Khalid: The KS-1 has a range of forty-five kilometres and the warhead could be well under five hundred kilograms. The payload of the DF-21 is five hundred kilograms and the range is eighteen hundred kilometres.
Song: Impossible, then.
Tang: No. Not impossible. We have not signed a treaty, but merely agreed to adhere to the provisions of the MTCR. We will be breaking no international law and any sanctions put upon us will hurt the governments imposing them as much as they do us. A year after we adhered to the MTCR in 1987 we sold six DF-3s to Saudi Arabia. Range two thousand seven hundred kilometres.
Hussein: Price three billion dollars.
Leung: I am not completely happy. The idea that India and Pakistan can replicate the nuclear safeguards set up between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War is unworkable. The cost to America of maintaining a nuclear arsenal to match the Soviet Unions was five and a half trillion dollars. The cost to the Soviet Union was the disintegration of its economy. It seems that no one in India or Pakistan has thought through the sophistication needed to manage the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, where both parties come out of it intact.
Jabbar: No, General Leung. We know that if it comes to all-out war — either conventional or nuclear — Pakistan will lose. We are not seeking a Cold War scenario. And we would, naturally, pass on to you all our intelligence on India’s own nuclear weapons programme. It is far easier for a Pakistani to infiltrate than for a Chinese.
Hussein: We also want to put a tactical air-burst bomb onto our Hatf short-range missiles and possibly on the DF-21, if you give it to us. Or an enhanced-radiation warhead.
Tang: Neutron bomb.
Hussein: Correct. You tested the neutron bomb in November 1988 and we understand it became fully developed in the late 1990s — thanks to stolen American technology. If you remember, gentlemen, the most dangerous time that Pakistani and Indian tank forces faced each other was during India’s Operation Brass Tacks in 1987. India fielded a quarter of a million troops and thirteen hundred tanks and we genuinely thought they were going to invade. It was the first time that it seriously dawned on us that we needed the bomb.
Khalid: The deterrent effect of a neutron bomb against tank and infantry formations on the battlefield is very high. It is a small thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, which produces minimal blast and heat, affecting an area of less than three hundred metres in radius. Everything within that area will be incinerated. But a massive wave of neutron and gamma radiation is thrown out over a larger area. Tank crews would be disabled immediately — although some might take days or weeks to die. But buildings would survive, as could civilians living only a few kilometres away.
Jabbar: If we have a tactical nuclear weapon or neutron bomb, we are convinced that any war between us can be confined to the battlefield. If we do not, we would be forced to escalate straight from artillery exchange to nuclear exchange with no in-between.
President: You will give unconditional assistance against Islamic fundamentalism and all intelligence on India’s military activity against Tibet and its nuclear weapons development?
Jabbar: That is correct, sir.
[Interpreter’s note: Long silence. Deferring to the President.]
President: Then we have an understanding.
Bloodworth waited for John Hastings to finish before he handed him a folder of satellite photographs. ‘These were sent to me personally from Chandra Reddy, head of India’s external intelligence. They were taken by India’s IRS-ID satellites, which are pretty close to world-class. It means they don’t have to beg from the Israelis or us any more, like Tang said.’
‘You mean he got it wrong?’
‘Totally. The Indian satellites can photograph an object as small as five hundred and eighty centimetres and their panoramic coverage stretches for eight hundred and ten kilometres. They can also operate in three separate bands of light, enabling them to record objects in near darkness.’
The President listened, spread the prints out on his desk and let Bloodworth carry on.
‘You can easily make out the shape of a ship in dock there. She is the MV Baldwin, Liberian-registered at the Chinese southern naval headquarters in Zhanjiang.’ Bloodworth stood up, leaning over the desk to point out the significant features. ‘You can see the head of a missile on the railway siding, here. And in this one four hours later, the Baldwin heading out to sea, we assume for Karachi in southern Pakistan. Loading began three hours after President Tao gave his assent.’
‘When will these be operational?’
‘More than a month, sir. But, if I may — ’ Bloodworth sifted to one caught underneath — ‘this is an Antonov 124, the biggest military transport plane in the world. This picture was taken at an airport near Xining in Western China, near the headquarters of the Second Artillery Regiment. If you look in the far right corner and you’ll see the fuselage and wing tip of another An-124. This truck here, we think, is carrying the KS-1 theatre-defence missile — possibly also some form of nuclear warhead.’
‘What you’re telling me is that these aircraft have already delivered their cargoes to Pakistan.’
Prime Minister’s Residence, Race Course Road, New Delhi, India
‘Cancel the visit to Beijing,’ said Hari Dixit.
‘If you call it off now, the relationship will take years to repair,’ said Prabhu Purie, the Foreign Minister.
Hari Dixit screwed one of the satellite photographs into a ball and hurled it into the corner of the room. ‘They are blatantly breaking international law.’
‘But they regard the SFF attack on Lhasa—’
‘That was not authorized by my government. The force which carried it out has been disbanded. If we end up going to war over that, then we would have ended up going to war anyway, over something else.’ Dixit turned to the Chief of Army Staff. ‘Mr Krishnan, what is your view?’
‘At some stage, possibly months ahead, it will become public knowledge that you visited China, well aware that it was secretly shipping nuclear weapons to Pakistan. Unless those weapons are withdrawn — and I doubt they will be — India will have emerged as the weaker of the two new Asian powers. It is similar to the missile crisis when the Soviet Union tried to ship nuclear weapons to Cuba. I agree with Prabhu’s sentiments. He is correct about China’s reaction. But we have to face them down.’
‘Chandraji?’
‘I think China’s chosen this moment for a shakedown of the Asian powers. I don’t know why, sir. But I agree with the Chief of Army Staff.’
‘Prabhu, call our ambassador in Beijing and cancel my visit. Give him the reasons. We’ll convene a full meeting of the National Security Council and decide how much to release into the public domain.’
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
‘Prime Minister Dixit has called off his visit,’ said Jamie Song. Tang was already with President Tao when Song was shown into his office. No one else was present, an indication of Song’s membership of Zhongnanhai’s innermost circle.