‘This is terrible,’ Kai said.
‘The drone fired two air-to-ground missiles that badly damaged the partly built dock and set fire to nearby oil tanks. There were also two children killed. We don’t normally allow people working overseas to take their children with them but the chief engineer was an exception, and yesterday he happened to bring his twin sons to see the project, tragically.’
‘What’s the government in Khartoum saying?’
‘Nothing substantive. They made an announcement two hours ago claiming that they were getting the fire under control and would investigate the cause. It’s a typical holding statement.’
‘Anything from the White House?’
‘Not yet. It’s now early afternoon in Washington. They may react before the end of the day.’
Kai turned to Yang Yong, an older man with a lined face, experienced with satellite imagery. ‘We have the drone on camera,’ Yang said, touching keys on his laptop. A picture appeared on one of the wall screens.
Kai leaned forward, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said.
Yang was an expert, and had probably started out peering at high-altitude aeroplane photos, before the days of satellite photography. He picked up a laser flashlight and shone a red dot on the image. With that assistance Kai was able to make out a silhouette. He might have taken it for a seagull.
Yang said: ‘It’s over a highway.’ He moved the red dot. ‘That smudge is a truck.’
‘Can we tell what type of drone it is?’ Kai asked.
‘It’s big,’ Yang said. ‘I’d say it’s an MQ-9 Reaper, made by General Atomics in the US but sold to a dozen other countries including Taiwan and the Dominican Republic.’
‘And probably available on the black market.’
‘It’s possible.’
Yang changed the image. Now the seagull was over a city, presumably Port Sudan. Kai said: ‘Did the Sudanese react to this?’
Shi answered. ‘Air traffic control must have picked it up, and they probably stopped take-offs and landings for a time – I’ll check.’
‘Their air force could have shot it down.’
‘I guess they did not assume it was hostile. It might have been civilian, or perhaps a Saudi drone that had strayed across the Red Sea.’
Yang changed the picture again. ‘This is just before the drone fired its missiles. I’ve zoomed the image. You can see the dock. The aircraft is flying very low.’ He touched his keyboard again. ‘And this is just after the explosion.’
Kai could see the collapsing masonry and a huge pall of smoke rising. The seagull had tilted as if blown by a wind. Yang said: ‘The drone was so low that the blast damaged it fatally. Such a mistake might be made by an inexperienced controller.’
Kai said: ‘We can assume the Americans’ satellites have shown them similar pictures.’
‘Certainly,’ said Yang.
Kai looked at Zhou Meiling. She was young, and lacked confidence except when she was talking about her specialty. Kai said: ‘What have you got, Meiling?’
‘A group calling itself Salafi Jihadi Sudan claims responsibility, but we know little about them – suspiciously little. The site has been up for only a few days.’
‘A new group that no one has ever heard of,’ Kai said. ‘Formed just for this one outrage, probably. Or it could be a fake.’
‘I’m checking.’
‘Have other sites commented?’
‘Just general hate speech – except for the Uighurs in China. As you know, sir, there are several illegal sites claiming to represent Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, though some or all of them could be fake. However, the fact is that most of these sites are celebrating the killing of repressive Chinese Communists by freedom-loving African Muslims.’
Kai was scornful. ‘The Uighurs ought to try life in Sudan. They’d soon be begging to come back to authoritarian China.’ He was angry because the rejoicing of the Uighurs might provoke the Communist old guard to rash reactions. Men such as his father would be clamouring for retaliation.
‘All right,’ he said after a pause. ‘Meiling, see what more you can find out about Salafi Jihadi Sudan. Yang, go through previous satellite pictures and track the drone back to its launch point. Shi, have our man in Port Sudan look for the wreckage of the drone and see if he can identify the source. Everyone, keep an eye on the Arab and American news channels for government reactions. I’ll have to brief the foreign minister first thing in the morning and probably the president before the end of the day, so make sure I’ve got all the information available.’
The meeting broke up and Kai returned to his office.
His secretary, Peng Yawen, brought him tea. She disapproved of coffee, which she regarded as a young people’s fad. On the tray was a plate of nai wong bao, steamed buns with a custard filling. He realized he was hungry. ‘Where did you get these, at this time of night?’ he asked.
‘My mother made them. She heard I was working all night and sent them in a taxi.’
Yawen was in her fifties, so her mother must be in her seventies, Kai thought. He bit into a bun. The bread was light and fluffy, the custard deliciously sweet. ‘Your mother is a blessing from heaven,’ he said.
‘I know.’
Kai took a second bun.
Yang Yong hovered in the doorway, a large sheet of paper in his hand. ‘Come in,’ Kai said.
Yawen left as Yang entered. He came around Kai’s desk and unfolded the paper, which was a map of north-east Africa. ‘The drone was launched from an uninhabited area of desert a hundred kilometres from Khartoum.’ He put his finger on the map at a point west of the River Nile. Kai noticed the ropy veins on the back of his elderly hand.
‘You were quick,’ Kai said in surprise.
‘These days you can set the computer to do the tracking for you.’
‘How far is that spot from the border with Chad?’
‘More than a thousand kilometres.’
‘So this supports the theory that the perpetrators are local Sudanese insurgents, rather than Islamist terrorists.’
‘The same people can be both.’
Just to make things more complicated, Kai thought. He said: ‘Can you track the drone back farther?’
‘I can try. It might have been transported disassembled, of course, in which case it won’t be visible. Otherwise it must have flown in. And we don’t know how long ago. I’ll see what I can find, but don’t hold your breath.’
A few minutes later Zhou Meiling appeared, her young face alight with eagerness. ‘Salafi Jihadi Sudan seems genuine,’ she said. ‘It’s a new name, but they have posted photographs of the members – heroes, as they call them – and some are known extremists that we’ve seen before.’
‘Are they Sudanese rebels or Islamic terrorists?’
‘The rhetoric suggests both. In either case it’s hard to imagine how they got hold of an MQ-9 Reaper. They cost thirty-two million dollars to buy.’
‘Any indication of where the group is based?’
‘The website is hosted in Russia, but SJS obviously isn’t there. They can’t be in one of the refugee camps, which have no connectivity. They could be holed up in a city, either Khartoum or Port Sudan.’
‘Keep looking.’
It was another hour before Shi Xiang reported, but he had the most important information of all. He walked in carrying a laptop computer. ‘We just received a photo from Tan Yuxuan in Port Sudan,’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s a fragment of the wreckage.’
Kai looked at the screen. The picture had been taken at night with a flash, but it was perfectly clear. In among the debris of corrugated iron and sheet rock was a piece of scorched and twisted Kevlar-type composite, the kind of lightweight material that drones were made of. Clearly visible was a white star in a blue disc, with red, white and blue stripes extending either side – the roundel of the United States Air Force.
‘I’ll be damned,’ said Kai. ‘It was the motherfucking Americans.’
‘It certainly looks that way.’
‘Make me twenty high-quality prints of this, please.’