Dragon Fire

The President’s Office, The White House, Washington, DC

‘Is there anything else?’ said the President of the United States. John Hastings stood up, clipping his fountain pen into his jacket pocket. The weekly meeting with the National Security Agency had been routine. His astute National Security Advisor, Tom Bloodworth, had run through the agenda quickly, knowing that the President had elections to think about and a spate of race riots in Washington itself. After the Balkan campaign and with a secured peace on the Korean peninsula, the President had assured the American people that he would keep his eye more on domestic affairs than his predecessor.

‘If individual nations are to mature into modern, developed societies, they must learn to take control of their own affairs,’ he had said in his inaugural speech. ‘Western Europe and America did not reach their present level of wealth and stability without spilling the blood of their own people. Both England and the United States fought horrible civil wars and just because they were many hundreds of years ago does not make the suffering any less for those who took part. We had no NATO or UN to intervene then, and maybe that was the right way to sort out our problems. Since the Western democracies began to see themselves as the policemen of the world, civil war and slaughter has not lessened. The Rwandas, Kosovos and Cambodias continue.

‘My words might sound harsh to some. But by trying to help we have, in fact, failed to help. So perhaps if these societies so intent on being enemies with each other know that no one is going to come to their aid, they will think twice about starting a war.’

So far President Hastings had kept his word. In the first two years of his presidency the television networks had become less interested in covering stories of Third World massacres and refugees. It was an electoral gamble, but not a blind one. Hastings ran for the presidency after resigning his post as the chief executive of one of America’s biggest news networks. He understood the link between journalists and power, believing that underneath the bravado of many top reporters was the yearning to be a politician.

The first story to test his policy occurred in Liberia, when every man, woman and child in three villages was slaughtered. He refused to answer questions on the massacre, saying he hadn’t been properly briefed.

‘Why not, sir?’ shouted a young women from what had been his own network.

‘Just as I haven’t been briefed on the 20,614 murders in our own country last year. Nor have I seen the file on the twenty-seven murders which took place in New York last week. That violence is the result of poverty, racism and hatred, no different to the motivation which has created the slaughter in Liberia. The killings there do not threaten American national interests, nor are they a threat to world peace. What do I say to Marilyn Deane, the mother of Brent Deane, aged fifteen, who was gunned down in a Washington DC drugs war last week? What do I say when she asks me to make her neighbourhood more safe? Do I turn round and say: “Don’t bother me now, I’m comforting a mother in Liberia”?’

With that retort, condemnation of Hastings’s policy petered out and the networks which had been flying crews and satellite dishes into Liberia, anticipating American involvement, pulled out. The massacres continued, but the story ended.

After their assistants left the Oval Office, the President poured his National Security Advisor a coffee and moved from the coffee table on the blue wool carpet in the middle of the room to sit back behind his desk.

Hastings leant back on his chair, his head brushing the yellow curtains hanging from the sash windows, looking out over the front lawn of the White House. Light streaming in silhouetted his figure, which was flanked by the Star Spangled Banner and the Eagle emblem. He lifted a pile of papers out of his in-tray. ‘Pull up a chair, Tom,’ he said. ‘I have to sign papers while we talk.’

‘I’m not suggesting we do anything about it,’ began Bloodworth. ‘But I wanted to mention developments in India to you.’

Hastings sipped his coffee. ‘All I remember about India is that it was a very difficult story to ever get anyone interested in. Even when they let off the bomb in 1998. People just didn’t really care.’

‘Just before this meeting, Kashmiri insurgents shot down an Indian military helicopter with a Stinger surface-to-air missile,’ said Bloodworth. ‘One that we supplied to the Afghan resistance during the war in the eighties. The Home Minister and the Northern army commander were killed, together with about thirty others.’

Hastings stopped writing: ‘Will India retaliate?’

‘We’re asking her not to, but I fear she will. I’ve ordered top-level satellite surveillance over both countries. Our ambassadors will appeal for restraint and we will keep a watch.’

‘Pakistan?’

‘It’s on the edge, sir. The Prime Minister has no power. The show is being run by the new Chief of Army Staff, Hamid Khan. He’s a former tank commander. He was on our payroll during the Afghan war to train up the mujahedin against the Soviets. Then he headed up the ISIA, Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency’s operation, to start the new wave of insurgency in Kashmir. He’s certainly no fool and we haven’t ruled him out staging a coup in the near future. Khan would have ordered the Stinger operation to bolster his own position.’

‘She’s not going to do an Iran on us, is she, Tom?’

‘Not that bad, sir. But Pakistan is definitely slipping from our grip.’

‘Goddamn basket case,’ said the President, switching his attention to the documents in front of him, then looking up again. ‘And I guess you want a private chat about Tibet as well. I saw it on the news. The Indians have said sorry and that it was a mistake. The Chinese seem to have responded by shooting up the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile.’

Bloodworth nodded. ‘Even if it stops there, it means there is a substantive split in the Tibetan resistance movement.’

‘I thought the Dalai Lama advocated non-violence,’ said Hastings.

‘He does. But others are getting impatient. They see the progress made by people like the Kosovo Liberation Army through violence and think they should do the same.’

‘And that was a damn shambles.’

The President put down his pen and let Bloodworth talk. ‘For months, the Chinese have been asking India to rein in the Tibetans and India has done nothing. Ever since the 1998 nuclear tests, when India named China as her main enemy, relations have been frosty. What I really fear is that the Indians see the Tibetan insurgency as a means of undermining the authority of Beijing. In other words, the Indians are letting the Tibetans do their dirty work for them.’

‘And whose side should we be on?’ said the President.

‘India is the world’s biggest democracy and in a constant political mess. China has a seat on the UN Security Council, has helped us with the Balkans, North Korea, Indonesia, you name it. Our trade is huge.’

‘So we sit on the fence,’ interrupted the President.

‘Except I sense our neutrality is about to be severely tested. Our intelligence suggests that Lama Togden, who was lifted from the prison, has not been picked up by the Chinese. We don’t know where he is, but he’s still free and if he gets out alive he’s expected to ask for asylum in the United States.’