The president flicked on a small reading light that he kept on the lampstand.
“Mack?” This was the voice of the first lady. He looked around and saw her squinting and starting to push herself up. He held up his hand to shush her.
“Okay, Arnie. Assemble the National Security Council together in the Situation Room in one hour. Tell the chairman of the Joint Chiefs I want a full briefing of everything we know.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”
“Okay, get to it. I’m going to throw some clothes on. Call me if we hear anything about Santos, Martin Stacks, or Diane.”
“Will do, sir.”
Mack hung up the phone.
“What’s wrong, Mack?”
“Try to get some sleep.” He reached over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”
“I heard you mention Marty Stacks and Diane Colcernian. Are they okay?”
“Dunno yet, sweetie.” Another kiss on the cheek. He pulled the covers over her and then flipped off the reading light. Darkness covered the presidential bedroom.
Mack swung his feet to the floor and tiptoed across to the small study room adjacent to the bedroom. He stepped in, felt for the lamp on the small mahogany desk, and switched it on, then closed the door behind him.
The old family Bible given to him by his grandparents when he graduated from college was sitting on the corner of the dark wood.
Years ago, a good friend’s wife had given him a book. He couldn’t even remember the name of it. But now, in the angst of the moment, he somehow remembered the verse that she had written in the front of it.
Colossians 1:9-14: “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.”
The president stopped, looked up, and prayed, “Father, grant me wisdom, endurance, and patience, even in this hour of uncertainty.” His eyes returned to the Bible.
“And joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
“Lord, prepare me for this, and grant thy servant wisdom that you may be glorified. And grant protection to those Americans in Indonesia under my command and under thy authority, that they may be safe from harm, and that this trial which we face would be resolved according to thy glory. For it is in the name of thy living Son, Jesus of Nazareth, that I beseech thee upon bended knee, amen and amen.”
The Halmahera Sea
Two miles southwest of Gag Island
4:30 p.m.
On board the ninety-six-hundred-ton, Ticonderoga-class guidedmissile cruiser Port Royal, Lieutenant JG Edison “Eddie” Atwater of Columbia, South Carolina, decided to step out on deck for a cigarette. Atwater put a ball cap on his head and looked out across the water at the Belgian supertanker Lady of Amsterdam, which the Port Royal was operating close to.
Since the attacks in the Malacca Strait, Port Royal and a number of other cruisers and frigates had been pressed to escort oil tankers around the southern coast of Indonesia, up through the Halmahera Sea, and into either the South China Sea or the Philippine Sea.
Atwater cupped his hand around the lighter to shield it from the tropical sea breeze, then lit the Camel cigarette and proceeded to inhale.
Out to the starboard of the Port Royal, fifteen hundred yards off her gunwales, the Lady of Amsterdam churned low in the water, her belly full of thousands of gallons of black crude.
Beyond the tanker, two miles to the north, lay the gorgeous but mostly uninhabited shores of Gag Island, in the Raj Ampats archipelago. These were some of the most beautiful and pristine seas in the world. Because they were largely unpopulated, naval intelligence had opined that a small speedboat attack from any of the islands in the archipelago was unlikely.
Still, out of an abundance of precaution, the captain had stationed a half-dozen binocular-bearing sailors along the side of the ship to supplement the regular lookouts. Atwater looked down and saw that all of them had their binoculars pointed in the direction of Gag Island.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant.” Atwater turned around and saw the command master chief, wearing faded wash khakis and a navy blue ball cap with USS Port Royal stenciled on it. “Sorry to interrupt your cigarette break, sir, but the skipper wants a navigational update.”
“Be right there, Master Chief.” Atwater cursed under his breath, then flicked the freshly lit cigarette onto the steel deck and stamped it out. He stepped back into the bridge, where Commander Roth Neal, the commanding officer of the Port Royal, was waiting.
“I need a navigational update, Mr. Atwater,” the skipper said. “Punch it up on the screen for us.”
“Aye, sir,” Atwater said.
Atwater stepped to his post and punched a button activating the GPS display.
“We’re currently here, sir. Bearing course two-seven-eight degrees, approximately two miles just south of Gag Island in the Raj Ampats archipelago. Once we clear Gag, we turn north, bearing three-six-zero degrees into the Philippine Sea.”
“Excellent,” the captain said. “Well, the good news, gentlemen,” he was now speaking to all the officers on the bridge, “is this. Since the Lady of Amsterdam is headed to San Francisco, we’ll track her as far as Pearl Harbor, where we drop off and return to port in Hawaii.”
That brought spontaneous cheers from the officers on the bridge.
Port Royal had been at sea for over a year already, her cruise extended because of the explosive situation in the Middle East. The commanding officer’s announcement brought a smile to Ed Atwater’s face. He had not seen his wife, Molly, in over a year. He had never met his son, Eddie Jr., who was born just three weeks ago at the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital.
“Unless,” the captain continued, “Washington redirects us elsewhere. Hopefully, that won’t happen. Some of us have new family members to get acquainted with.” He smiled at Eddie.
The captain was a good man. The whole thing about needing a “navigational update”-just a ruse. Everyone on the ship knew that Gag Island was two miles off the starboard. The skipper had called him back into the bridge to announce that Port Royal was finally going home, and that soon, Eddie would see his son.
“Thank you, Skipper,” Eddie said.
“You bet,” the skipper said. “All right. Everybody get back to work. And Mr. Atwater?”
“Sir?”
“Get your tail back out on the deck and finish that cigarette. That’s an order.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The Halmahera Sea
Twenty miles southwest of Gag Island
4:43 p.m.
From the windswept fantail of the twenty-two-hundred-ton Indonesian Navy frigate KRI Oswald Siahaan, Captain Hassan Taplus gazed out across the sea, looking to the north. Nothing was in sight except the open expanse of the crystal-blue waters.
That would change in a moment. Just beyond the earth’s curvature, just over the aquamarine horizon, the great weapon that would change history, that would launch his career as the youngest general in the history of the Indonesian military, sat atop the tower they had constructed.
His job, at least this portion of it, was complete. Now, the glorious moment was in the hands of the experts who understood the intricate theories of nuclear weaponry.