Wednesday
Instead of heading home, I drove to the library. Melissa, the head librarian, was behind the desk stacking returned books on a rolling cart. “We’re seeing a lot of you these days.”
“Libraries are my favorite places,” I said, trying to appear cheerful.
She arched an eyebrow. “Computer on the fritz again?”
“Busted.” I gave her a rueful smile.
I went online and searched for everything I could find about the Uyghurs, their history, and the rise of radical Islam in that part of the world. I pulled up more than I expected, including several short videos. One showed a group of police officers, and what looked like a Chinese SWAT team, swarming a car at a checkpoint. Another showed a car erupting into flames somewhere in Beijing. A third showed a group of demonstrators fleeing from police in riot gear. Another video revealed close-ups of women with bruises on their arms and faces, as well as shots of Uyghurs in various poses and settings, most of them with that curious mix of Asian and Caucasian features.
Then I Googled “drone strikes on Uyghurs.” The first article to come up, dated 2012, reported a drone strike that killed a Uyghur jihadi terrorist in eastern Turkistan, part of Uyghur territory. Except the strike came from a US drone, not a Chinese one. The US justified the attack by saying the jihadi was a known member of al-Qaeda. Why was I not surprised? The drones had probably been made by Delcroft.
Another article described a stealth drone manufactured by the Chinese that could be used aggressively. The Chinese claimed they were being used solely for surveillance on terrorists.
Sure.
There were also sporadic reports of explosions that were never explained, as well as people dying or disappearing in the desert that makes up most of the Tarim Basin.
A fifth video, this one on YouTube, claimed to be a drone attack in the Uyghur desert. The silent explosion, seen from above, sent clouds of dust and rocks flying and caused an eruption of flames that ate whatever had been there before. It looked like one of those scenes from Homeland when Carrie Mathison ordered drone strikes for the CIA. Finally, a CNN video news report claimed that the market for armed drones, led by Israel and the US, had mushroomed over the past few years and was worth more than twenty billion dollars.
So far everything Grace had told me was checking out.