Dragon Fire

Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, New Delhi, India

‘Ring them on the hotline,’ said the Indian Prime Minister.

‘Ring them and say what?’ asked the RAW Special Secretary, Chandra Reddy. ‘The weekly conversation was only at noon yesterday.’

‘That was yesterday.’ Hari Dixit pulled his head out of his hands and re-read the message, which confirmed that his Northern army commander and his Home Minister were both dead, together with twenty-two Black Cat commandos, two nurses, a doctor and four wounded soldiers. A second message sent an hour later said that the launcher for a Stinger missile had been found 500 metres south of the airport, where Indian forces had been engaging Kashmiri insurgents in a firefight.

Two direct lines had been established between India and Pakistan in an attempt to stop skirmishes spilling over into war. The first was set up in the wake of the 1971 war, when the Simla Agreement was signed between the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan. The line ran between the two offices of the director-generals of military operations. There was at least one weekly scheduled conversation, every Tuesday, and more if cross-border activities intensified. In the late eighties, a second line was created between the two Prime Ministers’ offices. Pakistan had feared an Indian invasion from the Operation Brass Tacks military exercises, and there was ongoing nuclear concern by both countries.

Dixit stood up and put his glasses back on. ‘We’ll go in gently. Tell them that Ninan and Bagchi have been killed and we want an assurance that they had nothing to do with it.’

Reddy gave the instruction and the two men waited while the call was being put through.

‘They’re not answering,’ said Reddy.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Dixit.

‘They’re playing games. It’s what we did to them during Brass Tacks in 1986. They thought we were going to invade and we didn’t pick up the hotline.’

‘Meaning…?’

‘It’s not the Prime Minister,’ said Reddy. ‘It’s Hamid Khan. He’s testing our resolve.’