Third World War (26 page)

Vasant Mehta turned the wheelchair to face the hall. He leant down and locked the wheels. Meenakshi handed him a file from her lap. He limped on to the podium and raised his hand in appreciation, just a single hand, palm outwards, diffident and quickly. He waited for the applause to fade. He stared out, unblinking, unsmiling, until the chamber returned to absolute quiet. Only then did he drop the cane at his feet. The noise echoed in the quiet. He kicked the cane away, and the image of it sliding across the polished stage came to symbolize the anger of India.

'None of you here will welcome what I have to say,' he began. 'I have come because my Parliament is in ruins and my house has been destroyed. My staff who protected me are dead. My daughter is in a wheelchair.' He glanced down at Meenakshi who raised her hand to him. He took it, squeezed and smiled. It had taken a lot to persuade Meenakshi to come with him.

'She is here not as a mascot, but as evidence of what you and I and the citizens we represent are ultimately working for - the protection and the future of our children and our families. There is nothing in the world more simple to understand.'

He paused to allow another wave of applause to break out. He let it die naturally, resting, two hands on the stand, absorbing the stabbing pain which seared through his right leg. As a stillness again took over the hall, Mehta said: 'I have failed in that simple duty. I have failed abysmally.'

He dragged his leg forward to try to ease the pain. His face creased up. The ache he could withstand with a poker face. The sudden jabbing of torn nerve ends still took him by surprise. He gripped the stand. 'In due course, I will take the honourable path and resign. India is a democracy and we have institutional machinery which will make the transition seamless and transparent. But before I go, I will announce to this assembly my nation's new doctrine, which is being implemented to protect our people, and I will explain why we are doing it. And when that is done, perhaps the television reporters will ask the White House whether or not it believes I am an honourable man or an enemy of the United States.'

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32*

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Washington, DC, USA*

'You can't go in, John. He's got five minutes to go,' said Jenny Rinaldi as Kozerski burst into the outer office where she sat. He pointed to the screen where the General Assembly meeting was being broadcast live. Kozerski slowed his pace. 'No,' he said, filling a paper cup from the chilled-water dispenser. 'Tell him I'm coming in. And turn that thing up and listen.'

Kozerski drained his cup, waited for Rinaldi to start speaking through her intercom, then went straight into the Oval Office. 'I'm sorry to interrupt, sir,' he said, taking in the half-dozen senators whom West was meeting. 'But you've got to see this.' He picked up the remote, flipped on the television, and stood, arms folded, by the door. Jim West got to his feet, and concentrated, hands on his hips, in the middle of the room. One senator got up to leave, but West waved him back down.

'. . . and you may ask, why I use such an emotive term as enemy of the United States,' Mehta was saying. West shot a perplexed look across to Kozerski.

'I will explain.' Mehta paused to grip the stand and balance himself in a more comfortable way. The camera was close on his face, showing the creased brow, eyes blinking and watery. Kozerski stepped over to be next to West. 'He's also announced he's resigning,' he whispered.

'Those young men who attacked my parliament and my house were terrorists,' said Mehta. 'They were a product of Pakistan. Pakistan is a strange and unfortunate product of many nations. From Saudi Arabia it imported an extreme form of Islam. China and North Korea gave it its missiles and nuclear weapons. The United States flattered, scolded but ultimately built up Pakistan to what it has become. It trained its shadowy and evil institutions; it applauded its dictators; it has been there at every stage of the journey and has made Pakistan what it is today. Every action the United States has taken regarding Pakistan has been for nothing except its own short-term national interest.

'Those of you from smaller nations, trying to determine a way forward, will know how brutalizing it is to have the forces of the United States government lined up against you. Believe me, it is not much better if you are the world's biggest democracy.'

The camera, picking up applause again, shifted to a wide shot as dozens of delegates clapped. It settled on the unmoving hands of the US ambassador, eyes down as if reading notes.

'Why, you might ask, am I fingering the United States? Why not China? Why not Pakistan itself? Why not Russia? It is because--' Mehta shook his head and tapped his file. 'What can I say, without surrendering my self-control to anger? It is because in 1998 when we declared ourselves a nuclear power with underground tests, we were punished by America with sanctions designed to slow down our development. In 1999, when Pakistani troops invaded our territory in what is known as the Kargil war, President Clinton urged us to be patient. In 2001, when the United States began its War on Terror, we were asked to absorb provocations and not respond. Our Parliament was attacked back then. We had evidence of Pakistani involvement, but we did not go to war. There were other assaults, and we trusted the United States to bring Pakistan under control.

'In 2002, when President George W. Bush announced the US's new National Security Strategy, it laid out a doctrine, and I am ashamed to say we trusted that as well. It told us that America would help all nations that needed its assistance in combating terror; that the allies of terror were the enemies of civilization; that the United States would work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets and free trade to every corner of the world. In order to achieve this, it stated that it had no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the status America had created for itself since the fall of the Soviet Union. Never again would there be parity. There would be only one power and one set of values and all of us, including a great democracy and culture like my own, would have to live within it. And I am ashamed to say that we accepted that doctrine. I am sure each of you have stories to tell of how it has actually worked for you.'

He stopped speaking to rearrange his notes. Unsteadily he picked up a glass of water and drank.

'Where's he heading with this?' whispered West to Kozerski, who shrugged, keeping an eye on the UN General Assembly Hall which was completely quiet waiting for Mehta to continue.

'With that doctrine, America took on the responsibility of keeping our nations, our institutions and our families safe. It told us that there was only one way forward and that was the American way, that either we were with the United States or we were against it, and that there was no middle way. It told us that it would not hesitate to act alone and that, if necessary, it would exercise its right of self-defence by acting pre-emptively.'

Mehta put his hand up to his eye. The camera showed cuts and bruises still unhealed on his face. He let go of the rostrum and leant down towards Meenakshi. She handed him a laptop computer. He opened it up and slotted a plug on to the side. 'Son of a bitch,' muttered West. 'What's he doing now?'

'Visual display of some sort,' said Kozerski softly.

'Can you switch us to the main screens?' asked Mehta into the microphone. The camera cut from Mehta's face to the strange sight of the black and white booting of a laptop, following each step until it settled on the blurred image of a man in a hospital bed - a video sequence on pause. Mehta pressed another button. 'For the benefit of the interpreters, what you are about to hear is in Arabic,' he explained. The now world-famous photograph of Meenakshi and Mehta in the middle of the assault on the Parliament building came up on the screens. 'Most of you will be familiar with this,' said Mehta. 'I am showing it to you now to explain that the terrorist my daughter is tending in this photograph is named Ammar Abu Taleb. He is from Sana in Yemen. He was trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. His voice print is known to the US National Security Agency, who if they wish can verify at least his identity. He was interviewed at a military hospital in Delhi, where he remains now.' Mehta tapped a series of buttons on the laptop. 'I will now play a key part of the video,' he announced.

The first scene was a wide view of the hospital room, showing the backs of two interrogators' heads. An armed guard in silhouette was at the side of the frame. Taleb himself sat up in bed. His neck was in a brace which seemed to come up over his head and cover his eyes in a blindfold, making it obvious why Mehta had challenged the NSA to make a voice identification as well. Taleb's left hand was free. His right was handcuffed to the bed frame.

The first voice came from the interrogator on the right. His colleague never spoke at all.

'When were you told to carry out the attack?'

'We were never given a date,' Taleb replied. The camera moved closer in to show the synchronization of the voice and the lips.

'You mean you could have attacked any time you wanted,' pressed the interrogator who was now off screen.

'Not any time.'

'What, then?'

'It was to be a certain time before President Khan's visit to Malaysia. That is all we knew.'

'So you knew he was to be murdered?'

'We knew?'

'All of you.'

'No. I knew and Khamis, who has been martyred, knew.'

'Who is Khamis? Is he the one who flew the plane?'

'Yes.'

'Who told you?'

Silence.

'Who told you?'

Silence again. The camera returned to a wide view. A guard stepped in and roughly pulled away the cover on Taleb's eyes. The interrogator leaned over the bed and thrust a photograph in front of Taleb's eyes. 'Do you know this man?'

Taleb didn't answer. His face gave nothing away. The interrogator turned the photograph to the camera. He put another one in front of Taleb, who remained expressionless. Then with a third one, he blinked and swallowed. A fourth, nothing again. On the fifth, his eyes reacted harshly, flaring at the camera with hatred. And on the sixth, whether on purpose or by instinctive reaction, he tilted his head to say he knew the identity of the man being shown to him.

Each picture was also shown to the camera. The third was of a woman with whom Taleb was known to have been in love, kneeling on a bed, naked and kissing another man with her hands draped around his neck. The fifth was of Taleb's father, an elderly man, his head yanked backwards, being marched away by police, and his mother, her hands held helplessly in front of her, standing at the door of his childhood home. The sixth photograph was of Air Vice-Marshal Tassudaq Qureshi, in full uniform, against a backdrop of a line of F-16 fighter aircraft.

'And him?' said the interrogator, showing him another picture. 'Do you know who he is?'

A tilt of the head again.

'Who?' pressed the interrogator.

'Qureshi,' whispered Taleb.

'Have you met him?'

'He talked to us. Yes.'

'When?'

'Before the death of Khan. But I met him before that even, during the Kashmir Jihad. He talked to us then as well.'

Mehta turned off the video. The screen went back to him. He unplugged the laptop and handed it down to Meenakshi.

'Do any of you know these guys?' West asked the senators in the Oval Office. 'Pat, how about you?' he said, looking at Patrick Chase, by far the oldest politician in the room, who had made his career by speaking on security and intelligence issues. 'A bit, Mr President. They're guys we've used and abused over the years, just like Mehta said.'

'Get Peter Brock up here,' said West to Kozerski.

On the screen, Mehta took another drink of water. 'This General Assembly is not a world government and its resolutions are not legally binding. So I am not here to ask for any of that. I am here to use this forum to give a message to the United States of America. You know Najeeb Hussain and Tassudaq Qureshi. Like Pakistan itself, you have helped mould these men into what they are. If you are to retain your position as the only world superpower, you will dismantle the authority of these men and everything they represent. You will do it swiftly, without debate and with whatever means necessary. You have failed to protect our nation, and India is giving you one last chance to prove you are worthy of the great responsibility you volunteered to take on. If you do not act, India will go it alone. If you do not back us, we will consider you to be against us. Mr Secretary-General, thank you for allowing me the floor.'

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33*

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Mount Kanggamchan missile base, North Korea*

Park Ho caught Vasant Mehta's address on BBC World just as he was leaving. He heard the helicopter coming in to land and listened to the throb of its engines from the roof as the Indian Prime Minister flung down the gauntlet to the United States. When Mehta finished a few delegates clapped, but their efforts were soon lost in the confusing silence which followed the end of the speech.