“Aircraft opening fire on First Battalion artillery units,” Drunga reported. “Heavy cannon fire. One antiaircraft artillery unit destroyed. Rotary-wing aircraft inbound.”
Maziulis felt a flush of fear run through him, but he pushed it away. It was sooner than expected, but they did expect a counterattack. “Where’s Third Battalion …?”
Suddenly the night sky illuminated from the bursts of several large-caliber cannons firing at once, and a few seconds later the ear-shattering reports roiled across the runway. Several T-62 tanks and Lithuanian armored vehicles exploded. The drivers were temporarily blinded and confused as they crossed the path of their own mortars, and the smoke from the mortars screened their gunners from taking aim on the line of Black Beret armored combat vehicles. But as soon as they emerged from the smoke, the Commonwealth gunners had them cold and opened fire.
Many Lithuanian units were killed before they could get a shot off.
Maziulis grabbed the command-net microphone and yelled, “Echo and Foxtrot companies! Fake north, wheel east, and engage! Delta Company, release from the line, stunt circle north, and flank those BMDs!”
He scanned his line with the binoculars. Echo and Foxtrot companies, far to the south, were moving, but Delta Company, located just a few hundred meters away, hadn’t moved backwards yet. Maziulis turned to Drunga and yelled, “Aras, run over to the Rover and have him go over to Delta Company lead and tell him to stunt north and cover Alpha and Bravo. Find out what’s wrong with his radio.”
Drunga threw off his headset, grabbed an AK-47, and jumped off the radio truck and sprinted over to a small four-wheeled vehicle, flagging it down.
He had taken perhaps eight steps away from the radio truck when a scream of compressed air and a terrific explosion threw him off his feet. He flew for perhaps five meters into the air, then was thrown across the ground amidst shards of red-hot metal and waves of superheated air. When he looked back at the radio truck, nothing was there except a blackened metal skeleton with the broken and mutilated bodies of Maziulis and the others scattered around the area like dolls tossed by the wind.
“Congo Two, can you give us some fire support on the Hammer target area against the heavy stuff before you split?” Captain Snyder asked from Hammer Three.
“Can do easy,” the AC-130’s pilot reported. “Our tanker is heading back to join with us, and our fuel loss is minimal right now. There’s no sign of engine fire. We’ve got about five minutes more on station before we bingo.”
“Copy. Hit the heavy armor first, then soften up the area around the two target areas. After that, give us a sparkler and you’re cleared to depart. Open her up, Congo Two.”
“Copy all, Hammer leader. Watch the sky.”
The OMON Black Berets had its front-line men and equipment protecting the research center, including six BTR-6OPB armored personnel carriers, each fitted with two heavy-caliber machine guns and able to transport fourteen soldiers at speeds up to sixty miles per hour; three BMD tracked combat vehicles, fitted with a 73-millimeter cannon and wire-guided AT-3 antitank missiles; and infantry units armed with grenade launchers and RPK and PKM heavy machine guns. This formidable line of vehicles, arrayed against the advancing Lithuanian forces to the west, became easy targets for the Spectre gunship.
No Spectre crew liked to bring back unspent ammo from a live fire’ mission. This crew was determined not to bring back one round. Using the two rapid-fire cannons, the Spectre began chewing into the Black Beret troop positions. The 25-millimeter cannonfire ripped apart smaller armored personnel carriers and Jeeps, while the 40-millimeter cannon destroyed or disabled the larger armored combat vehicles. They were careful to keep the gunfire away from the security building, where Luger was being held, as well as the hangars where the Soviet stealth bomber was supposedly kept. The sensor operators and fire-control officer also tried to stay away from the troops he felt were the “partisans.”
There were enough good targets everywhere below, especially heavy vehicles and armor. A few times the pilot opened up with 105-millimeter howitzer, creating large antivehicle pits around planned pickup zone while being careful to keep fences intact. The crew liberally sprayed the MV-22 landing site with 25-millimeter and 40-millimeter cannonfire in case any troops tried to hunker down in those areas. The Spectre then made another circle over the city, selecting targets C the twelve remaining Hellfire missiles on the left wingtip, destroying heavy armored vehicles identified by the Marines in the embassy compound as threats.
Once again, they headed for the area near the Fisikous Institute to deliver their coup de grâce. …
More cannon fire erupted — the shock waves and ear-splitting noise all around Major Aras Drunga was like an iron-gloved fist, driving him to the ground. Drunga crawled to his hands and knees, trying to move closer to the bodies, to see if any needed help. Then he saw the rows of Black Beret armored combat vehicles begin to move across the aircraft parking ramp toward him. They were less than three hundred meters away, and they were hammering the Lithuanians with volley after volley of cannon fire. The charge was a failure. General Palcikas’ west flank was going to disintegrate.
Suddenly, it looked as if one of the BMD armored combat vehicles simply lifted straight up in the air, like a frog jumping off a rock. When it fell to earth again, flames and burning fuel were spilling out a gaping hole in its turret. A few seconds later, another vehicle, a BTR-60 armored personnel carrier, seemed to split apart like a ripe melon, spilling pieces of Black Beret soldiers who’d been chopped up by artillery fire. The young officer didn’t know what was happening, but whatever it was, it was accurately and effectively wiping out the best of the Black Berets’ offensive punch.
Every Spectre mission-planning session includes a “sparkler,” a target that is so large and filled with so much explosive or flammable material that it provides maximum shock value and disorientation, allowing aircraft to escape, friendly troops to move in, or helps to demoralize the enemy. Even though a sparkler may not be a high-value target or related to the sortie’s main objective, it is kept in the commander’s “hip pocket”—in this case programmed into the targeting computers — and made ready for use at any time.
Now was the time.
The Spectre swung out of its orbit around the Fisikous Institute compound, headed south, and made a left bank around its final target. The sortie’s sparkler was a fuel-storage area a few miles south of the facility near the railroad yard.
The 105-millimeter howitzer found its mark, and as a final parting shot created a spectacular fireball and a terrific rumbling explosion by sending a dozen high-explosive shells into that fuel-tank farm.
The concussion knocked over tank cars and engines on their tracks and shattered windows ten miles away. Then, with two Sea Cobra helicopters acting as escorts, the huge attack plane climbed into the night sky and was clear of the city a few minutes later.
The AC-130 gunship orbiting over Major Aras Drunga destroyed half of the Black Berets’ armor in the few short minutes it orbited over the Fisikous compound. With the former KGB and Soviet Troops of the Interior forces being decimated by the gunship, the surviving elements of the Lithuanians’ Fourth Battalion were able to sweep across the runway and rout the Black Beret security force. The control tower and radar facilities were captured intact, as were the underground fuel-storage tanks and aircraft-refueling facilities.