“Excellent idea, General.”

The general spoke again. “Colonel Croon, you are in charge of that phase of the operation.”

“Yes, General.”

Kristina could not listen to any more of this. If someone even suspected that she had heard this information, not even General Perkasa could protect her. In fact, he would probably kill her himself.

She covered her ears, prayed that God would send an angel to bar the door to the study, and then stepped into the hall.

She started to run back up the stairs. “Did you hear something, General?” the doctor asked.

She turned the corner at the top of the stairs and ran toward the bedroom.

“I’ll check,” the general’s voice boomed.

She heard the door open, the sound of the squeaking hinges echoing up the staircase.

Kristina jumped into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Click. Click. Click. The sound of patent leather boots echoed against the tile foyer. A pause. Click. Click. Click. Now the sound of boots coming up the staircase.

Another pause.

“I don’t see anything,” the general’s voice boomed. Click. Click. Click. The sound of boots stepping from the wooden staircase to the tile floor of the foyer.

Creeeak. A door closed.

Kristina buried her head in the pillow. She felt her pulse pounding against the silk sheets.

She closed her eyes, turning and twisting. Had she just overheard a plot to assassinate President Santos?

Turning again under the covering, it was as if someone had dumped bags of ice all over her body. She felt clammy under the sheets.

Lying there, under the covers, the images in her mind faded in and out. President Santos that day at Merdeka Palace…The first time she saw the general sitting near the president…Policemen with fire hoses…Bleeding knees and crying children…Elizabeth Martin’s kind face…

“Jesus,” she whispered, though she had not been to Mass in years, “please help me get out of here safely.”

A supernatural peace of sorts fell over her. She closed her eyes and soon began drifting off to sleep.

A while later, her eyes opened to the sound of the general’s loud snoring. She squinted at the digital alarm clock beside the bed.

Four A.M.

She’d been sleeping a little less than an hour.

He’d probably just come to bed. He had not touched her. Good. That usually meant he had drunk at least four glasses. Sometimes she would pour another glass to make him leave her alone.

She pulled sheets from over her legs and slipped off the side of the bed. Tiptoeing across the floor to the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, she conducted her business, but did not flush for fear of awakening him.

She finished and stood at the door looking toward the bed.

The snoring stopped. Perkasa rolled over. A cough. Another cough.

A deep swallow.

The sound of the general licking his chops, like a bulldog about to pounce on a piece of raw steak. And then, even louder.

She looked at the clock again. He would be up at five o’clock, if he didn’t awaken before then. That’s when he always woke up. She had less than an hour.

Kristina slipped on a bathrobe, then quietly tiptoed toward the nightstand on her side of the bed. She unplugged the cell phone and stuck it in her bathrobe pocket. Moving noiselessly across the floor, she pushed the bedroom door open and stepped into the hallway.

The house was dark, except for dim light from the stars streaming in through the windows high in the foyer. She flipped open her cell phone. Using its pale, incandescent glow as a dim flashlight, she headed down the winding staircase.

The rhythmic sounds of the general’s deep snoring reverberated throughout the house, but when her feet again touched the cold tile floor of the first-floor foyer, the snoring was more distant.

Kristina held her cell phone in the direction of the general’s study. The ghostly light revealed that the door was closed. She placed her hand on the brass doorknob. The cool sensation of it against the palm of her hand seemed to wake her a bit, and to embolden her.

She turned the knob and pushed the door. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak!

Woof. Woof. The bark of the general’s German shepherd, Salim, cut through the outer stucco walls of the house. Kristina pressed her back hard against the dining room wall, then eased down onto the floor in a sitting position, wedging her body into the corner.

BaWoof. Woof!

Then silence. Kristina exhaled.

She crept from the dining room back into the foyer. The soft light from her cell phone reminded her that the door from the study was still partially open. The squeaking from the door had set the dog off.

Holding her breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the spacious study. This time no squeaking.

The computer’s screen saver, which featured a photograph of the Merdeka presidential palace, cast enough light in the room to reveal a slew of empty and half-empty liquor bottles, shot glasses, and wine glasses.

The only noise within the room was the hum of the computer.

Kristina walked toward it and sat down on the leather swivel chair. She tapped the space bar. The image of Merdeka Palace disappeared.

A word processing file materialized.

THE MALACCA PLAN

TOP SECRET

Overview

The Strategic Alliance-Purpose

Strategic Alliance with Council of Ishmael

Plan for Revenue-Raising By Purchase of Oil futures

Strategic Attacks Upon International Shipping and Oil Tankers

Plan for Purchase of Geo-strategic Weaponry

Plan for Indonesian Transition of Statehood

The Elimination of President Santos

The Sequestration of VP Magadia

Plan for Neutralizing and Defeating Anticipated Military Interference by the United States of America

Plan for Strategic Diversionary Attacks on United States Cities

Plan for Strategic Use of Nuclear Weapons Against Select American Cities and Assassination of U.S. President Williams

TOP SECRET. So this is what they were talking about.

I need to get out of here! Now!

But she could not. She scrolled down to the next page of the document.

Was she dreaming? Rubbing her eyes in the dark, she squinted again at the screen.

She scrolled down to the section entitled “Plan for the Elimination of President Santos.”

Background: Enrique Santos, President of the Indonesian Republic, has for many years masqueraded as a Muslim in name only. In recent years, Santos has brought Indonesia into an alliance of loose cooperation with the United States, whose capitalistic interests have been clearly in alliance with the rogue nation of Israel and in opposition to the manifest destiny of worldwide Islamic interests.

Parallels with Situation in Pakistan: In many respects, Santos has tracked the traitorous career of the late Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, whose pro-Western ways fostered upheaval in her own country, necessitating her assassination.

While the use of assassination to eliminate a political leader is in many ways unfortunate, the brutal truth is that Islamic law forbids incestuous political relationships with infidel nations opposed to Islam, and demands death for such infidels.

In the case of Pakistan, history has shown that in the aftermath of the Bhutto assassination, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has become a nation purer in her Muslim roots, with a political leadership whose international alliances support Islamic causes and other Muslim nations rather than America and Western interests.

Pakistan’s recommitment to her rightful Islamic heritage can be traced to the assassination of Bhutto, who, prior to her slaying, had attempted to lead that nation into an incestuous relationship with the West and with America, and had in fact allied herself with former American President George W. Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq and his so-called “War on Terror.”