Because of those long hours and the tunnel vision that tended to set in as a result, perhaps she could be forgiven for being so oblivious, for so long, to the obvious target of Abdallah Jones’s preparations. Xiamen was hosting an international conference, bringing in diplomats from all over the globe. Ostensibly this was to celebrate the 350th anniversary of Zheng Chenggong’s liberation of Taiwan from the Dutch. But everyone knew that the real agenda was to discuss relations between Taiwan and mainland China and that very significant developments might be announced there. Some radical Islamists claimed Zheng Chenggong as one of their own, and accordingly considered Taiwan to be part of the Islamic Caliphate. It was a forlorn pretense, but anyway they were furious about oppression of Muslims in western China, so any excuse would suffice.