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.