Her repeated invitations were friendly enough, casual enough, and nonthreatening enough.
Finally, he relented.
Big mistake.
They went out three times, a dinner and two lunches. They did nothing taboo by most Southern Baptist Sunday school standards. But Leftenant Edwards had apparently seen it all differently.
She found Diane’s cell number. The international call roused Diane from bed.
“Did Zack tell you about me?” Edwards was purported to have asked. “Did he tell you that I took him out to dinner for his birthday?”
It was downhill from there.
Diane called, scolding him harshly for the first time. “Friends don’t lie to each other,” she had said. “Zack, I don’t need women calling me. I won’t be coming to see you. You can call me every six months to let me know how you’re doing.”
Then Diane had hung up. What was up with all that?
He’d spoken with her, emailed her, or text messaged her every day for over a year, and after Edwards’ call, she had just hung up. Then, silence.
The package arrived a few days later. It was a sentimental family Bible that was his grandmother’s. He’d given it to Diane. It showed up in the mail with her return address. No note, no nothing. The body blow left him breathless.
Ambiguity had reigned in their on-again, off-again relationship. “You should date other people,” she had told him several times in the past. “I need time to heal. You shouldn’t wait for that.” She had never recanted from that position.
What? Had she been joking? What?
Women.
Who could figure?
Pitfalls and personal hardships were part of navy life, and long-distance relationships were a navy pitfall. Diane came from nowhere-out of the blue. They had been through the fire together in San Diego. And then, she was gone.
Wrestling with himself for months, finally he surrendered to the reality that he had fallen for her.
Now she had agreed to meet him, once more, just for a couple of days before reporting to her new duty station in Indonesia.
But would she really show?
USS Reuben James
The Strait of Malacca
11:15 p.m.
Commander Adam Shugert, skipper of the Reuben James, stood aft of his ship’s superstructure, arms folded, watching his crew at work.
At this instant, the smoldering speedboat dangled in the air over the sea, suspended on chains under the sixteen-ton deck crane located on the ship’s fantail.
“Easy does it. This way,” the officer of the deck was saying.
“Gotcha, sir,” a petty officer said.
“Slow and easy. Bring her on around,” the OOD ordered.
“Here we go,” the crane operator announced. The steel crane hummed and squeaked. The boat swung under it like a pendulum in the whipping wind. The crane rotated clockwise, bringing the hulk over the steel deck.
“Clear out! Bringing her down!”
Sharp, metallic squealing pierced the air, as the crane inched the boat down to the steel deck.
Thud.
“Good job!” the OOD said.
“Everybody back,” the master at arms said. Four armed guards quickly set up a perimeter around the boat.
Captain Shugert, the XO, and two agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service stepped through the perimeter.
Shugert winced.
Four shot-up bodies, their white T-shirts and blue jeans splattered with blood, lay sprawled in the bottom of the boat. All four looked Asian.
“XO, get some corpsmen up here. Pull those bodies out and check for identification.”
“Aye, Skipper.”
“Good. Where are my EODs?” Shugert glanced at his watch as he asked for the explosive ordinance disposal team assigned to his ship.
“We’re here, sir.” EODC Elbert Tarkenton, the senior enlisted demolitions specialist on board, was walking through the perimeter of armed guards. “We’re ready to take a look, sir,” Chief Tarkenton said, “but we need to have those bodies pulled out so we have room.”
Two hospital corpsmen arrived with four single-sheet canvas stretchers, stacked one atop another. Bungee cords strapped blankets and body bags on the top stretcher. The blankets whipped in the warm breeze blowing across the back of the ship.
“You guys get those bodies off that boat,” Shugert ordered. “Watch for detonation devices.”
“Aye, Captain,” one of them responded. Another unleashed the bungee cords and separated the stretchers on the deck just in front of the boat. Two others strapped on latex gloves and approached the boat with a stepladder.
A moment later, two corpsmen in the boat pulled the first body out and laid it on the ship’s deck.
Three minutes later, all four bodies lay on the stretchers, a gruesome sight of blood and flesh glistening in the midday sun. Two young sailors vomited over the side of the ship.
“Check ’em out,” Shugert ordered.
“Skipper,” a corpsman said, “we found two US Navy identification cards.”
“What?” Shugert stepped forward and took the cards. “Unreal.” He turned around. “XO, notify Seventh Fleet. Advise attempted attack on convoy unsuccessful. Perpetrators killed. Four bodies on board USS Reuben James. Two bearing US Navy identification cards. Request permission for port stop in Singapore.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Rasa Sentosa Resort
Sentosa Island, Singapore
12:40 p.m.
The cab swung into the circular driveway in front of the hotel and stopped. A greeter opened the back door, and Zack stepped into the warm air.
A small stream of picketers was marching along the street holding anti-American and anti-British signs. Zack donned his naval officer’s cover and reached into the cab to pay the fare. He wanted to go punch out the protestors, but more important matters were at hand. A bellman grabbed his luggage, and he stepped into the sleek modern lobby.
Tourists, wearing an assortment of bathing suits, tennis outfits, and casual summer outfits, milled about the main entrance.
Where was she?
She promised she’d be here.
Zack craned his neck, looking up and down the moving escalators and all around the lobby. Nothing.
A young, fair-skinned woman at the front desk who looked to be in her early twenties greeted him with a smile. “May I help you?” Her accent was pleasantly British.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Brewer, US Navy. I have reservations. Has Lieutenant Commander Colcernian checked in?”
The woman checked her computer screen. A moment passed.
“No sign of Commander Colcernian.”
“May I go ahead and check in?”
“Let’s see…” More typing on the screen. “We’re very tight, but we have some spaces already open for diplomatic personnel who are staying with us, if you don’t need a king-size bed and if you’re willing to forego a sea vista view.”
Zack smirked. “I don’t care if it’s a king-size bed or a sleeping bag. It’s just me in the room.” He glanced around the lobby. “I’ll take it.”
“Very well, sir. Room number 4035. Take the lift to the fourth floor, turn left, fourth room on the right.” She handed him a magnetic key card.
“Thank you, Miss Claire,” Zack said, reading the woman’s name tag.
Suddenly, something felt odd to Zack. Call it his sixth sense.
He turned away and surveyed the lobby once more.
The dark-skinned, Middle Eastern man in the white suit stood about thirty feet away, just in front of the revolving exit doors. The man was staring. Zack locked eyes with him. Something cold and hard seemed to pass between them.
A blazing hatred seemed to burn in the man’s eyes and face. Zack forgot about Diane for the moment and stepped toward the stranger.
The man turned, swiftly exiting through the revolving doors.