Don Brown - The Malacca Conspiracy

Then another.

Nothing.

Five seconds.

Still nothing.

Maybe God had heard his prayer.

“No!”

The shark’s powerful jaws clamped around Grimes’ arm. Grimes screamed, flailed, splashed in the water, and tried punching the creature on the nose with his fist. The shark dragged him across the surface of the water, away from the life ring. “Help me! Help!” Grimes’ screams even drowned out the sound of the helicopters.

With a jerk and a splash, Grimes vanished with the shark under the surface. Blood bubbled up from the spot where he had disappeared.

Eichenbrenner grasped the life ring hard. Coiling into a human ball, he tucked his knees tightly against his chest, as if that would somehow give the monsters less of a target to sniff.

Two fins circled his position now, in equidistant spots, each about ten yards from the life ring.

“If anyone is in the water, please swim aft of the ship! We need you to clear that smoke cover! This is the US Navy!”

Eichenbrenner cocked his head back, gazing at the spreading smoke cloud.

If God would part that cloud…

Still scrunched in a ball, he felt cramping set into his calves. He instinctively kicked his feet down into the water to relieve the pain. The sharks were circling faster now.

One of the sharks broke away, and just as before, began swimming away, toward the ship. Then the second also broke away. Both swam away from him.

They were now at least twenty yards away.

Then, as if choreographed by a trainer at Sea World, both sharks pivoted, one a time. Their vicious snouts took aim at him.

Swirling and splashing their tail fins, they started swimming back toward the life ring.

Fifteen yards. Ten yards.

His life flashed in front of him. His marriage. His divorce. His girls.

This was it.

Fred closed his eyes and remembered words his grandmother once taught him: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come…Thy will be done…”

Chut-ah-chut-ah-chut-ah-chut-ah-chut-ah-chut-ah-chut-ah-chut-ah!

The wall of water sprayed from left to right in a line right in front of the sharks.

The sharks went limp on the surface. They floated on their stomachs for a second, then rolled over, belly-up, limp and bleeding.

Eichenbrenner looked over his shoulder.

The rubber boat was bobbing in the water, perhaps twenty feet behind him.

Crouched in the front of the boat in a black wet suit, holding a black submachine gun with white smoke billowing from the barrel, the man with the rugged chin sported a triumphant grin.

Rambo had risen from the sea!

“I can nail the suckers if they’re close to the surface,” the man said. “But no guarantees if they’re under the water. Now we’ve got to get you out of there.”

“Dear Jesus!”

“Nope. I’m not him. But you can thank him if you want. Lieutenant McKinley Kennedy, US Navy SEALs, at your service, sir,” the man said. “This is Senior Chief Comstock.” Eichenbrenner had not noticed the other man in the back of the boat. “Give me your hand, sir.”

Eichenbrenner reached up. The SEAL’s grip was an iron vise. The SEAL heaved, and instantly, Eichenbrenner was lying on his back in the bottom of the rubber boat.

“Any other survivors?” Kennedy asked.

“I don’t know. The sharks got several of my crew. Some tried swimming out from under the smoke. I was the last off the ship.”

“You the captain?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry, sir. We’ve got three other squads out on the water looking. If anybody’s out here, my men will find ’em. You sound American, Captain.”

“Born and raised in Southern California.”

“Well, sir, I want you to look back there.” The SEAL pointed across the stern of the raft.

It was long, black, and sleek, floating just above the surface of the water.

Toward the front of it, a black, square-shaped superstructure rose into the air. Off the back, lit by the orange glow of the sun setting on the horizon beyond the edge of the cloud cover, the flag of the United States of America flapped in the late afternoon breeze.

“That, Captain, is the USS Boise. We’re going to take you there now, and then we’re going to take you home. Chief, let’s do it.”

“Aye, sir.” The chief revved the electric motor. The boat turned in the water and cut a course directly for the submarine.

Eichenbrenner took one last glance over his shoulder at his sinking ship. The stern was rising off the water like the high end of a seesaw. It would not be long now until she slipped under the sea. He looked away, never to look back.

The sight of the Boise, of the flag draped in the afternoon sunlight, of his ship burning and sinking, then the realization that he would see his girls again, that his desperate prayer had been answered…Tears began rolling.

“It’s okay, Captain.” Kennedy put his hand on Eichenbrenner’s back. “We’re going home.”

New York Mercantile Exchange

6:00 a.m.

Robert Molster sat back in his chair and looked at the electronic clock on the wall. 6:00 a.m. Two more hours to go. What a night. He took another sip of coffee, leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the screen that flashed continual news from the Associated Press. He had been monitoring it since he saw the first reports of the attacks on the tankers. Now word was coming in that there had been another tanker hit, this time in the Andaman Sea. Robert shivered.

The phone rang. “What now?” He picked it up. “Light, Sweet Crude Section. May I help you?”

“Lieutenant Molster?” a woman’s voice inquired.

Lieutenant? This was odd. Why was he being referred to by his military title? “Robert Molster speaking.”

“Lieutenant, this is the White House switchboard. Could you hold, please?”

“The White House? What the…”

“Lieutenant Molster?” A deep, resonating voice came on the phone.

“Lieutenant Molster speaking.”

“Lieutenant, this is Admiral Roscoe Jones, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Was this a joke?

“Are you still there, Lieutenant?”

“My apologies. How may I help you, sir?”

“Well, Lieutenant, it’s not me who’s asking for your help. It’s the president.”

“President Williams?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. He was still president as of zero-four-hundred hours this morning, when the National Security Council was concluding an emergency meeting.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“We’ve heard from the chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange that you’ve had some concerns about the overnight movement of oil price futures. The president has ordered me to inform you that as of this moment, you are being recalled to active duty in the United States Navy.”

“Immediately?”

“Immediately. I want you to go home. Get packed. Throw on your service dress blues, and be at Newark Airport by ten-hundred hours. BUPERS”-the admiral was referring to the Bureau of Naval Personnel-“has already cut your orders and made flight arrangements. Your flight leaves Newark at eleven-hundred. Your tickets will be waiting for you at the US Airways counter. Just show your Navy Identification card. We’ll pick you up at Reagan National at noon. From there, you’ll be driven to the Pentagon, where you’ll report for duty at the JCS.”

Robert let that settle in. This was happening so fast. “But, sir, I’m scheduled to brief the chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange in just about an hour.”

“Son,” the admiral said with a tinge of impatience in his voice, “at fourteen-hundred hours this afternoon, you’re scheduled to brief the president of the United States. The chairman of the Mercantile Exchange can wait. We’ll take care of all that. As of now, your commander in chief is in need of your services. Any questions?”