The Malacca Conspiracy

Chapter 7

Residence of General Perkasa

Jakarta, Indonesia

3:00 a.m.

With the excited voices and sounds of clinking glass intermixed with the droll hum of the large ceiling fan over their bed, Kristina thought that she had been dreaming. Perhaps one of the servants had neglected to turn the television off.

She rolled to her right and reached out for the warm body of her man. When she felt only the fluff of a pillow, her eyes opened. Light seeped under the door from the hallway outside.

The voices were not from the television. They were real. Some were familiar voices.

She felt for her robe, stood, pulled it over her shoulders, and tied it. She put on the slippers that he had bought her and crept across the dark floor toward the door.

Laughing. Cackling. Backslapping. The sounds of a drunken boys’ club.

“The General,” as he demanded to be called, was among the voices booming outside the doorway. His friend and sidekick, Dr. Budi, was another. The others she did not recognize.

Perhaps she should just get dressed now, slip out, and go home.

But what if he discovered she had left without his permission?

Suppose he became angry and tracked her down? He was already one of the most powerful men in the nation, next to the president himself. His minions could find her. And where could she go except to her small, government-subsidized apartment in South Jakarta?

How would she support herself without his help?

Her meager income as a ceramic maker along the streets of South Jakarta had ended in the name of the governor’s “urban beautification” project. Flower vendors, ceramic makers, poor women embroidering on the roadside for visiting foreigners who offered pennies for their handiwork-they had become a “public nuisance” in the governor’s eyes. The police had showed up in riot gear with billy clubs and high-pressure water hoses. “You are operating without legal licenses,” a policeman with a bullhorn announced. “Leave now, or you will be removed.”

A moment later, a torrential blast of pressurized water knocked them off their feet and swooshed the fruits of their labor onto the sidewalk and into the gutters.

Most lost everything.

Kristina got lucky.

A British woman, a pretty blonde lady in her thirties named Elizabeth Martin who was married to a British Petroleum executive, had purchased a few items of ceramic from her over the years. By happenstance, they had met on the streets a few weeks after the cleansing. Elizabeth mentioned that she wished to hire another member of the household staff. Technically, the job description was seamstress. But Kristina wound up doing almost everything-taking the Martins’ kids to school, shopping at the market for groceries, watching the children in the evenings while her employers attended social events.

Elizabeth, who was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, was closer in age to Kristina. The two women became friends.

Last August 17-Indonesian Independence Day-another twist of fate had changed Kristina’s life.

Elizabeth’s husband Tom, who was friends with the British ambassador to Indonesia, was invited to attend the hoisting of the flag at Merdeka Palace.

Hosted by President Santos and Vice President Magadia, and attended by top military officials, government dignitaries, and special guests of those dignitaries, it was the most solemn annual event in Indonesia, an event that Indonesia’s poor could only watch on television, if they were lucky enough to get to a television.

But by a stroke of fate, the British Embassy had allotted Kristina’s boss five tickets. Four of the tickets would be used by her employer, his wife, and their two children. She was offered the fifth.

Their seats were in front of the fountain, on the lush green grass of the National Monument Gardens. The white-columned Merdeka Palace, the presidential palace of Indonesia, stood majestically just across Medan Merdeka Utara Avenue.

The wind was whipping that day, and she felt occasional mist from the gushing fountains behind her.

The crowd rose for the entrance of President Santos, who took a seat at the center of the large portico amidst the white columns, no more than one hundred meters from where they were sitting. Decorated military officers and a host of other dignitaries, officials of the Indonesian government, surrounded the president.

Crack troops of the Indonesian army marched along the parade grounds to brass and percussion. As they marched by, she noticed one of the officers in the presidential entourage, a stout man in the green army uniform with all the glistening ribbons and sparkling medals. Was he looking at her? His eyes returned to her several times. Perhaps he was looking at something else, she had decided at the time.

After all the troops had marched in and filled the parade grounds, and after President Santos made a short speech about the greatness of Indonesia, a group of schoolboys dressed in the national colors of red and white had done the honors of raising the giant flag against the solemn music of the national anthem played by an army band.

Confetti, elation, applause, and tears of pride flowed freely among the masses as the Indonesian flag, furling in the tropical wind, reached the top of the flagpole.

Kristina could not believe that she was actually here, at the presidential palace, at a magnificent time and place with the eyes of the nation watching. Tears flowed. Only weeks before she had been knocked off her feet by the powerful blast of water hoses. Now this.

Perhaps there was a God. Perhaps that moment had been evidence of it.

Her parents, who had been devout Catholics and who had raised her in the church, had taught her that there was a God, and that he was a God of redemption.

She thought of her parents, who had been killed in a car crash, and of her brother, Asmoro, from whom she was partially estranged.

Asmoro had rejected Christianity and embraced Islam. Then he had rushed off to join the Indonesian navy. His conversion to Islam had separated Asmoro from her, and from her parents while they were alive. Although she rarely saw him anymore, she occasionally received a letter, but he kept Kristina at arm’s length. He kept quiet about his assignment with special forces of the Indonesian navy. He was stationed in Sumatra, she had heard, at a naval station along the Malaccan Strait.

Asmoro certainly didn’t believe in her parents’ God, but maybe Kristina did. Perhaps she had now been redeemed.

With fireworks crackling and cannons booming and the throngs of the masses cheering, someone tapped her shoulder.

Perhaps the tap of an angel.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” She turned and saw a young, slim Indonesian army officer. At least she thought he was an officer. “General Suparman Perkasa would like to meet you.”

“General who?” she had asked.

“I am Captain Taplus,” the army man had said. “General Perkasa is chief of staff of the Indonesian army. I am on the general’s staff.”

She looked up into the presidential box. The rotund army man in the green uniform was looking down her way, smiling and slowly nodding. And then, a wave of his hand.

“The general would like to meet you and requests the honor of your company for a private lunch at his quarters.”

She had turned and glanced at Elizabeth Martin, whose blonde hair blew softly in the warm Indonesian breeze. “It is up to you,” Elizabeth said with both a raised eyebrow and a smile. “If you would like to go meet the general, your job will wait. It’s entirely up to you, my dear.”

In retrospect, she knew Elizabeth was trying to give her a way out. And a voice had screamed on the inside of her that she should decline the invitation at that instant and return to her domestic duties at the Martin household. But there, at that moment, in the tropical sunshine of her native land, she stood on the precipice of a decision. It was as if her feet were upon two cliffs, and the cliffs were inching farther apart, leaving below her a deep chasm from which she would never survive if she did not choose. And indeed, it had proven to be a decision between two worlds. She had glanced back into Elizabeth’s eyes one last time, but when the breeze brought an alluring whiff of the handsome young captain’s cologne, she turned back and looked at him, so utterly manly in his uniform, and then across the street at the general, still nodding and smiling and sitting next to the president. She knew in that instant that, both her country and the prospect of an exciting new life were calling her.

She had stood, and in an oxymoronic moment of nervousness blended with the starry-eyed excitement of a schoolgirl first in love, accompanied the captain to a private dining room at a nearby military base. Thirty minutes later, the rotund man in the green uniform came through the doors and began a relationship in which he could simply snap his fingers and have her there at his powerful whim, and then send her away for days until he needed her again.

Not that she totally objected. The benefits had in some respects been mutual. A poor girl transformed overnight by the trappings of power and luxury!

Despite it all, the emptiness in Kristina’s soul was not fulfilled. She felt like a part-time concubine, switching back and forth from the luxurious trappings of the general’s quarters to her meager government apartment.

She had tried mustering the strength to talk to the priest about it, but ran away, as she had done all her life.

She shuffled over to the door, cracking it slightly open. Light poured in from the hallway. She looked and saw no military servants on the second floor. The voices came from downstairs.

Hugging the wall, Kristina tiptoed slowly toward the spiraling staircase. She reached the open area by the top of the staircase and peeked around the corner of the wall for a look down.

All the lights were on-the great chandelier hanging over the main entryway of the house was burning brightly. Lamps were burning on tables on each side of the foyer.

The two military aides who normally stood guard in the first-floor foyer were nowhere to be seen.

A silver rolling tray, with an assortment of bottles filled with liquors and wines, had been parked beside the door opening into the general’s study. Some of the bottles were empty. Others looked half-empty. The tray had not been there when the general had summoned her to bed two hours ago.

General Suparman Perkasa’s voice boomed loudest. He was laughing and kept saying, “We’re rich.” The other voices were not as clear.

She took one step down the staircase. Then another. An invisible magnet was drawing her, inexplicably, closer to the foyer. She did not know why, but she sensed that danger lurked behind that door. Yet something would not let her turn around.

Her foot touched the bottom step. The cold chill of the tile sent a prickle up her calf and leg.

“Let’s get some more liquor!” the general said. The door, now just three feet from her, started to move. She darted into the black crevices of the dark dining room, just across the foyer from the study.

A creaking sound, the sound of the door to the study being slowly pushed open, cut through the foyer. Kristina wedged her body into the front, upper corner of the dining room.

The clicking of leather shoes across the tile floor.

“I will try some more of that Russian vodka!” a voice demanded. Clinking. Clanking of bottles and glasses.

“Then vodka it is!” The voice of the general.

“How nice of you to give your staff the night off, General!”

“They are members of the army,” General Perkasa said. “Their loyalty may still be with Santos. For now, he is still their commander in chief. We cannot risk having anyone outside of this circle hear anything. They will all know soon enough. There’s plenty of vodka. Anybody want rum?”

“Scotch, please,” a voice said.

“Coming right up,” the general said.

“Thank you, General.” The voice of the doctor.

“Thank you, General.” An unfamiliar voice.

“We can discuss the Santos problem later. But for now, I propose we have a toast,” the general said. “To one hundred million dollars apiece!”

“To one hundred million dollars apiece!” said another voice.

“And to millions and billions for our cause!” another voice said.

“To millions and billions!” More clanking glasses. More laughter and revelry.

“Yes, to our cause!”

“To the Islamic Superpower of Indonesia!”

The clanking of glasses. More laughter. A moment of silence.

“General.” The voice of Perkasa’s sidekick, Dr. Guntur Budi, struck a solemn tone.

“What is it, Guntur?”

“I know that we had agreed to discuss this later, but an overwhelming foreboding compels me to bring this up now.”

“My dear Guntur. You sound disappointed that you have become one of the richest men in Indonesia.”

“I am a physician, my general. My commitment is to a greater cause. I wish to give my money to our cause.” A pause. “Perhaps we could close the doors again.”

Thank God. The doors creaked, and she heard them shut. Perhaps she should scurry back up the steps. But she could not go. Not yet.

“You were saying, Guntur.” The general’s voice was muffled, but still audible.

“I was saying, General, that I am aware of the strategic military plans to attack the presidential palace with our own forces, but I wish to present a better alternative.”

“A better alternative?” Perkasa raised his eyebrow. “Doctor, I know that you are brilliant, but in addition to being Indonesia’s finest physician, are you now telling me that you have also become a military strategist?” Perkasa asked this in a half-mocking tone, chuckling as he appeared to pause and swig down liquor, and eliciting the laughter of others at his mock indignation.

“My dear general,” Budi was saying, his voice solemn, obviously not acquiescing to the collective joviality of the moment. “The problem is that if military action is taken directly against the presidential palace, and you ascend to power in the wake of such action, then you will be viewed as the head of a military junta that could damage your credibility with a number of nations around the world.”

“Doctor,” the general shot back, “if you are suggesting that my credibility would be damaged in the eyes of the Americans and the nations of the West, well not only do I not care about that, but I would think that this would bolster my allies among the only nations that count, namely our Muslim brothers.”

“Perhaps,” Budi said, having sucked the general from frivolity to at least a serious conversational mode. “But what about in debates involving nations of the third world in the forum of the United Nations and other forums? Would it not be better to preserve as much credibility for you as we can upon the international stage?”

There was a slight pause. “Bring me another drink,” Perkasa snapped. “Ahh, Guntur, I see that not only are you a physician, but also a military tactician, and now a diplomat. To Dr. Budi!” Perkasa said, and from what she could hear, they appeared to be drinking a toast. “Now then, Guntur, since you have become not only a physician, but also a military tactician, and now a diplomat, I must confess that you have piqued my curiosity. So tell me…what is this better way that you would propose? Hmm?”

There was a pause, and then the doctor spoke up again. “General, I wish not only to give my money to our cause. But I also wish to give of my body.”

Grave silence followed that comment. “Are you suggesting martyrdom, my friend?”

“I am. And I am ready.”

More silence.

“No one has asked you to do this.”

“No one but Allah the Merciful.”

“Well.” The general’s tone grew somber and deliberate. “Not even a general of the army can argue with Allah.”

“No, General.”

“Tell me, Dr. Budi, has Allah given you specific guidance on how you are to sacrifice your body?”

“He has,” the doctor said slowly. His voice trembled with emotion.

“And how has he directed you, my friend?”

Another pause.

“I now see the reason he has given me direct access to the president. This…my destiny…was preordained from the beginning of time. The president has had many opportunities to repent of his ways and return to the Great Faith. I have access to him at will. He has a physical scheduled in only a few days.

“My brother is also a physician, a surgeon, here in Jakarta. We are of like mind. He will assist me. A trust will hold my money after my martyrdom. Funds from it shall be used to buy weapons of freedom for our cause.”

Kristina’s stomach knotted. Were they talking about murder? About murder of the president?

“That is noble of you, Dr. Budi, but we shall consider your offer as a group-”

“But, General, I-”

“As a group, Doctor. We have come this far as a group. We will decide together. But I thank Allah for your bravery.”

“General.” This was another voice that she did not recognize.

“Yes, Colonel.”

“I also commend the doctor for his bravery. But that begs another question. What about the vice president? Should we not make plans for him as well?”

There was a pause, as if the men had not thought of this question.

“Actually, I have been thinking about the vice president,” the general was saying. “The vice president is weaker than the president. It seems that the vice president could be useful in legitimizing the new government. I believe he can be persuaded to throw his support behind our cause and to declare us as the new ruling government.” A pause. “Do you know what I mean?”

There was laughter.

The general continued. “Vice President Magadia is vacationing at Istana Bogor for the next ten days. Once this operation begins, we sequester him there. If he decides not to cooperate…Well, that will be his unfortunate choice.”

“I agree.”

“Excellent idea, General.”

The general spoke again. “Colonel Croon, you are in charge of that phase of the operation.”

“Yes, General.”

Kristina could not listen to any more of this. If someone even suspected that she had heard this information, not even General Perkasa could protect her. In fact, he would probably kill her himself.

She covered her ears, prayed that God would send an angel to bar the door to the study, and then stepped into the hall.

She started to run back up the stairs. “Did you hear something, General?” the doctor asked.

She turned the corner at the top of the stairs and ran toward the bedroom.

“I’ll check,” the general’s voice boomed.

She heard the door open, the sound of the squeaking hinges echoing up the staircase.

Kristina jumped into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Click. Click. Click. The sound of patent leather boots echoed against the tile foyer. A pause. Click. Click. Click. Now the sound of boots coming up the staircase.

Another pause.

“I don’t see anything,” the general’s voice boomed. Click. Click. Click. The sound of boots stepping from the wooden staircase to the tile floor of the foyer.

Creeeak. A door closed.

Kristina buried her head in the pillow. She felt her pulse pounding against the silk sheets.

She closed her eyes, turning and twisting. Had she just overheard a plot to assassinate President Santos?

Turning again under the covering, it was as if someone had dumped bags of ice all over her body. She felt clammy under the sheets.

Lying there, under the covers, the images in her mind faded in and out. President Santos that day at Merdeka Palace…The first time she saw the general sitting near the president…Policemen with fire hoses…Bleeding knees and crying children…Elizabeth Martin’s kind face…

“Jesus,” she whispered, though she had not been to Mass in years, “please help me get out of here safely.”

A supernatural peace of sorts fell over her. She closed her eyes and soon began drifting off to sleep.

A while later, her eyes opened to the sound of the general’s loud snoring. She squinted at the digital alarm clock beside the bed.

Four A.M.

She’d been sleeping a little less than an hour.

He’d probably just come to bed. He had not touched her. Good. That usually meant he had drunk at least four glasses. Sometimes she would pour another glass to make him leave her alone.

She pulled sheets from over her legs and slipped off the side of the bed. Tiptoeing across the floor to the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, she conducted her business, but did not flush for fear of awakening him.

She finished and stood at the door looking toward the bed.

The snoring stopped. Perkasa rolled over. A cough. Another cough.

A deep swallow.

The sound of the general licking his chops, like a bulldog about to pounce on a piece of raw steak. And then, even louder.

She looked at the clock again. He would be up at five o’clock, if he didn’t awaken before then. That’s when he always woke up. She had less than an hour.

Kristina slipped on a bathrobe, then quietly tiptoed toward the nightstand on her side of the bed. She unplugged the cell phone and stuck it in her bathrobe pocket. Moving noiselessly across the floor, she pushed the bedroom door open and stepped into the hallway.

The house was dark, except for dim light from the stars streaming in through the windows high in the foyer. She flipped open her cell phone. Using its pale, incandescent glow as a dim flashlight, she headed down the winding staircase.

The rhythmic sounds of the general’s deep snoring reverberated throughout the house, but when her feet again touched the cold tile floor of the first-floor foyer, the snoring was more distant.

Kristina held her cell phone in the direction of the general’s study. The ghostly light revealed that the door was closed. She placed her hand on the brass doorknob. The cool sensation of it against the palm of her hand seemed to wake her a bit, and to embolden her.

She turned the knob and pushed the door. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak!

Woof. Woof. The bark of the general’s German shepherd, Salim, cut through the outer stucco walls of the house. Kristina pressed her back hard against the dining room wall, then eased down onto the floor in a sitting position, wedging her body into the corner.

BaWoof. Woof!

Then silence. Kristina exhaled.

She crept from the dining room back into the foyer. The soft light from her cell phone reminded her that the door from the study was still partially open. The squeaking from the door had set the dog off.

Holding her breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the spacious study. This time no squeaking.

The computer’s screen saver, which featured a photograph of the Merdeka presidential palace, cast enough light in the room to reveal a slew of empty and half-empty liquor bottles, shot glasses, and wine glasses.

The only noise within the room was the hum of the computer.

Kristina walked toward it and sat down on the leather swivel chair. She tapped the space bar. The image of Merdeka Palace disappeared.

A word processing file materialized.

THE MALACCA PLAN

TOP SECRET

Overview

The Strategic Alliance-Purpose

Strategic Alliance with Council of Ishmael

Plan for Revenue-Raising By Purchase of Oil futures

Strategic Attacks Upon International Shipping and Oil Tankers

Plan for Purchase of Geo-strategic Weaponry

Plan for Indonesian Transition of Statehood

The Elimination of President Santos

The Sequestration of VP Magadia

Plan for Neutralizing and Defeating Anticipated Military Interference by the United States of America

Plan for Strategic Diversionary Attacks on United States Cities

Plan for Strategic Use of Nuclear Weapons Against Select American Cities and Assassination of U.S. President Williams

TOP SECRET. So this is what they were talking about.

I need to get out of here! Now!

But she could not. She scrolled down to the next page of the document.

Was she dreaming? Rubbing her eyes in the dark, she squinted again at the screen.

She scrolled down to the section entitled “Plan for the Elimination of President Santos.”

Background: Enrique Santos, President of the Indonesian Republic, has for many years masqueraded as a Muslim in name only. In recent years, Santos has brought Indonesia into an alliance of loose cooperation with the United States, whose capitalistic interests have been clearly in alliance with the rogue nation of Israel and in opposition to the manifest destiny of worldwide Islamic interests.

Parallels with Situation in Pakistan: In many respects, Santos has tracked the traitorous career of the late Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, whose pro-Western ways fostered upheaval in her own country, necessitating her assassination.

While the use of assassination to eliminate a political leader is in many ways unfortunate, the brutal truth is that Islamic law forbids incestuous political relationships with infidel nations opposed to Islam, and demands death for such infidels.

In the case of Pakistan, history has shown that in the aftermath of the Bhutto assassination, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has become a nation purer in her Muslim roots, with a political leadership whose international alliances support Islamic causes and other Muslim nations rather than America and Western interests.

Pakistan’s recommitment to her rightful Islamic heritage can be traced to the assassination of Bhutto, who, prior to her slaying, had attempted to lead that nation into an incestuous relationship with the West and with America, and had in fact allied herself with former American President George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq and his so-called “War on Terror.”

The Indictment Against President Santos

Indonesia today mirrors the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in December of 2007. Like Prime Minister Bhutto of Pakistan, President Santos, while professing Islam, has allied the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, with the West. He has permitted United States and British warships to routinely enter Indonesian territorial waters in the Malaccan Strait. These narrow waters are rightly within the umbrella of Indonesia and the nations of the Malay Peninsula, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Burma.

By so doing, President Santos has embraced, endorsed, and normalized the practice of foreign navies patrolling these waters which the Alliance considers to be territorial.

Santos has shared valuable strategic intelligence with the Americans. He has allowed Indonesian military forces, particularly the navy, to engage in joint military operations with the US and British navies, further legitimizing the presence of Western navies in Indonesian territorial waters.

Removal by Assassination: Regrettably, the Strategic Alliance has concluded that the only solution for the future of Indonesia, a future in which Indonesia will reach its manifest destiny as the world’s first Islamic Superpower, is the removal of Santos by assassination.

The Alliance hoped for the legitimate conversion of Santos and his repentance from his sinful ways. Santos forewent opportunities to bring his policies in line with an Islamocentric agenda.

In reaching this decision, history should record that the Alliance has considered the option of removal by political means, as opposed to the assassination of Santos. However, having considered all options, the Alliance has concluded that removal by political means is not guaranteed, and thus unworkable.

Operational Plan for Assassination

The Strategic Alliance adopts and endorses an assassination plan against President Santos designed to minimize risk, insomuch as possible, to the lives of others. Therefore, the optimal means of assassination calls for a plan to be carried out inside the Merdeka Palace, by certain members of the president’s inner circle…

BA-WOOF…BA-WOOF.

She backstepped at the sound of the bark, gasping for breath, her eyes still on the computer. BA-WOOF.

Probably just a rat outside. The dog barks all the time at night. She tiptoed to the foyer again.

What now? The report was several hundred pages. She could never finish reading it before five o’clock. Plus, the general’s military aides would arrive before then to prepare breakfast and give him his daily briefing.

Sweat formed on her palms.

She walked back to the computer and reset the report back to the first page. She felt in the desk drawer just under the computer. Pens, pencils, paperclips, and a small memory stick crossed her fingertips. She pulled the flash drive out and held it against the light from the computer screen. Two gigabytes.

She inserted the flash drive into the USB port. The orange light flashed off and on. The computer beeped.

A message flashed, indicating that a “Removable Disk E” had been inserted into the computer. Quickly, she saved the file onto the flash drive.

A light came on downstairs. Probably in the kitchen.

Kristina yanked the memory stick out of the desktop and dropped it into the pocket of her bathrobe.

A gurgling, bubbling noise-the sound of the coffeepot starting to heat up for breakfast. Then, footsteps coming down the hallway…

Kristina punched the power button. The screen went black. Total darkness fell over the study.

Click. Someone turned on a lamp. The lamp cast a soft, incandescent glow from the foyer into the study. Kristina crouched down into a dark crevice of the room, away from the direct stream of the light.

The silhouette of a woman stood there, in the doorway, staring into the room. Was the woman watching her?

As her eyes adjusted, Kristina recognized the svelte figure as Madina, a civilian woman and a new member of the general’s kitchen staff.

Chink, chink, ching. Keys jingled against the front door. Madina walked off to the right, out of sight, toward it.

There was a creaking and the rush of light wind as the front door opened.

“You are early, Captain,” Madina said, in a voice that carried a certain excitement.

“The general had a very late-night meeting.” This was the voice of Captain Hassan Taplus, the slim, ambitious young officer the general had first sent to fetch her. “I need to clean up his study and prepare him for his morning meeting.”

Kristina held her breath and prayed.

“You look so tired, Captain.” Madina’s voice was a bit needy. Kristina sensed that she liked Taplus. “I’ve just put on coffee,” she said. “Could I interest you in a fresh cup before you start?”

Please.

“Well, I really need to get the general’s study organized,” Taplus said, not convincingly. “Perhaps another time.”

“Oh, just a cup. Please? I’ve got it brewing in the kitchen. Why don’t you come back? I won’t hold you long.”

Taplus would not take the bait. Kristina was as good as dead.

“That would be great,” Captain Taplus said. Kristina exhaled and thanked the God that she had not been faithful in serving. “But I cannot linger. The study is a mess, and the general is leaving for Pakistan later today.”

Kristina waited as the sound of their footsteps reverberated down the hallway, fading slightly as they approached the kitchen. She heard the sound of ceramic clanking.

She stood and tiptoed into the fully lit foyer, then quickly up the staircase, as the sound of flirtatious laughter floating up from the direction of the kitchen gave way to the loud snoring in the bedroom.

Her gentle touch had been surprisingly electric, Captain Taplus thought as he slipped out of the kitchen from his unplanned earlymorning rendezvous with Madina.

She was a looker.

Now as he switched on the overhead lights and entered the general’s study, he was beginning to have second thoughts. Madina could have waited. The general could not.

Taplus checked his watch.

The general would be up in forty-five minutes. Part of the reason for the mess was that the general had ordered everybody, including Captain Taplus, to drink, to celebrate the first successful stage of the Malacca Project. Being the good soldier that he was, the captain naturally obeyed his leader.

Besides, the captain was part of the general’s inner circle, and had been promised by the general that he himself would see the rank of brigadier general in the new Islamic Republic of Indonesia-becoming one of the youngest general officers in the history of the army of the Republika. But all that would depend on him continuing to do his job in a professional manner, without any glitches. The drinking and the celebration had put him behind schedule.

First order of business would be to get these liquor bottles and food trays up.

He stepped out of the study and went back into the kitchen, where he was greeted by the scent of freshly brewed coffee and the sight of Madina’s attractive figure from the backside.

“Excuse me, Madina.”

She turned from kneading the general’s bread and smiled. “Back so soon? Want another cup?”

“Perhaps later. I need a few trash bags.”

“Certainly, Captain.” She reached into one of the cabinets below the sink. “Here’s a brand new box for you,” she said, with a smile and a wink.

“Thank you.” He took the box and quickly headed back to the study, where he removed a green trash bag from it and started dropping liquor bottles in it.

He noticed a hum coming from the computer. But the screensaver was not on. In fact, the screen was black.

“Strange,” he mumbled to himself. Maybe it was in hibernation mode. He pressed the space bar. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

The screen. The power button. He punched it. The screen came alive. In bold, black letters, THE MALACCA PLAN stared at him.

“What in the name of Allah!”

“Is everything all right, Captain?” Madina called from the kitchen.

“Yes, of course,” Taplus lied. “Just a little spill.”

“Need some help?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

The truth was, his eyes were witnessing the potential downfall of his career. Perhaps even worse. Perhaps even a court-martial for dereliction of duty.

His mind raced as he imagined the worst-case scenarios. Stripped of his command. Stripped of his rank. Perhaps even execution.

This started last night when Dr. Budi volunteered his new suggestion for the assassination of Santos. The general and others proclaimed Budi’s plan to be “brilliant.”

After toasting the doctor and his bravery and his genius, the general had ordered Captain Taplus to open the Malacca file to record the modification of the plan. No longer would Perkasa loyalists stage a military coup against Santos. Budi would do it himself. Taplus had recorded the change just as the general had ordered.

But apparently, the file had not been closed out. Under no circumstances should that file have ever been left open. This was a security breach of unforgivable magnitude. Even though the general had ordered him to open the file, he was responsible for closing it and locking it down with the proper security codes. The general might not be so understanding.

How did this happen? Taplus racked his brain, trying to retrace the events. Another toast to Budi was proposed as soon as the entry had been transcribed and read back to the members of the Alliance.

Taplus himself had stood up and turned around to raise his glass to toast the doctor. Liquor flowed. The general launched into a longwinded speech, praising the doctor and bragging about what they would do with the many millions of dollars they all now had.

The long speech was punctuated by several more toasts, Taplus recalled, all of which he was required to drink to, to the delightful merriment of the group.

Perkasa had then slapped everyone on the back, adjourned the meeting, and sent everyone home. But because the general was slurring and staggering by this point, Taplus walked with him up the stairs, guiding him, just to make sure he did not fall.

By that time, the screensaver must have come on the computer, and Taplus forgot that the top-secret file had been left open, lurking just a space bar’s tap under the screensaver.

What to do?

“Think quickly, Hassan!” Protocol required that all breaches of top secret information be reported immediately.

But had there really been any leaks of information? Who would ever know? No one had been in the house since he left.

Except…

Except Madina.

Madina? She would never go into the general’s study. Or would she? Did she not just volunteer a second ago to help him clean it up?

No way could she have seen the report. If she had, her voice would not have been so naturally flirtatious. She could not be that good of an actress. Or was this the reason she was getting so frisky? What if she was a double agent working for Santos?

He sat at the computer, closed the file, and typed in the security codes to block its access.

What the general did not know could not hurt him.

As for Madina, he would have to decide how he was going to deal with her.