It was all so surrealistic. One of the most beautiful tropical refuges in the world would soon become a nuclear wasteland.
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?”