Dragon Fire

Prime Minister’s Office, Downing Street, London

‘I am not speaking to you as a member of the House of Lords, but as a businessman, a private citizen and an Indian.’

Like John Hastings, Anthony Pincher was drawing himself a completely new set of guidelines. Right now, in the middle of the night, with conventional diplomacy failing, Pincher accepted that he needed to explore unorthodox methods to reach a peace. Military action of any kind against India or Pakistan could create a fearsome backlash which might easily prompt more use of nuclear weapons. That was why when Lord Thapar called from his mansion in Hampstead to announce he was on his way to Downing Street in his Rolls Royce, Pincher instructed that he be let straight in.

Lord Thapar had been ennobled by Pincher as a recognition of the contribution of the Indian community. Both in Britain and the United States they had overtaken any other immigrant group in economic performance and had become a serious lobbying machine, fielding candidates for parliament, making inroads into the City and, most dramatically, contributing enormous expertise and ideas to the information technology revolution. Lord Thapar himself was a second-generation Indian in his mid-sixties, whose wealthy parents had found themselves a victim of the partition, lost everything and decided to emigrate to Britain. While they struggled, impoverished, against the pressures of racism, they ensured that Mani Thapar was given the best the English state education system could offer, such that he won a place at Cambridge, went on to study in France and the United States, then built up a multi-million-pound empire. Only after his wealth was secure did he begin serious investment in India itself, winning business and political friends, and persuading the inward-looking governments to ease up on their investment laws. Hari Dixit was the Health Minister in Andhra Pradesh when Mani Thapar pioneered the building of a pharmaceutical factory there. The two men became close friends, with Dixit using Thapar as his conduit to the West, which he then regarded as arrogant, colonial and interfering. Dixit understood as little about the workings of international business as Thapar did about the aspirations of the rural Indian. They both learnt keenly from each other.

Anthony Pincher was acutely aware of this relationship when Thapar called. He had just finished speaking to an exasperated John Hastings in Washington, who was still unable to get hold of Hari Dixit. With the rolling news media it was becoming a humiliating political issue. Reports coming from France and Germany indicated that Europe might find it difficult to approach the crisis with a united front. Already, there were enough divisive issues over trade, currency and customs control. A nuclear exchange, albeit in Asia, could be the one which finally caused a split.

‘Thank you for seeing me at such an inhospitable hour, Prime Minister,’ said Thapar while taking a seat. ‘I felt I had to get my oar in early.’

‘Anything you can do would be appreciated.’

‘I will be blunt, then. We are all aware that Pakistan and China are in cahoots over this. Burma, too, but it is such a basket case that it is barely relevant. I can get a message right now to Hari Dixit to take his hand off that bloody nuclear trigger, if you come out in support of India. Without reservation, of course. We don’t have time to go through the “we are friends with both nations” business, like the Americans did with you in the Falklands.’ Thapar checked his watch as if to emphasize what he was saying. ‘If either Dixit or Khan give the order now, there could be a city destroyed in eleven minutes.’

‘It is something we would need to discuss with the Americans and our European partners.’

‘My friend Ratu Keni Vohra is at this minute with Joan Holden in Washington. Other meetings are going on throughout Europe. India is a democracy, Prime Minister. China and Pakistan are not.’

‘Lord Thapar, are you threatening to escalate this conflict unless Britain publicly sides with India? I would hope that Hari Dixit is a more mature statesman than that.’

‘Threats and reality are often confused. China is the threat. Pakistan is its foot-soldier. India has no superpower aspiration.’

‘But it went nuclear.’

‘Thank God we did. Or we would now be a colony of China’s. Listen, if Hari Dixit knows the international community is on-side, he can afford to let India absorb its punishment and open a diplomatic channel. If you sit on the fence, he has no alternative but to fight.’

‘You can talk to him?’

‘I can get a message to him within five minutes.’

Anthony Pincher spoke to his Private Secretary on the intercom: ‘Can you get me John Hastings again?’

‘He’s in the Situation Room, Prime Minister. He’ll be at least half an hour.’