Darpa Alpha

ready?”

“Hoo-ha!” came the guttural marine response.

“God bless you all,” Freeman told them, “and God bless America!”

The cheers of the marines were now interrupted by the coughing, spitting noise of the helicopter engines starting in unison, their collective roar amid the choking exhaust fumes drowning out the war cries of the first wave of 750 marines to embark on the mission which Freeman had suggested should be called Operation Bird Rescue. The president had thought it a brilliant choice, so politically astute that he had sent a short thank-you note.

The heavily laden marines filed up from the cavernous recesses of the Yorktown, moving antlike along the flight deck and disappearing into the bellies of the Super Stallions, whose giant rotors threw circles of dazzling, transparent sunlight, signaling that each of the choppers’ titanium-forged blades had now joined one of the earsplitting concerts of war.

In Yorktown’s landing force operations center, deep within the O2 deck, Freeman, like Tibbet, loaded for bear, was going over their joint plan of attack. Like all good plans in life and in battle, it was simple in concept. Of course the devil, as always, was in the details. First, Yorktown’s Cobra gunships would ride shotgun on both the northern and southern flanks of Yorktown’s helo stream. Second, the Cobras, fed SATPIX intel, would soften up all of the rebel AA defenses, leaving Tibbet’s first wave of infantry to go in and gut the ABC complex. HUMINT assets believed the two two-story structures, connected at their midpoints by a two-story ferro cement walkway and surrounded by a virtually treeless one-square-mile perimeter, comprised the central cog in ABC’s operation. The complex was believed to be the place where the manufacture of terrorist weapons had made what the Pentagon’s practitioners of the “dismal science” of economics referred to as a “quantum leap in economies of scale.” All of which was pretentious Pentagon jargon for the fact that terrorist weapons manufactured in the ABC complex had shifted from the garages of the Middle East to high-efficiency American-style assembly lines.

Moscow, Freeman understood, had still not given official permission for the American helos to enter Russian airspace, it being accepted by Washington that on advice from the United Nations there would be an outraged denunciation of the U.S. choppers’ presence, led by the Russian delegate Petrov and supported by the French. This was also accepted by the White House as necessary to make the Russian president look tough even while it offered him a chance to be rid of the rebel ABC without having to commit regular Russian troops to fight Russians. What the Russian president had not clarified, however, was whether American fighters or bombers would be permitted to enter Russian airspace. But he had reiterated to Washington that he would be able to restrain regular Russian air force and naval units from becoming embroiled with the MEU for only a maximum of twenty-four hours. Douglas Freeman assured Colonel Tibbet and Yorktown’s Crowley that as titular head of the MEU’s operation, he would take full responsibility for releasing Yorktown’s Harriers and McCain’s Joint Strike Fighters against the ABC complex at Lake Khanka should a Russian air attack threaten American lives.

“Fleet won’t go for this,” Yorktown’s Captain Crowley warned Freeman and Tibbet.

Freeman’s jaws tightened. “Let’s get one thing straight, gentlemen. I’ve been personally tapped by the president of the United States to be the senior-ranking officer to command the operation. As such, it’s not my intention to go running around the damn fleet getting permission slips so I can leave the room and go to the toilet. Is that understood?”

Tibbet was noncommittal. The Yorktown’s skipper, however, was not so sanguine about Freeman’s willingness to act independently of him as admiral of the fleet.

“General,” the Yorktown skipper informed him, “a quick, enciphered e-mail to the White House could clear this up.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Freeman replied, “by the time they fart around in that situation room down in that Washington basement — hell, I mean half of those jokers down there don’t know where Baltimore is, let alone this damned lake — it’ll be hours before we get the green light. That time lost could cost us marine lives — a lot of lives. And now that our chief source of real-time intel, CNN, has blabbed it all over that we’re about to go in after this ABC complex, the enemy’ll be dug in even more than usual, securing their defensive perimeter like there’s no tomorrow. And let’s hope there’s no goddamned armor about,” Freeman added. “I say let’s quit pig-frigging around with e-mails to the White House. Release your Harriers upon request by either the colonel or me. I told you I’ll take the rap.”

“You can afford to,” retorted Crowley, “you’re retired.” He immediately wished he hadn’t said it. Tibbet was watching the general and he saw Freeman’s face redden in controlled anger.

“Retired or not,” retorted Freeman, “I have the little matter of my reputation at stake. You gentlemen know how it goes. In our business you’re as good as your last op. Like a damn movie star: one big flop and you’re in the doghouse. Priest Lake’s my doghouse, and I want out. Badly. But I’m not going into this just because I want to save my ass or get my picture on the cover of Time. I’m doing this for those poor bastards, law-abiding Americans, who were just sitting there working one moment and were blown to smithereens the next by those scumbags.”

Tibbet had no difficulty in imagining fire coming from the general’s nostrils. “Anyway,” the general continued, “if our helos don’t take at least one round from Russian ground defenses, I’ll eat my hat. And if they do, that’ll justify release of the Harriers.”

Crowley hoped the Russians wouldn’t violate the twenty-four-hour agreement with Washington, but if they did, the fighter-bombers would certainly come in handy.

“Admiral?” It was his duty officer. A few minutes later Crowley informed Freeman, “My D.O. tells me there’s been a leak. We’re being inundated with e-mail requests about Bird Rescue. Some correspondents, including a gal from Newsweek, are saying the name the Pentagon gave to this mission is a cynical ploy to win over the environmentalist lobby in support of yet another unilateral U.S. invasion. Would you comment?”

“Invasion!” Freeman said angrily. “This is an operation to chase down a bunch of goddamn murderers. You can tell them from me that—”

“Wait a second, General,” said Crowley, who instructed one of his computer operators to take down Freeman’s comment verbatim.

“Tell them,” said Freeman, “that the list of endangered species on Lake Khanka is as long as your goddamned arm. The one to give to the media is the Grus japonensus. Half those liberal bastards might even be able to spell it. It’s a very rare, endangered species of red-crowned crane, and there’s a critter called the sheathfish endemic to the region.” Freeman turned to Colonel Tibbet. “I like giving the bastards that one, Jack. Just watch and wait for one of the TV anchors to keep a straight face with ‘sheath.’”

“Ah,” Crowley told the computer operator, “I suggest you clean that up a little before you send it. Okay with you, Douglas?”

Colonel Tibbet grinned, welcoming a flash of levity to the occasion, and Freeman readily agreed. There was no point in deliberately riling them up. It reminded him of Marte Price and his deal with her to give her first crack at an exclusive in return for her having come clean about the government’s initial and futile attempt to keep the attack on DARPA ALPHA under wraps.

They could all hear the mounting thunder on the roof, and the appearance of Tibbet’s S-2, the marines’ intel chief, confirmed the MEU was ready to “rock’n’roll.”

“Look,” Freeman told Tibbet and Crowley. “If we can knock these bastards out at Khanka, it won’t be just them and the terrorists’ stockpile we’ll be taking out, gentlemen. It’ll be a lesson to any other ragtag damn terrorists that no matter what it takes, when you kill Americans, we’ll come after you — in your own damn country, if need be. So that Captain Crowley here might even release his Harriers.”

“I’ll put the Harriers on standby,” said Crowley. “That’s as far as I’ll go for now.”

Freeman shook his hand.

“Maybe,” cut in Tibbet, trying to help his old naval colleague Crowley stand his ground against Douglas Freeman’s well-intentioned but relentless charge, “you tried to reach Washington to get ‘weapons-free’ for the Harriers, but your encrypting program temporarily crashed?”

Freeman winked at Tibbet. “I like it!”

Crowley kept a straight face. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

John Cuso, the executive officer who had been seconded from McCain to