Don Brown: The Malacca Conspiracy

Would she be there? She promised. But it had been so long.

They’d fallen in love. Or so he thought. How was a guy supposed to know? And then, like that, she was gone.

Time.

Distance.

Misunderstandings.

The navy pulling them in different directions.

These warred against him, it seemed. He tried staying in touch in the aftermath, but most of his emails and letters went unanswered in the months that followed. Silence prevailed.

Long-distance relationships were rife with misunderstandings.

He had been the victim of such a misunderstanding. Or, perhaps, of his own idiotic decision making?

He was sent to Australia by the navy to get him out of the limelight. The loneliness at times was heavy.

A British naval officer-a woman stationed at the British embassy in Australia when he was at the US embassy-found out that his birthday was approaching. When the woman asked him to dinner for his birthday, he politely declined.

Then, she asked again.

And again.

And one or two more times.

“Oh, come on, Zack,” she said. “We’ll have a jolly time. No worries. We’ll just go as friends, you know. There’s a great little restaurant over on Marcus Clarke Street,” Leftenant Emily Edwards had said, in that magnetic, cheery British accent reminiscent of Princess Diana. “The Cougarette. The service is slow, but the food is mouthwatering.”

Her repeated invitations were friendly enough, casual enough, and nonthreatening enough.

Finally, he relented.

Big mistake.

They went out three times, a dinner and two lunches. They did nothing taboo by most Southern Baptist Sunday school standards. But Leftenant Edwards had apparently seen it all differently.

She found Diane’s cell number. The international call roused Diane from bed.

“Did Zack tell you about me?” Edwards was purported to have asked. “Did he tell you that I took him out to dinner for his birthday?”

It was downhill from there.

Diane called, scolding him harshly for the first time. “Friends don’t lie to each other,” she had said. “Zack, I don’t need women calling me. I won’t be coming to see you. You can call me every six months to let me know how you’re doing.”

Then Diane had hung up. What was up with all that?

He’d spoken with her, emailed her, or text messaged her every day for over a year, and after Edwards’ call, she had just hung up. Then, silence.

The package arrived a few days later. It was a sentimental family Bible that was his grandmother’s. He’d given it to Diane. It showed up in the mail with her return address. No note, no nothing. The body blow left him breathless.

Ambiguity had reigned in their on-again, off-again relationship. “You should date other people,” she had told him several times in the past. “I need time to heal. You shouldn’t wait for that.” She had never recanted from that position.

What? Had she been joking? What?

Women.

Who could figure?

Pitfalls and personal hardships were part of navy life, and long-distance relationships were a navy pitfall. Diane came from nowhere-out of the blue. They had been through the fire together in San Diego. And then, she was gone.

Wrestling with himself for months, finally he surrendered to the reality that he had fallen for her.

Now she had agreed to meet him, once more, just for a couple of days before reporting to her new duty station in Indonesia.

But would she really show?

USS Reuben James

The Strait of Malacca

11:15 p.m.

Commander Adam Shugert, skipper of the Reuben James, stood aft of his ship’s superstructure, arms folded, watching his crew at work.

At this instant, the smoldering speedboat dangled in the air over the sea, suspended on chains under the sixteen-ton deck crane located on the ship’s fantail.

“Easy does it. This way,” the officer of the deck was saying.

“Gotcha, sir,” a petty officer said.

“Slow and easy. Bring her on around,” the OOD ordered.

“Here we go,” the crane operator announced. The steel crane hummed and squeaked. The boat swung under it like a pendulum in the whipping wind. The crane rotated clockwise, bringing the hulk over the steel deck.

“Clear out! Bringing her down!”

Sharp, metallic squealing pierced the air, as the crane inched the boat down to the steel deck.

Thud.

“Good job!” the OOD said.

“Everybody back,” the master at arms said. Four armed guards quickly set up a perimeter around the boat.

Captain Shugert, the XO, and two agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service stepped through the perimeter.

Shugert winced.

Four shot-up bodies, their white T-shirts and blue jeans splattered with blood, lay sprawled in the bottom of the boat. All four looked Asian.

“XO, get some corpsmen up here. Pull those bodies out and check for identification.”

“Aye, Skipper.”

“Good. Where are my EODs?” Shugert glanced at his watch as he asked for the explosive ordinance disposal team assigned to his ship.

“We’re here, sir.” EODC Elbert Tarkenton, the senior enlisted demolitions specialist on board, was walking through the perimeter of armed guards. “We’re ready to take a look, sir,” Chief Tarkenton said, “but we need to have those bodies pulled out so we have room.”

Two hospital corpsmen arrived with four single-sheet canvas stretchers, stacked one atop another. Bungee cords strapped blankets and body bags on the top stretcher. The blankets whipped in the warm breeze blowing across the back of the ship.

“You guys get those bodies off that boat,” Shugert ordered. “Watch for detonation devices.”

“Aye, Captain,” one of them responded. Another unleashed the bungee cords and separated the stretchers on the deck just in front of the boat. Two others strapped on latex gloves and approached the boat with a stepladder.

A moment later, two corpsmen in the boat pulled the first body out and laid it on the ship’s deck.

Three minutes later, all four bodies lay on the stretchers, a gruesome sight of blood and flesh glistening in the midday sun. Two young sailors vomited over the side of the ship.

“Check ’em out,” Shugert ordered.

“Skipper,” a corpsman said, “we found two US Navy identification cards.”

“What?” Shugert stepped forward and took the cards. “Unreal.” He turned around. “XO, notify Seventh Fleet. Advise attempted attack on convoy unsuccessful. Perpetrators killed. Four bodies on board USS Reuben James. Two bearing US Navy identification cards. Request permission for port stop in Singapore.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Rasa Sentosa Resort

Sentosa Island, Singapore

12:40 p.m.

The cab swung into the circular driveway in front of the hotel and stopped. A greeter opened the back door, and Zack stepped into the warm air.

A small stream of picketers was marching along the street holding anti-American and anti-British signs. Zack donned his naval officer’s cover and reached into the cab to pay the fare. He wanted to go punch out the protestors, but more important matters were at hand. A bellman grabbed his luggage, and he stepped into the sleek modern lobby.

Tourists, wearing an assortment of bathing suits, tennis outfits, and casual summer outfits, milled about the main entrance.

Where was she?

She promised she’d be here.

Zack craned his neck, looking up and down the moving escalators and all around the lobby. Nothing.

A young, fair-skinned woman at the front desk who looked to be in her early twenties greeted him with a smile. “May I help you?” Her accent was pleasantly British.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander Brewer, US Navy. I have reservations. Has Lieutenant Commander Colcernian checked in?”