Third World War (22 page)

She glanced at West's face, and there was a hint that she was breaking through. In John Kozerski's eyes was a glimmer of respect and Pierce's smile had faded.

'Park Ho might be a fly-by-night. He might be dead in a month. But he'll have opened a can of worms, Mr President, about our power, our loyalty and our legitimacy. He is a direct and real threat. The only one, Mr President, that I can see facing us at the moment.'*

*****

'Why are you asking me not to accept China's offer?' asked Vasant Mehta bluntly on the hotline to the White House. 'Is it because it won't work, or because it erodes your own influence? Jamie Song has made an offer to take the terrorists out of Pakistan. No one else has, so what's your problem?'

Jim West shot a look across to Peter Brock. He had been told this would be an easy call to make. Something had dramatically changed. 'That's not what I meant, Vasant. I asked if you wanted to have the tape checked against voice verification with our people. We have the equipment to do it. You don't.'

'Thank you, but no.'

West breathed deeply. 'All right. Then - assuming it is genuine - what happens if Qureshi does not deliver? Does that mean you will invade?' West held up a satellite photograph in front of the camera, so that Mehta could see it. 'This was taken yesterday, Vasant. You are piling artillery, tanks and troops into the Punjab. You're moving aircraft from your eastern airfields to those closest to the Pakistan border.' Brock handed him another image. 'You've got big guns up there that could hit Lahore. Everything here points to an invasion of Pakistan.'

The satellite link faltered and the whiff of a shadow distorted Mehta's face. The screen shuddered. When it recovered, Mehta was leaning away from it, the camera showing the back of his head and the blurred background of his office. Then he reappeared holding up a CD-ROM in his hand. 'This is the interrogation of the terrorist who survived the attack,' said Mehta. 'You can have it. I'm sure he's on your files. You can match his fingerprints and voice signature.'

'Can you give me the crux of what he says?' said West, cautiously. Brock moved closer to the speaker phone. John Kozerski hung back by the door, a notepad in one hand and turning a ballpoint pen in the other.

'Before they were deployed, the terrorists were briefed by a senior Pakistani officer,' said Mehta.

'Qureshi?'

Mehta smiled and shook his head. 'No. It was Najeeb Hussain. It was Qureshi who ordered the assassination of Khan. But we can't pin the attack on the Parliament on him.'

'What a goddamn mess!' muttered West, his eyes leaving the screen for a second to look to Brock for advice. The National Security Advisor shrugged and mouthed his reply that the President should keep listening.

'Qureshi is now the de facto president,' agreed Mehta. 'But Hussain put him there. When Qureshi stepped off the plane from China he was told he was the new military leader. To have refused would have meant a bullet in the head.' The video link could not hide Mehta's fatigue. He rubbed his hand round his chin, then suddenly sat upright and stabbed his finger towards the camera.

'You have to be with us on this, Jim. Listen to the interrogation. Hear the evidence, and always remember that India is a democracy. Pakistan is a dictatorship. Don't be neutral. If I decide to go in and destroy that nation, India expects your unquestioning support.'

With the conversation over, black and white lines flitted across the screen. Kozerski stepped over and turned it off. West turned to Brock who was staring out of the window, where a grey winter's evening was closing in early, accompanied by a swirl of rain. He stepped over to the window to join Brock, but it was Kozerski who spoke. 'If I may, Mr President,' he said, taking advantage of the silence.

'Sure, John,' said West.

'The Indian community in the United States is the single biggest immigrant economic grouping. Whatever decision you take, you should talk to them, get them on board and pay them some attention. Make them understand they are Americans first and Indians second.'

West knew he could only ignore Kozerski's political antennae at his peril. He glanced sharply across at his Chief of Staff. 'You saying we might end up on different sides of the fence?'

'That's what it sounded like to me,' said Kozerski. 'Your voice gave you away, that's all.'

Brock turned back into the room. 'I can't think of any nation, apart from the United States, that has succeeded in overthrowing a regime by force since the Soviets went into Afghanistan in 1979.'

'Either Mehta is calling everyone's bluff,' said West, 'or he believes he can win.'

'He can win,' said Brock. 'But it would take nuclear weapons to do it.'

'The decision is easy,' said West, glancing first to Kozerski and then to Brock. 'We can't let Mehta go into Pakistan.'

****

28*

****

Beijing, China*

'I think we should walk outside,' said Jamie Song, as General Yan began on a subject he did not want to hear and had hoped would not come up. He looked out the window, welcoming the ice-cold air. Fresh snow was falling. He took his black cashmere coat from the stand in the corner of the office. Yan was still wearing his military olive-green greatcoat and leather gloves. Outside on the steps, Song pulled on his own gloves and put on a cat-fur hat with flaps which covered his ears. It was a windless sub-zero day. Their breath hung in a cloud in front of them. They crossed the road, careful not to slip on ice underneath the snow.

An expression of irritation crossed Song's face as his private mobile telephone rang. But he relaxed when he recognized the mischievous face of his son, Yun, on the screen, in shirt-sleeves, and positioning himself so that his father would have a brilliant sun-swept view of Hong Kong harbour in the background.

'Dad, have you got a moment?' said Yun, smiling, then waving his hand back. 'You like my new office? I moved in last week.'

'It's Yun,' whispered Song to Yan, who dropped back to allow the Chinese President privacy.

'It's great,' said Song. 'And you're looking very well on it. Business must be good.' Song stepped on to the paved edge of the lake, looking across, and keeping the drab, low-rise buildings of the compound behind him.

'Business is always good down here,' said Yun, switching to English and imitating the accent of a New York fund manager. Then effortlessly he switched again into an Italian accent to imitate a Mafia don. 'Give up all your meetings and come and join us. I will make you an offer you cannot refuse.'

Song laughed. Yun, his only child, had just turned thirty. Song had managed to fly to Hong Kong in secret for the celebrations. It had been a magnificent party in a friend's house overlooking Deep Water Bay, and for one evening, at least, Song had been free of the constraints of office. His wife, Xiaomei, with her delicate fine-boned features, had looked as glamorous as twenty years earlier, and the invitees had been their own friends from the international business community and Yun's friends from London, Hong Kong, China and New York.

On becoming president, Song had put some of his businesses into a blind trust, but had sold off others to raise cash and give Yun a head start. Yun had used it well, taking advantage of low prices during the downturn and turning a few million dollars into assets now worth much more.

Xiaomei and Yun kept out of his political work, although as the family of the President, they were courted and feted everywhere they went. The only thing that Song insisted on was that every purchase Yun made and every deal he struck was vetted by compliance and monopoly experts. It had been a wise move. On several occasions, his enemies had tried to get to him through his family. Allegations of insider trading, fraud and favouritism had been made but had never stuck. Song hoped that his example could be replicated bit by bit in every element of the new system of government he was trying to create in China.

Yun now put on a pompous English accent, picked up from his postgraduate days at Oxford. 'Mother and I have been talking about a weekend visit, and wonder what dates would be convenient for you.'

'Any time, as you know,' chuckled Song, unable to mimic as Yun could. 'My doors are always open.'

'Your doors might be open, but the last time I came up you had buggered off to Bangkok for an ASEAN-EU conference.'

'Something cropped up,' said Song. 'We should get our secretaries to copy each other's diaries.' He sensed Yun was heading somewhere, but couldn't work out where.

'Dad,' said Yun, dropping his voice. 'I shouldn't have to tell you this, but it's for your wedding anniversary.'

'Oh my God,' exclaimed Song, smiling. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yan, deliberately, yet discreetly, shifting himself into his line of vision. 'You are a true son. Of course. It's a date. We'll do it. But I've got to go now. Technically, I'm in a meeting.'

'A meeting by a lake in below zero temperatures? I'd get a new job, if I were you.'

'Look after yourself,' said Song jovially. He shut down his telephone and spent a moment gathering his thoughts, while examining a pattern of broken branches trapped into the lake's ice. He felt more than saw Yan silently bringing himself beside him, keen to finish the conversation they were not able to have in the office.*

*****

'Yun is well?' Yan inquired politely.

'Very well,' said Song, not wanting to linger on the subject of his family. 'Now, you were suggesting that if we don't find a way through this we would be, as you put it, blackmailed.'

'Yes,' said Yan, his face unusually drawn.

'My dear Yan,' said Song. 'Whether you are a mosquito, a tiger or a human being, life is a relentless series of compromises. Blackmail is the only certain companion which will accompany you from cradle to grave. It is simply a matter of recognizing it and not fighting it.'

With an incredibly slow movement, as he was trying to work out Song's meaning, Yan stopped and turned to him. 'Did you anticipate this?' he asked softly.

Song squatted down, picked up a twig, snapped it in two and tossed the pieces into the air towards the lake. They hit the ice slightly apart, but skidded away in different directions. 'See,' said Song, pointing. 'You never can tell exactly what will happen. If you anticipate ten threats coming towards you, nine will fall into a ditch before they get to you. Yes, I did anticipate it. But I put it to one side. Now it has reached us, we must deal with it.'

Yan snapped his own twig in three and tossed them in the air. They slid in the same direction ending up side by side. Song chuckled. The grounds of Zhongnanhai relaxed him. The compound, the Forbidden City next door and Tiananmen Square nearby acted as a natural lung to the pollution of Beijing. The air was far from fresh, but at least it was breathable.

'Was it a threat?' said Song, starting to walk again. 'Or did he say it was out of his control?'

'He said it is out of his control,' replied the general. Even when strolling, he moved as if on a parade ground march.

'But to his advantage?'

'If Pakistan is defeated, if either the Americans or the Indians dismantle the security system, hundreds of trained terrorists will look for new sanctuary. From Afghanistan they fled to Pakistan. Some went to South-East Asia. You have seen the result. But they are now being routed from there.'

'And you believe the new sanctuary will be Xinjiang on our western border?'

Yan nodded. 'Yes. I do.'

'Then we smoke them out, too.'

'We can't, Ligong,' replied Yan, using a familiar term of address. 'Pakistan has been our protection. It has prevented terror attacks within our own Muslim areas. It physically stops the terrorists from going there. It shares intelligence with us. Pakistani agents help in interrogations. If we end our alliance with Pakistan, we lose that protection. Our western flank will be wide open.'

Jamie Song looked skywards towards Tiananmen Square. The day was too cold for the kites to be out and the air was too still for them to fly well. He walked on ahead, keeping his thoughts to himself. Yan had spoken for China; blunt, unsubtle and without frills. Years ago - and it must have been an act of the subconscious - Song had spotted the candid but sophisticated Yan to use as his sounding board. Today, Yan was earning his pension.

Song himself was a child of globalization. He had believed he could be President of China and a citizen of corporate America at the same time; a champion of the developing world and the master of blind-trust companies which, with the help of visionary lawyers, had been made safe from all avaricious hands, including crippling taxation, asset freezing and international sanctions.

For too many years Song had straddled both worlds with the ease of a broad-minded man, always believing that compromise was possible. He had brokered peace with the United States to neutralize any pending conflict. He had earned a reputation as a bridge between the developed and developing world. He was a favourite in the contacts books of BBC and CNN producers for his forceful and well-argued thoughts. He was the respected and successful voice in the secret debates behind the walls of Zhongnanhai. He was a popular figure, but not a man of the people; privately, he remained torn between his native culture and the one across the Pacific that had spawned his wealth and educated his son.