Ahmadinejad firmly believed that USS Vincennes had fired its missile on the orders of the criminal American government, intending to murder the Muslims aboard for political reasons. All non-Muslims, in his view, were animals, engaged in corruption of the spirit and the flesh. The fact that the Islamic government of Iran had funded, directed and orchestrated terrorist activities throughout the world since coming to power-indeed, he himself had been a holy warrior-did not change his view. He was fighting for God, and the infidels were fighting for the Devil.

The president of Indonesia had been a diplomat for a long time and was not so easily fobbed off. “Is the life of Iran being threatened?”

“They have said some harsh things about us,” Ahmadinejad said lamely. He certainly didn’t want to discuss the recent commando raid on the munitions plant. “The Israelis attacked the Syrians, as you know, and they might attack us. It will be as God wills it.”

“Indeed,” the Indonesian said, then added a phrase rarely heard in Iran. “Most things are.”

This morning, sipping tea, Ahmadinejad thought again about the USS Vincennes’ shoot-down of a Mecca-bound airliner. Ayatollah Khomeini knew that it had been deliberate, a brutal statement that Iran would not be allowed to win its war with Iraq. Iran could not yet compete on the battlefield. Khomeini had ended the Iran-Iraq war and directed an all-out effort to manufacture nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, an epic effort that had almost borne fruit.

Soon.

Very soon.

The problem had always been the Iranian masses, who wanted what the Indonesians wanted-material prosperity. The corruption of the decadent West had done its work in Iran as well as here.

Well, the true believers had fought their enemies in Iran and prevailed. They controlled the oil money, the media and the military.

“Augh,” he muttered. Forget the past. Concentrate on the future. The glory is within reach.

The world is changed by great events, which sweep away the decadence and decay. Martyrs make great events. And what event could be greater than a nation joined in glorious martyrdom against the forces of Satan? The example of a nation standing together in the glory of Allah, smiting the Devil’s disciples, would unite Muslims throughout the world in jihad. On that glorious day Allah would take a hand and Paradise would be won.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knew the final victory was close. It was his destiny.

He smiled and helped himself to more tea.

It was the middle of the night in the Sea of Japan when the task force rendezvoused with a supply ship and a tanker out of Yokosuka. The wind was blowing fairly steady at twenty knots, and the seas were running about eight feet from trough to crest. Low clouds hit the starlight, made the night black as the pit.

In this maelstrom of wind and water, the ships queued up and joined on either side of the supply ship. Red and white floodlights high on the masts and superstructures lit the decks and the sailors in life jackets manhandling lines and moving pallets of supplies with forklifts. As the ships bucked and lunged into the swells, food and machine parts, soft drinks and ice cream, toilet paper and mail were high-lined across the yawning chasms.

The nonnuclear ships joined on the tanker, two by two. Lines were shot across the gaps, and soon hoses linked the ships together. The warships began topping off their bunkers with NSFO, Navy Standard Fuel Oil. When each ship had its share of oil, the hoses went back to the tanker and the ship steamed ahead, making room for the next ship in line. Finally, the aircraft carrier came alongside to top off her jet fuel tanks.

The guided missile cruiser, USS Hue City, took her turn at the supply ship, but since she was nuclear powered, she skipped the tanker.

The tightly choreographed underway replenishment took almost three hours. When each ship of the task force had everything it needed, the formation turned and set a course southward that would take it through the China Sea to the Strait of Malacca, and from there to the Indian Ocean.

On the other side of the world, in Mayport, Florida, another guided missile cruiser, USS Guilford Courthouse, was getting under way. On that clear early summer morning, the crew had said hasty good-byes to their wives, children and lovers standing on the pier. Those people shouted at the sailors aboard ship and waved little American flags while a hastily summoned band near the head of the pier belted out Sousa marches. Three tugs eased the long gray ship away from her berth.

Two piers down, two destroyers were also getting under way.

Soon the three ships joined up outside the harbor. With the cruiser in the middle of the loose formation, they turned their bows eastward into the great Atlantic and began working up to thirty knots. Their screws churned the blue water into great white rivers of foam as the ships raced east with bones in their teeth. Little puffy clouds appeared in the sky ahead and cast shadows on the water. Soon the low, flat shore of Florida sank into the sea behind, and the three ships were alone on the restless ocean with only the clouds and eternal wind for company.

The Russian-made T-54 tank was already in the square in front of the Hilton Hotel in Jakarta when four other tanks arrived. It was parked across the square from the hotel and sat with the turret hatch open and the engine idling. Inside, Hyman Fineberg sat at the gunner’s station sipping hot coffee. Ari Zameret was in the driver’s seat. Up top, in the commander’s chair, sat Ivan Davidov, who was wearing the uniform of a captain in the Indonesian army. Beside him on top of the turret sat a 12.7 mm DShK machine gun on a swivel mount; a belt of ammo led from the can to the breech, and a round was chambered. Fineberg had an armor-piercing round in the chamber of the big 100 mm gun.

The other four tanks took positions on the corners of the square. As they did so, Davidov said to Fineberg, “You didn’t brief us on tanks.”

Fineberg grunted.

Davidoff continued, “Man, something is going down. I don’t think Darma is an honest man.”

Sure enough, before long an officer, a captain, came striding over to talk to Davidov.

“I was told there were to be only four tanks here this morning,” the captain said, looking up at Davidov, who was trying his best to look bored and sleepy.

“We’ve been here since midnight on the specific orders of General Darma,” Davidoff said. He wiped his face with a hand and yawned. “If you have other orders for us…” Davidov left it hanging there, implying he and his crew were ready to leave immediately if the other officer wanted to take the responsibility of overriding the general’s orders.

The captain on the ground obviously didn’t want to run afoul of the general.

Davidov decided to play another card. “We were told we would be the only tank here.”

“Maybe that was the plan,” the captain said, “but we got our orders two hours ago and moved out as quickly as we could.”

Davidov merely nodded.

“They told us to stay off the grass,” the captain said, gesturing at the huge manicured park replete with trees and flowers that formed the setting for the hotel. “We’ll be on the corners,” he said, meaning the corners of the parking lot, and turned and walked away.

At the gunner’s station, Hyman Fineberg again put his eye to the telescopic sight. He used the knob to run it across the top floor of the Hilton. The crosshairs tracked nicely. Nope, every window had the curtains drawn. The structure that housed the presidential suite occupied half the top floor, and opened onto a patio that contained a pool. That patio formed half the roof of the main building. One could see it from three sides, but from this angle, one couldn’t see much.