra, Myanmar,’ said Chandra Reddy. ‘Target Chinese supply and airbase in Lashio. Target Chinese ELINT and SIGINT
station on Little Cocos Island. Target Chinese naval ships at Hanggyi Island base on the Irrawaddy River delta. All targets are on Myanmar sovereign territory. None is in Tibet. One is in China
itself – the DF-21 launch site in Chuxiong, used against Taiwan.’

‘To show solidarity with the Americans and the Japanese,’ said Hari Dixit.

‘For symbolic reasons, they are all conventional missile strikes. We are using the Prithvi with single 500 kilogram warheads from bases in Arunachal Pradesh on targets in Myanmar, and from
bases on the Andaman Islands to hit Hanggyi and Little Cocos Island. The Agni from Gorakhpur region is due to impact on Chuxiong. It has a single 1,000 kilogram warhead. Ground-attack aircraft are
already in the air for an immediate follow up on Hanggyi and Little Cocos Island. The aim is to put all Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal military activity to an end.’

USS
Ronald Reagan
, Bay of Bengal: 15° N, 85° E

Local time: 1205 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0705 Tuesday 8 May 2007

President Tao’s command
came through as a two-syllable message picked up by the National Security Agency listening station at Menwith Hill in northern England,
sent through to the NSA at CINCPAC headquarters in Hawaii and relayed immediately to the commander of the USS
Ronald Reagan.
It comprised yet another phrase, not encrypted, but compressed so
that the transmission time was just a fraction of a second.
Long Huo,
it said,
Dragon Fire,
beamed down from the same orbiting Chinese satellite which had instructed the
Kilo
-class submarine to attack the
Bombay.
An encrypted and frequency-hopping signal almost certainly coming from the
Xia
-class nuclear armed submarine in the Bay of Bengal was
sent back. The
Xia
could not pick up signals under water and must have been at least at periscope depth. It was daylight and unlucky that no ship was in the vicinity when the
Xia
came
up. The NSA analysts put the vessel at about 150 kilometres south-west of the carrier group. A call was sent to all shipping, commercial and military, to look out for the submarine. Even then it
was like finding a needle in a haystack.

The Indians were carrying out round-the-clock antisubmarine patrols in the area of probability where it was thought the
Xia
could be. The Americans were doing the same, and their
experience and more sophisticated equipment, such as trailing kilometres of sonar buoys through the area of probability, meant that vast areas of sea were being eliminated. But none got a positive
identification. The water was deep and the
Xia
had dived. If it was carrying the JL-2, it could be fired from anywhere inside the Bay of Bengal and hit a target in India.

The
Xia
was under orders to receive messages every twelve hours, and as the Indian missile attack was detected it was on schedule to come up. Had Tao hesitated with his decision, it would
have been another half-day before he could have given the command.

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Local time: 1010 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0710 Tuesday 8 May 2007

The news of
the Indian launch reached President Gorbunov minutes after it got to the White House Situation Room. President Tao came through immediately and said in
Russian: ‘I have given the command. It is sea-launched.’ He spoke in a manner which left Gorbunov certain as to what he meant. He also knew exactly the unstoppable process under which
Tao had decided to operate. Once under the surface again, the commander of the
Xia
could receive no messages from the outside world. He would now be working side by side with his weapons
engineer, preparing for the launch. Each man held separate keys and codes to verify each other’s actions. When the missile was fired, there would be no doubt that it had been on the
instructions of a legitimate government and that the men on the trigger were acting professionally and under orders.

Gorbunov telephoned John Hastings. ‘I have intelligence that the Chinese have initiated a nuclear strike against India,’ he said.

Hastings was silent for a long time. ‘Are you in contact with President Tao?’

‘I am.’

‘Tell him to stop.’

‘It is submarine-launched from the Bay of Bengal. Short of finding the vessel and destroying it, no one can revert the order.’

‘Is Tao sane?’

‘Perfectly. He sees it as a legitimate act of war. In discussions with him, he compared it to the American atomic bombing of Japan – necessary to bring about a decisive end to the
conflict.’

‘Then tell him that if his nuclear missile does strike India, the United States will obliterate his nuclear arsenal and his government with it. There won’t be a China left to
surrender.’

It was now Gorbunov’s turn to use the silent pause. ‘That is the main reason for my call,’ he said eventually. ‘Russia does not want American interference in this
conflict. We understand your treaty obligations over Taiwan and Japan and have stayed silent at your conventional cruise missile strike on Xiamen. But if you threaten China with nuclear
retaliation, Russia will have no alternative but to threaten the United States with a counter-strike.’

The conversation in English was being carried around the situation room on a speaker. The bustle of activity ended and the room became quiet.

‘I’m not sure what you are saying, Vlad.’

‘This is a conflict between India and China. Both you and I have tried to broker a peace and have failed. China has decided to use the nuclear option. India, so far, has not. You have yet
to discuss this with your colleagues, but I suspect you will end up deciding not to risk losing an American city to save an Indian one. However, to posture and threaten will be dangerous for world
peace. Therefore, see it as my doing you a favour, John. Should you make a statement threatening China, Russian missiles will be launched not against United States territory – I’ll
leave that to the Chinese – but against the Menwith Hill listening station in Britain and the Pine Gap listening station near Alice Springs in Australia. As well as damaging your
intelligence-gathering capabilities, it will knock out the European Relay Ground Station for the space-based infrared theatre missile-defence system. That will eliminate your early warning
mechanism for a missile strike from Russia. It will also split Western political resolve. The Australians and the British might think twice about your policies. Should you not then reconsider, we
will be back on a Cold War footing of what we used to call Mutually Assured Destruction.’