The Malacca Conspiracy Read online

  The timing was odd. Coincidental? Maybe. Maybe not. It was as if someone knew about the attacks and bought oil futures just beforehand to profit from the run-up in prices. He went back to his computer and called up the AP version of the breaking news story.

  The Associated Press is reporting attacks overnight on oil tankers in the Singapore Strait. Also, word out of Singapore is that a luxury hotel has been hit, and a planned attack on an oil tanker in the Malacca Strait region was evidently foiled by the US Navy. Stay tuned for further developments…

  “What?” The cold sensation running down his spine drove him immediately to the flat-screen TV, and he flipped on CNN. An aerial shot of an oil tanker billowing smoke flashed across the screen. It was like someone had dumped a bag of ice on him. Was he the only person in the world who was connecting the dots of what was going on here?

  His buzzing monitor broke the silence. “Not again!” He cursed and rushed back to his computer, sending a splash of black coffee onto his starched white shirt.

  Limit Alert…Limit Alert…Trading in January Light, Sweet Crude Calls, and Brent Crude Calls halted due to limit move of $10.00. Trading to resume at 3:15 A.M., EST, 8:15 A.M., GMT.

  “A third limit move. Oil tankers attacked.” Something was definitely happening here. Robert picked up the phone, punching the direct line to his boss’s bedside.

  “Mr. Chairman, Robert Molster here. Sorry to wake you again, sir, but we’ve got a major-league problem brewing.”

  The Altair Voyager

  Near the Strait of Malacca

  2:00 p.m.

  Captain! Small craft approaching!” “What? Where?” Captain Eichenbrenner lifted his binoculars toward the horizon.

  “Zero-nine-zero degrees. Off the starboard, sir,” the first officer said. “He’s approaching fast!”

  “I see him.” Eichenbrenner cursed. The speedboat was racing inbound. “First Officer, empty the small arms locker! Get a rifle team down to the starboard gunwale. Be prepared to open fire.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Captain!” The ship’s navigator was pointing out to the right. “There’s another one.”

  “Where?”

  “Just right of the first one, sir! Inbound!”

  Eichenbrenner adjusted the focus ring on the binoculars and found the second inbound speedboat. “I knew it!”

  “There’s a third one, sir. Now a fourth!”

  “Lord, help us!” Eichenbrenner uttered his first prayer in more than thirty years. “Radio officer, open emergency channel to USS Ingraham. Tell ’em we’re under attack. Multiple small craft approaching. Intentions hostile. Estimated time to impact, three to five minutes. We need air cover! ASAP!”

  “Right away, Captain!”

  “First Officer, I want every small arm on this ship firing at these suckers!”

  “Yes, Captain!”

  USS Ingraham

  Near the Strait of Malacca

  2:02 p.m.

  Radioman First Class Michael Griffin had assumed his post only five minutes before the shrill static crackled across his headset.

  “USS Ingraham…This is the tanker Altair Voyager. We are under attack! Estimate five speedboats approaching at high rates of speed. Repeat, tanker Altair Voyager under attack! Request air cover! USS Ingraham, acknowledge!”

  Griffin reached to the control panel and switched the radio to the transmit button. “Altair Voyager. USS Ingraham. Acknowledge. Stand by!”

  Griffin punched several buttons to triangulate the source of the radio signal. Got it. He switched to the ship’s internal intercom system. “Radar. Radio. I’ve got a distress call from the tanker Altair Voyager. Please confirm coordinates.”

  Two seconds passed. “Radio. Radar. Altair Voyager coordinates currently at zero-niner-four degrees, thirty minutes, fifteen seconds east longitude; zero-six degrees, twenty-five minutes, ten seconds north longitude. Course bearing one-two-zero degrees.”

  Griffin penciled the numbers on a legal pad, then compared them against the triangulation numbers showing the source of the transmission.

  “Bridge! Radio! We have a distress call from tanker Altair Voyager. Triangulation and radar confirm source of distress call! Altair Voyager is under attack by unidentified speedboats. Altair Voyager requesting immediate air cover. Repeat, Altair Voyager requesting immediate air cover.”

  “Roger. Acknowledge!” The voice of the ship’s executive officer boomed over the ship’s loudspeakers on the 1MC. “General quarters! General quarters! Tanker Altair Voyager is under attack by multiple small craft. General quarters! Man battle stations.

  “Helo deck! Bridge! Get both birds airborne! Immediately. Set course for Altair Voyager. Force authorized to defend against attacks and stand by for possible rescue ops.”

  Two seconds passed. “Bridge! Helo deck. Roger that! We’re rolling both birds out now. Estimated time to launch bird one, four minutes!”

  The Altair Voyager

  Near the Strait of Malacca

  2:05 p.m.

  The arms locker of the Altair Voyager had been furbished with a total of six M1 Garand rifles, World War II surplus, that were purchased by the Chevron Corporation in the rare instance that they might be needed on the high seas.

  Additionally, four 9-millimeter Beretta pistols had been furnished, one for the captain and three others for whichever officers the captain assigned them to.

  Each weapon had been issued to every available deckhand. Ten gun barrels, six rifles, and four pistols were at that moment being aimed out to sea from the side of the ship.

  Eichenbrenner couldn’t shake the images of the Alamo, of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and company aiming their rifles out of the Alamo at Santa Ana’s overpowering forces.

  “Gentlemen, be ready to fire on my order!”

  Suddenly, the boats slowed, about a quarter of a mile off the bow and just over to the right. They began circling like sharks in the water.

  The crewmen started talking.

  “What’s up with that?”

  “Maybe changed their mind.”

  “Could be our lucky day.”

  “Quiet!” The captain held his hand in the air. The boats kept circling like buzzards over a carcass.

  They did this for about a minute, until one of the boats slowly broke from the circle.

  Then another.

  Then a third.

  They lined up one behind the other, all five speedboats, the sound of their revving outboards thundering across the water. They positioned themselves in a straight line, their bows pointed straight toward the ship.

  “God help us,” someone said.

  “They’re gonna try to hit us in the same spot to break our double hull,” the first officer said.

  Eichenbrenner spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Bridge. Captain. Where’s our air cover from the US Navy?”

  A squeak from the walkie-talkie. “Captain, we raised the Ingraham. Two choppers on the way!”

  The engines of the first boat revved. It planed up and began plowing through the water, its bow aimed straight at the Altair Voyager.

  The sound of more thunder. The second boat revved its engines. Its bow shot up as it charged like a bull in the wake of the first. The third fell into the fast-moving line. Then the fourth. And the fifth.

  Like a bright lightning bolt flashing in the sun, the kamikaze flotilla cut the water in a vertical column, one behind the other, engines roaring, bearing down on the starboard gunwale just behind the bow.

  “Open fire!” Eichenbrenner yelled.

  The sharp crack of rifle volleys echoed across the steel superstructure of the ship. The smell of burnt gun powder filled the air.

  An orange fireball burst from the fuel tank of the lead boat, followed by black smoke. Cheering erupted.

  The burning hulk veered to the right as the second boat charged through its wake.

  “Fire again!”

  Shots splashed around the hull, spraying seawater in the air. Its windshield
exploded in a shower of glass. Blood gushed from one of the terrorists’ heads. The pilot ducked down under the dash. The second boat, now the lead, charged on.

  “Keep firing!”

  Thirty yards.

  Twenty yards.

  “Keep firing.”

  Ten yards.

  “Shoot the gas tank!”

  Bang…bang…bang…bang…

  Five yards.

  BOOM!

  The speedboat crashed into the side of the ship’s hull at full speed. The explosion rocked the Altair Voyager, knocking men off their feet. Flames lapped up the right side. Captain Eichenbrenner stumbled against the steel protective cable surrounding the ship’s perimeter.

  BOOM!

  The third speedboat had now made it through the token rifle fire and crashed into the ship. Another explosion.

  Eichenbrenner grasped the cable and looked up in time to see two of his men falling into the sea.

  “Man overboard!” Eichenbrenner screamed into his walkie-talkie. “Execute man overboard drill! All engines stop!”

  BOOM! BOOM! Two more heavy blows to the hull. More men splashed into the water.

  “Everybody move aft!” Eichenbrenner motioned his men away from the leaping flames. The ship’s engines threw the propellors into reverse. The sudden halting of the ship’s forward movement knocked a few more men off their feet, but fortunately, this time no one flew off the deck.

  “Toss life rings to those men!”

  Five white life rings spun like Frisbees over the water, spinning, spinning, and finally splashing down into the Andaman Sea.

  “Bridge!” Eichenbrenner yelled into the walkie-talkie. “Get a fire team down on those flames. Throw everything you’ve got at it. All fire extinguishers. All the water hoses on the ship. Get that fire out fast or it’s all over.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Blocking the sun with his hand, Eichenbrenner looked down over the side of his ship, squinting to see if the life rings had reached his sailors, flailing in the water below.

  The rings bobbed on the water in a straight line over perhaps seventy-five yards. One man reached a ring in the center of the line. Two others were swimming toward the rings floating over to the right. The last two sailors were nowhere to be seen.

  Fire shot skyward from the upper right gunwales of his ship, producing a rising heat that made it impossible to stand pat and search.

  Eichenbrenner turned and sprinted toward the stern, away from the leaping flames.

  US Navy SH-60B Seahawk (“Rover 1”)

  Near the Malacca Strait

  2:15 p.m.

  At five hundred feet above the water, Lieutenant David Carraway surveyed the seascape below. The chopper’s shadow rushed across the sunlit waters, as the tropical green of the Malaccan Strait gave way to the blue waters of the Andaman Sea.

  His sister chopper, code name Rover 2, the other Seahawk from the USS Ingraham, flew two hundred yards off to his side, tracking a parallel northwesterly course at one hundred thirty knots. Carraway gave a thumbs-up to Rover 2, then switched his radio frequency for a direct link with the other chopper.

  “Rover 2, Rover 1. I’ve got you off my left wing, over.”

  “Roger that, Rover 1,” said Lieutenant J. G. Edison Towe, Rover 2’s pilot. “You’re in my sights too, sir.” Towe flashed a thumbs-up back at Carraway.

  “Very well,” Carraway said. “Maintain course and speed. ETA to targets five minutes.”

  Static burst over the emergency frequency.

  “Mayday! Mayday! This is the tanker Altair Voyager. Be advised we are on fire and are taking on water! Mayday! Mayday! This is the Altair Voyager. We are on fire and listing! Coordinates at zero-niner-four degrees, thirty minutes, fifteen seconds east longitude; zero-six degrees, twenty-five minutes, ten seconds north longitude. Mayday! Mayday!”

  Carraway looked at his copilot. “Give me the mike.”

  “Aye, Skipper.”

  “Altair Voyager. This is US Navy helicopter. We copy your mayday. ETA less than four.”

  “Roger that, navy chopper. Please hurry. They’ve busted our hull! We’ve got crude leaking. The sea’s on fire! We’re taking on water fast!”

  Carraway clicked the send button again. “Roger that, Altair Voyager. Are you still under attack?”

  Static. Then a response. “That’s a negative. No longer under attack. Preparing to abandon ship! The sea to the starboard of the ship is on fire, and we’ll be abandoning ship to the port side. We’re tossing life rafts into the water now.”

  “Copy that, Altair Voyager. Hang tight. We’ll be right there.”

  Chapter 5

  The White House

  3:20 a.m.

  Mack Williams, the president of the United States, was not in the best of moods.

  In the last year of his second administration, Mack faced a lameduck Congress full of howling Democrats who wanted to crow about everything from legalizing homosexual marriage to unconditional amnesty for every illegal alien to socialized medicine for all. Add to that the constant series of international crises rooted in the global problem of radical Islam, and Mack was feeling the heavy weight of office upon his shoulders.

  Like his predecessors, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, his hair had morphed from mainly brown, to salt-and-pepper, and finally, by this last year of his administration, to mostly salt. His forehead, as smooth as a baby’s bottom when he had raised his hand and taken the oath of office that cold January morning on the West Front of the US Capitol, had grown crisscrossed with lines, carved by the burden of his position.

  The international crises and foreign threats had carved the deepest grooves.

  His presidency had seen radical Islam attempt to infiltrate the US military, an attack on the Dome of the Rock in Israel, a daring military operation which he had ordered into Mongolia’s Gobi Desert to rescue an American naval officer, and a secret naval operation into the Black Sea to attack a Russian freighter suspected of transporting stolen nuclear fuel.

  More than once, his administration had found America on the brink of nuclear war. The responsibility was astronomical. As a devout Christian, Mack had gotten through much of it by quoting the verse in Philippians that told him to be “anxious about nothing, but in all things bring your petitions and requests to God…and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

  He needed God’s supernatural peace. Otherwise, the pressure of the job, especially in these trying times of being at war with radical Islam, could kill a man.

  Last night, he had hoped for a respite from it all. He had looked forward to watching his beloved Kansas Jayhawks host the hated Missouri Tigers in a Big 12 game at the historic Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks were ranked number one and looking to pick some flesh off the Tigers.

  But the team in crimson and blue never showed up, losing 101-100 in double overtime. Mack had flipped off the television and crawled into bed beside the First Lady at 11:00 P.M.

  He shouldn’t get so wrapped up in college basketball or the basketball fortunes of his alma mater. He should have been praying or reading the Bible or doing something to advance democracy around the world.

  But everybody, including the president, deserved a diversion. Didn’t he? He wrapped his arms around his wife and dozed off.

  The phone rang. Mack looked over at the digital clock. 3:30 A.M.

  Mack reached for the receiver. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry to wake you, Mr. President,” his chief of staff, Arnie Brubaker, said. “But the national security advisor wants an emergency meeting of the NSC.”

  “What for?”

  “Suicide attacks on oil tankers, sir. The Malaccan Straits. And a terrorist attack in Singapore.”

  “All right, Arnie. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

  “What now, Mack?” Caroline Williams mumbled.

  “Shhhh.” The president reached over and kissed her. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tiptoed
across the presidential bedroom, stepping into a walk-in closet. He closed the door, flipped the light on, and put on a pair of khakis and a blue, button-down Oxford shirt, then slipped into a pair of brown penny loafers.

  He flipped off the light, opened the doors, and walked through the dark bedroom toward the light shining under the bedroom door to the hallway.

  “Morning, Mr. President.” Two Secret Service agents, posted in the hallway just outside the presidential bedroom, stood as the president stepped into the second-floor hallway.

  “Gentlemen.” Mack nodded.

  “Jayhawk on the move,” one of the Secret Service agents announced into his sleeve mike. Jayhawk was the code name that the Secret Service used when referring to the president. Mack liked the code name, except at the moment it reminded him of the results of last night’s game. He dismissed that thought.

  Arnie Brubaker, in a brown suit and brown tie, and shadowed by two other Secret Service agents, approached down the hallway. “Good morning, Mr. President,” Arnie said.

  “You’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for three-forty in the morning, Arnie.”

  “That’s why you pay me the big bucks, sir.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Mack said. “Ready to go?”

  “Yes, sir,” Arnie said. “The National Security Council is already assembling.”

  “Let’s go,” Mack said.

  US Navy SH-60B Seahawk (“Rover 1”)

  Near the Malacca Strait

  2:30 p.m.

  With orange flames and black smoke billowing high into the late afternoon sky, the location of the Altair Voyager was easily visible as the choppers approached. The scene reminded Lieutenant Carraway of pictures he had seen from the Persian Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein had intentionally set oil fields on fire in Kuwait. Altair Voyager was a burning oil well, surrounded not by sand, but by water.

  “Rover 2. Rover 1. Go to one hundred feet. Stay on my wing and stay out of that smoke.”

  “Rover 2. Roger that.”

  Carraway brought Rover 1 down to one hundred feet and slowed his airspeed to thirty knots.

  The ship was burning on her starboard side and was listing in that direction. Flames from the ship and from the sea were leaping perhaps a hundred feet into the sky. A massive slick of burning oil oozed into the sea from the ship’s starboard. But the problem wasn’t so much the flames or the oil.