“Good thought, Lieutenant. I knew there was a reason we got you off the patrol boats.” On shipwide intercom, Inonu radioed, “Flight, Combat, launch the patrol helicopter, have him execute full decoy operations — lights, chaff, radio, the works.” His acknowledgment was the warning to all crewmembers that the helicopter was being launched. The AB-121 patrol helicopter, an American UH-1N Huey helicopter modified for maritime patrol duties, could bring a large Sea Eagle surface-search radar aloft, and he would drop chaff and turn on searchlights and broadcast warning messages to the inbound aircraft — suitably separated from the frigate, of course.
The helicopter would also be available for rescue operations — but Inonu didn’t want to think about that.
General Bruce Eyers was furious to the point of apoplexy. There, to his amazement, stretched out on the tarmac in front of him, were eighty MiG-23 Flogger-G fighters belonging to the Ukrainian Republic. Half were lined up on the main taxiway of Kayseri Air Base right up to the runway hold line; the other half, the fighters not carrying missiles, were lined up on the taxiways parallel to Kayseri’s smaller parallel runway. Two MiGs were on each runway’s hold line, ready for a formation takeoff, and the rest were lined up staggered behind it with only thirty feet between tailpipe and pitot boom. All but the last twenty aircraft or so had engines running — the rest had small, truck-towed pneumatic start carts parked underneath the fighter’s left wing, ready to shoot high-pressure smoke into the fourth-stage compressor section to start the big Tumansky turbine turning in just a few seconds.
Eyers directed his Turkish driver to park his car right in front of the lead fighter’s nose, and after some hesitation and a lot of consternation, the driver finally complied. Eyers considered running out and ordering the pilot to shut down, cracked the door open, thought better about approaching the MiG with its engine running, and grabbed the car’s UHF radio. “Lead MiG-23 aircraft, both of you, shut down your engines immediately. That’s an order!” There was no response. “I said, shut down your engines! Now!” Still no response.
Eyers forgot about the incredible engine noise, stepped out of the sedan, swaggered up to the lead pilot’s left side about fifty feet in front of the left engine intake, drew his Colt .45 automatic pistol, and fired two shots into the sky. The muzzle flash in the darkness was big and bright, and the message was unmistakable. Eyers then lowered the muzzle and aimed the gun at the MiG-23’s engine intake. A single bullet ricocheting around in the intake would certainly destroy the engine in just a few seconds. Turkish Air Force security vehicles screeched out to the runway hold line, and several soldiers aimed their rifles at Eyers. He ignored them. Eyers raised his left hand, showing five fingers, the gun still aimed at the left engine intake. He then lowered one finger, then another, then another.…
The lead MiG-23’s engine abruptly began to spool down, and the leader’s wingman followed suit. All the rest of the MiG-23s waiting for takeoff kept their engines running, but their path was effectively blocked. Eyers signaled to the lead pilot to open his canopy and step down, and after a few moments, he complied. The canopy swung open a small ladder extended on the left side of the plane, and the pilot stepped onto the runway and walked over to Eyers.
The lead pilot, to no one’s surprise, was Colonel of Aviation Pavlo Tychina.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing, Colonel?” Eyers yelled over the noise of the other fighters lined up ready for takeoff. He made a “kill your engine” signal to the other fighters, but it was doubtful anyone could see him or would obey him if they did. “Who gave you permission to taxi these planes for takeoff?”
“Permission? No permission,” Tychina shouted over the noise. “Air attack in progress. Russian bombers attack Turkish ships. We help fight.”
“How did you know an attack was in progress?”
“We hear on radio.”
“What radio? Who gave you a damned radio?” thundered Eyers, ready to chew nails.
“No one give,” Tychina yelled. “Airplanes has radio. We do listening watch — one plane for each frequency. Easy.” Eyers understood: Tychina had his pilots set up a radio listening watch using the aircraft radios — one for high-frequency single-sideband, one for UHF, one for VHF. With an AWACS plane orbiting at twenty-nine thousand feet and with air defense broadcasts relayed across the country, it would be easy for the Ukrainians to pick up the action.
“You’re saying that no one gave you permission to move these planes?” Eyers roared, all but spitting bullets. “I thought I ordered you to sit tight until NATO decided what to do with you.”
“No. We not wait. Turkey under attack by Russia.”
“I don’t give a shit!” Eyers shouted. “I will throw your ass in prison, you Ukrainian sonofabitch! You get up in that Tonka toy of yours and order them to shut down right now!”
By that time General Sivarek had driven up to the group, and the Turkish security guards moved in. The General surveyed the two lead fighters on the runway hold line and the impressive line of MiG-23 fighters behind them, then looked at Eyers, to the gun still in his hand, and then at Tychina. He returned Tychina’s salute, then strode up to Eyers. “What is happening here, General Eyers?” he demanded, eyes ablaze.
“What the hell does it look like, General?” Eyers snorted. “These kids were ready to blast off — at night, without orders from anyone, without permission, without any way of coordinating with Turkish or NATO air defense.”
“You are aware of the attack underway on the Black Sea near the Bosporus, are you not, General?” Sivarek asked.
“What does this got to do with it? General, you just can’t send a gaggle of Soviet fighters up in the sky, mixing it up with NATO aircraft. Where’s the coordination? Where’s the plan …?”
“General Eyers …” Sivarek began, then paused and turned to Colonel Tychina. “Colonel, order your aircraft back to parking.”
“Excuse me, please, General,” Tychina said, horrified by the thought, “but we can still act. We must launch now.”
“It is too late,” Sivarek said. “It would take you at least twenty to thirty minutes to arrive on station, and your fighters have burned too much fuel sitting here on the ground. Order them to return to parking.” Tychina had no choice. He saluted Sivarek, ignoring Eyers, turned, and gave the signal to his planes to turn around and head back to parking. A few minutes later, a maintenance truck with a tow bar came along to tow the two lead aircraft.
As they began moving, Eyers turned to Sivarek. “What is going on here, General? You knew about this? You gave permission for these planes to taxi?”
“Standard base-defense response, General Eyers,” Sivarek said. “When under air raid alert condition, attempt to launch as many aircraft as possible.”
“That’s bullshit, General,” Eyers spat. Sivarek’s eyes narrowed, his anger barely under control. “You launch as many friendly aircraft as possible, not Ukrainian aircraft!”
“They are friendly aircraft, General,” Sivarek snapped. “Can you not understand this? They are here to work with NATO, work with Turkey, to fight the Russians.”
“That hasn’t been determined yet, General,” Eyers declared. “NATO hasn’t issued any—”
“No, NATO has not responded to my country’s plea for help,” Sivarek interjected. “A squadron of reconnaissance planes that will not arrive until tomorrow morning, two naval vessels that will not arrive for four days, and an air defense battalion that is half the size we need that may not arrive for a month. Meanwhile, Turkey suffers an attack by Russia.”