The Malacca Conspiracy (22 page)

“Yes, General!” Goosebumps crawled over his body. He would be the general’s representative at the most important event in his nation’s history.

“The two remaining devices will remain under the control of our forces here on Java, where Colonel Croon will direct the ground logistics of tomorrow’s operation.” Perkasa nodded at Colonel Croon.

Colonel Croon nodded in return. “Of course, General.”

“Hassan.” Perkasa looked back at Taplus. “Make sure that our friends at TVRI have a crew on the spot to record the event, along with a live satellite uplink capability.” A pause. “Can you handle all this?” Perkasa put his hand on Hassan’s shoulder.

“General, you can trust me. I will not let you down. You have my word.”

“Good. Then I want you to remain here at the air base and oversee the unloading and proper transportation of these nuclear materials. Colonel Croon will drive me back to our quarters, where we will continue to work on tomorrow afternoon’s military operations.”

“Yes, sir, General.”

“Let us get to work,” the general said. “In forty-eight hours, we will have crossed the rivers of history, and we will have emerged on the splendid, sparkling shores of our great destiny!”

Hassan got out of the car. A minute later, it disappeared from sight.

He walked to the 737 to inspect its deadly cargo. Within two days, if he performed his duties to perfection, he could become the youngest general in the Indonesian army, a key player in the world’s newest superpower.

St. Stephen’s Catholic Church
Jakarta, Indonesia

10:45 a.m.

K
ristina stepped into the confessional room and started to make the sign of the cross. Then she stopped.

It had been so long since she had made the sign that she realized she had forgotten how to do it. Was she supposed to cross from right to left? Or was it left to right?

She tried right to left. That seemed right. If she was wrong, surely God would understand.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

“Do I hear a voice that is familiar?” The sound of the warm, accepting voice from behind the blinds was as comforting as it had been before.

“Perhaps, Father. I was here a few days ago.”

“Yes. I seem to remember your voice. We priests get very good at that, you know. Are you coming to confess the sin of leaving prematurely before?”

She wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I cannot promise you that I will not leave prematurely again today.”

“Hmm. You can run from God’s priests. We are but men, full of flaws like other men. But none of us can run from God. The Scripture proclaims that the eyes of the Lord are everywhere. He is omniscient, omnipresent, and all-seeing.”

“Yes, Father. In my head, I know this to be true. Yet I continue to run, and often in the wrong direction.”

“We have all run in the wrong direction, my child. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd of our souls, grieves in his heart if even the least of us goes astray. So tell me, why have you come today?”

Could she trust anyone? Even a priest? The priest was God’s representative. Surely she could trust God. “I am afraid something bad is about to happen, Father. Something very bad. I found some information, I think, and if the wrong people know I discovered it, I will die.”

“I see.” The calm voice was reassuring. “Remember the words of the Scripture. ‘Fear not, for I am with thee. My rod and my staff, they comfort thee…Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, bring your requests to God…And the peace of God, that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.’”

The words of the Scripture were strangely comforting to her, even in the midst of the horrible black storm in which she found herself at the moment.

“You know that your words are safe here, my daughter,” the reassuring voice continued. “What would you like to share with me?”

Her breath quickened. Sweat drenched her body. She looked up. The picture of Jesus hung on the wall, just as before. “I saw their plan, Father. I saw their plan and I believe it.”

The priest did not respond. Perhaps he was calling another priest to hear this. Perhaps she should go. Now.

“What is so bad that is going to happen?” The voice brought her back into her chair.

She gazed at the picture. Were his eyes following her? “Someone is
going to die, Father.” A huge exhale. She touched the Bible on the table under the lamp below the picture. She closed her eyes.

“Who is going to die?”

“Someone important. Someone very important.”

“Can you tell me who?”

“I’m so afraid, Father. I’m afraid they will kill me too.”

“Fear not, my child. You are safe in the church.”

“I feel safe nowhere.”

“You are safe here.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Okay. If you cannot tell me who, can you tell me when?”

She gasped. Water. She needed water. Her eyes met the picture again. “Soon, Father. A very important person will die soon.”

“You sound like you are having trouble breathing.”

“I must go, Father. I’ve said too much already.” She stood and reached for the door.

“No. Please…”

She opened the door and sprinted down the hall, out into the sunshine. Under a palm tree, she bent over and heaved. She wanted to vomit, but she could not. Water. She needed water.

The Pentagon

11:30 p.m.

C
appuccinos might be popular in New York, at the New York Mercantile Exchange, at Starbucks, and at other pricey coffee joints around America, but black coffee was the order of the day in the inner sanctum of the Pentagon, where officers of the United States military came together to plot and war-game and mastermind America’s defense.

Or in this case, black coffee was the order of the night. Though he had been assigned a Bachelor Officers Quarters room at nearby Fort Myer, Lieutenant Robert Molster had erected a cot in “the Building,” as the Pentagon was called, to do his best to keep a watchful eye on whoever or whatever was out there. This night watch was mandated by the twelve-hour time difference between Washington and Singapore. The middle of the night in Washington was the middle of the next day in the Malacca Strait region.

Molster checked his watch.

23:30 hours.

11:30
P.M.
in Washington meant it was 11:30
A.M.
in Singapore and Kuala Lampur, 10:30
A.M.
in Jakarta. He was used to staying up all night. That had been his job in New York. But in New York, he slept during the day.

Here, he had been conducting daytime briefings in the Pentagon to get the top brass up to speed on the intricacies of the oil markets and paying attention to the markets all night. He’d had time only for brief naps.

He felt like an alley cat. Half-awake. Half-asleep.

His body wasn’t sure whether to sleep or to wake up. He sat on the side of his cot and eyed the small picture of Janie. The image of her jet-black hair, her rosy cheeks, and her electrifying grin…she could bring a smile to his face even through the glass of a plain five-by-seven picture frame.

Since the limit moves and attacks in the Malaccan Strait, there had been nothing.

A couple of swigs of the now-lukewarm black coffee were left. No point in letting it go to waste. Bottoms up. All gone. Bitter.

It was a bit unusual to have real-time financial data reflecting commodities movement streaming into the Pentagon. Except for the fact that he was wearing a US Navy uniform, Molster could almost imagine himself back in New York.

Almost.

But when financial data or any other data becomes valuable to the United States military, such data becomes military intelligence.

So here he was. Brought here by fate. The perfect hybrid officer, in the eyes of the military, combining his unique military intelligence training with his unique commodities expertise.

“I’m going to try and catch some shut-eye, fellows,” he said to the two other intelligence duty officers, an army captain and an air force first lieutenant. “Wake me up if there’s so much as a minor blip on those charts.”

“Not a problem, Lieutenant,” the captain said.

Bob unbuttoned his whites, kicked off his shoes, and slipped under a sheet. The pillow felt relaxing to the back of his head.

He closed his eyes. The light hum of computer equipment and the
soft, occasional murmur of voices served as an inconsequential backdrop to the images from his past that floated in his mind.

Disjointed images.

Beautiful, softly glowing, colorful pictures.

The red brick rotunda at the University of Virginia…Small craft crisscrossing the Hudson River on a moonlit night. His first glimpse of Janie, so confident, yet with a haunting beauty, as she sat behind the recruiter’s table at UVA.

Oil futures.

Limit moves.

Charts.

More limit moves.

The comforting veil of sleep descended over him.

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

“Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”

Molster opened his eyes to the glare of the overhead fluorescent lights. The computer’s alarm was on fire, or so it seemed.

The army captain and air force lieutenant were huddled over their computer screens. “Looks like we’ve got a huge limit move in progress, Lieutenant,” the army captain said. “Tons of sharp volume.”

Still in his T-shirt, Molster popped onto the floor and peered over the captain’s shoulder. He squinted his eyes and gazed at the screen.

“Here we go again,” he said. His stomach churned and knotted. “Lieutenant,” Molster tapped the air force lieutenant on the back of the shoulder. “Notify the J–2 duty officer. Limit move in crude oil.” He checked the time. “Mark it. 23:42 hours. Per standing orders. Alert chain of command. Immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” the air force lieutenant said. He picked up the phone to call the J–2 duty officer.

Mexican freighter
Salina Cruz
Near the Texas coast

1:30 a.m.

C
aptain Alberto Mendoza throttled his freighter into neutral. The running lights of two other vessels blinked across the black waters, but under a new moon, it was impossible to see who or what they were.

His local radar swept the fifteen-mile circumference around the freighter
Salina Cruz.

Based on the radar sweep, they were probably a couple of small trawlers out of Brownsville. Definitely not the right reading for a US Coast Guard cutter.

Other than that, nothing.

Mendoza turned to his guest. “We are at the drop point. Seven miles from shore. Are you ready?”

“Ready,
amigo,”
the skinny man with the black scruffy beard spoke in an accent that was not Hispanic.

Mendoza did not know the man’s real name. All he knew was that the man’s name supposedly was Rahman.

They were all named
Rahman,
it seemed. Every one of them. And they’d paid him more money than he’d ever seen in his life to sail to this spot off the Texas coast, under cover of darkness, to offload cargo
and
to keep his mouth shut.

“My crew will help you disembark.” Mendoza waved his hand. His first officer scrambled out onto the deck. Five Mexican deckhands began swinging three rubber boats, all inflatable, down toward the dark waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Rahman’s crew scrambled over the side, descending rope ladders, making their way down to the boats. A moment passed.

“Everyone in place?” Mendoza yelled down to the water.

“All ready.”

“Okay, we’re lowering the boxes.”

Mendoza gave the command. A crane onboard began lowering the first of three plywood boxes, about twice the size of a large coffin, down over the side. The boxes bore the words
Bottled Water
painted in English.

Probably cocaine or heroin. But Mendoza did not ask. Too many questions meant no repeat business. The manifest declared that the boxes were bottled water, and that would be his story if the Coast Guard stopped him on the high seas.

He struck a cigarette and leaned over the side of his ship. The stars cast a faint glow onto the waters of the Gulf. The whining sound of the ship’s cargo crane blended with the mild breeze blowing from the east. He watched as the third box of “bottled water” to be offloaded from his
two-hundred-twenty-foot ship this week disappeared into the darkness below.

Moments later, the sound of outboard motors ignited from the surface, and then the sound of the three rubber craft pulling away, starting their westward journey to the Texas coast.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mendoza shouted. “Set course for one-eightzero degrees.”

“Sì, Capitan,”
came the voice of his first officer from inside the pilot room.

Mendoza flipped his cigarette overboard, watching the red, burning tip whirl down in the wind as
Salina Cruz
began her wide-sweeping turn to head back to her home port of Tampico, Mexico.

Gag Island
West Papua, Indonesia

3:30 p.m.

C
aptain Hassan Taplus stood on the sandy beaches of the remote tropical island and gazed seaward to the southwest. Only a hundred miles south of the equator, the sun was blazing high above the horizon and he could hear the sound of helicopters approaching. He brought his binoculars to his eyes for a closer look.

So far, nothing but water and horizon.

The sound of the rotors grew louder.

He swung the binoculars slightly to the right. Two choppers appeared in the viewfinder. They approached through the blue skies, low over the water, perhaps a half-mile downrange.

“Excellent.” He checked his watch and smiled. “Right on time.”

More goosebumps. When this operation was complete, his ascendance up the Indonesian military command would become a fait accompli.