Page 175 of Never

Suddenly he was tired. He had done almost a day’s work already. Now, when ordinary people were rising and getting ready for work, he wanted to go back to bed. This would not do. He was going to advise the president during a crisis. He wanted to steer China towards a conciliatory approach. He needed to be alert.

He could rest for a few minutes now, though. He closed his eyes. He must have dozed, for when he opened his eyes the car was driving through the Gate of the New China into the Zhongnanhai campus.

At the entrance to Qingzheng Hall, the presidential building, the dapper head of Presidential Security, Wang Qingli, was supervising the security operation. He greeted Kai amiably. The metal detector in the lobby beeped at the shaver in Kai’s pocket and he had to leave it with security. However, his name was on the list of people who were allowed to keep their phones.

The Situation Room was a bombproof underground vault. In a room like a sports hall, a conference table on a raised stage was surrounded by fifty or more desks, each with multiple screens. In addition there were giant screens all around the walls. Several of them were showing the fire in Port Sudan, where it was still dark.

Kai took out his phone and saw that he had a good signal. He called the Guoanbu and said to Peng Yawen: ‘Tell everyone to message me with developments. At this point I need to know everything in real time.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He crossed the room and stepped up onto the central stage. His boss, Security Minister Fu Chuyu, was already there, talking to General Huang Ling, who was in full uniform. They were the leaders of the old guard, and they believed in bold, assertive action. Fu pointedly turned his back on Kai: he was undoubtedly angry that Kai had gone on his own to see Wu Bai.

However, President Chen greeted Kai affably. ‘How are you, young Kai? Thank you for your report. You must have worked all night.’

‘We did, Mr President.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to take a nap while I’m talking.’

It was a self-deprecating joke, and to agree or disagree would have been equally impolite, so Kai laughed and said nothing. Chen often tried to put people at ease with humour, but he was not very good at it.

Kai nodded to Wu Bai and said: ‘Our second meeting today, Foreign Minister, and it’s not yet nine o’clock.’

Wu said: ‘The food’s not as good at this one.’ In the middle of the conference table, along with the usual bottles of water and trays of glasses, were plates of sachima pastries and green bean cake that looked several days old.

Kai’s father, Chang Jianjun, was honoured with a vigorous handshake from President Chen. Jianjun had helped to get him made president, but since then Chen had disappointed Jianjun and his cronies by his caution and restraint in international affairs.

Jianjun smiled at Kai, and Kai bowed his head, but they did not embrace: both felt that displays of family affection looked unprofessional on occasions such as this. Jianjun sat down with Huang Ling and Fu Chuyu, and they all lit cigarettes.

Aides and junior officials sat at some of the desks at lower level, but most remained unoccupied. The big room would probably not be filled for any event short of war.

The young National Defence Minister Kong Zhao came in, his hair stylishly disarranged as usual. He and Wu Bai sat together opposite the old guard. Battle lines were being drawn, Kai saw, like troops with swords and muskets facing each other across a field in the Opium Wars.

The commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, Admiral Liu Hua, was also part of the old guard, and after paying his respects to the president he sat next to Chang Jianjun.

Kai saw that President Chen’s gold Travers fountain pen had been laid on a leather-bound notepad at one end of the oval table. Kai placed himself at the opposite end, far from the president but equidistant from the rival factions. He belonged to the liberal bloc, but he pretended neutrality.

The president moved to his seat. A moment of danger was approaching. Kai remembered Wu’s parting remark two hours ago:What we must do is stop the warriors on both sides turning this into a bloodbath.

Chen held up a document that Kai recognized as his Vulture file. ‘You’ve all read this excellent and concise report from the Guoanbu.’ He turned to the security minister. ‘Thank you for that, Fu. Do you have anything to add?’

Fu did not bother to say that he had had nothing to do with the Vulture file, and in fact had been fast asleep while all the work was done. ‘Nothing to add, Mr President.’

Kai spoke up. ‘In the last few minutes we’ve heard something – only a rumour, but an interesting one.’

Fu glared at him. Kai had shown that he was more up to speed in the crisis. That will teach him to use my wife against me, Kai thought with satisfaction. Then he had a more cautious thought: I must be careful, I shouldn’t overdo it.

He went on: ‘People in Chad believe their army stole the drone from the Americans and gave it to Salafi Jihadi Sudan, as revenge for an attempt on the president’s life. It’s just possible that the rumour is true.’

‘Rumour?’ General Huang growled. ‘It sounds to me like a feeble American excuse.’ His Northern Mandarin accent sounded especially harsh today, the ‘w’ changed to ‘v’, an ‘r’ added to the end of some words, a nasal intonation to the ‘ng’ sound. ‘They’ve done something criminal and now they’re trying to evade responsibility.’

‘Perhaps,’ Kai said. ‘But—’

Huang persisted. ‘They did the same thing in 1999, when NATO bombed our embassy in Belgrade. They pretended that was an accident; they made the ludicrous excuse that the CIA got the address of our embassy wrong!’

The old guard around the table were nodding. ‘They believe our lives are worthless,’ Kai’s father said angrily. ‘They think nothing of killing a hundred Chinese people. They’re like the Japanese, who massacred three hundred thousand of us in Nanjing in 1937.’ Kai suppressed a groan. His father’s paranoid generation never ceased to bring up Nanjing. Jianjun went on: ‘But Chinese lives are precious, and we must show them that they cannot kill us without grave consequences.’

How far back in history are we going to go? Kai thought.