INCARNATION by Daniel Easterman Page A

technicians from GCHQ.
    ‘Somebody in Baghdad was careless. One of the men I mentioned earlier, Muhammad Slaibi. He’s a civilian with the military rank of colonel. A Baath Party bigwig with responsibility for foreign exchange. He was using a car-phone without a scrambler, and he and the other party were speaking in English. The other man was the Chinese ambassador. Li Shuo. Is that right?’
    ‘Yes. He was very close to Deng. Some people think the ambassadorship was a means of putting him out to grass.’
    ‘I don’t think so. It wasn’t a long conversation, but it told us a lot more than either man would like us to know. A meeting is being set up for next week. Do you know someone called - I can’t pronounce this properly - Chen Tiaoyuan?’
    ‘Not personally. He’s the Chinese Minister for Minerals and Petroleum. A tough customer. One of the most powerful men in the Chinese politburo. He’s a chain smoker who practises chi gong regularly. They say he’s inordinately fond of the Peking Opera: he attends every performance of The Dream of the Red Chamber. They even come to his house and put on special performances for him and his family. He’s probably got more guanshi than the rest of the politburo put together.’
    ‘Guanshi?’
    ‘Pull. Contacts. Knowing people in the right places. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of Arabic words for it. Chen’s been to Baghdad a few times, hasn’t he?’
    ‘Mainly for conferences. But this isn’t a conference. He’s going to be the guest of honour, but attendance will be strictly limited. Saddam, the Iraqi Petroleum Minister, Li Shuo, Slaibi, and a handful of very private secretaries from both sides.’
    ‘I don’t see ...’
    ‘It was a long conversation. Slaibi’s a talkative man. They argued a little.’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘About whether Iraq could supply China with four hundred million barrels of oil over the next ten years.’
    ‘Four hundred? That’s ...’
    ‘It’s about half Iraq’s annual production.’
    ‘Is it? I was going to say it’s a bit under half of what China produces. What’s going on? The Chinese don’t need to import anything like that much.’
    ‘But they do need to import?’
    'Increasingly, yes. All the same, they have enormous reserves. They just need to up production.’
    David had ordered an Earl Grey tea with a sticky bun. He poured the tea into his cup and added a slice of lemon. Once upon a time, they’d called places like this transport cafes. Now they’d grown posh, all bright plastic and stainless steel. He sipped the tea. Nothing had changed.
    'I’m having difficulty tying all this together,’ he said. ‘In the car, you told me about troop movements. Now it’s a meeting to discuss oil exports.’
    ‘Our analysts think they’re connected. I mentioned two other names. One was Umar al-Hani. His name came up. Your man Chen wants to meet him while he’s in Baghdad. Al-Hani’s a general. To be precise, he’s the general in overall charge of weapons development within the Iraqi republic. The ambassador made a curious remark. He said “It’s only a matter of weeks now. Put everything in place. There’ll be no time to lose once the test is completed.”
    ‘We think they’re ready to supply a weapon to Saddam. Not just parts. A complete weapon. We think that’s what the troop movements are all about. He’s going to start another war. And this time he plans to win.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    ‘Y ou might have waited for me.’
    Sam nodded and continued eating. He’d heated up some sort of pie and chips in the microwave. Ever since his mother’s departure, the boy had grown ferociously independent. It worried David a little: if he was cooking his own meals now, what else might he demand to do in a year’s time?
    'I suppose there’s more food in the fridge?’ Another nod, another mouthful of chips. David went to the fridge and pulled out a Marks and Spencer’s Chinese platter.
    ‘You want to share some of this?’