Ian Slater: Darpa Alpha

The STAR, or Surface-to-Air Recovery technique, was known throughout Special Forces and Special Ops command as a last resort. Indeed, it was the riskiest extraction method ever devised by man.

“You afraid of heights?” Freeman asked the boy as they sprinted to where Marine Thomas, now barely visible in the dusk, had begun preparations as per the instructions in the container as the Herk and its two Joint Strike Fighters loitered overhead.

“Fill it!” Freeman shouted at her. “Time to go. Give the valve its head.”

What a moment before had been the size of a giant jellyfish now quickly expanded into a car-sized and then a small but definite Goodyear blimp-shaped dirigible as the helium silently inflated it, and it rose high into the icy air, unraveling the first one hundred feet of the five-hundred-foot-long specially treated nylon rope that lay coiled at Freeman’s and Melissa Thomas’s feet as they hurriedly donned the multilayered thermal boilersuits complete with hoods, skydiver helmets, and rescue harnesses for each of them.

“You’re going to have to hold on to me tightly, son,” said Freeman. “What’s your name, Blue Eyes?”

“Jamal.”

“All right, Jamal, now the big Hercules — that plane up there — is going to come down pretty low to get us three out of here. First we’ll go up like a—”

“General!” Marine Thomas interjected. “The dirigible’s at full height. We’re the only ones holding it down. The Herk’ll pick it up or—” She had no time to finish; the Hercules, its four turboprop engines roaring, was coming at them at about five hundred feet, a big, metal, horizontal V sticking out from the nose like a forked tongue which, in theory, should snag the nylon rope suspended from above by the blimp. If the V snagged the rope, an automatic clamp would lock the base of the V’s jaw onto the line, the dirigible, still attached to the flex rope, now high above the plane and trailing well behind it. The strain would soon be taken up by the rope, if it worked.

“Ever been on a swing, Jamal?” Freeman shouted against the roar of the Herk as he and Melissa Thomas strapped their harnesses together.

“Yes, I’ve been on lots of swings.”

Freeman took the boy in a bear hug. “Not like this one, kid. You hang on to me no matter what, okay?”

“O—” And they were off, the plane’s V-shaped proboscis having snagged the line, whisking them straight up for 120 feet before the big pendulum swing began, their initial acceleration from the sitting position to more than a hundred feet surprisingly smooth, if very fast, like being whipped up through the air at the end of a five-hundred-foot-long elastic band. The sensation of speed was so frightening and exhilarating that Freeman felt it in his loins as the three of them, in an experience for which not even Top Gun graduates volunteered, went hurtling through frigid air, the lake already far below and behind them, a silver sheen in the moonlight slipping away westward, the black Herk entering cloud. The easy part was over.

Above the Herk, now traveling at 144 miles per hour, the dirigible’s breakaway cords snapped from the sheer stress of the air buffeting its huge volume. Inside the plane, at the Herk’s rear ramp door, one of two volunteer crewmen set about lowering a hook line to catch the lift line, which now arced back from the nose of the Herk, now traveling at 136 miles per hour. Meantime, a second volunteer crewman began working the telescopic arm which would, it was hoped, reach out and grab the lift line so it could be brought closer to the underside of the plane, and 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.

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.