The Malacca Conspiracy by Don Brown

prices and these attacks.”
    Mack rubbed his chin. “Explain, Admiral.”
    Jones, wearing his service dress-blue uniform with the massive gold sleeve bands of a four-star navy admiral, steepled his fingers together. “Sir, one of our reservists, an intelligence officer assigned to J–2, works as a commodities analyst at the New York Mercantile Exchange. This officer alerted the chairman that huge limit moves in the price of crude oil took place at roughly the same time as the attacks. The verdict is still out, but someone could be making billions from these terrorist actions. Perhaps someone with advance knowledge.”
    “Hmm.” Mack stood up, crossed his arms, and paced back and forth. “Who’s making billions? And what are they doing with the money?”
    “Good question, Mr. President,” Hewitt said.
    “I need an answer to that question…and fast.” The president turned back to Admiral Jones. “Admiral, if I catch your drift, you’re suggesting… possibly… that there is a correlation between huge limit moves in oil futures and these attacks?”
    “Quite possibly, sir,” the admiral said, “at least that’s what the reservist I mentioned to you believes. He thinks he detected a correlation in the overnight limit moves and the attacks around the Malaccan Strait. This is certainly worth monitoring.”
    “This reserve officer. What’s his name?”
    “One moment, Mr. President.” Admiral Jones checked some notes in his file. “Molster. Lieutenant Robert Molster.”
    “Robert Molster.” The president instinctively repeated the name. “Well, Admiral, I want you to call this Lieutenant Robert Molster, send him greetings on behalf of his commander in chief, and inform him that as of”—the president looked at his watch and calculated—“nine o’clock this morning, he is officially called up to active duty in the United States Navy, to serve at the pleasure of the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff until further notice.”
    The Altair Voyager
Near the Strait of Malacca
    3:00 p.m.
    T he aft of his ship was rising into the air like the back end of a seesaw. The bow section, which was flooding rapidly, was aflame and sinking into the sea.
    Captain Eichenbrenner grabbed the steel cable surrounding the perimeter of the deck and looked down over the port side into the water below, which was growing darker under the black cloud of oily soot spreading overhead.
    All of his men had jumped into the water, somewhere below.
    He looked, one last time, at the flames leaping from the forward section of the Altair Voyager.
    The thought crossed his mind that as captain, he should go down with his ship. There was a certain chivalrous lore about this time-honored maritime notion.
    To go down with a ship was one thing. Being burned alive on it was quite another. Heat rolled in oppressive, hundred-plus-degree waves from the front of his ship. His body and clothes were drenched in perspiration from scorching flames.
    The helicopters were out there, somewhere, and by the roar of their engines, they had to be nearby.
    But where?
    And how would they possibly rescue his crew?
    The late afternoon sun was shining on the horizon, but the sky over the ship was black, as if a solar eclipse had darkened the sea.
    “Attention! This is the US Navy!” Loudspeakers blared from helicopters somewhere above the smoke. “If you are in the water below, swim away from the ship in the direction of the ship’s aft!”
    Eichenbrenner looked off the stern. The smoke cover extended a couple of hundred yards behind the ship, and perhaps five hundred yards to the left. The navy was urging his crew to swim out from under the smoke cloud so they could start rescue operations. Aft of the ship was their best chance. But that was a long shot. The smoke cloud was spreading in every direction, probably faster than his men could swim. They needed a miracle from the wind.
    “Swim away from the ship in the direction of the ship’s aft! Repeat, this