“Hey, c’mon, Pavlo, old buddy,” Skliarenko drawled lazily, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve just been through hell and back. Everyone carries a little nip in the plane — so do you. We just had a little celebration after we landed.”
Tychina whipped his right arm up, throwing off the drunk pilot’s hand on his shoulder. “Attention!” Tychina snapped. Mikitenko snapped to attention once again; Skliarenko was a little slower, his eyes not focusing too well, but he finally moved to attention, weaving unsteadily.
“You bastards could have destroyed any chance we had to regenerate the air force and begin air operations against the Russians,” Tychina raged. Mikitenko noticed a line of blood soaking through Tychina’s sterile mask — he was so agitated that he had burst a stitch or reopened a wound — and the sight made his throat turn dry, his hands shake with dread. “Don’t you two know anything? Turkey is a Muslim nation. Sunni Muslims. You insulted them to the core by bringing booze into their country and drinking it in front of them. You might as well have pissed on their foreheads. And that’s not to mention the fact that it’s against regulations to drink on the flight line or during combat conditions. And you were sitting slouched in those chairs with your feet up like lazy pigs.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Mikitenko interjected, “but we’ve been here for over six hours.”
“Idiots! Sitting slouched in a chair is a sign of disrespect, and pointing the soles of your boots at a Turk is the worst insult you can make,” Tychina roared. “Didn’t you two notice how pissed off that guard is? You were practically goading him into a fight. Now shut your stupid mouths. I want you to speak only when spoken to. You will remain at parade rest as long as you are here, and you will come to attention if you are addressed by anyone. Is that clear?” Both pilots said yes. “Jesus, no wonder this entire country seemed mad at us. I hope we haven’t lost the fight before we had a chance to fight it.”
Eventually Tychina was shown into the office of the base commander. Brigadier General Erdal Sivarek was a short, round man with dark features and hair that seemed to grow out of impossible places all over his body. The two men were introduced by an interpreter (speaking Russian, not Ukrainian), shook hands, and then Tychina was introduced to an older man in white arctic combat fatigues: “May I present Major General Bruce Eyers, from the United States, chief of operations for NATO Forces Southeast.”
Pavlo didn’t understand much of the interpreter’s thickly accented Russian, but he knew what the two stars on the American’s epaulettes meant. He quickly checked the American general out. About five foot ten, probably about 225 pounds, a mean-looking sort of man — or maybe just tough — with very short, cropped dark hair, dark eyes, and built like a small building. The American officer squeezed Tychina’s hand hard, then asked in a loud voice, “What happened to your face there, young man?” Pavlo was about to reply, but Eyers turned to the Turkish general and laughed, “Looks like the en-tire Ukrainian Air Force is filled with either drunks or walking wounded, eh, General?”
“I apologize for my pilots, sir,” Tychina said in English, thinking that the American was admonishing him for the conduct of his two pilots. “They are young and have survived much, sir. Their conduct will not be repeated. We will conduct ourselves with very much respect.”
“Hell, don’t sweat it, chief,” the American said easily. “If I just had my hometown blasted to hell by the Russkies, I’d want to toss down a few stiff ones, too. Jeez.” He laughed again, but turned much more serious when he found that neither officer was joining in the humor. “I’d advise you to keep a tight grip on your boys, and steer clear of the vodka. The Turks don’t go for drinking on this base. It’s a pisser, but hell, that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“Our social customs, General, are not ‘pissers’ to anyone except foreigners, usually slovenly Westerners,” General Sivarek said irritably. General Eyers said nothing, but nodded that he understood — and then he made an impatient sigh and crossed his arms on his chest, which Tychina knew was yet another rude gesture to a Turk. General Sivarek glared at Eyers, who didn’t notice, then said to Tychina, “Hos geldiniz, efendim. I welcome you to the Republic of Turkey and to Kayseri Air Base, Colonel. I am sorry for what has happened to your nation and your home. Under the circumstances, I think we may forgive your pilot’s indiscretion. I will make a Russian-speaking liaison officer available to you and your crews so that there will be no more such incidents.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tychina replied gratefully. “I accept your offer. But I think it’s best to keep my crews under cover and working until we can begin air operations. I’m sure General Panchenko and the general staff will want us to be combat-ready in the fastest time possible.”
“Hold on there, son,” the American general interjected, swaggering a bit now like a bad imitation of John Wayne. “No one here’s talking about any air operations. You don’t have permission to stage any sorties out of Turkey. You can’t even start engines on one of those Floggers without NATO and the President of Turkey giving their okay.” He nodded as respectfully as he could to General Sivarek.
Tychina didn’t understand all that the American was saying — he made no effort to make himself understood to anyone — but he could sense by the tone in his voice, that lazy swagger, that air operations weren’t approved yet. “Excuse me,” Pavlo said, “but I anticipate the Russians will begin a full-scale ground invasion of Ukrayina at any time. This we must not allow. I was told you had stockpiled Ukrainian weapons at this location.”
“We got nothin’ but a hodgepodge of half-assed bombs, rockets, and missiles left over from Afghanistan,” Eyers said dryly, looking at the Ukrainian out of the corner of his eyes as if he were a beggar asking for coins. “They’re outdated first-generation technology that don’t amount to spit and would probably create a hazard for NATO forces anyway. Hell, it’s dangerous enough just having those things sit in storage — I can’t imagine trying’ to upload those things on your aircraft in combat conditions … Hell, it’d be like playin’ with Tonka toys.”
“Excuse me, but we cannot sit here in Turkey while Russian troops march into our country,” insisted Tychina as if the man were an idiot.
“There ain’t much you boys can do about it, is there, Colonel?” Eyers said, cocking an eyebrow. “The only force that can stand up to Russian aggression is NATO and the United States, of course. So far, NATO hasn’t figgered out what to do.
“Now I’ll admit, you got some real interestin’ hardware out there, but it’s all obsolete, my friend. I wish you’d brought us a few of your Su-24s or Su-37s. NATO will determine whether or not you boys can join our coalition forces and try your hand against the Russkies — although frankly I don’t give you a chance in hell. You haven’t trained with NATO forces, you don’t speak the language, you use totally different tactics.”
Pavlo Tychina felt the anger rise to the surface of his skin like a bubble in a boiling cauldron of blood. His breathing became more accelerated, his eyes burning. “I speak English good, sir, very good. And I not need permission from you or NATO to tell me when to fight. You understand?” Tychina turned to General Sivarek and bowed his head politely. “I thank you and your country for welcoming us and giving us the safety. You have given us the opportunity to fight. I ask for fuel and weapons for my aircraft. We will leave aircraft to pay for fuel, and my government will pay; the weapons, they belong to Ukrayina. I require nothing more. We leave soon as possible.”