“Imperial Blue One flight, you say you have an aircraft near Cortkov at five hundred meters?”
“That is affirmative, Vinnica. Stand by.” On the interplane frequency in English, Tychina asked the Turkish general, “Sir, in what direction and what airspeed is that plane headed?”
“He is headed south, heading one-seven-zero, speed three hundred knots,” the general responded. “He is not transmitting IFF identification codes.”
Tychina forgot that the advanced pulse-Doppler radars on the F-16 Fighting Falcon could not only see low-flying targets at incredible distances, but could even interrogate identification beacons. He keyed the secondary radio mike: “Vinnica, target heading south at five hundred fifty kilometers per hour, not transmitting any identification beacons.”
“Imperial Blue flight, acknowledged, stand by.” There was another long pause, and that made twenty-eight-year-old Pavlo Tychina very uncomfortable. He could feel his fine flying day going to hell real fast. “Imperial Blue Flight, you are ordered to immediately intercept and identify the target aircraft,” the controller finally said in Ukrainian. “The aircraft is unidentified and is below my radar coverage. Report identification immediately on this frequency.”
“Imperial Blue One Flight, acknowledged.” He sighed. What in the hell … had they stumbled onto an unidentified aircraft, a possible intruder? On the primary radio, Tychina radioed: “General, the regional radar command has ordered us to intercept this aircraft. I am not picking this target up on my radar, and he is too low for a vector from ground intercept. Can you assist me?”
“My pleasure, Pavlo,” the Turkish pilot replied. “I am in the lead. Stay with me as best you can.” And with that, the F-16 Falcon shot out ahead of the MiG, its afterburner rattling Tychina’s wings and canopy. Tychina hit the afterburners on the MiG-23—which, unlike the F-16, did not light off in zones but came on full blast with a powerful bang! — then swept his wings back to 72 degrees. In the blink of an eye they were at Mach-one and had descended to barely more than three hundred meters above ground.
The visibility was less than twenty kilometers down here because of smog. Tychina’s mind raced through a high-detail map of the area, trying to remember if there were any power lines or tall smokestacks in this area, but he was doing all he could just to keep the small F-16 in sight. They did a few sudden climbs when the Turkish general found a few power lines, and Pavlo swore they flew under a tall high-tension line strung across the Zbrut River.
There!
“Contact,” Tychina called out. It was an Ilyushin-76M cargo plane, a large four-engine military transport. This was the military version of the similar civilian cargo plane — that was apparent as they closed in because …
… the Il-76 opened fire on them with its two tail-mounted 23-millimeter twin-barrel machine guns.
“Kemal damn them!” the Turkish officer screamed angrily on the radio. He immediately banked right and extended to get out of the gun turret’s cone of fire. Tychina banked hard left and climbed. Once he was above the Il-76 and forward of the plane’s wings, he knew he was safe. The plane had Aeroflot markings and a Russian flag painted on the vertical stabilizer …
… It was definitely a fucking Russian plane!
The Turkish general was still swearing, half in Turkish, half in English: “That bastard fired on us!”
“Stay out of the cone of fire!” Tychina told him. On the backup radio, Tychina called out, “Vinnica control, Imperial Blue One Flight, we have been fired upon by a Russian Ilyushin-76 transport aircraft. Repeat, we have been fired on by a Russian Il-76. Request instructions!”
There was no response, only the hiss of static — they were far too low to be picked up by Vinnica.
Tychina switched the backup radio to the international VHF emergency frequency, 121.5, and said in Russian, “Unidentified Russian transport plane near the town of Kel’mency, this is Imperial Blue One flight of two, Air Force of the Ukrainian Republic. You are flying illegally in Ukrainian airspace. Climb immediately to five thousand meters and identify yourself.” He repeated the instructions in English and Ukrainian, but the big transport kept right on flying. Soon the Russian Il-76 transport had reached the Moldovan border, and Tychina could pursue it no longer. He turned northwest and started a climb so he could regain radio contact with Vinnica, watching it carefully.
“Those bastards,” the Turkish general cursed on the primary radio, “if I only had some rounds in my cannon, I would have nailed that son of a bitch for good. I never thought I’d ever let anyone fire at me without returning fire. Shit.”
Tychina deselected the radio for the moment so he would not have to listen to the excitable Turk’s cursing. On the backup radio, he radioed: “Vinnica, this is Imperial Blue One Flight, how do you read?”
“Loud and clear now,” the controller replied. “We could not hear you, but our remote communications outlets picked you up and relayed your calls. Do you have the Ilyushin in sight?”
“Affirmative,” Tychina replied. “It is … my God…!”
Just as he visually reacquired the big transport, he saw several white streaks of smoke erupt from the snowy forests below and hit the Ilyushin-76 transport.
Those were surface-to-air missiles, being fired from just across the Moldovan border …
“Vinnica, this is Imperial Blue One Flight, the Ilyushin has just been hit by Moldovan surface-to-air missiles. I see two … three missiles, small, probably SA-7 portable … the Ilyushin is on fire, its left engines are on fire, it is trailing smoke … wait! Vinnica, I see parachutes, the crew is … no, I see a lot of parachutes, dozens! Vinnica, paratroopers are exiting the cargo area via the rear cargo ramp. Over two dozen, one after another … I am turning southeast to maintain visual contact … Vinnica, are you reading me?”
It was the most incredible sight Tychina had ever seen. Like a giant whale being attacked by tiny sharks, the Ilyushin-76 was being peppered by man-portable SA-7 heat-seeking missiles. As it descended, its entire left wing on fire, it was disgorging dozens of paratroopers. Most of the paratroopers never made it — Tychina saw lots of jumpers but very few parachutes. The plane was so low now that there wasn’t time for the jumper’s parachutes to fully open before they hit the frozen Moldovan ground. Then, in a spectacular cloud of fire, the Ilyushin rolled onto its left side, crashed, and cartwheeled for at least five kilometers across the earth, leaving bits of metal and bodies under streaming parachutes in its path.
Christ, it had finally started, Tychina thought in a cold sweat. The fucking Russians and Moldovans were at each other’s throats. Worse, he knew, just knew the Ukraine would be pulled into it as well. In fact, already had been, when the arrogant Motherland decided it could fly over Ukrainian airspace as well as shoving the Black Sea Fleet through their waters … all without permission. Tychina grimaced at the thought of what could happen next. Up until now it had been little more than a bit of sparring and some macho posturing.
But this … this, Tychina feared, was just the kind of incident that could be a prelude to something much bigger.
And deadlier.
“One hundred and forty SPETSNAZ paratroopers, ten crewmen, and a two-hundred-million-dollar transport, all killed by a quarter-million dollars’ worth of missiles,” Army general Philip T. Freeman, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summarized from the report before him. He was in the National Military Command Center, the main military command post and communications center in the Pentagon, previewing the briefing and the edited videotape he was going to give to the National Security Council and the President of the United States in just a few hours. Freeman knew that this briefing was not just important, but vital in determining what the United States’ response to this incident was going to be — especially for a President that was busy trying to drastically downsize not just the military’s size, but its power and influence in American life as well. After thirty years in uniform, Freeman had learned how to play the game.