PSI: Pounds per square inch.
PSM: A small, handy 5.45mm pistol first issued to Soviet Spetsnaz units. Its bottle-nosed cartridge has remarkable penetrative ability.
Radalt: Radar altimeter.
Ripped: Body-builders attempt to reduce as much body fat as possible before a contest so that muscles become more defined. The result is called being ‘ripped’.
RPM: Usually revs-per-minute. But rounds-per-minute applied to weapons.
SAR: Not search-and-rescue but a compact assault rifle made in Singapore.
Sastrugi: Windblown and scoured snow and ice ridges.
SATCOM: Fleet satellite communications. More properly FLTSATCOM.
Sedia gestatoria: A portable papal throne carried on the shoulders of 12 footmen.
Shear-load: The force a body can sustain before shearing.
SIG-Sauer: Swiss handgun noted for excellent manufacture and extreme reliability.
Sikorsky S–76: Large commercial twin-turbine helicopter.
Sitrep: Situation report.
Sked: Scheduled radio contact.
Slot: Crevasse. Also known as a crack. A vehicle is ‘slotted’ if driven into a crack. Cracks are often invisible due to snow cover.
SNL: Sandia National Laboratories.
SOF: Generally sound-on-film but, in defence terms, Special Operations Forces.
Spetsnaz: KGB special forces.
Sponson: A structure projecting from the side of a vessel. On carriers, there are sponsons around the flight deck.
Spud in: Slang for crash landing.
SS90: Light bullet able to penetrate 48 layers of Kevlar at 100-metre range.
Transponder: Radio transmitter triggered by a received signal. Can be used as a positioning device.
Traverse: A convoy of vehicles travelling together for a considerable distance in Antarctica. Can refer to a train of large sleds supporting accommodation modules, stores, workshops and equipment. Pulled by converted bulldozers with very wide tracks.
Ventiles: Windproof outer garments used in Antarctica. A material developed by the Ventile Corporation.
VHF: Very high frequency.
VMC: Visible meteorological conditions. IMC is the instrument version.
WSG: Sir William Schwenck Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan fame.
Yaw: A bullet’s base has more mass than its nose — a shape lacking static stability. When it leaves the barrel it develops yaw — tilts up in flight. The ‘angle of yaw’ is the angle between the axis of the projectile and the tangent to the trajectory. The gyroscopic effect of a spinning projectile fired from a rifled barrel partly corrects this.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Any story set in many countries is a conundrum where measurement is concerned. The metric system is dominant throughout the world but America remains imperial, as do many older minds in other countries. US aircraft manuals, for instance, perpetuate their system. Shipping and particularly aircraft now use a curious mix: knots for speed and wind speed; feet, metres and nautical miles for distance. In Australia, runways are measured in feet but visibility in kilometres. Small boats are still so many feet but Lloyd’s registers shipping in metres. Different flight zones require one system or the other. In Exit Alpha I have used both metric and imperial, adjusting for context — including the mindset of the characters — and hope this will not offend.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This enormous project would have been impossible without advice from experts in many fields.
The services: Firstly, and fittingly, I acknowledge my great debt to warriors both active and retired of the United States and New Zealand Armed Services who bore my enquiries with their usual patience and grace. Particular thanks to Flt Lt Greg Caie, Master Engineer Brett Shanks (both 40th Squadron RNZAF), Daniel Brooks (Captain, 17th Squadron USAF and now Logistics Engineer for Lockheed). To the late, great Gerald Harris (Major, 17th Squadron USAF Rtd) whose tremendous enthusiasm helped power this book. As well to Flt Lt Robert Saxton (VAW–120, Virginia USA), Lt John MacMichael (Safety Officer, E–2C Training Command), Loadmaster Garry Quick (109th Airlift Wing NY) and crew members of USS Constellation. I acknowledge assistance from the Hawkeye Association and my debt to excellent articles in the US Navy Safety Centre’s Approach magazine and the US Navy Institute’s Proceedings journal.
Experts on and in Antarctica: Busy professionals who provided invaluable advice were Rod Ledingham (Field Training Officer, Australian Antarctic Division), Mike Mahon (Science and IT Support ANZ) and the long-suffering Fred Parsons (Mechanic, Scott Base ANZ). I was assisted by the International Antarctic Centre staff in Christchurch, by Antarctica NZ and the Australian Antarctic Division in Kingston, Tasmania.
Catholic studies: I was helped by Bede Draper and a perceptive teaching Father in the Catholic Church who prefers not to be named. I thank him.
Other professionals: Gratitude to Rex Dovey (helicopter operations, Queenstown, NZ). Glad you’re still alive, Rex. To Anna Lewis (operating theatre techniques) and Siobhan McCammon (film production). For reading the manuscript, providing suggestions and corrections, I thank two brilliant friends — Diane Morgan and Jim Richards. Gratitude also to David Elfick for pointing out that the pope should interact with Nina in the tale.
I acknowledge brief quotes from To Live Within by Sri Anirvan and Lizelle Reymond, last republished, as far as I know, by Rudra Press, Portland, Oregon, USA.
PerfectBound Special Feature:
An Interview with Clinton Smith
Q: You’ve won awards for literary fiction, so why the thriller genre?
It’s good fun. Meaty. Engaging. I find most ‘blockbuster’ thrillers slow-moving and dreary, so take great pains to write something fast-paced, quirky, absorbing. I’m trying to produce intelligent escapism.
Q: Your descriptions are almost filmic.
After a lifetime writing TV spots and docos, I’m conditioned to visualise.
Q: I’m intrigued by your characters. They’re far from the stock types you expect. The hero Cain, for instance, loves a coarse woman who later has a double mastectomy. His mentor, and almost his mother, is a sixteen-stone lesbian whom he adores, and his virtual sister and ‘brother-at-arms’ is the beautiful Karen, another lesbian. You have an unusual take on the thriller.
And thank God for that. Rhonda and Karen needed a close bond, and Cain needed that link with them too. Although it’s partly plot-driven, I prefer interesting characters. And despite particular sexual, religious or political orientations or race, people are just people.
Q: How long does a book take you?
About three years all up. I don’t have to knock out one a year. I’m self-funded and technically retired so can take the time to do it as well as I can.
Q: EXIT ALPHA must have been quite a research task.
It was. I had to find out about systems and survival in Antarctica, Catholic Church hierarchy and doctrine, political life in Pakistan, C-130s, nuclear aircraft carriers, airships, weapons systems. Then there were arcane subjects such as electrocutions, poltergeists… It takes enormous checking and the help of many experts. You do your best to keep egg off your face, not to slip up too much.