Colonel Chidambaram raised himself through the turret of his T-90 and inhaled the night desert air deeply. The empty sky threw out enough light for him to see the ruins of Baghla. He looked more closely through the infrared night-vision binoculars and saw no movement, no sign of human or animal life.
‘Ninety minutes from now, at first light, we move into Baghla. Then we will proceed towards Rahimyar Khan,’ he told Gurjit Singh on the radio.
‘How long will you take to secure Baghla?’ he asked.
‘It will be done immediately. There is nothing left. What news from the other brigades?’
‘They are moving into Walhar at first light and expect one hell of a fight. Silk sector have reached the Uanur River and will hold there. There was only token resistance at Madaghar. Cotton had to take Sandhi after armoured resistance. That is now secure and Cotton is ten kilometres from the rail track. Calfskin took Bahuwalatoba with light resistance, but six hundred prisoners. They are outside Bagh-o-Bahar. You drew rotten luck, Colonel.’
‘Thank you, sir. And in the north?’
‘I understand we are doing well and that Sialkot will fall within the day. Our luck hasn’t been so good in the Batalik sector of the LoC. But a comprehensive ceasefire should solve that.’
Colonel Chidambaram felt better for the briefing, knowing that he wasn’t alone in the Thar Desert and that other officers had had problems as well. Many of the tank crews were outside their vehicles, washing, shaving, praying, preparing for the battle to come. Chidambaram was about to jump down and walk around, talking to them, when he heard Singh back on the radio again, an edge in his voice: ‘Toss-bomb attack. Toss-bomb attack. All men inside vehicles. NBC suits where available.’
The Pakistani Mirage 111s and F-16s streaked towards the Indian armoured positions, flying at 3,000 feet. Each pilot was trained for nuclear weapons delivery and the toss-bomb loop which would ensure his safety from the explosion. Each had a target specified from the Chinese satellite imagery. Two thousand feet higher the FC-1s were patrolling to head off any attack by Indian fighters.
But not all the aircraft carried a nuclear bomb. Two were nuclear-armed, one Mirage 111 — which Indian intelligence was not certain had been made nuclear-capable — and one F-16. Each aircraft carried one one-kiloton neutron bomb, an explosive device no bigger than a grapefruit. Each bomb had a destructive range of 700 metres, throwing out an 8,000-rad dose of radiation, more than ten times the 600-rad dose needed to kill in a normal environment, but enough to force the high-energy neutrons through the armour protection of the Indian tanks. A few of the tanks might have had depleted uranium shields built into the armour, which could offset the radiation. But that was untested and too expensive to be used throughout the Indian army.
The whole Pakistani squadron of sixteen aircraft came in at high altitude. As they dived they came under withering Indian anti-aircraft fire, which was attacked by the defending FC-1s. An F-16 was hit on its descent and exploded in the air. A Mirage 111 went too low and crashed into the ground. The other fourteen aircraft released bombs as they dived, and continued heading down: because of the airspeed the bombs shot upwards against the force of gravity. Once clear, the pilots pulled the nose up and went into a steep climb, avoiding the impact of any immediate nuclear explosion.
The aircraft were at the height of their climb when the bombs went off. Six were conventional; six were 500 kilogram fuel-air explosive warheads; two were tactical nuclear weapons. They exploded within fifteen seconds of each other, sending out devastating bursts of radiation. Contrary to the common perception of the neutron bomb, the attack did not just kill soldiers and leave buildings and vehicles intact. Anything within the 700-metre range was damaged beyond repair. Those vehicles outside the range were left intact, as were several of the tank crews who had managed to get inside NBC suits and seal up their vehicles.
But after that, many died, from dehydration and heat, abandoned by both sides as contaminated and beyond saving. The alloy steel used in the armour became radioactive itself. When rescue teams finally went in, both General Gurjit Singh and Colonel Chidambaram were found dead in their vehicles.
The area of the southern-Indian armoured advance was declared unsafe for at least forty-eight hours — and by then the world was on a nuclear precipice.
Briefing
At the turn of the millennium, five countries were acknowledged nuclear weapons states. Two had demonstrated a nuclear-weapon capability and it is thought that only one, Israel, with a capacity for about 200 warheads, remained undeclared. North Korea may have produced a small number of nuclear weapons. At the peak of production in the eighties, there were about 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world — with an explosive power equivalent to 500,000 bombs of the size dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. India was thought to hold more than eighty nuclear weapons to Pakistan’s twenty-five. China had 400; Russia 21,000; the United States 11,500; France 450; and the United Kingdom 260. Just one 15-kiloton fission bomb explosion over an urban area with a population density of about 25,000 per square kilometre would kill about 200,000 people.
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
General Leung Liyin rang Tao Jian from the military headquarters under the Western Hills on a direct line straight through to the President’s office in Zhongnanhai. ‘Pakistan has halted the Indian advance in the south with a tactical nuclear burst,’ said Leung. He paused. Tao was silent. Then Leung continued: ‘We are ready on the western front.’
‘What about the Indian northern positions?’
‘Fighting is continuing.’
‘All right, General,’ said Tao. ‘Begin Operation Dragon Fire.’
Briefing
The historical use — or misuse — of Japanese militarism has long been a soul-searching issue for the Japanese. In 1894, Japan defeated China in a brief war and took Taiwan. Korea was annexed in 1910 and Manchuria invaded in 1931. Japanese forces swept through China in 1936 and finally attacked US forces at Pearl Harbor in 1941 — ending in the nuclear-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Japan then drew up a pacifist constitution which ‘for ever renounces war as a sovereign right’. During the Cold War, Japan flourished, living under a US security umbrella which protected it against threats from the Soviet Union. In the late nineties, however, the United States urged it to take a greater role in regional defence. Japan quietly redrew its military profile, believing that ultimately its biggest challenge would come from China, whose aim was to overtake Japan as the pre-eminent power in the region.
The Prime Minister’s Residence, Tokyo
In normal circumstances, Prime Minister Shigeto Wada would have left it up to his Foreign Minister to summon the Indian Ambassador. But these were not normal times. The nuclear balance of Asia was untested and dangerous. And Wada had to make swift and difficult decisions which would strike right at the soul of modern Japan.
Mandip Singh arrived, looking like a man who had not slept for two days, and when Wada offered him tea he waved his hand and asked for black coffee.
‘Will you retaliate?’ asked Wada.
‘We will,’ said Mandip Singh. ‘But the question is, will it be nuclear — and I won’t know that until you do, Prime Minister.’