“Twenty-seven hours ago, the U.S.S. Riddle sank an Indian submarine.”
“My God . . .”
“What’s worse is, even though the Indians fired first, they seem to think we provoked the action. Their ambassador was here in my office not two hours ago. He point-blank accused me of taking Pakistan’s side and said that India would tolerate no interference in her … ah … ‘military exercises along the Pakistan border.'”
“Then there’s a possibility that CBG-14 could come under attack. Is that what you’re saying, Mr. President?”
“Partly. There’s more bad news.” He glanced at George
68
Ketth Douglass
Hall. “What I’m about to tell you is classified. We’re keeping a Hd on this one, for rather obvious reasons.”
“Well, Mr. President, I’m cleared for—”
“I know your classification, Tom. I’m just reminding you that this is hot. Very hot. Yesterday evening, Pakistan exploded a nuclear device.”
“What?”
“It appears to have been a test . . . and a warning.”
“And India already is a nuclear power. . . .”
“Exactly.” The President leaned back in his leather chair and sighed. “My predecessors in this office have all wrestled with nuclear proliferation. I guess we all knew that things would get out of hand sooner or later. Now they have, big time. We could be looking at a nuclear war over there if we can’t work something out between these two countries, and damned fast!”
“What’s being done about it?”
“The matter went to the United Nations yesterday afternoon. The UN Security Council voted fifteen to nothing to censure India as an aggressor and called for her immediate withdrawal from Pakistani territory.”
“I imagine India’s feeling rather isolated right now.”
The President’s mouth quirked. “Try surrounded. Anyway, the wrangling on the East River is going to go on for a while. In the meantime, Indian troops are still advancing into Pakistan, Indian planes are still hitting targets from Karachi to Islamabad. The Indians know they’re going to be branded the villains in this, but they’re determined to end the Pakistani threat to their internal stability. CIA believes they intend to install their own government in Islamabad.”
“Pretty drastic.”
“Yes. But from India’s point of view, this is just an extension of that they call the Indira Doctrine. They want a Pakistan that is strong enough to serve as a buffer between them and the Soviets . . . but that is too weak to challenge them directly. Maybe they think the only solution is to put their own people into power in Pakistan.”
Magruder nodded. India had long presented the Indira Doctrine as an expression of national policy. New Delhi maintained the right to intervene in the internal affairs of any neighboring country if disorder threatened to cross India’s
ARMAGEDDON MODE 69
national boundaries. With that sort of thinking, their invasion might seem justified. Both countries had been engaged in a sharp buildup of arms lately.
“But the Pakistanis have the bomb. What does that mean . . . that if India presses too hard, Pakistan incinerates New Delhi?”
“It’s a possibility. If the Pakistanis get pushed hard enough, well, the CIA tells me they’ll use it Desperate people do desperate things. As soon as the Pakistanis start nuking Indian troops, of course, we can expect the Indians to retaliate. There’s a very real danger that the Indians might even welcome a nuclear exchange—”
“Good God, Mr. President,” Hall interrupted. “No one wants a nuclear war. …”
“Okay. Maybe ‘welcome’ is too strong a word,” the President agreed. “But look at it this way. If Pakistan launches a nuclear first strike, the world is likely to forget that India was the aggressor, the one who started this war. Pakistan becomes the guy who nuked some Indian city. If it comes to an arms race, well, India can produce more warheads than the Pakistanis, and they can strike anything in the entire country, while Pakistan’s reach is limited to the range of their F-16s, a few hundred miles or so.”
“Three hundred forty miles,” Magruder said, quoting automatically from memory. “Assuming round-trip, three-thousand-pound ordnance load, and no drop tanks.” He hesitated. He still wasn’t sure why the President had brought him here from the Pentagon to hear all of this . . . and the President’s earlier words, about needing him, were still tugging at his curiosity. “So where does all of this leave us, Mr. President?”