Third World War (16 page)

'And he murdered a North Korean soldier in cold blood.'

'Correct.'

'Passed down from generation to generation,' mused Song. 'How many like him, Yan?'

The general shrugged, closed the folder, walked across and handed it to Song. Jamie Song had asked Yan to bring him a file of raw intelligence so he could read the intercepts and HUMINT reports before they became distorted by analysts. But looking at it, Song realized that there was no such thing as raw intelligence. The documents and cables were there, but each was deciphered and explained. He leafed through the file, while Yan, standing close by, peered over his shoulder and explained.

'Over twenty years, Park Ho has built up his loyalty in the Reconnaissance Bureau. Once he had secured the support of most party and military leaders, he used it to seize power. Two generals, who opposed and had threatened to mobilize troops, were executed; one in Kaesong and another in Sinuiju while trying to escape across the border to us. The leadership is being held at a palace north of Pyongyang. Park has made no announcement of the change of power. The border is open. Train, rail and air services are operating normally.'

Song pointed to a paragraph on the report. 'So I can see. Who is this Air Vice-Marshal Qureshi from Pakistan who is on a train from Pyongyang?'

'He has just arrived in Beijing,' said Yan. 'I think it would be wise if you found a few minutes to meet him,' he said. Song detected a rare hesitancy. Yan spoke both softly and slowly, indicating that he was on unsteady ground.

Momentarily, Song saw Yan in a different light. His eyes were wide open, meeting Song's gaze, but looking beyond into something far more complex. He shifted his head to one side and let his mouth open, as if about to speak, but not sure what to say. Quickly, he recovered himself, straightening his tie. 'Air Vice-Marshal Qureshi ordered the assassination of President Asif Latif Khan,' Yan said, pulling down the cuffs of his jacket.

'I see,' whispered Song, putting the file on the window sill. 'Then he went straight to North Korea?'

'Pakistan is a very old friend of China,' Yan answered obliquely. 'It is better that you hear the facts from him.'

'But you knew, General?' Song's voice was both doubtful and angry.

'Of the assassination, I did not. I discovered it when Qureshi's aircraft flew into Chinese airspace without permission. The fighters scrambled to escort the plane down were picked up by Pakistani radar. The aircraft made no radio contact with us at all. Within minutes, though, I received a call on the military line from Islamabad. Our fighters escorted the aircraft to the North Korean border. In exchange for our hospitality, he agreed to return through Beijing to brief us.'

'Hence the train?'

'Correct. We would not allow him to return by air.'

Song made no secret of his relief. China was an unwieldy nation with many competing institutions and an appalling record of choosing allies. In the fifties it was insulted by the Soviet Union, paving the way for the supremacy of the United States. Had Moscow and Beijing sorted out their differences, the end of the Cold War might not have been so decisive. Its lesser alliances were equally disastrous. The Cambodian Khmer Rouge had turned out to be mass murderers. Burma was run by sadistic, drug-peddling generals. Pakistan, to whom China had given nuclear weapons technology, was an ungovernable morass of Islamic fundamentalism. Africa, where Chinese engineers had built railways, roads and socialism, had fallen back into tribalism and corruption. Only Cuba, nestled a hundred miles from Miami, had pulled through.

These relationships had been maintained because of the Chinese military. If Yan had chosen to keep Qureshi hidden from the President, it would have been easy to do so. Instead, he had gone to the other extreme of handing Song the file and insisting on a meeting with a man who had ordered the murder of a government leader and might well be connected with the Islamic uprisings that followed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jamie Song saw a change of story on the television. It had moved from the ceremony in the United States to fighting in Brunei. He turned on the volume with the remote.

'Fleeing Islamic rebels have sabotaged oil wells around the western town of Seria, before heading for sanctuary in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, where they still hold territory,' said the presenter. 'Australia, however, says the situation is under control and within forty-eight hours the flaming wells should be capped.' The picture changed to amateur footage of the British-led raid to recapture Bandar Seri Begawan. 'But there's still no word as to the whereabouts of this man, Colonel Joharie Rahman, believed to be one of the three ringleaders of the attempted coup.'

Library footage showed Rahman at a military ceremony with the Sultan, King Charles of Great Britain and other dignitaries. He was a slight man, impeccably turned out, but as the camera moved closer, Jamie Song recognized a tightness and thinness of the lips, the head tilted slightly to the left, and the eyes cast down enough to make them look a little shifty. The face was one of a man with a troubled mind.

'Britain is coming under strong pressure to reveal the whereabouts of Rahman,' continued the presenter, 'and of this man, a British special forces colonel' - her voice accompanied the now familiar pictures of Burrows, pistol drawn, stepping over the prostrate bodies of the defeated Bruneian troops - 'who is believed to have led the attack, and is being accused of carrying out summary executions of the ringleaders involved. The British Prime Minister, Stuart Nolan--'

Song was about to mute the television again, when the presenter actually interrupted herself. 'I'm sorry we have to end that story for the time being to take you back here to the United States, where President Jim West, as you know, has been on the tarmac with the families as the coffins come in from Yokata. President Jim West is to make a live address.'

Jim West cut a defiant figure, standing without notes or a noticeable microphone, with the dark-green camouflaged tail of a military aircraft as his backdrop. His hair was wet from the rain, blown about, and water was dripping down his face.

'I share your grief,' he began, brushing away moisture with his right hand. 'To lose a loved one, to lose a child, to lose a wife or a husband, in such violent circumstances, is the most tragic experience any of us can imagine. When we grieve we like to both pay tribute and be with our loved ones, and that is why you are here, together, today. My job, as your President, is to tell you this. Right now, we do not know who is in control in North Korea. We believe there may have been a takeover of some kind. We do not know what, and we are asking our friends in Russia and China, who have a closer relationship with North Korea, to share their intelligence with us on this issue. We believe the missile was launched during the takeover. In other words, we do not believe it was deliberately targeted on Yokata or that any launch was authorized by the government of North Korea. Some of you may have seen that there has now been a shooting in the demilitarized zone at Panmunjom between the two Koreas. We are trying to get to the bottom of that incident as well. It shows us that things are not yet back to normal, and in this uncertainty I will not be authorizing any action that may result in the further loss of American lives. Having said that, I promise you that the person or people who caused that missile to kill your families will be brought to justice - or they will be killed while resisting capture. On that you have my word.'

As applause drifted across the airfield, Song muted the sound. 'China and Russia, Yan? I will ask you what you think, when we finish.'

Yan walked over to Song's desk and sat ramrod straight in an armchair on the other side. Song left the window for his desk as well. But he didn't sit down. He picked up two small marble balls resting in a tray there and rolled them around each other in the palm of his right hand. In late middle-age, it was a soothing technique to help him think.

Song had picked Yan as one of his advisers when China had changed the power structure at the very top of government. Song now shared power with the General Secretary of the Communist Party, whose job was to keep watch on China's ideological conscience, and with the Chairman of the Military Commission whose task was to keep the borders secure. To most of the world, Jamie Song was the leader of China, but inside Zhongnanhai the balance was far more precarious.

Song needed Yan as his eyes and ears of the military. He had brought the general into his trust precisely because he spoke his mind without airs and graces. Yan had cut his teeth in the 1979 war against Vietnam, taking shrapnel which was still in his leg. He had served in Xinjiang, forging an intelligence relationship with the corrupt police forces of Kazakhstan against the Muslim uprising of the Uigurs. In Tibet, he had destroyed cells of activists and even run special forces missions into Nepal and India to break up their sanctuaries. During the North Korean famine in the nineties, he had served on the border. It was then that Song, in his first spell as foreign minister, had noticed Yan. Song plucked him out and sent him to Hong Kong to teach him manners and etiquette, and then to serve as military attache to Pyongyang. It was here that Yan had forged the contacts - shadowy as they might be - which were serving China so well today.

'We also have the report from the Air Koryo flight,' said Yan, offering Song a freshly printed sheet of paper. Song carefully rolled the balls back into their tray and took it.

'On its descent to Pyongyang, the aircraft suddenly pulled up, turned north, then dropped sharply to about two thousand feet,' said Yan. 'It maintained that altitude until it landed at a military airfield in Huichon. Two of our agents from the MSS were on board. They are alive, but they have not yet made contact.'

'These names you've underlined here?' asked Song.

'The interesting ones. Yes. The Iranians,' Yan explained.

'Do we know who they are?'

'We're still checking,' said Yan. 'One we know is Captain Mashoud Alband from the SAVAMA secret police. The two others we don't have. One was travelling on the passport of Mashhoud Najari, accredited to the Iranian embassy in Beijing. But Najari was seen inside the diplomatic compound with his children after the plane had taken off.'

Song glanced up. 'You're sure?'

'Yes, sir,' said Yan. 'We watch the embassy and the residences round the clock.'

'And the third?'

'The passenger register had him as Hossein Ansari.' Yan shrugged. 'No record of him anywhere.'

'The North Korean embassy must have issued a visa.'

'They've gone to ground.'

'Not surprising,' said Song, returning to the list. North Korea was a country entirely displaced by fantasy, whose people were still unaware that a man had landed on the moon. It was little wonder its diplomats hunkered down when cold truths were sprinkled into their world. Yet Jamie Song now had his own cold truth. With Park Ho in control, China had a most dangerous, but perhaps most useful, ally.

'I told the Americans we would accept a strike on the missile launch sites,' said Song, after a few moments. 'If they do, what will Park do? Go across the line?'

Yan shook his head. 'No. He's enjoying playing with them. He'd fire a missile from an underground silo. One the Americans couldn't touch with conventional bombing. The problem the Koreans had in the past was with staging. They took years to get the second stage working. It was a problem with the starter motor and the solid fuel. They overcame it. With Yokata, he's proved he has a working three-stage rocket. That means it's conceivable that he could deliver a warhead to the United States.'

'Then Jim West will throw everything he has at him.'

'Precisely,' said Yan. 'And that is when he'll cross the line. But before that happens, comrade, there is a detail you should be aware of. Park Ho could launch from either Chunggan-up or Paekun, the two sites closest to our border with North Korea. It means that an American strike on him would be only miles away from Chinese territory.'

Song, a veteran of scores of boardroom and diplomatic negotiations, looked at his intelligence adviser with utter surprise. 'Do you mind, General, telling me how you know this?'

Yan remained deadpan. 'I spoke at length to Park. I have known him for many years. He is a formidable strategist.'

'Should I speak to him, too?' asked Song, refreshed and surprised by Yan's bluntness.

'Not yet,' said Yan. 'He already has a hostage in President West. As soon as you contact him, you become a hostage, too.'

Song nodded thoughtfully. A car door banged outside. Yan got up and went to the window. 'Qureshi has arrived,' he said, heading for the door, but then pausing and walking back to Song.

'I have revealed these things to you because you command great respect among us, comrade, as a political operator. I would trust no one more than you to see us through this great danger. I also would ask you to keep what I have told you completely to yourself.'

'Of course,' said Song softly, as Yan left the room. Song moved to the window. The afternoon sun had broken up more ice on the lake and by leaning round he could see coloured kites being flown high in the distance in Tiananmen Square. So Quereshi's appointment had been made anyway. Song cleared the window of more condensation to get a better look, and saw Yan greeting the Pakistani Air Vice-Marshal, dressed in full uniform, a peaked blue cap under his arm, his eyes alive with colour and purpose, his hand gripping Yan's elbow, and looking around him in the heart of Zhongnanhai like a devouring force of nature.

Yan pointed towards the door, and leaned towards Qureshi, whispering. Song watched the two men and wondered who held real power in his nation.

****

22*

****

Air China 821, Beijing-Islamabad*

Tassudaq Qureshi did not enjoy lying to Jamie Song. He also regretted the death of President Asif Latif Khan. He admired the courage of General Park Ho in North Korea. The sending of an unarmed missile into the Yokata base in Japan was an act of style and subtlety he found missing among his own colleagues. He was surprised the British had acted so decisively in Brunei, although he had never expected Colonel Joharie Rahman and his conspirators to hold Brunei for long.

Qureshi anticipated that territory in the other areas - northern Borneo, the Malaysian peninsula and the southern Philippines - would be lost again in time. The uprisings and the violent reaction to them would, however, have enough support to begin low-intensity guerrilla wars throughout that region, and that was what he and Memed had intended.

But most of all, he was appalled at the attack on the Indian Parliament. To gather a force of insurgents to act with such precision and skill would have taken years to plan. How did they get their vehicles? How did they get their aircraft? From where did the explosives come? Where did they practise? From where were they recruited? How would it change things?

The cordoned-off first-class compartment of an Air China Boeing 747-400, chartered for his exclusive use and heading through the night over the north Asian deserts and mountains, was as good a place as any to take stock.

At one stage during the day, Qureshi had wondered if he would ever get out of China alive.

On his way to the airport, he had been ordered back to Zhongnanhai after Song's difficult telephone call with Vasant Mehta. Yan was there, but distant, standing by the door. Qureshi, greeted earlier as a statesman equal to the Chinese President, was now made to stand in front of Song's desk, diplomacy thrown to the wind, and Song, his face blazing with anger, fired questions as if in a court of law.

'Did you know about this?' he began, throwing a newspaper down on the desk.

'Jamie, if you could just explain--'

But Song didn't. 'Answer me, damn you, or I'll have you dragged off right now, so you'll never be heard of again. Remember you're in China.' Qureshi's eyes darkened. There was something in the way Song issued the warning that sent a chill through him.

Song pointed to the newspaper again. 'Did you know about this? And I want yes or no answers.'

'No.'

'Do you know the group who carried out the attack?'

'Yes.'

'Is one or more of their leaders in Pakistan?'

'Yes.'

'Are they trained in Pakistan?'

'In Azad Kashmir.' Qureshi shifted awkwardly on his feet and brushed his hand down his moustache.