The Malacca Strait

Near the mouth of the Malacca River

The early twenty-first century

Under the bright glare of the midday sunshine, the cigarette boat sliced through the tropical waters to the east. Glistening like the stainless-steel blade of a sharp dagger, the boat, a thirty-eight-foot “Top Gun” model with twin 600 horsepower engines, carried three passengers plus the pilot.

Approaching the coastline at fifty miles per hour, bouncing across light swells and passing several slower boats, it raced by a navigation buoy a half mile offshore.

Houses and storefronts grew visible as the boat approached the shoreline. Cars could be seen moving along coastal roadways. Two single-engine airplanes buzzed the skies.

A second navigation buoy issued warnings in red and white to inbound nautical craft. The warnings were in both English and Malay.

Slow!

No Wake!

The pilot throttled back the powerful twin inboards, morphing their rocketlike thrust into a chugging putter, slowing the boat to a floating crawl.

The general waited for a moment until the boat leveled off. Then, from his jump seat behind the pilot, he unholstered his pistol. He worked the action, chambering a nine-millimeter bullet into firing position.

“Doctor, ready your weapon,” he ordered.

“Yes, General.” The man sitting next to him retrieved an identical pistol, pointed it in the air, and pulled back the firing clip.

In a foreign land, even a foreign land so close to Indonesia, prudence required being armed-especially when the lines between friend and foe were blurred…and where his hosts had a track record of murder.

What was their agenda?

To warn President Santos to abandon his Western-loving ways or face a fate like former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto?