Dragonfire (43 page)

Whether the missile had been targeted on the Fort area so the radiation cloud would be blown north over the highly populated areas of the city would remain a moot point for years to come. The
Chinese claimed the coordinates were 19° 02' N, 72° 56' E, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay twenty kilometres north-east of the main Fort financial district. Two of the
research heavy water reactors there, the Cirus 40 MW and the Dhruva 100 MW, produced plutonium at the rate of 30 kilograms a year, enough for up to five nuclear bombs. Therefore, argued the
Chinese, the site was a legitimate military target.

The fact was that the single 15 kiloton warhead exploded 185 metres directly above Fort, at a lower altitude but with the same velocity as the American strike on Hiroshima. The BARC complex was
put out of action and the prevailing winds blew the fallout due north over the most heavily populated areas of Bombay. Just about every building was destroyed from the west coast to the east coast,
the Sea of Arabia to Harbour Bay and from the southern coastal point in Colaba north through Fort, through the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus to the shacks of the Mohatta Market. Hardly anyone
escaped alive – and that was only in the first hour.

The population density in the most crowded areas of Bombay was as high as 40,000 people per square kilometre. Given that it was lunchtime on a working day, the number of people in Fort was at
least that. No one ever came up with even a roughly accurate figure, but for the record, the Indian government put the number killed in the first hour of the explosion at 200,000.

Operational Directorate, South Block, Delhi, India

Local time: 1415 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0845 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘We must retaliate,’
said Hari Dixit.

‘No,’ replied Unni Khrishnan, almost in a whisper. ‘We must stop. If they strike again we are condemning the lives of another million people.’

Dixit shook his head: ‘And if we don’t we will lose India.’

‘I don’t care if your bloody government falls.’

‘Neither do I. But if we capitulate now, we will lose our status as a nation. Are the Agnis ready for launch?’

‘And if they target Delhi?’

‘We die,’ said Dixit.

‘Four mobile sites are prepared,’ said Khrishnan softly. ‘Enemy targets are the military headquarters in Chengdu, the Western Hills in Beijing, Zhongnanhai and
Shanghai.’

‘We will not hit population centres.’

‘They have.’

‘We won’t.’

‘Then we lose.’

‘We’ve lost already,’ said the Indian Prime Minister.

‘Then stop,’ pleaded Khrishnan.

‘We can’t, Khrishnanji. Don’t you understand, India can’t surrender now.’

The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 0345 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0845 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘The whole of
central Bombay is flattened,’ said Tom Bloodworth. ‘We’re picking up the formation of a mushroom cloud. There are reports of black
rain falling on the Tulsi Lake in the national park to the north of the city.’

John Hastings stood upright in the centre of the room, looking at the satellite imagery being translated into impact data on the map of Bombay.

‘Reece Overhalt calling from Jamie Song’s office,’ said Joan Holden.

‘President Tao gave the order for only one launch,’ said Overhalt. ‘He does not want to strike again.’

Bloodworth, on another phone, interrupted the President’s conversation. ‘Mr President, Hari Dixit is retaliating.’

‘For Christ’s sake tell him China’s calling it a day,’ yelled Hastings.

‘That’s not the point,’ said Bloodworth.

‘The Chinese are calling an emergency UN Security Council meeting,’ Overhalt said to Hastings.

‘Cynical bastards.’

‘Two Agni launches from north-east India,’ said Bloodworth.

‘Get that shit Gorbunov on the phone,’ snapped Hastings.

Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China

Local time: 1730 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0930 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘Nuclear air-burst over
Chengdu?’ said General Leung. ‘Where, exactly?’

‘Unclear. We have lost contact.’

President Tao remained silent. He sat in an office chair, his chin in his hands, staring at the huge map in the war room. Hari Dixit had more nerve than he had anticipated. If India and China
slugged it out city for city, India would lose eventually, but China would not be an outright winner. The progress of the last quarter of a century would be wrecked, and the Motherland’s
standing in the international community would be in tatters. Yet if Tao stopped now, China would be a defeated nation. He pushed the chair back, stood up and walked over to the wall map, his shadow
moving across it like a storm cloud.

The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia

Local time: 1230 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0930 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘Are you threatening
me?’ said President Gorbunov. He had taken the call from John Hastings, without interpreters or even his private secretary taking
notes.

‘I will repeat myself, Mr President,’ said Hastings. ‘You have five minutes to get an unequivocal ceasefire from both India and China. If you fail, we are going to obliterate
China’s military capabilities with nuclear and conventional weapons. If you threaten to strike the United States or Europe we will strike Russia. Your office will be ground zero. This is not
a threat, Mr President, it is reality.’

‘You are at risk of creating an even more dangerous situation.’

‘I did not call you for a debate in international relations. I called to tell you what is going to happen.’

‘And if I comply?’

‘No one need know this conversation ever took place.’

Operational Directorate, South Block, Delhi, India

Local time: 1510 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0940 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘They’ve launched from
Tibet,’ said Unni Khrishnan. ‘We should head for the bunker.’

‘No,’ said Hari Dixit. ‘If the people of Delhi are to die in a nuclear attack, this captain is going to stay on the bridge.’

‘President Gorbunov calling from Moscow,’ said Khrishnan’s aide de camp.

‘Tao has called a ceasefire,’ began Gorbunov.

‘He’s just launched,’ said Dixit.

‘Six minutes to impact,’ said Unni Khrishnan.

‘You have my word that China will carry out no more attacks.’

‘Can they destroy the missile, mid-flight?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Listen, Vlad, within five minutes we could be vapourized. I don’t regard it as a ceasefire. It’s the act of high cynicism.’

‘Agni ready for launch, Prime Minister,’ said Unni Khrishnan.

Hari Dixit cut the line to Moscow: ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

Ground zero was between the North Block and the South Block. The fireball swept through the elegant buildings of pink Rajasthan sandstone, which collapsed into molten rubble
incinerating everyone inside. The magnificent architectural buildings of Indian democracy were destroyed within seconds of the blast; India Gate, the Parliament Building, the National Archives, the
Supreme Court, then further out with temperatures still almost a million degrees, the path of destruction hitting Connaught Place, Janpath, and other landmarks of India’s heritage. The glass
walls on the newer buildings shattered immediately, with people and furniture instantaneously hurled outside. Then, like in Bombay, the firestorms reached the flimsier structures, the more densely
crowded parts of the city, where people died in their tens of thousands.

Even ten miles away in places like Vasant, Vihar and Janakpuri, everyone outside was struck with severe burns and houses spontaneously caught light, causing unstoppable fires to rage through the
slums killing those inside. Within the three kilometre radius of ground zero, nothing survived. The men in charge of the government of India were dead. The institutions which ran the country were
out of action.

The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

Local time: 0530 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 1030 Tuesday 8 May 2007

‘Dixit targeted the
Western Hills before he died,’ said Tom Bloodworth. ‘It must have been a 250 kiloton warhead to make the range.’

‘Did it hit?’

‘Yes, but the Chinese bunker is too well dug in. The only casualties are the villagers, fruit orchards and a few army barracks. There’s a strong westerly wind. In nuclear terms the
damage is minimal. We’ve just picked up new signals from the bunker, so their backup communications system must have kicked in.’

Hastings sat heavily in a chair, allowing the exhaustion to show for the first time in forty-eight hours. ‘Hari Dixit refused to go for the civilian targets, didn’t he?’

Bloodworth pointed to one of the computer screens. ‘These are the latest satellite pictures from India. This is Delhi.’ He changed the picture. ‘This is Calcutta. Then
Bangalore, Madras. It’s going on everywhere.’

Even though ill-defined, the images showed streams of people fleeing the population centres of India. The main roads were too clogged with human life to take cars, carts or even motor-scooters.
Vehicles were abandoned, as were possessions which hindered escape. The nuclear holocaust had instilled terror throughout the country.

‘What about China?’ said Hastings.

‘There’s cloud over Chengdu. So we don’t know what’s happening there. Tao has closed down all telecommunications. Even mobile phones. The television is showing a
sitcom.’ He brought up an overhead scene. ‘This is Tiananmen Square, Beijing. The signs say it is closed for redecoration. This is the main road south. Traffic moving as normal.
It’s the same for Shanghai, Wuhan, Harbin. You name it, the Chinese are controlling it.’

‘They’ve won, haven’t they, Tom?’

‘Won through their own brutality.’

‘Damn right, they have,’ said Hastings. ‘They’ve won because they had nuclear weapons and they used them ruthlessly – just like we did in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.’

With medical and public services collapsed, the twenty million people affected by the nuclear attack in India were mostly left to fend for themselves. International agencies
came in where they could, but the task was simply too enormous. The few not killed in the immediate explosion died of burns and infection over the following few days. Those who survived longer
began to break out with illnesses. The symptoms were nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite; diarrhoea with blood; high fever; bleeding into the skin resulting in welts; ulceration of the mouth;
bleeding from the gums, the rectum and the urinary tract; loss of hair and general weakness until death. The statistics were still being compiled when this report was written, but it was estimated
that 60 per cent of the deaths were from burns and the blast itself, 20 per cent from radiation sickness and another 20 per cent from related injuries and illnesses. Many in this last category were
the very young or very old. Scientists estimated that the radiation in the worst areas measured almost 500 rads an hour and that anything above 400 rads an hour (over a three-hour period) would
kill at least half the people exposed to it. Given that most had no means of escape, many more than the specified 50 per cent would have died from it. A year later eight hundred thousand people
were estimated to have died because of the attack.

Chengdu and the Western Hills outside Beijing were closed off completely. It is still not clear the extent of the casualties there, or how the Chinese emergency services
handled the crisis. Experts assumed that because of its more disciplined society, the victims fared better than in India.

The United States led a global condemnation of China and introduced a package of potentially crippling sanctions. But these were ignored by Russia and most of the governments
in South-East Asia. The Thai Prime Minister was the first high-level foreign leader to visit Beijing, followed by most of the South-East Asian heads of government, who publicly acknowledged
China’s new position as a world superpower. Dignitaries from the Middle East visited. The first Western leader was the German Chancellor, followed shortly by the French President. Britain
maintained that a high-level visit was out of the question. It never confirmed that it had led the Special Forces raid on the Cocos Islands and it was never leaked out that for a few hours the BBC
was broadcasting from the Wood Norton nuclear bunker.

The new Indian Prime Minister signed a substantive defence alliance with Japan allowing for joint exercises in the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal, breaking
Japan’s commitment to confine its military activities to within 2,400 kilometres of its coastline. Russia attempted to initiate a three-power summit in Moscow with China and India, where it
was announced that India would open border negotiations with China. At the eleventh hour India pulled out, refusing to send even a junior official. Chinese troops withdrew into Burma from Arunachal
Pradesh. General Hamid Khan and his staff, including Captain Masood, were dug out of the General Headquarters bunker by the first wave of UN troops to arrive in Pakistan. Khan was a broken man,
conceding that his high-stakes plan to modernize Pakistan had failed. The country was run by an interim UN protectorate, but supported by the army. One of the options was to incorporate Pakistan
back into the Indian federation, with a widespread international view that the partition had failed, but there was strong opposition to this from within Pakistan and the Islamic world. Chinese
troops continued to occupy the outlying islands of Taiwan with no resistance from the local people. President Lin resigned and was replaced by a more moderate politician. Trade between the mainland
and Taiwan boomed to such an extent that direct shipping and flights were allowed.

India held fresh elections and reconstruction work began in both Delhi and Bombay. The Bombay stock market was moved to Madras, but with the stated aim of rebuilding it on its
original site once decontamination had been completed. The seat of government was temporarily set up in Calcutta.

Both John Hastings and the more hawkish Anthony Pincher were re-elected, with increased majorities, as were the leaders of New Zealand and Australia. Prime Minister Wada lost
his election to more nationalistic forces in Japan. President Tao held a missile parade in Tiananmen Square with Jamie Song, Tang Siju and General Leung by his side on the balcony on the gate of
the Forbidden City. Reece Overhalt, as doyen of the diplomatic corps, boycotted the ceremony. Shortly after that, both he and Jamie Song retired, with Song spending most of his time with his
software companies in California.