Monday morning, May 7, at the northern end of the Malacca Strait, an even more unexpected event happened. A 300,000-ton, virtually empty Japanese-registered crude carrier literally blew itself to pieces: went up in a colossal fireball right off the northern headland of Sumatra, within a few miles of the open ocean.
Like Hormuz, this is a very busy oil route, the seagoing highway to the Far East, the route of almost every tanker coming out of the Gulf of Iran, or even from the oil fields of Africa — straight across the Indian Ocean toward the Nicobar Islands, then through the Great Channel into the Malacca Strait, which divides Sumatra and the Malayan Peninsula.
The strait is close to 600 miles long, and the tankers use it for their outward and inward journeys. Almost 100 percent of all the fuel oil and gas requirements in the Far East are carried on the big tankers through that narrowing seaway, the shortcut to the South China Sea.
It saves over a thousand wasteful miles, for without the strait, ships would have to travel right around the outside of the old East Indies.
Arnold Morgan heard the news with an undisguised groan as he and Kathy sat down to dinner on Sunday night, 12 time zones back. “This,” he grated, “is getting goddamned serious.”
No word of complaint had been heard from the Chinese since their destroyer was damaged. Nor, of course, had there been any word of admission for their part in mining Hormuz in the first place.
Ms. O’Brien had actually heard the report on the news while Arnold was grilling some pork chops. They had been out all day, sailing along the Potomac on a friend’s yacht, and for some reason there had been only drinks and potato chips on board. The President’s National Security Adviser rarely, if ever, touched alcohol during the day, and both he and Kathy had concluded the voyage, cold after the sun went down, and hungry
They declined going to a restaurant with the other guests and sped home in Arnold’s staff car. With heavy sweaters on, and glasses of wine from the Loire Valley, they had fired up the grill and were just moving into Arnold’s favorite part of the day, when Kathy reported the demise of the giant VLCC.
“Now how the hell did that happen?” he asked Kathy’s Labrador, Freddie, who made no reply but continued to look, with eyes like lasers, at the pork chops.
Kathy returned with the wine bottle but little information. “They just said the tanker was unladen,” she said. “No information was available about how the accident happened. They did draw a parallel with the ships that blew up in Hormuz last week, and the newscaster mentioned that there seemed to be a jinx on the shipping of heavy crude oil these days.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “A jinx wearing a goddamned lampshade on its head and eating its dinner with a couple of painted sticks.”
Kathy laughed. No one had ever made her laugh like Arnold Morgan, especially when he was being sardonic. She threw her arms around him, and kissed him softly and slowly. No one that agonizingly beautiful had ever kissed Arnold Morgan. Certainly not like that.
“If it wasn’t for about a billion tons of shipping blazing away in the Far East threatening to cause an end to civilization as we know it,” he said, “I could get very involved with that kissing business.”
“Well, you should think about it more often,” she said. “Get a kind of rotation system going…you know, save the world…make love to Kathy…save the world…kiss Kathy for a few hours…then save the world again. If necessary. Meantime, I’ll take you just as you are.”
“Thank you,” he said, grinning. “How about…eat the chops…make love to Kathy…drink the Meursault…kiss Kathy?”
“I’ll buy that,” she said. “But how about saving the world?”
“Screw the world,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Can’t the goddamned world see when I’m too busy?”
The Admiral removed the chops from the grill with a pair of long silver tongs. One of them broke, and the meaty part fell to the flagstone patio. Freddie dove at it as if he had not been fed during this century, and retreated sneakily into the bushes.
“Has that greedy little character got any Chinese blood?” he asked.
Kathy giggled, took the plate of chops from the Admiral and told him, “Sure he has. Freddie, honored grandson of the Dalai Lama.”
“That’s Tibet, dingbat,” he said.
“Same thing, if you ask the People’s Republic,” she said.
It took only a few more moments for them to turn off the new gas grill and move inside to where the Admiral had lit a log fire in the study. This was a rather grand house, and Kathy had been awarded it, amicably, by her husband in the divorce settlement. He had been a fairly rich man, and his pride and joy had been his book-lined study, which was situated through a beamed arch from the dining room. Kathy assumed he had another such setup in his new house in Normandy, France, where he now lived with his French wife.
A studious diplomat, with a family grain business in the Midwest, he was always described by Kathy as kind, and lovely, totally preoccupied with the problems of the world and “about as much fun as a tree.” He had been much older than she, as Arnold was. But the laughter she shared with Arnold, his willingness always to talk to her and the sheer joy of their being together made up for any age differential. They were as devoted as it was possible to be. And one day she would marry him. When he retired.
Meanwhile, she served the pork chops, salad and the french loaf, sat down and asked him, “How do big ships burn, when there’s nothing in them? What’s to burn? The newscaster said it was returning unladen to the gulf.”
“Well, I didn’t really hear it, but that sounds right. You see, those big tankers never really get rid of that crude oil when they unload at the terminal. I’m not sure what’s left, but in a vast holding tank, there’s probably several inches still slopping around after the pumps are turned off.
“Now then, it’s not the actual crude oil, which is like a black sludge, that burns. It’s the gases rising up from it. So you can very easily have a situation where a fully loaded tanker is a lot less inflammable than an empty one. Because the holding tanks in the empty one are full of gases, and those babies will go up real fast.
“It’s the same with gasoline. If you could somehow plunge a lighted match into the gasoline without igniting the gases that are evaporating, the liquid would put the flame out, like water. You probably won’t remember, but twenty-five years ago when the Brits fought the Argentinians for the Falkland Islands, a bomb came right into a ship — actually I think it came in low, and traveled right through and out the other side.
“Anyway, it started a minor fire, but hit a big diesel-gas tank on the way through and tons of ice-cold fuel cascaded out and extinguished the fire. That’s how it works. And that’s what caused the explosion in this latest tanker. The gases going up with a major bang.”
“Thank you, sir. Nicely explained. What do you think caused it?”
“I’m afraid to think about that right now. But I know one thing: It’s not another minefield. Both Singapore and Sumatra get rich on the pilotage fees through the Malacca. They’re high and getting higher. Last thing they want is a blockade. The Chinese would get no help from them. That means we’re looking for something else. But not tonight. We’re having a quiet dinner…then I’m not going to save the world, and we’ll go to bed quietly together.
“Tomorrow will be different. I’ll be in the office early. So will you. And Admiral Borden wants to fasten his goddamned safety belt.”
“I’m just beginning to feel a teeny bit sorry for the poor Admiral.”
“Well, don’t be. He’s a negative guy. Which is bad in Intelligence. In Fort Meade, you gotta stay right on top of the game. Also Borden’s obviously been very awkward with the excellent Lieutenant Ramshawe. I don’t like that. Young men that sharp ought to be encouraged — not made to feel frustrated, so they have to phone the goddamned White House in order to get someone to pay attention.”
“Well, you were pretty short with him when he did make the call.”
“Kathy, there are formalities of command in the United States Navy, and they have to be observed at all times. And quite often they soothe troubled waters, even soften the truth. What they never do, howevever, is
