That was a spark of hope.
Chen went on: ‘One bomb will destroy the little camp the Japanese have built, and probably kill most of the sailors there too. Admiral Liu, what ships do we have in the neighbourhood?’
Liu was already consulting his laptop, and he replied immediately. ‘The aircraft carrier Fujian is fifty miles away. The ship has forty-four aircraft including thirty-two Flying Shark fighter jets. The Flying Shark carries four laser-guided bombs, each of a thousand pounds. I suggest we send two planes, one to drop the bomb and one to film the attack.’
‘Give the ship the exact target co-ordinates and tell them to prepare to launch, please, admiral.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kai spoke up at last, but he did not argue directly against the bombing. Instead he said: ‘We should consider the likely American reaction to this. We don’t want to be taken by surprise.’
Kong Zhao backed him immediately. ‘The Americans will not stand aside and do nothing. That would make their defence treaty with Japan look meaningless. They have to do something.’
Wu Bai adjusted the display handkerchief in his breast pocket and said: ‘President Green will avoid aggressive action if she possibly can. She was weak about the GIs killed with Norinco rifles in Chad; weak about the American geologists who went down with the Vu Trong Phung; and, at first, weak about the deaths of Americans in South Korea, until our comrades in Pyongyang were so foolish as to use chemical weapons. I don’t think she’ll go to war over a few Japanese sailors. There will be some token retaliation, even perhaps a purely diplomatic response.’
Wishful thinking, thought Kai, but there was no point in saying it.
Admiral Liu said: ‘Mr President, jets are ready.’
Chen said: ‘Order them to take off.’
Liu spoke into his phone. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘I say again, go.’
The second jet was filming the first, and one of the screens in the Situation Room had a clear picture. Kai saw the rear of the first Flying Shark, with its distinctive upright fins and twin exhausts. A moment later it sped along the deck, swooped up the curved ski-jump take-off ramp at the front of the aircraft carrier, then climbed fast into the sky. The camera followed, and for a moment Kai felt a touch of nausea as it gathered speed and shot off the end of the ramp.
As the two jets accelerated someone said: ‘How the fuck fast do they go?’
Admiral Lui said: ‘Top speed is around one thousand five hundred miles per hour.’ After a pause he added: ‘They won’t reach anywhere near that on this short journey.’
The jets climbed until they were too high to see ships, and attention turned back to the video footage from the drone. The picture showed the Japanese sailors in their camp. The tents now stood in a neat row and some of the men appeared to be making lunch. Others were on the tiny beach, horsing around, splashing and throwing sand. One of their number was filming them on a smartphone.
Their blissful ignorance lasted only a few seconds more.
Some of them looked up, perhaps having heard the jets. The aircraft must have seemed too far away to be a threat, and their markings could not possibly be visible from the ground, so the sailors at first just stood there staring.
The first jet banked and turned, followed by the camera in the second plane, and then started its bombing run.
Perhaps the sailors got some kind of warning from their submarine, for suddenly they grabbed automatic rifles and shoulder-mounted missile launchers and quickly took up defensive positions in what looked like a prearranged pattern around the tiny island. Their launchers, the size and shape of sixteenth-century muskets, were probably a Japanese version of the American FIM-92 that fired a Stinger anti-aircraft missile.
Admiral Liu said: ‘The jets are at about thirty thousand feet and flying at five hundred feet per second. Those hand-held weapons pose no threat.’
For a moment all was still. The sailors on the island held position, and the first jet remained steady in the camera lens of the second. Admiral Liu said: ‘Bombs away,’ and Kai thought he detected a flicker that might have been the release of a missile.
Then the little island exploded in flame and smoke. Sand and rocks were flung into the air, emerging from the smoke and falling into the sea, along with pale objects that looked horribly like body parts. A cheer went up from the military men in the Situation Room.
Kai did not join in.
Slowly the debris settled, the smoke cleared, and the surface of the water returned to normal.
No one was left alive.
The Situation Room was quiet.