Don Brown - The Malacca Conspiracy

“By all means.”

Robert took the grease pencil.

“Okay. Let’s do the math. One hundred thousand contracts times a forty-thousand-dollar profit per contract.”

100,000 contracts

x $40,000 $4,000,000,000

“Now if I’ve done my math right, nine zeros is four billion, count it, four billion dollars. And that’s on one hundred thousand contracts. Remember, more than a million contracts traded, mostly buying low and selling high. So when you considered that more than a million contracts traded, that’s probably at least forty billion dollars made in one swoop alone.”

Shocked murmuring came from the members of the council.

Then, silence.

Admiral Jones spoke up. “Someone could buy a fleet of two hundred B-1 bombers for that kind of money. The pricetag for the B-1 was two hundred million a pop.” The admiral scratched his chin. “Or they could buy a couple of B-2 Stealth Bombers.”

Silence.

“Or nukes,” Secretary of Defense Erwin Lopez added.

“That’s right, Mr. Secretary,” Admiral Jones said. “They could buy a ton of nuclear weapons for forty billion bucks.” The admiral ran his hand through his thinning hairline. “If somebody was willing to sell. And my guess is for that kind of money, they could find a seller.”

More silence. The president stood and reached his hand out to Lieutenant Molster. They clasped hands and the president said, “Lieutenant, I personally appreciate your service to the navy and to our country.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

Residence of General Perkasa

Jakarta, Indonesia

3:00 a.m.

With the excited voices and sounds of clinking glass intermixed with the droll hum of the large ceiling fan over their bed, Kristina thought that she had been dreaming. Perhaps one of the servants had neglected to turn the television off.

She rolled to her right and reached out for the warm body of her man. When she felt only the fluff of a pillow, her eyes opened. Light seeped under the door from the hallway outside.

The voices were not from the television. They were real. Some were familiar voices.

She felt for her robe, stood, pulled it over her shoulders, and tied it. She put on the slippers that he had bought her and crept across the dark floor toward the door.

Laughing. Cackling. Backslapping. The sounds of a drunken boys’ club.

“The General,” as he demanded to be called, was among the voices booming outside the doorway. His friend and sidekick, Dr. Budi, was another. The others she did not recognize.

Perhaps she should just get dressed now, slip out, and go home.

But what if he discovered she had left without his permission?

Suppose he became angry and tracked her down? He was already one of the most powerful men in the nation, next to the president himself. His minions could find her. And where could she go except to her small, government-subsidized apartment in South Jakarta?

How would she support herself without his help?

Her meager income as a ceramic maker along the streets of South Jakarta had ended in the name of the governor’s “urban beautification” project. Flower vendors, ceramic makers, poor women embroidering on the roadside for visiting foreigners who offered pennies for their handiwork-they had become a “public nuisance” in the governor’s eyes. The police had showed up in riot gear with billy clubs and high-pressure water hoses. “You are operating without legal licenses,” a policeman with a bullhorn announced. “Leave now, or you will be removed.”

A moment later, a torrential blast of pressurized water knocked them off their feet and swooshed the fruits of their labor onto the sidewalk and into the gutters.

Most lost everything.

Kristina got lucky.

A British woman, a pretty blonde lady in her thirties named Elizabeth Martin who was married to a British Petroleum executive, had purchased a few items of ceramic from her over the years. By happenstance, they had met on the streets a few weeks after the cleansing. Elizabeth mentioned that she wished to hire another member of the household staff. Technically, the job description was seamstress. But Kristina wound up doing almost everything-taking the Martins’ kids to school, shopping at the market for groceries, watching the children in the evenings while her employers attended social events.

Elizabeth, who was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, was closer in age to Kristina. The two women became friends.

Last August 17-Indonesian Independence Day-another twist of fate had changed Kristina’s life.

Elizabeth’s husband Tom, who was friends with the British ambassador to Indonesia, was invited to attend the hoisting of the flag at Merdeka Palace.

Hosted by President Santos and Vice President Magadia, and attended by top military officials, government dignitaries, and special guests of those dignitaries, it was the most solemn annual event in Indonesia, an event that Indonesia’s poor could only watch on television, if they were lucky enough to get to a television.

But by a stroke of fate, the British Embassy had allotted Kristina’s boss five tickets. Four of the tickets would be used by her employer, his wife, and their two children. She was offered the fifth.

Their seats were in front of the fountain, on the lush green grass of the National Monument Gardens. The white-columned Merdeka Palace, the presidential palace of Indonesia, stood majestically just across Medan Merdeka Utara Avenue.

The wind was whipping that day, and she felt occasional mist from the gushing fountains behind her.

The crowd rose for the entrance of President Santos, who took a seat at the center of the large portico amidst the white columns, no more than one hundred meters from where they were sitting. Decorated military officers and a host of other dignitaries, officials of the Indonesian government, surrounded the president.

Crack troops of the Indonesian army marched along the parade grounds to brass and percussion. As they marched by, she noticed one of the officers in the presidential entourage, a stout man in the green army uniform with all the glistening ribbons and sparkling medals. Was he looking at her? His eyes returned to her several times. Perhaps he was looking at something else, she had decided at the time.

After all the troops had marched in and filled the parade grounds, and after President Santos made a short speech about the greatness of Indonesia, a group of schoolboys dressed in the national colors of red and white had done the honors of raising the giant flag against the solemn music of the national anthem played by an army band.

Confetti, elation, applause, and tears of pride flowed freely among the masses as the Indonesian flag, furling in the tropical wind, reached the top of the flagpole.

Kristina could not believe that she was actually here, at the presidential palace, at a magnificent time and place with the eyes of the nation watching. Tears flowed. Only weeks before she had been knocked off her feet by the powerful blast of water hoses. Now this.

Perhaps there was a God. Perhaps that moment had been evidence of it.

Her parents, who had been devout Catholics and who had raised her in the church, had taught her that there was a God, and that he was a God of redemption.

She thought of her parents, who had been killed in a car crash, and of her brother, Asmoro, from whom she was partially estranged.

Asmoro had rejected Christianity and embraced Islam. Then he had rushed off to join the Indonesian navy. His conversion to Islam had separated Asmoro from her, and from her parents while they were alive. Although she rarely saw him anymore, she occasionally received a letter, but he kept Kristina at arm’s length. He kept quiet about his assignment with special forces of the Indonesian navy. He was stationed in Sumatra, she had heard, at a naval station along the Malaccan Strait.