The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

57

Air conditioning hummed through the control room, bringing with it the stench of drainage. The space was smaller than anyone would have imagined, circular rooms with corridors appearing to lead nowhere, with ceilings impossibly low, the temperature, lights and ventilation as erratic as the generators which powered them. The food was becoming inedible and Vasant Mehta, a soldier trained in the Himalayas and the Rajasthan desert, was feeling helpless and depressed.

Since the Chinese-Russian attacks on Pakistan, then the American thermobaric bombing, he had been in limbo.

The commander-in-chief in him demanded that he be patient and stay in the bunker. The politician in him needed to be above ground amid the debris of his capital city. And should he be lynched by survivors, so be it. For he deserved it.

The father in him wanted to be in Washington, with his daughter Meenakshi, her life saved not by him but by the Americans. He couldn't even hope to speak to her in private, for every line in and out of the bunker was monitored. Military psychologists would have been having a field day analysing the mood swings of the first head of government since 1945 to have his nation struck by a nuclear weapon.

Meenakshi was in Washington, staying in the White House residence with Lizzie West, delivered safely there by Lazaro Campbell. Yet when Mehta asked to speak to him to thank him, Campbell was out of touch and somewhere else altogether. Romila had flown up from Argentina, and even Geeta had made an appearance, snatching the phone from Meenakshi, so that she could talk to her estranged husband. How proud she was of him; how she had always believed in him; how the three of them missed him so much. He let her talk, without responding or committing.

Mehta had even taken a conference call with Meenakshi, Lizzie, and West to find a line to destroy Jamie Song's argument which had so powerfully blamed democracy for causing poverty.

'Dad, if you're going to win this, you have to concede something,' Lizzie West had argued. 'Not on democracy, but on the international banking system and on commodity trading.'

'If I concede a damn thing — whether rightly or wrongly — I'm defeated,' said West. 'What I need is proof that he is full of bullshit.'

'Then talk about the human spirit, Mr President,' said Meenakshi.

'What about it?'

'Well,' and she drew a deep breath, 'I have worked both in Bihar in India and in Gansu in western China. Both are poverty-stricken. But in Gansu the government controls everything, even how many children are born. In Bihar, in the most appalling conditions, they still feel they have the right to speak out and make decisions.' Meenakshi's voice had become emotional. 'The thing is, Mr President, if you take away people's minds, they do lose everything. There is no happiness. You tell Jamie Song that we, in India, tried their methods in the 1970s and they failed. And if China ever becomes a shining beacon of the arts, of science, literature and music, with world-class highways, hospitals, schools and skyscrapers, then he can boast. But it is not now, and I believe it never will be, because at some stage the human spirit comes into conflict with the power that wants to control it. Our system — and your system, Mr President — allows for the growth of the human spirit. In China, it does not, and when there is conflict it will break the country in two.'

'You got that, Dad?' asked Lizzie bluntly. 'And if you need it, I'll get you the statistics to prove it.'

'Thanks, Meenakshi,' agreed West. 'Vasant, we'll hold on to your daughter for a while, if you don't mind. I think I've just appointed her presidential adviser.'

Mehta had found himself choking with pride, but laughing at the same time. The strangest thing was that no one mentioned Delhi. The conversation could have taken place before the nuclear strike had happened. Nor had they talked about the American bombing of Pakistan's missile sites in the Chagai Hills. Their own human spirit prevented them from lingering over even the recent past and propelled them forward towards a solution — until Deepak Suri cut harshly into the conversation.

Mehta turned. His Chief of Defence Staff, unshaven, his uniform stained and unwashed, stood up, signalled to his aide-de-camp at a computer terminal and raised a forefinger towards Mehta. 'They've launched,' he said. Mehta heard him both from his earpiece and from across the room.

'Vasant?' queries West.

'One second,' said Mehta abruptly.

'Eleven minutes to impact,' said Suri, his tone composed. 'Four, sorry, six missiles—'

'Warheads?'

'Don't know.'

The nod which Mehta gave to Suri was barely perceptible, and he gave it instead of a verbal command so that West would not hear. Suri turned fractionally and with the same forefinger gesture passed the command on to his aide-de-camp, who spoke into his mouthpiece, while repeating the instruction into the computer.

'Vasant? Vasant?' pressed West, the tension showing in his voice.

'Mumbai, Trombay, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Goa — first estimates,' said Suri.

But did it matter? Mehta asked himself. As a functioning society, India was finished. It would recreate itself, but for the immediate future it would be engulfed in tragedy.

'Vasant?'

'Yes, Jim,' said Mehta softly. 'Your intervention did not work. They launched and we have responded.'

'No.' It was almost a cry of anguish from the American President. 'No. Wait.'

'We did wait, Jim,' said Mehta. 'We waited after our Parliament was attacked, my house destroyed, my capital city destroyed. I think we waited too long.' His voice was distant as if he was talking to an unknown power somewhere far away, and that Jim West just happened to be the person closest.

'Karachi and Hyderabad are targeted by missile and submarine launches,' said Suri. 'Multan, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Sarghoda and Peshawar. Islamabad and Rawalpindi will be the first hit. ETA eight minutes thirty.'

'Meenakshi, are you there?' said Mehta.

'Yes, Father.'

'We will not see each other again,' he said. 'You are now under the protection of Jim West. I love you more than anything, and on this terrible, terrible day, I can only see one ray of hope — that you are in America and not here.'

'I'm coming out. I'll be needed—'

'You are not,' said Mehta. 'It will not finish here.' No one, including him, could even imagine what would be left of India in half an hour's time. 'Jim, are you hearing this?'

'I'm here, Vasant.'

'My daughters are under your protection. Ensure they receive protection as if they were your own family.'

'ETA Mumbai four minutes twenty,' said Suri.