Dragon Fire

China World Hotel, Beijing, China

Reece Overhalt, the American Ambassador to Beijing and multibillionaire businessman, flicked through the television channels in the suite he had personally booked and paid for in the China World Hotel. Jamie Song had called him two hours earlier, suggesting a quick and private drink. But he couldn’t come to the Embassy. Nor could the Ambassador be seen at the Foreign Ministry. Since then Overhalt had talked to Hastings and was told to do everything within his power to bring China into line. He had also spent a difficult thirty minutes with the Pakistani Ambassador, Javed Jabbar.

‘I honestly don’t know what you are talking about,’ Jabbar had said urbanely as Overhalt accused Pakistan of getting missiles and neutron bombs from China.

‘Would you necessarily know?’ pressed Overhalt. ‘There is a military government in charge now.’

‘Pakistan’s institutions are intact, Ambassador Overhalt. Personally, I’m surprised your government isn’t giving more support to General Khan. Is it that you find it easier to deal with those singing to the tune of the Taleban or the Iranian mullahs, or are you more at home with buying your foreign leaders so that they are more answerable to America’s beck and call?’

‘Let’s not go down an anti-America road, Javed,’ replied Overhalt. ‘The MV Baldwin—’

‘The Baldwin is bringing artillery shells from Korea to us. They have supplied us with these shells for years. Journalists who go up to the front have reported it. The fighting in Kashmir ebbs and flows and right now there is an upsurge.’

‘Our information is that you are being given the DF-21 intermediate-range missile, which would break international regulations.’

‘Your regulations. Not ours,’ said Jabbar sharply. ‘If what you say is correct, it would be diplomatic madness for both us and China. We have just had a military takeover. There is an Indian offensive going on in Kashmir. We are being accused of terrorism in India. At this very time, to import the weapons you suggest would brand us as a pariah state.’

‘Precisely,’ said Overhalt.

‘Then think again, Ambassador. For God’s sake think again. If you don’t it will be the end of a modern Pakistan.’

Doubt flitted back and forth as Overhalt ran through his conversation with Jabbar. Doubt about whether Tom Bloodworth had called it right. Doubt about whether Jabbar had been sending Overhalt a message of admission by listing the steps Pakistan had taken towards isolating itself from the international community.

In the middle of his analysis, and more than two hours late, Jamie Song arrived, looking unusually confused and harassed. Overhalt took him out onto the balcony, just in case one of the many Chinese intelligence agencies had bugged the room.

‘Sorry, I got delayed. Just as we were about to summon the Indian Ambassador for a third time, a bloody air war broke out over Bhutan.’

‘Togden’s dead, I gather,’ said Overhalt gently.

Song shrugged and leant on the balcony rails looking over the lights of Beijing. ‘Reece, I don’t know. And, frankly, I would like to say I don’t care. But I’m a wiser man than that. Let me give you good advice. Your President’s instinct on this is right. Let us sort Tibet and Bhutan with the Indians and it will settle down. If you guys get involved, Europe will get involved, and your politicians will be like lapdogs reacting to the democratic mob.’

‘That’s how things work nowadays, Jamie. Humanitarian foreign policy.’

‘Bullshit, Reece, and you know it. Let me tell you this. You succeeded in Kosovo, Timor and Iraq because these were dying regimes of a bygone age. Milosevic was no new Hitler. Saddam Hussein was no new Ayatollah Khomeini. But India and China are new powers, Reece. In a hundred, a thousand years, when the American empire has collapsed, we will be ruling the world. Let us fight our wars. Let the tectonic plates of history shift naturally.’

‘I’m more concerned about the next hundred days,’ said Overhalt.

‘Then accept what I am saying. If you had ever attended a meeting inside Zhongnanhai, you would understand that the longer we can keep things balanced, the better it is for everyone. It could see us both to retirement. Tibet is one issue about which you don’t mess with us. Even a cosmopolitan man-of-the-world like me becomes a crazy nationalist when it comes to Tibet.’

‘Those pictures were not very pleasant, Jamie.’

Song glanced sideways towards his friend: ‘Nor was My Lai or Kent State, Reece. Nor are the pictures of prison chain gangs in Alabama. One image does not represent a whole nation.’

‘Point taken. But I’m not sure how the President would have to react if more of this got out.’

‘You lost the Vietnam War because the American public did not like the images of violence coming out of it. That was your choice. But the American people will not decide whether or not we win our war in Tibet. If it helps the President, I’ll go on CNN and say precisely this. Lhasa was suffering riots. Just like America suffers riots. We have put them down and arrested the ringleaders. Just like America does. It all started because Indian troops—’

‘Renegades, Jamie.’

‘You’re too big a man to quibble, Reece. Let me finish. We pursued some of those troops into Bhutan, just as you pursued the Vietnamese into Cambodia and Laos; just as you pursue drug traffickers into Latin America. We have achieved our objectives and have now withdrawn.’

‘What about Pakistan, then?’

‘What about Pakistan?’

‘We have information that you’re shipping them missiles and nuclear technology.’

Jamie Song was silent for a moment: ‘You have this on authority?’

Overhalt nodded.

‘They’ve asked. They’ve been asking for years. If it’s happening, Reece, I don’t know. And that’s the truth.’