The Malacca Conspiracy

Chapter 11

The White House

8:00 a.m.

Lieutenant Robert Molster sat next to Admiral Roscoe Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, watching the flat screen that featured a brightly lit map of the Malacca Strait and the nations around it.

This place was nothing like the underground bunker that had been portrayed by Hollywood in The West Wing and various other movies and television shows. The real Situation Room was more like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Created by President Kennedy in 1962 after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Situation Room was in reality a five-thousand-square-foot conference room, run by the National Security Council staff, in the basement of the West Wing.

The wood paneling of the room’s walls housed the most advanced communications equipment in the world, from which the president executed his role as commander in chief of all US military forces around the world.

An hour prior to sunrise, Molster had learned that his sleepless night would remain sleepless, when Admiral Jones called to inform him that he was to brief the president, should the president have any questions of him, at a meeting of the National Security Council at zero-eight-hundred-hours.

Thus, he’d spent the hours between 5:00 and 7:00 A.M. preparing a briefing, should he be called on, then hitting the shower, shaving, and donning a crisp service dress-blue uniform.

At 7:00 A.M., he had ridden “across the river” from “the Building”-Washington talk meaning he had left the Pentagon and crossed the Potomac River-with Admiral Jones and the admiral’s aides, armed with a stack of briefing papers.

The door opened.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States,” the White House chief of staff announced.

Members of the National Security Council, including the vice president, rose to attention as if they were seamen recruits in boot camp acknowledging a gunnery sergeant.

“Sit,” President Mack Williams ordered. The sound of shuffling chairs followed as the council obeyed the president’s order. “Admiral Jones, what’s going on?”

“Oil futures prices again, Mr. President. Three limit moves last night. Aside from the potential rioting in the streets from rising gasoline prices, our intelligence gurus tell us this move is similar to the period just before the Singapore attacks.”

The president looked at Molster. “That right, Lieutenant?”

This was his cue. He felt for his briefing papers. “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

“Not much sleep again last night, I take it?”

“No, sir,” Molster said.

“Okay,” the president said, his eyes still on Molster. “And this is the first run-up since the Singapore attacks.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“And you think this means they’re getting ready to hit again?”

Again, the president’s blue eyes blazed directly at Molster.

Unreal.

The director of Central Intelligence, national security advisor, the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were all in the room, and yet the president seemed to be looking to a lowly senior lieutenant in the navy, a mere reservist at that, for an answer to this crucial question pertaining to the national security of the United States.

Molster hesitated for a moment, hoping perhaps against hope that the vice president, the secretary of defense, someone would step up and answer the questions. But the president’s eyes did not waver.

“Well, Lieutenant?”

“Mr. President, the trading patterns are nearly identical to the trading patterns just before the attacks earlier this week. Huge buying. Unprecedented short-term price spikes. Unprecedented volume. Much worse than the price jumps in 2008.”

“And you think this means we’re looking at another strike?”

How should I know? I’m just a junior intelligence officer, and a reservist at that. And I’m not even career navy. You’ve got the Veep, SECDEF, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs here. Why don’t you ask one of them? Molster wanted to ask, but was not about to.

“Well, there’s a certain degree of speculation involved here.”

“Speculation?” The president slammed his fist on the table, riveting the attention of everyone in the room. “Isn’t the job of the intelligence officer to sift out the differences between speculation and reasonable probability?”

A pause. Why wouldn’t someone else speak up? “Well, Mr. President, you’re right about that. An intelligence officer must sift through the differences between speculation and probability.”

The president nodded.

“So here’s what we know,” Molster continued. “They struck before in the wake of price spikes and volume almost identical to last night’s data. The futures price jumps and volume in the oils futures markets was highly unusual then, and it is highly unusual now.

“Those futures price jumps preceded the attacks on oil tankers that led to a huge run in the real-time price of crude oil, which led to billions in profits by whoever bought the futures.

“Based on that, Mr. President, this is more than just mere speculation. It’s based on data. Limited data, but nevertheless, data. In my judgment, there’s a probability that some sort of strike, somewhere, is imminent, and that strike will lead to another price run.”

More silence. Nervous glances were exchanged among the members of the NSC.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the president said. “That took some guts, I know, for a junior officer to stick his neck out in a setting like this.”

Molster exhaled.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to chop off your neck if you’re wrong.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“All right,” the president said, speaking with an aura of command. “We’ve got oil futures shooting through the roof, we’ve got Singapore flooded in a tar pit that makes Prince William Sound look like a minor coffee spill at McDonald’s, and we’ve got Lieutenant Molster here saying they’re probably gonna strike again.

“Now that the lieutenant has stuck himself out there, I need some of you high-ranking, higher-paid members of the government to do the same.” The president stood, took off his jacket, and handed it to an aide. “I need to know where they’re going to strike”-he began rolling up his shirtsleeves-“and when.”

President Williams leaned over the table, resting his palms out flat in front of him. His eyes shifted from left to right. Now he was looking for answers from the members of his National Security Council. Good. At least Molster was off the hook. For now.

“Mr. President.” Admiral Jones spoke up.

“Yes, Admiral.”

“It’s a big world out there, sir. But first, we look to the sea lanes where oil is transported. We narrow that down even more, and I think we must watch strategic choke points where oil is transported.”

“You mean like the Strait of Malacca?”

“There are eight strategic naval choke points around the world, including Malacca. Right now I mean the Strait of Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, the Suez Canal, the Bosporus, Gibraltar, Cape Horn, and the Cape of Good Hope. Tankers pass through all these choke points and are vulnerable to attack. I think we can take the Malacca Strait off the list as a potential attack area for a while.”

“Why is that, Admiral Jones? We just got hit there.”

“Sir”-the admiral wiped his hand across his forehead-“I regret to inform you that as of this morning, approximately zero-four-hundred Eastern Time, the Malacca Strait has been closed to shipping because of the thick oil slick at Singapore. The whole Singapore Strait is covered from Singapore to Indonesia. There won’t be any tanker traffic going that way for a while.”

“Darn it!” The president slammed his fist on the table again. “Then what do we guard?”

“Sir, the traffic that cut through the Malacca Strait we now believe will sail southeast across the Indian Ocean, and then cut through the seas south of Indonesia and north of Australia. In fact, we’ve already seen tankers beginning to move along this route. We’ve prepared a visual to demonstrate this new sea route for you, sir.”

“Very well, let’s see it,” the president said.

“Commander Murray?” Admiral Jones nodded to Lieutenant Commander Beth Murray. Instantly, the graphic appeared on the monitor for all to see.

“Here’s the graphic, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said. “You can see the sea routes running to the southwest of Jakarta. Then, approximately four hundred miles due south of Jakarta, they are breaking due east, where they sail into the Timor Sea, then cut to the northeast through the Arafura Sea, then northwest, hugging the coast of the island of New Guinea, then sailing east of Halmahera, running through the Raja Ampat Islands, and finally heading north toward the Philippines.”

The president donned a pair of black, plastic-rimmed reading glasses and studied the sea routes. “Boy, they’re going around their elbow to get to their thumb.”

“Yes, they are, Mr. President.”

“What’s our naval presence in the area?”

“Right now,” the admiral continued, “we have four Los Angeles-class attack submarines and three Aegis-class cruisers patrolling roughly along this line from the south of Jakarta to the Timor Sea.

“USS Abraham Lincoln is steaming east from Diego Garcia. I recommend moving the Lincoln battle group along this line so that we can get our subs and cruisers up into these sea lanes around Irian Jaya and the Halmahera Sea.

“We also have one Los Angeles-class and two Virginia-class attack subs, along with three Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates patrolling in the south Philippine Sea. These ships can be quickly deployed into the Halmahera Sea and can patrol this area off Irian Jaya. The Aegis-class cruiser USS Port Royal is steaming south of Indonesia and is available for escort duty if necessary.

“Our biggest stick in the area, USS Ronald Reagan, has just left port at Perth and is steaming north in the IO along the west coast of Australia toward Indonesia. Reagan is our closest carrier at the moment. The Gipper’s jets will be within striking distance of these sea lanes in just a few short hours, Mr. President, and the Lincoln won’t be far behind.”

The president folded his reading glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. Every American president, in every international crisis since World War II, had instinctively asked this question: “Where are the carriers?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs had just answered it even before it was specifically asked. The president appeared to take comfort at the news that two of America’s mightiest warships, both named after the two greatest Republican presidents in history, were in the area.

“Okay. I’m ordering the Reagan and Lincoln task forces to the area. Get our forces deployed into these sea lanes. Now.”

“Aye, aye, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said.

“Also,” the president continued, “we’re proceeding on the assumption that an attack will occur against a tanker in the region. Just to be safe, I want to cover some of these other choke points where we have tanker traffic. So I’m ordering beefed-up naval presence in the following regions.” The president held up his hands and began ticking off a list of the choke points. “The Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the entrance to the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf, Gibraltar, and the Sea of Marmara leading to the Bosporus.”

Admiral Jones took notes and winced as the president continued.

The president looked over at Admiral Jones. “I gather that you have some sort of problem with this, Admiral?”

“No, sir, Mr. President. It’s just that rapid deployment of beefed-up naval forces to all these areas all at once will stretch the navy and make us thin in other areas, sir.”

The president exhaled. “I was afraid you might say that.” He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “Secretary Lopez.”

“Yes, sir,” the secretary of defense replied.

“I want you to order the secretary of the navy to prepare an order for my signature, which I may or may not sign, which would immediately call up all naval reserve forces.” He held up one finger. “Check that. Give me three options in the order. Option one, to call up one-third of all naval reserve forces. Option two, to call up two-thirds. Option three, to mobilize the entire naval reserve.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also”-he was looking at SECDEF-“if these clowns, whoever they are, are going to start hitting oil tankers, we’re going to need more warships to deter threats around the globe.

“So I want to revive President Reagan’s plan for a six-hundred-ship navy, and I want you to instruct the navy to bring me several workable plans from which I can select and present to the Congress. Place an emphasis on the geostrategic objective of protecting vital sea lanes and littoral regions. I want these plans on my desk within thirty days.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Very well. Let’s reset to meet again at zero-eight-hundred tomorrow morning, unless you hear from me. Let’s pray that Lieutenant Molster’s assessment is wrong. You are dismissed.”

The president rose, prompting the members of the NSC to rise and stand in their places as he stepped out of the room.

“Good job, Lieutenant,” Admiral Jones said. “Now let’s get back over to the building and pray that you are wrong.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Brownsville, Texas

8:30 a.m.

The sun had been blazing for an hour over the Gulf of Mexico when Emanuel Gonzales turned his beat-up, red Toyota Celica left off Boca Chica Boulevard into the parking lot of the Old Port Isabel Warehouse.

He had slipped across the border into Brownsville with his wife, his kids, and his three cousins six years ago. He’d found work at the warehouse and had been promoted to manager of the place six months later. No one asked about a green card or anything else. Not even a Social Security number was required, since the owner said that he would be paid as an “independent contractor.”

Last week he’d gotten a pay raise of an extra five bucks an hour, which was nice considering that it cost a lot to support three kids, a wife, and three cousins. Their eleven-hundred-square-foot house ran seven hundred bucks a month. And although his cousins Julio and Juan-Carlos were working construction to help out with the bills, things were still tight. So Emanuel was grateful for the raise.

Of course, there was a price to be paid for a more luxurious lifestyle. In this case, that price was a longer workday. No longer could he show up just before the joint opened at nine o’clock. Now, with his new responsibilities as manager, he had to show up at work half an hour ahead of time.

Emanuel checked his watch. Eight-thirty. He was right on time.

Old Port Isabel Warehouse wasn’t scheduled to open for another half an hour, but already, three smaller-sized U-Haul cargo vans were sitting in front of the warehouse.

The Toyota puttered into the manager’s reserved parking space just outside the offices. Emanuel got out of the car, his huge key ring snapped to his jeans, and walked to the front door of the office. Jingling the keys, he inserted the silver one into the dead bolt lock.

The sound of a slamming car door echoed across the parking lot.

“Hola, amigo!” Gonzales looked around. An Arab-looking guy had stepped out of the first van and was walking over.

These eager beavers can’t even let a guy get in the office to take a leak. And why do they think I only speak Spanish? “Hola, my friend,” he replied. “We no open for thirty minutes.”

“I understand, amigo.” The man walked closer. “My friends and I are in a hurry. We’ll make it worth your time if we can pick up our cargo and get out of here.” The man handed a green, crisply folded bill to Emanuel.

Emanuel opened it, found a picture of a somber-looking, dead, white American named “Franklin” in an oval frame in the middle.

“Gracias, amigo.” Emanuel stashed the hundred-dollar bill in his pocket. “I’m not supposed to do this.” He gave a wink and a nod. “The owner says if we open early for one customer, we must open early for them all,” he said. But one hundred bucks would go a long way in the frozen food section of Wal-Mart, where you could buy a pizza or a TV dinner for a buck. Señora Gonzales would be very pleased tonight. That thought brought a big, cheesy grin to his face. “But under the circumstances, we can accommodate. What are you here to pick up?”

The man smiled. “You should have three crates of bottled water.”

“Ah. The mysterious boxes of bottled water.”

“Mysterious? Why do you say that?” the man asked.

“No reason. Except that they were dropped off after hours last night, with enough cash to store them for a year, and with a note that someone would come to pick them up soon. I guess that’s you? No? I would say that’s soon, all right.”

“That’s us, amigo. We are in a hurry.”

“Okay.” The call of nature, though mounting now, could wait. “Bring your trucks around this way.” He pointed to the chain-locked gate that separated the parking lot from the main warehouse entrances. “Meet me around there. I’ll unlock the gate.”

Key rings still jingling, Emanuel jogged over toward the gate at the entrance to the loading area. At the gate, he fumbled through the key ring, found the right key…the silver one…and inserted it into the heavy-duty dead bolt lock.

The lock opened, the chains dropped off, and within a few seconds, he was waving the trucks through the gates. A minute after that, the three U-Hauls were backed up to the entrance of the warehouse. A few minutes later, the drivers were loading the three crates of bottled water into each of the three vans.

By ten ’til nine, they were gone. Two other trucks were now in the parking lot. More eager beavers. Emanuel locked the gates again.

He had a hundred bucks in his pocket and tonight would be his lucky night.

The trucks could wait.

The call of nature could not.

Merdeka Palace

Jakarta, Indonesia

1:20 p.m.

Dr. Guntur Budi checked his watch. Good. Still ten minutes before the president’s physical was officially scheduled to start, and probably twenty minutes before it actually started. The timing should be perfect.

He felt well, considering the unsanitary plastics stuffed in his ribcage, and thanks to the antibiotics administered intravenously until just moments ago, when Anton had dropped him off in front of the palace.

He had stepped out Anton’s car, walked through the bright afternoon sun, crossed the street, and entered the inner sanctum of the palace as usual.

Rank had its privileges, and in this case, rank included being recognized as the president’s personal physician. He was waved past the first two checkpoints, with a few friendly greetings of “Good afternoon, Doctor” from several of the all-too-familiar security guards who nonchalantly motioned him through.

Now for the first big test.

The high-intensity metal detector was located just outside the corridor leading to the president’s office. He had been waved past the other metal detectors before, but never past this one. Everyone, including the president’s family, was required to walk through this machine as a matter of routine.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” the first security guard said. The guard, a muscular, stocky fellow with a mustache, wearing pistols on each hip, was a member of the president’s personal security detail, as were all of the guards on the other side of this final metal detector. “I see you are here for the president’s physical.”

“Yes.” Guntur tried to mask the nervousness flashing throughout his body. He stopped just short of the metal detector. “Here is my bag with my examination equipment.” He handed his medical bag to the guard. “Just the routine stuff. Blood pressure machine. Stethoscope. EKG machine and equipment. That sort of thing.”

The guard rummaged through the assortment of medical equipment in the bag.

“You should know that I have just gotten out of surgery.”

“Ahh.” The guard showed genuine concern on his face. Or perhaps a look of suspicion? “I hope you are all right, Doctor.”

“Yes, I am fine. They inserted a pacemaker to regulate an irregular heartbeat.”

The guard went back to his mindless examination of the instruments. He seemed fascinated by the ophthalmoscope, and was holding the instrument up against the light, looking through the glass.

“Just a routine thing,” Guntur said. “I wanted to alert you in case the darn thing sets off the metal detector.” Guntur forced a chuckle, trying to appear to make light of it. The guard did not smile as he put the ophthalmoscope back into the bag.

“Very well, Dr. Budi. Step through the metal detector, please.”

One step forward, and then…a rapid and shrill beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

“Step back!” the guard ordered. His hand gripped his right pistol, which was still holstered.

“I was afraid this might happen,” Guntur muttered. “Darn pacemaker! I’ll have this thing in my chest the rest of my life.”

“All right. Let us have a look.” He waved Guntur back into the X-ray scanner. “Just a routine procedure as you know, Doctor. We would do the same thing if you were the president’s wife. Let’s hope you are not the first lady.” A terse chuckle. Finally, a semblance of something other than iron. “Stand here.” The stern tone returned. “Be still for a moment, Doctor.”

The guard squinted his eyes and examined the screen on the monitor beside the X-ray machine. “That’s an odd-looking pacemaker, Doctor. Hmm.” He eyed it for a moment. “I’ve never seen one like it before.” More squinting. “Rahmat! Check this out.”

“It’s a brand new design. Just imported from America,” Guntur said. “It is supposed to go fifteen years without a battery replacement.”

“Hmm.” The two guards crowded over the monitor. Guntur held his breath.

“Very well, Doctor. You may proceed. The president is running about fifteen minutes early today because the Chinese ambassador canceled his meeting due to illness.” The guard motioned Guntur through. “Take good care of the president.”

“He will be in good hands.”

Gag Island

3:25 p.m.

Captain Hassan Taplus, army of the Indonesian Republic, was wearing dark sunglasses and standing on the shores of the beach with his back to the sea.

Light swells lapped just a few feet from where he had buried his heels partially into the sand, and he brought his hand up to his eyebrows, palm down, almost in the gesture of a salute to shade his eyes from the bright overhead sun.

The ugly monstrosity standing against the island’s luscious, tropical beauty rose perhaps fifty feet in the air, and closely resembled a rapidly erected observation tower. Four gray steel poles dug deeply into the sand made the corners of a square at the base, and looking something like a giant erector set, rose into the blue sky and supported a square steel platform at the top.

On the platform, electronic equipment and an arming mechanism had been bolted in place. Suspended in the air below the platform, about fifteen feet from the top, the bomb hung from four thick chains. An array of cords, bound together in a single strand by some sort of heavy-duty duct tape, hung down from the center of the platform.

One nuclear engineer was standing on a catwalk perhaps thirty-five feet off the ground, making an adjustment to the bomb with a screw-driver.

The other engineers were standing on the beach, pointing toward the tower, laughing and carrying on as if they had just passed their final examinations before graduating from university.

It would soon become evident whether they had passed or not.

The last nuclear engineer was now making his way down the ladder to the beach. His feet hit the sand, then he turned and started walking rapidly straight toward Taplus. The engineer grinned as he approached. “Our work is complete, sir. The bomb is armed, ticking, and set to go off in a little more than an hour. I suggest that we get out of here!”

“Good work, Lieutenant,” Taplus said. “Very well. Everybody to the choppers! Let’s get to the ship! On the double! Move! Move!”

Five minutes later, the first of two helicopters lifted off the tropical paradise. Hassan looked down at the splendor of Allah’s breathtaking beauty. A sailboat, perhaps a thirty-footer, cut through the seas about a mile off shore. Probably Australian.

The poor fools had sailed into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Merdeka Square

Jakarta, Indonesia

1:28 p.m.

Merdeka Square, the large, grassy plain in the midst of Jakarta, was at the sprawling city’s geographical center.

Surrounded by the most important buildings of the government, including the Merdeka Presidential Palace and the nation’s supreme court building, at the center of the square was the prized Monas, Indonesia’s version of the Washington Monument. The national monument of Italian marble soared four hundred fifty feet skyward.

Anton gazed at the towering obelisk, its gold tip reflecting the afternoon tropical sun.

He had always shivered with pride at the sight of it. So had his father, and so had Guntur. The monument was a national treasure, a proud proclamation of Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch.

How ironic, Anton thought, that despite his country’s freedom from Dutch colonization, Indonesia was now the colonial puppet of America, for all intents and purposes.

Soon that would end.

Anton checked his watch. One twenty-eight.

The gravity of the moment hit him. In less than thirty minutes, his brother’s life on earth would be over. He would never see Guntur again this side of paradise. But he would see Guntur again. Wouldn’t he?

Could he go through with this? To kill his own brother, even if it meant purifying Indonesia from an American-loving president?

Of course he would see his brother again, he assured himself. If not, his faith was meaningless. And his faith was not meaningless.

He pulled the detonating transmitter out of his pocket and stared at it. It was just a black plastic box about the size of a cell phone. In the middle, there was a red button for him to depress at the proper time, and below the button, a simple safety switch, which would have to be turned off before the button could be depressed.

Could he press that button? Could he kill his own brother?

Perhaps he should just toss the box in the grass and run. Or he could walk down to the shores of the Java Sea and toss it in.

But even if he threw it away, Guntur was going to die of infection from all the unsterile plastic in his body.

“I am proud of you, my son. I gave my life for the cause. Do this day what you must do.”

“Father?”

Anton looked around.

Nothing-other than a few tourists and mothers with their children playing on the grass of the square. But that was his father’s voice. He knew it. Or was he hallucinating?

“Father?”

Again, no response. Maybe he was hearing things. After all, he’d not gotten much sleep.

Guntur looked over toward Merdeka Palace. He would need to be closer to be in range. He started walking across the grass toward it.

Two police motorcycles pulled around the corner, followed by a black Lincoln Town Car flying on each bumper the flag of the United States of America. Two more motorcycles trailed the car.

The car stopped in front of the palace. One policeman dismounted his motorcycle and opened the car’s back right door. A distinguished, gray-haired man, wearing a blue pinstripe suit, stepped out.

A second policeman opened the other back door. An attractive woman, with red hair and wearing the uniform of a female United States naval officer, stepped out.

The United States ambassador. It had to be.

The sight was an answer to prayer. Divine providence had brought him to this time and place.

Merdeka Palace

Jakarta, Indonesia

1:30 p.m.

This place is gorgeous,” Diane remarked, as she stepped out of the black Lincoln Town Car belonging to the United States embassy. “It looks like the White House, except for all these palm trees and pink and white tropical flowers.”

“A lot of people make that comparison,” Ambassador Stacks remarked. “Merdeka Palace was built during the Dutch colonial era. It’s one of two presidential palaces here in Jakarta and the main one used by the president.”

“Right this way, Mr. Ambassador,” a staff member said. “I see you have a guest today?” the man asked as they stepped out of the sunshine and past a security checkpoint, and then into a tunnel just next to the main entrance.

“This is Commander Colcernian, my new naval attaché,” Ambassador Stacks announced, as the trio swiftly walked through the long tunnel.

“Nice to meet you, Commander,” the man said. “The president is having a routine physical right now, but he is running ahead of schedule. He hopes to see you a few minutes early.”

“That would be fine,” the ambassador said.

They came to the end of the long tunnel. The aide punched in a security code and a steel door opened. Behind it, there was a security checkpoint with a metal detector and three uniformed guards.

“My apologies, Commander,” the man said. “The ambassador is aware of this”-he nodded at Ambassador Stacks-“but our security procedures require even the president’s eight-year-old daughter to pass through here.”

“The president has an eight-year-old daughter?” Diane asked. “President Santos must be a young man.”

The man smiled. “Second marriage. Our first lady is much younger than the president.”

“Ah,” Diane nodded. “I see.”

“I have two teenage girls,” Ambassador Stacks said. “Guess that makes me young for my age too, huh?”

“Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Ambassador.”

President’s office

Merdeka Palace

1:50 p.m.

Breathe deep, Mr. President.” Guntur positioned the stethoscope against the T-shirt on the president’s back. “Cough.”

The president was sitting on his desk, wearing his dress pants and shoes, but stripped down to his T-shirt on his upper torso. He reluctantly complied.

In the three years that Guntur Budi had served as personal physician to the president, he had seen that the president’s reputation for impatience was well deserved. Actually, the president was patient with the things that interested him, and impatient with the things that did not.

Seeing the doctor for anything, even for a routine physical, was not something that President Santos would tolerate much of.

Santos was already restless, beginning to complain about ending the examination.

“Guntur, I’m fine,” Santos was saying. “You’ve drawn my blood, you’ve checked my pulse, you’ve poked in my ears, and you’ve wrapped my arm with that blood pressure thing. I’ve got a country to run. Let’s wrap this up.”

Guntur glanced at the wall. Ten more minutes. He had to stall.

“Now, Mr. President, it is precisely because you have a great country to run that we must ensure that you are in the best physical condition possible.” He artfully repositioned the stethoscope on the president’s back. “Besides that, I promised the first lady and your daughter that I would make sure you are in good health.” He forced a chuckle.

The phone buzzed on the president’s desk. Santos punched a button. A woman’s voice came over the speaker phone.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. President,” the secretary said. “But you asked me to notify you when Ambassador Stacks arrived.”

The president’s face broke into a smile.

That was part of the problem. Santos was an American lover.

“Ah. We are finishing this physical right now.” The president checked his watch. Guntur checked the wall clock. One fifty-five. “Send the ambassador in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But, Mr. President-”

“We can finish this later,” Santos said, as he started slipping his dress shirt on. “The ambassador has an urgent matter he wishes to discuss. It has something to do with the tanker attacks in the straits.”

“But-”

Santos buttoned his shirt. “Guntur, you may hang around for a couple of minutes and meet the American ambassador. He is a nice man, and you will like him. Then I have to get to work.”

Guntur checked the wall clock. One fifty-seven.

“Of course, Mr. President. It would be a pleasure to meet the ambassador.”

Merdeka Square

1:59 p.m.

A single cloud floated in front of the sun, sweeping a large shadow over the green grass of the square. Sunlight still crested the buildings surrounding the grassy plain in the midst of the city, but it was as if Allah was dimming the lights to provide cover as the clock ticked down.

Anton gazed at his watch.

1:59:30

1:59:35

1:59:40

He squeezed the plastic transmitter with his right hand, his thumb on the detonation switch. He walked toward the palace. His heart pounded like a jackhammer.

1:59:48

1:59:52

1:59:55

1:59:57

Anton closed his eyes, held his breath, and waited for the alarm.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

Click.

A delay.

Boom!

Silence.

A single plume of black smoke rose from atop the palace.

Eerie silence.

Then, screaming.

Confused voices, more screaming, followed by the sound of chaos pouring from the palace.

Anton turned away. The first siren wailed in the distance, growing louder. Now a second siren.

The cloud passed from beyond the sun, and a bright reflection glowed from the gold tip at the top of the Monas.

The Monas. The monument of independence. The monument of freedom.

At last, freedom!

Anton walked toward it. A third siren pierced the air. Now a fourth.

Armed troops in shining helmets scrambled across the grass, brushing his shoulders as they ran right by him, headed to the palace.

The air filled with sirens screeching as he approached the Monas. He stopped at the base of the great tower and looked straight up. From here, the Monas was a great arm reaching into heaven, its gold tip glowing, basking in the afternoon sunlight.

What a glorious, final sight to pass from this world into the world of his father and now his brother.

The sound of helicopters roared over the square and over the palace, muffling the ear-splitting sound of the sirens. Whirling lights atop police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances filled the streets surrounding the square.

Good. No one would hear what was about to happen.

The gun had been wedged under his belt. It was a nine-millimeter Glock that his father had used in Aceh.

He pulled the pistol from his belt and carefully worked the action. Soon, they would be scouring the area for suspects. Anyone with a pistol would be arrested or shot. He would have to be swift.

He brought the barrel to his mouth. The steel was cold to his lips and tongue.

“You with the gun!”

He turned toward the smoking palace. Two armed soldiers were charging him from across the grass. They brought their rifles up, aiming squarely at him.

“Drop it!” one of them shouted.

Anton stepped back, pressed his skull against the base of the Monas, and squeezed the trigger.