Ian Slater - Darpa Alpha

Peter shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“It’s going around town ,” boomed the general, “that I’m a ‘tired old horse’! Now, I take umbrage at that. I’ve been a horse’s ass, but I’ve never been ‘old’!” There was a smattering of laughter ’tween decks and on the Yorktown ’s roof, where the flight crews in the preemptory ballet of war were busily parking the first five of the helo carrier’s fifteen big Super Stallions, the choppers in takeoff line, rotors still, folded like the wings of enormous, sleeping dragonflies. “What makes it worse,” continued Freeman, “is that the joker who said I’m a horse’s ass was a liberal Monday-morning quarterbacking son of a bitch who wouldn’t know a condom from a balloon.”

The marines roared their approval, getting into it now. Marine Commander Tibbet, high up on the island’s bridge, was shaking his head as he stared down at Freeman who, he saw, had climbed atop one of the big Super Stallion’s cockpits, even as its deck crew fit-tested the helo’s cargo hook and banana-shaped sling.

“That comment about liberals’ll be on CNN in about five minutes,” Tibbet complained to Yorktown ’s diminutive Captain Crowley. “The man’s got no sense of — I don’t know—”

Why, Lord, why, Crowley petitioned Heaven, did he have to have George Patton reincarnated on his boat? A naval captain, like anyone else, abhorred controversy. Technically, Crowley mused, as long as Freeman’s on my boat, he’s under my command. Technically .

“Now,” continued Freeman, “I want to tell you men and women that if I were you, I’d be a mite teed off at suddenly being under the command of a horse’s ass!” A roar of laughter erupted ’tween decks, flowing up from the vehicle and hangar deck over the ramps, spilling out onto the flight deck. “But I’m here to tell you that I’ve seen my share of combat, and I’ve still got some ideas about how to deal with scumbags. And—” He was interrupted by another roar, this one of such anger that it startled Yorktown ’s captain but turned Colonel Tibbet’s frown into a knowing smile: Their blood was up. “—And I want to tell you,” thundered the general, “that I and my team of veterans are here to work with you, not over you. This is from first to last Colonel Tibbet’s show. I’m here in an advisory capacity only, but you’ll see me around—” He paused. “—not sitting like a horse’s ass, but galloping in with your Super Stallions. And—”

There was clapping and cries of “Way to go, General!”

“And,” continued Freeman, arms akimbo, his camouflaged Fritz with its airborne strap cupping his chin, “I intend to shit all over those comrades who give our enemies the means to kill our children. Are you 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.”