Page 168 of Never
‘Fair enough.’
Tamara called Tab at the French embassy. ‘What do you know about the fire at Port Sudan?’
‘Only what’s on TV,’ he said. ‘I love you too, by the way.’
She stifled a giggle. In a lowered voice she said: ‘Knock it off. I’m in an open-plan office.’
‘Sorry.’
‘I told you last night what I’m afraid of.’
‘You mean the revenge theory.’
‘Yes.’
‘You think this could be it?’
‘I do.’
‘There’ll be trouble.’
‘You bet your sweet ass.’ She hung up.
No one but Tamara was worried about this, and, around five o’clock, people started to drift away from their desks.
Soon afterwards the government in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, added to their original announcement, saying that some twenty people had been rescued from the fire, including four Chinese engineers who had been working on the construction of the new dock. Some Chinese women and children, the families of the engineers, had also been rescued. CNN explained that the dock was being built with Chinese expertise as well as money, and that something like a hundred Chinese engineers were involved in the project. Tamara wondered about the people who hadnotbeen rescued.
Still there was no suggestion of sabotage, and Tamara was beginning to hope that this would turn out to be a genuine accident, with no political implications.
She scanned the web again, and this time she stopped at a site operated by a group calling itself Salafi Jihadi Sudan. She had not heard of them before. The group condemned the backsliding government of Sudan, especially as symbolized by the corrupt Chinese-led tanker dock project. It congratulated heroic SJS fighters for bringing off today’s attack.
Tamara called Susan, who said: ‘It was my fucking drone – the one that went missing.’
‘Shit.’
‘It dropped bombs on the refinery and the half-built new dock, then crashed.’
‘Chinese engineers were building that dock.’
‘They struck at thirteen twenty-one.’
‘An American drone has killed Chinese engineers. There’s going to be hell to pay.’
Tamara hung up then sent Dexter the link to the SJS site. She sent the same to Tab.
Then she sat back and thought: What will the Chinese do now?
CHAPTER 24
Chang Kai’s phone was ringing but, to his intense frustration, he could not find the instrument. He woke up and realized he had been dreaming, but his phone was still ringing. He found it on the bedside table. The caller was Fan Yimu, the overnight manager at the Guoanbu office. He said: ‘I’m sorry to wake you in the middle of the night, sir.’
‘Oh, hell,’ said Kai. ‘North Korea has blown up.’
‘No, nothing like that.’
Kai was relieved. The rebels and the regime had been stalemated for ten days, and he was hoping the situation would somehow get resolved without civil war. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said.
Ting snuggled up to him without opening her eyes. He put his arm around her and stroked her hair. ‘So what has happened?’ he said to Fan.
