THE SECRET DELTA FORCE MISSION TO FREE A CIA AGENT

Acid Gambit was a 1989 operation by American Delta Force operators and the Night Stalkers to free Kurt Muse, an American civilian living in Panama, from the local prison. Muse had been locked up there in the spring for setting up covert radio broadcasts against Manuel Noriega, Panama’s corrupt ruler.

On the night of December 20, 1989, 4 Little Bird helicopters carried 24 Delta Force soldiers to the prison and landed on the roof. One operator was tasked with climbing down the side of the building, leaning in front of Muse’s cell window and taking out the guard who had orders to kill Muse in the event of a rescue. The guard was posted outside the cell, though, and was killed later by the Delta operators, who had blown their way in through the roof and were working through the floors of the prison in search of Muse.

Once the Delta operators found Muse, he was given a protective vest and a ballistic helmet before they brought him up to the roof to the waiting Little Birds. “That was where all the action was,” Muse said. “There were tracers everywhere.”

During the extraction from the prison, though, the overloaded helicopter carrying Muse took fire and went down. 5 soldiers were injured in the crash but managed to reach cover in a nearby building. Muse remembers one soldier who had been knocked unconscious: the first thing he asked when he came to was whether he (Muse) was all right. “As a civilian, I was in awe. Despite their wounds, these warriors kept going as if they were not hurt at all. It was an amazing scene.”

Armored personnel carriers from an alerted American patrol fought their way through the city and pulled the trapped force out of the danger zone. Muse was rescued after 9 months in captivity, and the Deltas and Night Stalkers had pulled off one of their first hostage rescues since the Second World War.

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