Last night, he had hoped for a respite from it all. He had looked forward to watching his beloved Kansas Jayhawks host the hated Missouri Tigers in a Big 12 game at the historic Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks were ranked number one and looking to pick some flesh off the Tigers.

But the team in crimson and blue never showed up, losing 101-100 in double overtime. Mack had flipped off the television and crawled into bed beside the First Lady at 11:00 P.M.

He shouldn’t get so wrapped up in college basketball or the basketball fortunes of his alma mater. He should have been praying or reading the Bible or doing something to advance democracy around the world.

But everybody, including the president, deserved a diversion. Didn’t he? He wrapped his arms around his wife and dozed off.

The phone rang. Mack looked over at the digital clock. 3:30 A.M.

Mack reached for the receiver. “Yeah.”

“Sorry to wake you, Mr. President,” his chief of staff, Arnie Brubaker, said. “But the national security advisor wants an emergency meeting of the NSC.”

“What for?”

“Suicide attacks on oil tankers, sir. The Malaccan Straits. And a terrorist attack in Singapore.”

“All right, Arnie. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

“What now, Mack?” Caroline Williams mumbled.

“Shhhh.” The president reached over and kissed her. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tiptoed across the presidential bedroom, stepping into a walk-in closet. He closed the door, flipped the light on, and put on a pair of khakis and a blue, button-down Oxford shirt, then slipped into a pair of brown penny loafers.

He flipped off the light, opened the doors, and walked through the dark bedroom toward the light shining under the bedroom door to the hallway.

“Morning, Mr. President.” Two Secret Service agents, posted in the hallway just outside the presidential bedroom, stood as the president stepped into the second-floor hallway.

“Gentlemen.” Mack nodded.

“Jayhawk on the move,” one of the Secret Service agents announced into his sleeve mike. Jayhawk was the code name that the Secret Service used when referring to the president. Mack liked the code name, except at the moment it reminded him of the results of last night’s game. He dismissed that thought.

Arnie Brubaker, in a brown suit and brown tie, and shadowed by two other Secret Service agents, approached down the hallway. “Good morning, Mr. President,” Arnie said.

“You’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for three-forty in the morning, Arnie.”

“That’s why you pay me the big bucks, sir.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Mack said. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, sir,” Arnie said. “The National Security Council is already assembling.”

“Let’s go,” Mack said.

US Navy SH-60B Seahawk (“Rover 1”)

Near the Malacca Strait

2:30 p.m.

With orange flames and black smoke billowing high into the late afternoon sky, the location of the Altair Voyager was easily visible as the choppers approached. The scene reminded Lieutenant Carraway of pictures he had seen from the Persian Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein had intentionally set oil fields on fire in Kuwait. Altair Voyager was a burning oil well, surrounded not by sand, but by water.

“Rover 2. Rover 1. Go to one hundred feet. Stay on my wing and stay out of that smoke.”

“Rover 2. Roger that.”

Carraway brought Rover 1 down to one hundred feet and slowed his airspeed to thirty knots.

The ship was burning on her starboard side and was listing in that direction. Flames from the ship and from the sea were leaping perhaps a hundred feet into the sky. A massive slick of burning oil oozed into the sea from the ship’s starboard. But the problem wasn’t so much the flames or the oil.

The problem was the smoke.

Black plumes billowed from the right side of the sinking ship. The wind, blowing from right to left over the top of the ship, was spreading it like a black blanket above the water.

The ship’s crew was in the water opposite the flames, but under the black smoke. The choppers were designed to fly through air, but smoke was another matter. Carraway and his crew had to breathe. Plus, even if he were to descend into the smoke he would be operating blindly and blowing the deadly stuff into the lungs of those poor souls who were floating in the sea below.

Carraway picked up his microphone. “Ingraham. Rover 1. Altair Voyager is on fire and sinking. Survivors believed to be in the water, but thick smoke cover makes air recovery impossible. We need surface vessel support. The situation is critical down there.”

Static on the radio. “Rover 1. Ingraham control. Copy that. Maintain your position until further notice. We’re preparing to broadcast on universal frequencies.”

“Roger that, Ingraham.”

Static over the speakers. “To all ships and aircraft in the area. This is the USS Ingraham. Be advised that the tanker Altair Voyager is on fire and sinking in the Andaman Sea. Approximately one hundred miles east of the Nicobar Islands. Coordinates at zero-niner-four degrees, thirty minutes, fifteen seconds east longitude; zero-six degrees, twenty-five minutes, ten seconds north longitude. Request any surface vessels or aircraft in the area respond accordingly. Repeat. Request any surface vessels or aircraft in the area respond accordingly. This is the USS Ingraham.”

The White House

3:45 a.m.

Ladies and gentlemen, the president.” Arnie stepped into the Situation Room just ahead of Mack.

The group of six men and women, which included the vice president, the defense secretary, the secretary of state, the national security advisor, the director of national intelligence, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all rose to their feet.

“Sit down,” Mack said. “It’s not like Judge Judy stepped onto the bench or something.”

That brought a few chuckles, as US Navy stewards in black dress pants and white chef’s shirts pushed silver trays with steaming coffee and fresh blueberry muffins about the room.

“Cyndi.” Mack looked at his fifty-year-old, red-haired national security advisor, Cynthia Hewitt, who was seated just to his left. “You called this meeting. What’s up?”

“Terrorist strike in Singapore, Mr. President,” Hewitt said. “Multiple strikes on oil tankers in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. Oil futures prices rocketing out the roof. The markets are teetering on the brink.”

“Spell it out.” Mack sipped a cup of the hot coffee that had just been poured by a navy steward. “What’s been hit in Singapore?”

“A bomb in the lobby of the resort hotel Rasa Sentosa. Preliminary count showing dozens dead and injured.”

“Any of our people?”

A wince crossed Cyndi’s face. “Sir, Commander Zack Brewer had just arrived as our naval attaché reached the rendezvous point wi to Singapore. He was at the hotel when the bomb went off.”

Mack felt his stomach drop. Over the past five years, Zack Brewer had become something of a national hero and the navy’s most famous officer for his prosecution of three Islamic US Navy chaplains accused of treason.

“Please don’t tell me we’ve lost Commander Brewer.”

“He’s in a hospital in Singapore. That’s all we know right now.”

Mack passed a hand over his face. “Tell me about these strikes on oil tankers.”

Hewitt adjusted her reading glasses. “Four attacks in the last four hours. One was foiled by the navy, sir. USS Reuben James intercepted and destroyed a suicide boat full of explosives trying to ram the tanker SeaRiver Baytown.

“Two other tankers guarded by the Royal Navy in the Singapore Straits weren’t so lucky. Both were hit by suicide boats and are aflame even as I speak.”

“How bad?” Mack nervously sipped coffee.

“Bad, sir. South Singapore is in chaos. They’re dousing water on the burning tankers, but it’s hard to get burning oil under control. Meanwhile, the oil that hasn’t caught fire is slicking all over the Singapore Strait, and it’s lapping on the beaches around Singapore and Sentosa Islands. Dead birds and fish are washing onto the beaches. Smoke clouds from the oil are already rising over the city.”