Darpa Alpha

Freeman, Jamal, and Melissa winched safely into the plane’s belly.

The boom’s hook missed on the first pass, but snagged the line on the backswing. The winch began its high whine, then suddenly Freeman, Jamal, and Melissa Thomas felt an arm-ripping jolt so severe that Melissa thought their harnesses had split apart, her shout of alarm ripped away by the Hercules’s roaring slipstream. While the jolt, which Freeman thought he’d readied for, failed to loosen his grip on the boy, the general heard something snap, probably, he thought, one of the many wire cables that ran through the aircraft, looming two hundred feet above them, the noise of its big engines reverberating in every bone.

Three minutes and fifty seconds after the enormous jolt, they were being winched into the plane, the night ahead filled with stars. The plane, having climbed and increased speed to 315 miles per hour, was now an hour and half out of Sapporo, Japan. Chipper Armstrong and Rhino Manowski put their escorting Joint Strike Fighters through a synchronized barrel roll for victory as they crossed over Cape Titova and to the southeast saw the metallic glints in the moonlight that were the ships of McCain’s battle group, another two JSFs already aloft to take over escort duty for the Herk. But, apart from the JSF’s barrel rolls, no signal came up to greet the Herk or its passengers who, like those in the carrier battle group, were on strict radio silence, with no running lights showing. The United States was still in a state of war against terror.

One of the two volunteer marine crewmen, coiling the lift rope, greeted the general with a hearty, “Welcome aboard, General!” It was a few seconds before a grateful and exhausted Freeman recognized Peter Norton, his courage reincarnated, his newfound self-respect purchased during the final hours of the evac when he’d repeatedly risked his own life, under fire, to help injured marines aboard.

“Is…” began Melissa, then stopped. “I can’t remember his name.” The noise in the cavernous Herk was giving her a severe headache, and in her utter exhaustion she told the general what marines told one another on a long, fatigue-plagued mission: “I’m dumbed out. Can hardly remember my name.”

Freeman wasn’t listening. He was bending low over Jamal. He was unable to hear the boy’s breathing, which the general knew shouldn’t be surprising given the thundering noise of the big transport. He stared hard at Jamal to see whether his chest was moving, but it was difficult to tell sometimes, particularly with children.

“Jamal?” said Freeman. There was no response. “Jamal?” he said louder, giving the boy a shake.

Nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY

In Sapporo, the media frenzy engulfed Freeman and Marine Thomas, reporters clamoring to be heard now that Washington, D.C., had declared Lake Khanka’s ABC terrorist munitions factory destroyed after reports from the Marine Corps’ Colonel Jack Tibbet and from satellite reconnaissance, which had picked up the dense “pollution debris” over Siberia’s southeastern Primorski region.

“General, General Freeman!” came the shouts from the frenetic horde as flashes of varying intensity went off all around like so many flares and tracer coming at him. Adding to the charged atmosphere was the increasing cacophony of yelled questions, lens shutters clicking, clacking, and whirring, all pressing in like some unstoppable ambush. Every major newspaper, TV, and radio conglomerate on the globe was seeking the “money shot” and the Patton-like quote from the legendary general who had led the American task force into what one BBC correspondent accurately called “the world’s most dangerous terrorist enclave outside of Iran.” It was all too unnerving for Marine Melissa Thomas who, on Freeman’s request, was whisked away by a Marine Corps chaplain and airport security guard to the U.S. Consulate’s police-ringed limousine.

Freeman, a man not known for any unwillingness to help the media celebrate his true grit and daring, was, however, unduly subdued, as had been Melissa Thomas, her mood exacerbated by the bruises, scratches, and insect bites that covered her face and hands, injuries which she had no inclination to either explain or complain about.

The general, though smartly turned out in a fresh uniform that had been rushed to Sapporo, looked tired and drawn taking questions on the dais, especially so to Marte Price who, having had to elbow and fight her way through the Japanese press scrum, was close enough to see the creases of worry lines on Freeman’s face. Finally he held up his hands to quell the din of the media frenzy, and when several Taiwanese reporters ignored his request, he refused point-blank to begin speaking until the room fell silent, though shutters continued to click and whirr, and the bright TV lights remained, forcing him to blink more than was either normal or comfortable.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I’ll be brief. Colonel Tibbet and his marines have done an outstanding job of ridding the world of the terrorist filth who make weapons for other terrorist filth. To paraphrase a man who fought Nazi filth, ‘This is not the end, but it is the beginning of the end’ for terrorists all over the world, as we and our allies keep fighting, no matter how long and hard the road may be, until every stain of such scum as Hamas and company is expunged from the earth.” He paused as one of the two U.S. Consulate officials behind him leaned forward, whispering advice: “Easy on the ‘scum’ and Hamas. Don’t want to offend the Muslims.”

Freeman nodded politely. “It’s been suggested to me that I might be offending our Muslim brothers and sisters. Nothing could be further from my mind or from American policy. Our war isn’t against Muslims. Our war is against scum like Hamas who use whatever organization they can to spread hatred of the West in general and of America in particular.” Freeman now looked grim. “Today a young boy, a young Muslim boy, his name was Jamal, died en route to Sapporo from a mishap which, I must admit, I thought was relatively minor when we left Lake Khanka but a mishap that due to the stress experienced in our hasty but necessary evacuation, quickly proved fatal. That boy, a young boy, a young Muslim boy, was lost to us because of some scumbag in Hamas who managed to steal this boy’s young life and turn him into a potential weapon.”

The general stopped speaking momentarily, taking in a deep breath, his unsmiling expression now one of strong resolve. “I dedicate the memory of this mission, and all who made the ultimate sacrifice, to all those young people of whatever race or belief who have been killed, used, consumed by the blind hatred of Hamas and other scumbag fundamentalists. That is all.”

A barrage of questions went unanswered as General Douglas Freeman strode off the dais and out into the waiting consulate limousine, around which immaculately turned-out Japanese motorcycle police and plainclothes security personnel had formed a cordon sanitaire. But the cigarette smoke was anything but sanitary, and he was coughing before he entered the limo.

Melissa Thomas, also in a fresh uniform, was sitting on the jump seat. The general indicated that the consular official take the jump seat and Melissa Thomas sit by him. “You drink, Marine?” he asked her.

“Not much. Besides, I’m on duty, sir.”

“So am I,” said the general, who now turned to the consular official as the limousine eased away from yet another frenzy of camera flashes to the accompaniment of the police motorcycle sirens. “You have a Coke in there, son?” he asked, tapping his combat boot against the polished cocktail-bar cupboard.

“Coke? Ah, I don’t think so, General. That’s a multichannel TV.”

The general frowned at the official. “You people better get on the ball.”

“Yes, General,” said the consular official apologetically, failing to see the smirk on the marine’s face.

“Well,” the general asked Melissa, “were you watching the TV?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You think they bought it?”

“I don’t understand Japanese, General,” said Marine Thomas, “but I heard some of what you said beneath the voice-over. I believed you and I saw him thirty minutes ago. He was sucking on that milk shake you ordered like it was his last meal.”

“It will be—” began the general. “Get them to turn off those damned sirens,” he told the consular official. “We’re not going to a fire.”

“Yes, sir.”

In the relative quiet of the limousine, Freeman continued, “It will be his last meal if those Hamas bastards get a whiff of the fact that he helped us.” He turned to the official again. “I want everything I’m going to be debriefed on sent in code. Eyes Only, by diplomatic pouch. The only other people than us to know he’s alive will be the witness protection folk who’ll have to give him the usual — new name, new identity — otherwise those scumbags’ll hunt him. If they—”