The Sea Cobras, which had just completed engine start, were beginning to spin their rotors up to lift-off speed when someone shouted, “Missiles in the air! Missiles in the air!”
Jurgensen’s worst fears had come true.
The number-two Hind-D gunship had fired two fast-moving missiles toward the embassy — not the laser-guided AT-6 “Spiral” or radio-controlled AT-3 “Sagger” antitank missiles that he was expecting, but smaller, faster SA-7 “Grail” heat-seeking missiles. One Sea Cobra helicopter lifted off and skidded right, and a missile missed it by several yards, but the second Sea Cobra was still on the ground, not yet up to lift-off speed, when the SA-7 missile slammed into the rotor and exploded. The helicopter ripped apart like a burst balloon, the blast and fireball so intense that Jurgensen and Reynolds, both at least four hundred feet away, could feel the heat.
“All units, open fire! Now set condition red and open fire!” Jurgensen screamed into his radio as he and the ambassador dove for cover behind a thick concrete planter box. “All units, open fire!”
The first salvo of Stinger missiles launched by the embassy Marines took several seconds to react, but at about a half-mile range, two missiles screamed into the sky.
Seconds after they were launched, the Hind helicopters let loose a salvo of 57-millimeter rocket fire on those same positions, uprooting trees and blasting the embassy wall apart.
One Stinger missile hit, blowing out an engine in the number-two Hind-D, and the huge machine wobbled, spun nearly in a complete circle, and descended rapidly, but managed to keep on flying until it landed with an incredible crash and a cartwheel onto the embassy grounds, finally coming to rest in a fiery ball near the broken Super Stallion helicopter. The fire from the Hind immediately threatened to set the CH-53E on fire, but all Jurgensen’s Marines were occupied with the air raid and could not put it out.
The second Stinger launched did not hit, but was decoyed away by bright magnesium flares dropped from the Soviet-made helicopters.
The number-four Hind-D gunship had one target only — the Super Stallion and SEA HAMMER aircraft. With rockets and cannon fire, both aircraft disappeared in blinding bursts of fire. The gunners did not waste one rocket or one shell — every round hit home with pinpoint accuracy.
The number-one and number-three Hind-D helicopters immediately peeled left and pursued the AH-1 Sea Cobra. Although the Sea Cobra was faster and more maneuverable, it could not get into proper attack position before one of the eight SA-7 missiles launched from the two Hind-Ds hit. Jurgensen did not see the hit — he saw the Hinds move away, saw the missiles fly, and lost contact with Rattler Four. After that all he saw was a column of black smoke several miles away.
The attack was over almost as soon as it began. The other two Stinger missile crews never got clean shots off at the attackers before they disappeared, so they saved their weapons for the next attack. The first two Soviet attackers were obviously under strict orders not to attack the embassy structure itself, because except for the rocket attack against the two Stinger positions and the attacks against the helicopters on the ground, nothing else was struck.
In the space of thirty seconds, four aircraft had been destroyed, with a loss to the Soviets of only one helicopter.
Jurgensen and Reynolds both looked at the devastation around them with stunned expressions. Where once they were surrounded by well-groomed, shady trees, and green grass, it was all obscured by clouds of thick, oily smoke and debris. The cries of “Help! Over here!” and “Medic! Corpsman!” shook Jurgensen out of his stupor. On his walkie-talkie, he ordered, “Radio, send a priority-one message to the Twenty-sixth and advise them that the embassy came under attack by four Hind-D helicopter gunships. Casualties unknown but light. Moderate damage to embassy. Four Marine helicopters destroyed. One Soviet helicopter down—”
“Make that a Byelorussian helicopter,” Ambassador Reynolds interjected.
“Stand by, Radio,” Jurgensen said. To Reynolds, he asked, “Are you sure, Mr. Ambassador?”
“I got a good look at the two that chased the Cobra,” Reynolds said. “I’m positive — the bastards that did this were from Byelorussia. The Byelorussian flag is the only one that has a vertical bar on the staff side as well as horizontal bars.”
“How can you tell if they were Byelorussian or representing the Commonwealth?”
“Commonwealth aircraft from the various republics, except for Russia, have a large white diamond painted around their national flags or insignia,” Reynolds said. “That allows easy identification from the air and ground, and allows aircraft to freely fly over foreign airspace. There wasn’t a white diamond around those flags. They could be Russian, but the glimpses of the colors in the insignia said they weren’t. They were Byelorussian. I’m positive.”
“Radio, append to message: identification of helicopter gunships verified by Ambassador Reynolds to be from Byelorussia, repeat, Byelorussia. One gunship crashed in the embassy compound; we will examine the wreckage to verify country of origin. Send it.”
Jurgensen was on his way down to direct his Marines to extinguish the fire around the downed Hind when his walkie-talkie buzzed again. “Sir, message in the clear from Amos One-Zero.” Amos was the call sign of the Army Special Forces troops scattered throughout Lithuania in support of, this embassy-evacuation-and-reinforcement operation. “They report troops on the move, at least a brigade, traveling west at high speed from the Byelorussian military base at Smorgon.” Smorgon, an Army Aviation base in northwestern Byelorussia, was only thirty nautical miles from the Lithuanian border and only fifty-five miles from Vilnius. “Transmission ended during report of precise troop strength. Amos Ten reported fourteen rotary-win aircraft inbound before transmission terminated.”
“Copy all,” Jurgensen replied. Jesus fucking Christ — the Byelorussians are going to do it — they are going to invade Lithuania. All the troop movements, the reinforcements, the maneuvering we ‘ye seen and had been reported was all a prelude to this. Of all the fucking days, they had to choose this day to roll their armies across Lithuania.
“Clear a direct scrambled priority channel to the Twenty-sixth MEU, urgent, and radio a warning message to the Assault team over at Fisikous. Looks like their ride’s been canceled. Advise them of the air activity inbound. Tell them to hotfoot it over to the embassy as fast as they can, by whatever means possible. Send it.”
General Wilbur Curtis was surprised to see Brad Elliott dressed in a flight suit when he walked into the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center. “We going flying, Brad?” Curtis asked slyly.
Elliott respectfully stood when Curtis entered the room, but did not reply. His features were taut, his jaw and lips firm. Curtis thought Elliott was in pain but knew better — he was angry. Really angry.
Curtis found the three-star chief of HAWC in the Support Section of the Command Center, the large, auditorium-like conference room where the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their staffs managed combat operations around the world. The Support Section was a soundproof, glass-enclosed balcony overlooking the main Command Section, used by observers and secondary staff members as necessary; it could be isolated from the main floor by closing the remote-controlled shutters. Right now the Support Section’s window shutters were open, so Elliott could see the Big Board, the Command Display System, a set of eight huge digital-computer screens on which the whole spectrum of information, from real-time satellite imagery to checklists to television to digitized charts, could be displayed. The board was displaying a few charts of the Baltic Sea region, Lithuania, the capital city of Vilnius, and some weather depictions.