The Malacca Conspiracy

Chapter 20

San Francisco

1:00 p.m.

All units, be on the lookout for a U-Haul truck, Florida license MNL 742, on the move in the San Francisco metropolitan area. If this unit is spotted, do not engage. Maintain surveillance. Report coordinates immediately. This vehicle is believed to be carrying weapons of mass destruction, and interception efforts must be coordinated with the US military.”

Sergeant John King, California Highway Patrol, was just finishing his Big Mac, and was swallowing a gulp of Diet Coke when the U-Haul passed him on his left.

Florida tag!

“Dispatch. One Adam Fourteen. Please repeat the tag number on that U-Haul.”

“Adam Fourteen, roger that. That’s Florida MNL, as in Mike November Lima, 742.”

King blinked his eyes and rechecked the tag number. His heart rate shot into a rapid pound. “Dispatch, please be advised that I have a visual contact on subject vehicle. Headed north at thirty-five miles per hour.”

Creech Air Force Base

Indian Springs, Nevada

1:05 p.m.

From his duty station at the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron at Creech AFB about thirty miles northwest of Las Vegas, LCOL Blake Winters, a fifteen-year F-15 pilot who had served combat tours in Iraq but was hoping to get more stateside time just before his retirement so that he could watch his son play high school football, was sipping bottled water, his eyes glued on a live, aerial view of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Winters was one of the “older” fighter pilots the Air Force had put in its new drone program, perfect for those who had put in many years in the cockpit and who were not quite ready to hang up the wings just yet. The MQ-1 Predator was the most famous drone in the Air Force, after gaining popularity in the Iraqi theatre of operations in the early 2000s. The Predator was armed with two laser-guided AGM 114 “Hellfire” surface-to-ground missiles, and when it was flown over the Iraqi war zone, the Predator allowed pilots back in the United States to operate the aircraft by remote control from the ground thousands of miles away. It also allowed them to conduct aerial surveillance, and to strike and destroy enemy targets on the ground.

Winters had put the pilotless bird in a broad, looping circle over the bridge at fifteen-hundred feet, between Marin County on the north side, and Fort Point on the San Francisco side to the south.

So far, there was just traffic flowing back and forth, and glistening blue water under the huge, burnt-orange suspension bridge.

Just above the video feed from the drone were live video images from two other drones, one over a smoldering Philadelphia and one over Washington, where shadows were beginning to lengthen on the east coast. The other drones were being flown by two other pilots, one sitting to Winters’ left and one to his right.

The headset on Winters’ ears squawked with static, and then the sound of the controller’s voice.

“Predator 2. Creech Control. Be advised that target has been spotted by civilian law enforcement ground unit. Stand by for coordinates…” Winters felt sweat on his palms. Even sitting on the ground over five hundred miles to the southeast of the target, without even the specter of a dogfight with an enemy jet, the warrior’s edginess set in his body. The consequences of failing were not lost on him. “Okay, coordinates are northbound on the Embarcadero between piers thirty-eight and thirtytwo. Speed approximately fifteen miles per hour.”

Winters typed in the location, which instantly gave him the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. “Okay, I’m going in for a look. Stand by.” He set the coordinates onto automatic pilot, turning the Predator slightly to the southeast.

The White House

4:10 p.m.

His tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up, the secretary of defense rushed into the Situation Room, where Mack had reestablished himself after spending the last couple of hours in the Oval Office. “Mr. President! We think we’ve located one of the U-Hauls!”

Mack looked up. “Talk to me.”

“Trying to get it up on the screens now!” Secretary Lopez said, as a couple of marine corps intelligence officers fiddled with some knobs under two of the flat-screen monitors on the wall beside the conference table.

“Got it!” one of them said, and stepped back.

An aerial shot of traffic flashed on the screen. At the bottom of the screen, the words superimposed USAF PREDATOR 2/Aerial San Francisco Live 1310 PST/1610 EST. The shot zoomed in closer and showed what seemed to be a single U-Haul van from the top. It was surrounded by slow-moving traffic, jammed between two vans, one green and one white.

“That’s it, Mr. President.” The defense secretary was pointing to the screen at the U-Haul.

“My recommendation is that we take it out,” Admiral Roscoe Jones said.

“Don’t we need to get a Blackhawk helicopter in place to take it out?” Mack asked.

“No sir,” Jones said. “The Predator has two Hellfire missiles under the wings. We can take it out on your command.”

Mack looked at the screen. Traffic had ground to a halt.

“Where is it in San Francisco?”

“He just came onto the Embarcadero, Mr. President. They’re at the intersection of the Embarcadero and Washington Streets,” the secretary of defense said. “Have the pilot pull the shot back and pull back in,” he said to one of the marines wearing a headset. The marine mumbled into the headset and the camera pulled back, showing the piers lining the glistening waters of San Francisco Bay to the right, and several green parks along the Embarcadero to the left. The shot triggered Mack’s memory that the Embarcadero was the main road that paralleled the tip of San Francisco’s thumb-shaped peninsula all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Now here’s the Embarcadero snaking along San Francisco’s waterfront,” Admiral Jones said. “From this point, he’s only about five miles from the bridge, and luckily he’s in slow-moving traffic, which gives us a slightly easier target.”

“Zoom back in,” the defense secretary ordered. The marine repeated the order into the headset and instantly, the Predator was beaming back close-ups of the U-Haul, which had a minivan to the left and was to the rear of an SUV. The CHIPs car was about three cars behind it.

“Logistical details aren’t my specialty,” Mack said, “but wouldn’t we have a better chance of protecting these folks in the cars beside and in front if we had a chopper swoop down in front of the U-Haul and just fire a machine gun through the glass?”

“Actually, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said, “the HARM missile is laser-guided and is more likely to land on target. Yes, we could lose some people in the adjacent cars because of the explosion, but machine-gun fire from a moving chopper could easily go off target and kill civilians too. Plus, there’s a chance that if we miss, or if he sees the chopper come into view, he could detonate the nuke before we take him out.”

Secretary Lopez spoke again. “I recommend that we take him out now, Mr. President. On your order. We’re running out of time.”

Jesus, help me, Mack thought.

“What’s that?” A blond head was hanging out of the window of the minivan right beside the U-Haul! Small hands and arms were waving under the blond head. “Close up on that minivan!” Mack ordered. The marine repeated the president’s order.

“Dear God! Is that a child waving out the window?”

The blond head disappeared back inside the minivan.

“Mr. President, we have to move now,” Admiral Jones said. “Our deadline is in less than three minutes. If he blows that bomb, that child’s going to die anyway. And possibly thousands of others. The military cannot authorize use of force inside the United States without presidential approval, sir.”

Mack’s hands covered his face. “Lord, give me wisdom.”

US Navy Seahawk

Over Bogor, Indonesia

3:13 a.m.

The choppers were moving fast through the night, and as Captain Noble barked last-second instructions that did not apply to her because she had been ordered to remain in the chopper, Diane gazed down through one of the chopper’s windows at Istana Bogor, the lavish presidential palace that she had studied but never seen in person. Illuminated from the air, with its square central structure connected by two flanking wings, it looked like Merdeka Palace bore a remarkable resemblance to the White House.

The captain’s commands pouring into her ears reminded her that this was not Washington, that the palace was not the White House, and that they were on a dangerous military mission that could end in death.

“On my mark, we hit the deck and shoot anything or anyone offering resistance. Move in twos. Remember, the XO has plans to the building and is going in. Our job is to protect the choppers on the roof. Everybody ready?”

“Aye, Captain!”

“All right. Lock and load!”

The choppers were feathering down toward the roof, slowing their descent. Then, a burst of machine-gun fire from the choppers. Chita-chita-chita-chita-chita-chita-chita-chita. Then another burst.

The loudspeakers from the pilot blared. “Captain, a couple of snipers on the roof. We opened fire to try and clear ’ em out. I think we got ’em. Be careful.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Noble said.

Contact. The chopper landed. The doors swung open. “Move! Move!” Noble shouted, motioning his SEALs quickly out the bay door.

Zack turned and caught her gaze.

“Don’t go!” she said.

Zack kissed her on the head, and hopped out onto the roof to the sound of gunfire.

“Jesus, let him live,” she prayed aloud.

The White House

4:14 p.m.

You’ve got forty-five seconds, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said. “If that fool is true to his word.”

“But he’s not at the bridge yet,” Mack said, hoping that the minivan with the blond-headed boy would turn onto a side street.

“No sir, but his deadline is four-fifteen, and he’s there, on the ground in San Francisco. Suppose he blows on his own time frame.”

“Thirty seconds, Mr. President,” Cyndi Hewitt said.

“How can I do this?”

“You’ve got to do it, sir,” the defense secretary said. “We have a point-blank shot, and we’re running out of time!”

Mack knew that his advisors were right. “My Lord and God, forgive me for what I must do!” Mack closed his eyes and gave the command. “Fire!”

“Fire! Fire!” The marine repeated into the headset.

The president could not bear to watch. Yet he had no choice. He opened his eyes. The clock showed exactly four-fifteen as the U-Haul still crawled parallel to the minivan in slow-moving traffic.

A streak of white smoke jetted from the camera. Two seconds passed.

Against a backdrop of morbid silence, the U-Haul exploded in a ball of orange flames and black smoke, now billowing with fury into the San Francisco sky.

The situation room was devoid of cheering or discussion. Only quiet. Some exhaling.

The silence was broken after a few seconds by the somber voice of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “We got him, Mr. President.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Mack said, staring at the billowing smoke that made the Embarcadero almost invisible. “It looks like we did.”

“Mr. President,” Jones continued, “I know you don’t want to do this, sir, but I highly recommend that we deploy Army and National Guard units to block all roadway entrances into Washington.”

Mack buried his hands into his forehead. “You’re right, Admiral. I hate to do it, but let’s do it.”

“Also recommend that we evacuate the city of all nonessential personnel.”

“Prepare an order declaring martial law in the District of Columbia and all surrounding counties in Virginia and Maryland. All nonessential personnel not determined as necessary for the defense of the city, as determined by the secretary of defense, shall be evacuated.” He pulled his hands down and eyed the NSC. “And that includes the Congress.”

Glances were exchanged amongst the council members. The secretary of state spoke what was being thought. “You’ve got some members of Congress who will take the position that the president can’t legally order them out of town.”

“I know that,” Mack said. “And if I save them from a nuclear blast and they live to tell about it, they can impeach me if they want.”

US Navy Seahawk

Istana Bogor Palace, Indonesia

3:16 a.m.

From inside the chopper’s cargo bay, Diane watched two of the SEALs holding a defensive position just outside of the chopper with their weapons drawn.

The pilots had shut the engines down on both helicopters, and the sound of boots tramping across the roof echoed.

Pow! Pow! Two more rifle shots rang in the night air.

“Stay down!” one of the SEALs said.

A few more moments of silence.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We surrender!” The voice was Indonesian-accented English.

“Lay your weapons down!” She recognized Captain Noble’s voice. “Hands over your head!”

“Please! No kill! We give you vice president. No kill!”

“Petty officer, gather their weapons and put ’em in the choppers!”

“Aye, Skipper!”

The sound of more boots across the roof. A second later one of the SEALs came back to the cargo bay and dumped about six rifles into it.

“Skipper! Skipper! Comin’ up now. We got the VEEP!”

“Get him in Chopper Two!” Noble said. “Let’s get these birds fired up and get the heck out of here!”

More trampling of boots, and the whine of chopper blades starting to crank.

“In here, Mr. Vice President!” She recognized the voice of Zack.

Three silhouettes appeared, and then were illuminated by the chopper’s cabin lights. Zack, Petty Officer Toomey, and the vice president of Indonesia.

“Watch your step, sir,” Zack was saying, and the vice president stepped into the chopper. “Have a seat beside the lovely lady.”

Zack pointed at Diane, and as the helicopter engines returned to their full, high-pitched roar, and with Navy SEALs piling back in, Vice President Muhammed Magadia, looking worn and tired in a rolled-up white dress shirt, plopped into the jump seat right beside her.

Zack knelt in front of the Indonesian veep. “Let me help you with your safety belt, sir,” he said, gently buckling Magadia into his jump seat, all the while giving Diane another confident wink.

“All right, let’s get this bird in the air!” Captain Noble ordered.

The engines roared, and the chopper lifted into the sky, leaving the light-splashed palace below.

Residence of General Perkasa

Jakarta, Indonesia

3:30 a.m.

Why isn’t the American press reporting about the detonation yet?” General Perkasa demanded. “Our man was supposed to detonate fifteen minutes ago.”

“It takes a few minutes, General,” Colonel Croon said. “There was massive confusion, I am sure, and it takes a little while even for the Americans to begin to broadcast.”

Hassan saw an opportunity. “Would you like me to get a live feed on CNN, General? We can watch for their breaking news coverage when San Francisco is vaporized.”

“Of course, Hassan.”

Hassan picked up the remote control and mashed several buttons. CNN reporter Tom Miller’s image was on the screen, standing in front of the late afternoon sun at the White House. Miller was speaking into the camera.

“This just in. Reports of a major explosion in San Francisco. The details are still sketchy. But sources say that the explosion involved a U-Haul truck, and it doesn’t look good.”

The Indonesian officers cheered.

“Quiet! Quiet!” Perkasa said. “I want to hear all the details.”

Miller continued.

“We’re working on a live feed from San Francisco right now, where we understand there is pandemonium. Stand by.” The bespectacled Miller was holding his hand to his ear, as if listening to the voice of his news director. “There are reports of smoke rising over the city…”

“Pour more drinks for everyone!” Perkasa stood, smiling, now taking a swig directly out of the bottle. “Soon we will rule the world!”

“Let me repeat. We still do not have any casualty reports, although there is speculation that this could be somehow related to the nuclear attack on Philadelphia, and the White House is not commenting. Still waiting for live video coverage…”

“I guarantee Mack Williams comes to the table now!” Perkasa was bragging.

Alcohol flowed freely. Glasses clanged. Officers were raising their cups to their brilliant leader. “To General Perkasa,” the ignorant sycophant Colonel Croon was saying. “There has never been another leader in the history of the world quite like him!”

“To the general!”

“To General Perkasa!”

“We are now starting to get a live feed from San Francisco…”

The phone rang. Hassan looked down. Istana Bogor. The TV broadcast could wait. Quick. A potential chance to purvey more information to the general while the colonel was getting drunk watching television.

“This is a distant shot from Chopper Nine of the local ABC affiliate. It shows the smoke rising over the city…”

Hassan ignored Tom Miller’s voice and picked up the phone. “General Perkasa’s headquarters, Major Taplus speaking.” Why not go ahead and identify himself as Major Taplus? After all, the promotion was imminent anyway. And by the time he got a field promotion to major, a promotion to colonel would certainly follow. “How can I help you?…What?…Could you repeat that?…How did that happen?…That cannot be!” He cupped the phone with his hand. “General Perkasa, sir!”

“Not now!” Perkasa snapped, his eyes still glued on CNN.

“But it is important, sir.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait. It is not as important as this!”

Hassan hung up the phone and turned his attention to CNN, where Tom Miller was talking over a live video feed of black smoke billowing into the sky from San Francisco.

“Now according to eyewitnesses,” Miller said, “this U-Haul truck that we are watching burn, exploded and burst into flames when it was attacked by a missile from an aircraft overhead.”

“What!” Perkasa was screaming.

“National Guard troops are taking control of the situation and removing all civilians from the area. Now the presence of military units on the ground is fueling speculation that this attack could somehow be related to the attacks in Philadelphia.”

“They have destroyed our bomb!” Perkasa threw his glass against the fireplace, shattering it. “This cannot be!”

“And reports are now coming in from Washington that the president has ordered the evacuation of the District of Columbia. All roadways leading into the city are blocked.”

“Aiieee!” Perkasa whipped his pistol from his holster. The coward Croon and several of the others ducked, but Hassan held his ground as Perkasa pointed his pistol to the ceiling. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. White plaster rained down from above.

“Stand up, you cowards!” Perkasa screamed. “Have I but one brave officer on my staff?” He eyed Hassan as the others slowly returned to their feet. “Taplus, you are promoted on the spot to colonel!”

The rush flooded Colonel Hassan Taplus. But this was not the time to gloat. Now was the time to take control away from the fool Croon. Pounce now, Hassan. “I am honored, General, but now is the time for swift and decisive action.”

“Yes, of course,” Perkasa said.

“General, I must first inform you of more negative news.”

“What is it?”

“There has been a raid on Istana Bogor. US forces, likely Navy SEALs, have captured Vice President Magadia and evacuated him by helicopter.”

Perkasa slumped back into his chair, now almost in a daze. “How?” He looked around. “How did this happen?”

Now. “Perhaps we should ask Colonel Croon,” Hassan said. “He was in charge of overseeing security at the palace.”

Perkasa’s eyes locked onto the colonel, who by now was standing just to the side of the general’s desk. “What about that, Colonel Croon? Colonel Taplus is right. You were in charge of arranging security for Istana Bogor, were you not?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“And you realize how important it is to our cause that Magadia not become a political opponent?”

“Yes, but…”

“The Americans could prop him up like a puppet and finance an opposition to us.”

“But…”

“What do you have to say for yourself, Croon?” Perkasa was yelling again.

“Perhaps it is all a mistake…”

“A mistake?” Perkasa’s face reddened. “Tell me, Colonel. Did you have antiaircraft guns atop Istana Bogor?”

“Our guards had rifles.”

“Rifles? Against the Americans’ missiles and machine guns?”

“We have armed guards in the palace. We were relying on the secrecy of the vice president’s location to keep him secure from this sort of thing.”

“Secrecy?” Perkasa slapped his fist on his desk. “Let me tell you about secrecy, Colonel!” He whipped his pistol out of its holder and pointed it straight at Croon’s head. “Tell me a little secret, Colonel. How many more rounds does my pistol have?”

“Please…General…Please!”

The White House

4:35 p.m.

He had done what he had to do. Still, the thought of the minivan was already haunting him. The child. Perhaps his mother. Perhaps a brother or sister.

Why did they have to be next to the U-Haul? Why? Where was God’s sense of justice?

The president needed a break. He had walked from the Situation Room to the Oval Office just to get some air, if nothing else. If they needed him, they knew where to find him.

Though the United States was in the midst of the most serious international crisis in its history, the president had to be alone. If only for a moment. But to an American president, alone was never really alone. Alone, even in the Oval Office, meant alone plus two Secret Service agents.

Mack turned his back on his security detail and stood behind his desk. He looked over the receding shadows of the South Lawn, toward the traffic jams along Constitution Avenue. The National Guard was overseeing the evacuation of Washington. Soldiers could be seen on the street directing traffic. By evacuating Washington and shutting down the roadway entrances, he was inviting them to attack by air. That would likely be by small, low-flying aircraft, difficult to detect by radar.

On September 12, 1994, a drunken pilot crashed a Cessna 150 onto the South Lawn of the White House. That plane had been picked up by radar technicians at Reagan National Airport, but it was too late. The plane could have easily struck the Executive Mansion, but crashed on the South Lawn instead.

Seven years before that, in 1987, a German pilot had flown his Cessna over four hundred miles through Soviet airspace, again undetected by radar, and landed it at Red Square!

Yet Mack had more confidence in the air force to find a small aircraft than the local police to find a U-Haul truck, assuming that the U-Haul had not already entered the city.

Mack’s mind wandered from the defense of Washington to the boy.

“Jesus, let that boy be alive. His family too. Please. Somehow. Don’t make me live with this.” He exhaled. I’ve got to shake this off. There’s a nuclear bomb out there. Somewhere.

The intercom buzzer sounded. “Mr. President,” Gayle Staff said. “Admiral Jones and Secretary Mauney.”

“Send them in.” He turned around. A Secret Service agent opened the door. The admiral and the secretary rushed in with excited looks on their faces.

“Another break, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said.

“We found the other U-Haul?”

“Afraid not,” Jones said. “Not yet anyway. But this is significant.”

“Talk to me.”

“We have a triangulation on Perkasa’s last broadcast. Two EC-2 Hawkeyes off the Reagan have been working this. We think we may have located where it came from,” Lopez said.

“We know where Perkasa is?”

“We think we know where he was as of that last broadcast,” Lopez said.

“In Jakarta?”

“Yes, sir,” Admiral Jones said.

“And you want me to authorize hitting that location with a missile.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Jones said. “And sooner rather than later.”

“And if he isn’t there, we risk killing innocent Indonesia citizens. Just like when Bush went after bin Laden. The guy kept moving from location to location.”

“We might get lucky, Mr. President,” Admiral Jones said. “As of now, we have no choice.” As Mack let that thought set in, the admiral spoke again. “Sir, remember that President Clinton had a chance to take out bin Laden and passed on it. A lot of American lives could have been spared if the president had acted in that situation.”

Mack turned around again, his gaze fixed on the Washington Monument towering into the late afternoon sky. “Order the navy to make the strike,” he said. “By means of your discretion, Admiral Jones.”

“Aye, Mr. President.”

Residence of General Perkasa

Jakarta, Indonesia

3:38 a.m.

Croon was on his knees beside Perkasa’s desk. His voice shook, and his crossed eyes stared into the gun barrel that was no more than two inches from his head.

Even Hassan felt a bit sorry for the bumbling fool. But the general was red hot, and Croon’s elimination from power was necessary for the good of Indonesia, and hand-in-hand with that, for Hassan’s own advancement.

“You haven’t guessed, you fool!” Perkasa shouted, extending his arm straight out with the gun aimed at the middle of Croon’s forehead. “Does my pistol have any more bullets in the chamber? Or did I shoot them all into the ceiling? Hmm?”

“General…General…”

“Answer, fool!”

“General, I don’t know…”

“Don’t know, do you? Well, then, let’s find out!”

“General, please…I have a wife and two boys!”

“Perhaps you should have thought of them before you implemented your yellow-bellied plan for protecting Istana Bogor!”

Blam! Blam!

Croon’s head exploded like a cracked watermelon. He slumped to the floor in an oozing puddle of blood.

“Get him out!” Perkasa ordered. “And clean up this mess! Throw his body to the sharks!”

“Yes, General.” A couple of enlisted men quickly dragged the body out feet first, while a third began scrubbing blood with a white towel.

“Now then, what were we discussing, Colonel Taplus?”

“General, unfortunately, it is obvious to me that the Americans have somehow cracked into our code. We have to change course.”

“And how did our plan get compromised? Who was in charge of security over our plans?”

Careful, Hassan. “Colonel Croon was ultimately in charge of security over our operational plans.” Better to lie than risking a bullet himself. “At least that part of the problem has been taken care of.” Perhaps he could find a way to kill the general and go ahead and take charge of this entire revolution.

“Yes, of course,” Perkasa said. “But what do we do now that they are looking for the U-Hauls? I suppose we could transfer the nuclear device to another vehicle, but they have shut down Washington.”

“Not to worry, General. Croon was in charge of protecting the integrity of the program, but I masterminded it, and there is a backup contingency for this sort of thing. I did not write it into the plan so that if the plan were compromised, there would be no record of the backup plan.”

“Good thinking.” Perkasa reholstered his pistol, to Hassan’s delight, and sat in his chair. “Tell me about this contingency plan.”

“Nine-Eleven was long ago. But we still have pilots in America trained and waiting to be called upon for jihad.

“There is a special e-mail that I have set up. All we must do is log into the e-mail and type the code word. Once that is done, our driver will be alerted and will immediately divert to the town of Winchester, Virginia, which is seventy-seven miles from Washington.

“We have a Muslim brother there. A pilot. He has been waiting to be called upon for years. He too will receive the e-mail message. At that point, he will meet our driver. They will load the bomb on the plane and fly it into Washington at treetop level, careful to avoid radar. The bomb will be detonated over the US Capitol building.”

The general grinned. “Brilliant, Hassan. Brilliant.”

US Navy F/A-18 (“Viper 1”)

Over Bandung, Indonesia

3:42 a.m.

Viper 1, Reagan control…Turn to course three-one-five degrees. Stand by for targeting coordinates.”

“Reagan, Viper. Roger that,” the pilot responded, pulling the plane’s yoke to the left. “Turning to three-one-five degrees. Standing by targeting instructions.”

The Hornet swung through the dark skies around to the northwest, in the direction of the national capital at Jakarta, which was seventynine miles to the northwest.

“Viper. Reagan. Target is at 6 degrees, 16 minutes, 22 seconds south latitude; 106 degrees, 48 minutes, 18 seconds east longitude.”

“Reagan. Viper 1. Copy that. Target at 6 degrees, 16 minutes, 22 seconds south latitude; 106 degrees, 48 minutes, 18 seconds east longitude.” The pilot punched the firing information into the plane’s fire control computer. “Reagan. Viper 1. Be advised that missile is armed and ready for launch.”

“Viper 1, Reagan control. Move into position and fire at will.”

“Roger that. Fire at will.”

The pilot’s thumb depressed the button that said Fire Missile.

The pilot felt a slight bump upward just as two AGM-88 HARM missiles dropped from the plane’s underbelly. They rocketed away from the jet like giant burning cigars vanishing into the dark distance. The missiles left twin streaks of smoke trailing behind them to mark their paths.

“Reagan. Viper. Missiles away.”

“Viper. Reagan. Copy that. Now we wait.”

Residence of General Perkasa

Jakarta, Indonesia

3:44 a.m.

Are you sure this will work, Hassan?” The general, who had suddenly become Hassan’s best buddy, was leaning over Hassan’s shoulder peering at the computer screen. This was a good thing. After the annihilation of Washington, Hassan would press the general for promotion from colonel to one star. Things were working perfectly, according to the plan of Allah.

“Yes, of course this will work, General.” He was logging into the e-mail account especially set up for the contingency. “All I have to do is type one word”-he typed the word airborne on the e-mail as he was saying it-“and hit the send button, which will go to both the driver and the pilot. Immediately, the contingency plan will go into effect.”

“Do it quickly, Hassan,” Perkasa said.

“Here we go.” Hassan clicked SEND, instantly sending the cryptic message into the galaxies of cyberspace. “Done,” Hassan said, exhaling. “Now, we wait.”

BOOM! Two great thunderbolts shook the building. Dust and plaster immediately rained in torrents from the ceiling, and then the ceiling began to fall. Hassan tried scrambling for the doorway, but a steel beam dropped from above and crushed his head. It would be his last memory of life on earth.

And then, fire.

US Navy F/A-18 (“Viper 1”)

Over Jakarta, Indonesia

3:46 a.m.

Reagan. Viper 1. Looks like we’ve got a double hit. Both missiles detonated on target.”

“Viper 1. Reagan control. Good shooting. Climb back to eighteen thousand feet. Resume patrol and await new orders.”

“Reagan control. Viper 1. Roger that.”