“Why, Mr. Tremble, do you think it will be nuclear war over Kashmir?”

“Mr. President, Jammu and Kashmir has been the fire hot emotional push-button issue between India and Pakistan since they separated in 1948 to become the Muslim state of Pakistan and the Hindu state of India. The west simply cannot appreciate the intensity of the emotional attachment of both sides over who controls Jammu and Kashmir. The emotional aspect is every bit as important as the population, perhaps the paramount issue. Jammu and Kashmir controls, or perhaps I should say, contains, much of the sources of water for South Asia. Who controls the area literally has control over south central Asia. They are willing to deploy nuclear fires on each other over who owns the Siachen Glacier. It is not inaccurate to say the area is intensely thirsty. The religious intolerance between the Hindus of India and the Muslims of Pakistan is equally contentious.”

“Mr. Tremble, if it goes nuclear, who, in your opinion, will launch the first bomb?”

“I am confident that the answer to that, Mr. President, is Pakistan. That is because they will feel severely threatened and have no option but to launch a first strike. Their first targets, naturally, will be the Indian nuclear-capable units and sites, followed by their conventional military forces.”

“Anything else you would like to add, Mr. Tremble?”

“No, Mr. President, unless there is something specific you would like to ask?”

“Thank you very much for coming. Please leave all of your phone numbers with my secretary, Peggy, so she can get ahold of you to set up the meeting with Ambassador Perchay, Secretary Talbott, and myself.”

At 14:00 the following day, President Thornton welcomed Ambassador Perchay, Secretary Talbott and Mr. Tremble into his office.

“Mr. Ambassador, can I offer you a cup of tea, or perhaps something else?”

With a very gracious smile, “Yes, thank you, Mr. President. That would be lovely. It is nice to meet with Mr. Tremble again. I am sure he has told you that we had many pleasant and interesting meetings when he was in Pakistan. It is also nice to meet you again, Mr. President. I certainly enjoyed myself at your ambassadorial ball.”

Tremble was right, thought Thornton. He is a smooth son-of-a-bitch!

Johnny Withers and a waiter brought in a tea service and served everyone while Mssrs. Tremble and Perchay conducted small talk, asking and informing each other of what had transpired with them since their last meeting. After Withers and the waiter left the room, President Thornton spoke. “I’m sure you know why I invited you here, Mr. Ambassador. We are greatly concerned over the hostilities between Pakistan and India in Kashmir. We certainly hope it will not expand and most definitely would like to see such hostilities cease. Can you tell us how this will play out?”

“Mr. President, Pakistan absolutely has no wish to go to war with India or anyone else. We certainly cannot match India in any strategic category. For us to go to war would be the utmost folly. No, we will do almost anything to avoid such a conflict.”

“How then, Mr. Ambassador, will this current hostility end?”

“Mr. President, I cannot predict it, but if we, Pakistan, can, we will end it today. All we ask is that we be left in peace. These raids by Hindus into our territory and their persecution of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir must cease. We will do nothing more than is needed to protect our people and our territory.”

“Will your nation and India ever peacefully settle the question of boundaries in the region?”

“Frankly, Mr. President, that is too much to ask for. No, I see us being at odds over this issue until some great power which can exert absolute control over both of us forces the settlement. I see no great power in our region which can do that. Perhaps in the next century, if a one-world government comes into being, with sufficient military power to enforce its will, a settlement might be imposed. We are as bad as the Jews of Israel and the Palestinians in this.”

“Will Pakistan use nuclear weapons if a full-scale war erupts, Mr. Ambassador?”

“Heavens no, Mr. President! Pakistan will never be the first to, as you Americans say, ‘let the nuclear genie out of the bottle’ in our region. We completely agree with America on that issue. With the nuclear devices detonated on the Korean peninsula and the destruction they have wrought, what we see in Korea is certainly a lesson for all of us. Unfortunately, their use could potentially become widespread, especially since technology has allowed the development of much smaller, tactical nuclear weapons as we have seen deployed.”

“And does Pakistan have such small, tactical nuclear weapons, Mr. Ambassador?”

“Our weapons are few in number and crude, Mr. President. For us to use nuclear weapons against such a powerful foe as India would surely result in our total destruction. No, the best we can hope for, should war come, is a stalemate in conventional warfare. Barring that, we hope the conquerors will be generous in their victory and our defeat. We do not wish to cease to exist as a nation.”

What the ambassador was thinking was, You have no idea with what and how our friends, the Chinese, have supplied us. They will come to our aid as they promised to eliminate the common enemy. India will be beaten back into the age of the Mughals.” Ambassador Perchay did not know just how very well China had supplied them. Only General Chang and his staff knew.

Ambassador Perchay smiled and set down his teacup. He thought to himself, Straight from the hip, up front and direct. No political nuances here. This old boy must be a Texas cowboy at heart. Instead, he said, “Mr. President, I am sure your CIA operatives have informed you of every move Pakistan makes in the nuclear weapons field. You know the size and location of every nuclear device in our arsenal, its status, its design and how it will be deployed, if it ever is. I must add that they will be deployed only in defense of our territory. Only to save ourselves from being overrun will such weapons come into use. We know full well that India would respond in kind, and that they have many more, and theirs are better developed than ours.”

Thornton smiled. “Mr. Ambassador, I only wish our CIA was as effective as you credit it to be. Let us hope that Pakistan and its neighbor quickly and quietly settle the current unpleasantness before it gets out of hand. If the United States can be of any service, as a negotiator, arbiter, or go-between, we will most certainly and gladly do so.”

“Mr. President, I thank you for your kind offer on behalf of my country. I will immediately convey your concerns and offer to Islamabad. If there is any opportunity to settle the current distress amicably, Pakistan will assuredly do so.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Ambassador.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. President. I have enjoyed the opportunity to see my old friend, Mr. Tremble. Good day to you all.” With that, Ambassador Perchay was escorted out of the room by Johnny Withers.

“Well, Mr. Tremble, what do you read of your ‘old friend?’”

“He either has the best façade I have ever seen, or he is overconfident, Mr. President. Either he is holding an ace or two he thinks we don’t know about or he is confident that the matter will soon be over.”

“What kind of aces do you think Pakistan might be holding, Mr. Tremble?”

“If the Pakistanis are as farsighted as I consider them, their intelligence service might have already planted nuclear devices in a number of strategic locations within India. Of course, the same holds true for India planting them in Pakistan. Or, they might have other weapons of mass destruction, such as biologicals, about which I have no information; or peace talks might already be under way; or Pakistan might have something up its sleeve that we have no knowledge or even guessed about. Don’t ask me what.”

“Marge, what is your reading on all this?”

“Mr. President, I haven’t any. I don’t know what to make of Mr. Perchay other than he is extremely charming. I don’t have information from my folks on their weaponry. I sent a secret telex two hours ago to Ambassador Brown for an update but haven’t received a response.”

“Mr. Tremble, you are the voice of experience here, what is your gut feeling?”

“I don’t like it, Mr. President. I don’t like it at all. It scares me.”

Thornton scratched his bald spot, sighed, and said, “Thanks to both of you for coming.”

Indian forces began to martial from twenty to fifty miles behind the Pakistani border. Armored and mounted infantry regiments martialled twenty-five kilometers inside the Great Indian Desert. Should general war be declared, four heavy divisions had as their axis of advance a drive through Moro and Dadu to cross the Indus River and on to Sonmiana Bay with the objective of cutting off the rectangular area that contains Karachi.

Indian brigades of mountain infantry loaded in trucks began to advance out of Srinagar. Trained for infantry operations at high altitude and in intense cold, they moved towards the Line of Control. Mountain infantry, some with pack animals, crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir and initiated combat with Pakistani outposts. The little village of Chakoti, on the apex of a salient, was the first to feel the weight of the Indian attack.

Pakistan responded with an intense artillery barrage against invading Indian units. Man-portable trajectory plotting radars identified the location of the Pakistani batteries, revealing some in new positions. Within minutes, Indian Mig-24Ds, purchased from Russia in the opening years of the new century, placed improved conventional munitions on the firing batteries, followed by Geneva Convention-outlawed two-hundred-kilogram napalm bombs to ensure their complete destruction. Twenty minutes after the Mig-24Ds departed, Pakistani FC-1 Dragons attacked the Indian infantry with napalm. The losses on both sides were substantial. Several companies of Indian infantry and two batteries of Pakistani artillery were lost. Most died of burns.

Twenty-four hours later, car bombs loaded with explosives went off outside government buildings in a dozen Indian cities. Each car was packed with a thousand pounds of dynamite and did considerable damage. They were detonated by remote control in periods of rush hour traffic to maximize casualties. News of the bombings dominated television networks throughout the world, but especially in India.

Forty-eight hours later, similar car bombs were detonated in Karachi, Multan, Bahawalpur, Sukkur, and Shikarpur, Pakistan. Civilian casualties were again very heavy.

Pakistan, already on yellow alert, ordered general mobilization. Four hours later, a Chinese agent received a seemingly innocuous signal in the guise of a radio commercial played for the first time on a particular station. Located near the center of the city, the timer was set for a four-hour delay to give the agent sufficient time to escape. When he threw the switch to turn the timer on, the explosion was instantaneous. A five-kiloton weapon detonated, destroying most of Sargodha, Pakistan. A second blast of similar size destroyed Mardan, Pakistan a few minutes later.

The explosions were reported to the Indian Prime Minister in New Dehli within minutes. He immediately called the Minister of Defense Sivaji, who denied all knowledge of the origins of the explosions. Sivaji denied having given any such order, nor to his knowledge, had any of the Indian military commanders. Nuclear weapons had not been released from their arsenals.

“Call together the Cabinet, immediately,” he ordered his secretary. “We must avert nuclear war. We will meet in the shielded bunker.” His next call was to Islamabad, to the leader of the junta.

“General, I understand that two nuclear detonations occurred just minutes ago in your country. Did you have nuclear accidents? I want to assure you that India had nothing to do with such disasters!”

“Prime Minister, we have had no nuclear accidents. We did not have any nuclear devices of any nature anywhere near either Sargodha or Mardan. Surely you do not think we are naive enough to believe this is not the handiwork of India? Since no aircraft or missiles were observed entering our country, you must have had agents in our midst who planted the bombs.”

“General, most assuredly, India had nothing to do with these explosions. I have no explanation for them. Our objective was to push Muslims out of Kashmir with conventional forces. We have no wish to engage in nuclear war. The world has already seen far too many nuclear bombs. Both of our countries are already in jeopardy from such explosions. We cannot afford any more catastrophes. In such a circumstance, there are no winners, only losers.”

“In that, I agree with you, Mr. Prime Minister. If Pakistan will cease to exist, so will India as you know it.” With that, the line went dead.

Before the Cabinet members arrived, Pakistan launched six intermediate range ballistic missiles and a dozen short range ballistic missiles. Their flight times to their targets varied from five to fifteen minutes. Indian AWACS and other monitoring systems observed their launch. The warning simultaneously went out to New Dehli and various military installations. Among them were all the bases which housed nuclear weapons. Judging from the early stages of their trajectories, the AWACS crew predicted the targets were Bangalore, Nagpur, Ahmadabad, Madras, Kanpur, and Kota. The smallest weapon detonated was twenty kilotons, the largest, fifty kilotons. None were particularly clean weapons, and most were detonated three hundred meters above the surface of their respective targets to maximize the effects of heat, blast and radiation. Little attention was given to the effects of their electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, which magnetizes motors, overloads some electrical equipment and computer circuits and thus destroys virtually all communications equipment which was in operation.