Third World War Read Free

Overhead, fighter planes roared.
    The wounded attacker was brought just inside the building. They laid him down on the concrete floor. Meenakshi checked his pulse, and pupils. She took a quick look at his legs, took off her shirt and ripped it in two. 'Help me,' she said, to no one in particular. Two solders knelt down with her and followed her instructions as she applied tight tourniquets to both legs.
    Mehta was on his mobile phone. 'I want the first ambulance round here. No excuses,' he said. 'I don't care. We have a man, alive, who will talk and give evidence. Nothing is more important.'
    Then, as he was listening to the reply, his ear tilted to one side, checking that the ambulance whose siren he could hear was heading in his direction, there was overhead another sound familiar from his days of aircraft training in the Himalaya. It was the vibrating pitch of the engine of a light aircraft. He ran outside to look up. Not one but three were approaching. Far in the distance was the vapour trail of a turning fighter. Small-arms and heavy machine-gun fire broke out from the ground, creating a cordon of lead through which the aircraft would have to fly. One aircraft was hit, turning into a ferocious fireball, an explosion far greater than if just fuel tanks were going off. Its force created a charred circle on the grass and set light to the trees around it as the debris fell, scattering and flaming to the ground. Caught up in the trail, the pilot of the second aircraft turned sharply, but got caught in a secondary blast. He lost control and at such low altitude clipped a tree, somersaulted and crashed. The explosives on board did not detonate until the aircraft broke up on the ground. It sent out a withering heat wave of destruction which wrecked everything in its path.
    The third pilot took no evasive action, and flew rock steady through the fiery turbulence. Suddenly, Mehta understood the plan: the diversions, the suicidal firefights inside the grounds, the single repeated trajectory of the mortar to weaken the roof, while people were being brought inside the building to safety. He watched as the Cessna bucked. The pilot was alone, but all around him was what? God, if it was - Mehta thought. It could be nothing else but. A solitary, concentrated figure, with the other spare five seats of the single-engined plane stacked up with boxes. The luggage compartment as well would be laden with high explosives and detonators charged to go off on impact.
    The plane adjusted its direction towards the gaping hole in the roof, and as Mehta saw the fuselage plunge in, flames leapt out, then a rumble, then a tearing, ghastly, roar, like the scream of a great animal in the first stages of slaughter, as it exploded halfway down the four storeys of the historic building, crammed with people who had fled there to safety.
    *****
    'I'm not taking any calls,' insisted Mehta. 'I'll call them when I'm ready. West, Nolan, Song, Kozlov and any of those simplistic humanitarians from the European Union. None of them, do you hear?' He sat down angrily as his private secretary melted away, closing the door and leaving him alone.
    When the internal phone rang, Mehta's hand hovered over it before picking it up. Deepak Suri, the Chief of Defence Staff, was on the other end. 'It's Khan,' he said gently. 'I urge you, Prime Minister, if you talk to no one else today, talk to him.'
    Mehta nodded and heard the click as Suri transferred the call, and he recognized the distinctive Punjabi accent of President Asif Latif Khan of Pakistan. 'Vasant, it is a tragedy,' said Khan. 'The pilot told me the news as we were coming in to land. I will do all I can--'
    'You must, Asif. You must,' said Mehta. 'I don't want to have to fight you.'
    'You won't,' replied Khan, but his wasn't a safe answer because both he and Mehta knew he might not have the power to keep his promise. Khan was his friend. Their parents had been educated at the same Karachi school. Mehta had photographs