Chains of Command Read online

  As soon as they passed 650 kilometers per hour airspeed, Tychina swept his MiG-23’s wings back to 45 degrees, and the ride smoothed out considerably. They maneuvered east to stay away from the Polish and Slovenian border, then leveled off at three thousand meters. The visibility was well over 160 kilometers. The mountains ringing the Black Sea and the Crimea were beautiful, there were plenty of natural landmarks to help orientate a distracted pilot, and air traffic control restrictions were fairly relaxed, even when flying close to the Russian and Polish borders. The Polish air traffic controllers liked trying their Ukrainian and English out on the MiG pilots.

  That was not true of Moldova, unfortunately. For nearly five years a conflict had been raging between ethnic Russians and ethnic Romanians in the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since Moldavia declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, becoming the Republic of Moldova, the Russians living in the Republic, especially the rich landowners and factory owners in the Dniester region, were afraid that they would be persecuted by the ethnic Romanian majority. Moldova used to be part of Romania, back before World War II, and there was a lot of talk about Moldova realigning itself with Romania once again—hell, they even changed the name of the capital city of Moldova, Kishinev, back to its original Romanian name, Chisinau, just like they changed Leningrad back to St. Petersburg in Russia.

  Russian fat cats living in Moldova, with their huge farms and modern German-designed factories, were very nervous—even terrified—that Romania might take away the Russians’ land and property in Moldova upon reunification, so they rebelled against the Moldovan government, Tychina remembered from his intelligence briefings. That really took a lot of balls—Moldova was still part of the old Soviet Union when the Russians in the Dniester region “claimed” their “independence.” But then those guys always had balls bigger than their brains. The new Moldovan government was pissed, of course, but they couldn’t do anything because most of their Russian troops sided with the damn Russians in the Dniester region. The former Russian armies, located mostly in two cities in Dniester, Bendery and Tiraspol, were twice as strong as the rest of the Moldovan army.

  In comes Romania, offering its military forces to help Moldova retake the Dniester region. Russia steps in, telling Romania to stay out, and backing up their warning with flights of warplanes from Minsk, Brest, Br’ansk, and Moscow. Only problem was, Russia never bothered to ask permission of the Ukraine before sending warplanes into Moldova. A joint Commonwealth of Independent States agreement allows joint military maneuvers and provides for common defense between Russia and the Ukraine, but it says nothing about using a member nation’s territory as a staging ground for attacks on another country. The Ukraine insisted on a cease-fire, negotiations, and territorial sovereignty; Russia insisted on free overflight and full support from the Ukraine. Naturally, Moldova distrusted both Russia and the Ukraine. It was actually kind of silly: the Ukraine was big, but it was less than one-tenth the size of the Russian Federation in every respect, including the category that mattered here—military strength. Russia could squash Romania, Moldova, and the Ukraine without working up a sweat.

  In any case, no one trusted anyone these days, especially not the Russian President Vitaly Velichko, a hard-line nut who had seized power from Yeltsin, who was now living in Siberian exile. So the Moldovan-Ukrainian border area was strictly off-limits, as was the Russian-Ukrainian border. Moldovan air defense units had been taking surface-to-air missile shots at any and all unidentified aircraft straying near. They were usually shoulder-fired SA-7 rounds or small-caliber antiaircraft artillery stuff—not a real threat to fighters above two thousand meters or so—but it was best to give the trigger-happy Moldovans a wide berth.

  “So what would you like to see?” Tychina radioed over to the F-16 crew. The F-16D two-seater also carried a Combat Camera photographer, taking films and still shots of the MiG-23. This was really just a technical flight so the photographers could set up their camera mounts; later in the day they would tow some aerial targets over the Black Sea and let the F-16s and MiG-23s shoot them down, then go over to the bombing ranges in the “Bunghole” region of northwestern Ukraine and let some MiG-27s show their stuff alongside the F-16. “The Carpathian mountains farther south perhaps, and the Crimean Mountains along the Black Sea are very nice,” Tychina was saying.

  “We’d like to try some low-level stuff and tight turns,” the chief photographer radioed back, “so we can torque down our camera mounts.”

  “Okay,” Tychina replied in his best English, which he had an opportunity to practice more and more these days. “We must stay above one thousand meters because of the … visibility, but low level is better.” By “visibility” he meant smog.

  “We got a target on radar at two o’clock position, sixty miles—that’s one hundred and ten kilometers—low, about two thousand … ah, I mean, about six hundred meters altitude,” the pilot of the Turkish plane radioed over. He was a big shot in the Turkish Air Force, a colonel or general, and he was always showing off for the cameras. “Let’s go get him, shall we?”

  Tychina turned his Sapfir-23D search radar to TRANSMIT but did not bother searching for the target—the radar had a maximum range of only one hundred kilometers, and for targets that far below them, they had to be practically right on top of them before the radar would pick them up. “Ukrainian radar coverage is poor in that area,” Tychina said. Radar coverage in the Ukraine was poor everywhere, but he wasn’t going to admit that, either. “We should get permission first.” He switched over to his secondary radio and said in Ukrainian, “Vinnica radar, Imperial Blue One flight of two, overhead Vojnilov at three thousand meters eastbound, flight code one-one-seven, request.”

  It took a moment for the controller to look up his call sign and flight plan, then find his blip on radar; then, in very impatient Ukrainian: “Imperial Blue One flight, say your request.”

  “My VIPs request permission to descend to five hundred meters and accomplish a practice intercept on the low-flying aircraft currently at our twelve o’clock position, one hundred ten kilometers. Over,” said Tychina.

  There was another long pause, probably so the controller could look up the flight plan and, more importantly, the passenger status code of the aircraft they wanted to intercept. Most politicians and a few senior officers didn’t like fighters, even unarmed ones, flying too close.

  “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 pl
easure, 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.

  National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. The Next Day

  “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.

  Philip Freeman was a tall, distinguished-looking man, with close-cropped dark hair that had gone gracefully, tastefully gray on the sides, and small, quick eyes. He rose through the ranks from a know-nothing Army ROTC second lieutenant from Niagara University in New York, two tours in Vietnam as an artillery and mortar platoon commander, a tour at NATO Headquarters in Belgium, innumerable professional military courses and staff positions, commander of U.S. European Command, Army chief of staff, and assistant to the President’s National Security Advisor, before becoming the highest-ranking military officer in the United States.

  Freeman had been privileged to be a witness of the tremendous sea changes that had occurred in the world over the past five years. Unfortunately, now it seemed as if he was seeing a reversal of those changes—just as quickly as change happened, regional and ethnic conflict was threatening to tear it all apart just as quickly.

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff and representatives of the President’s National Security Council staff had just viewed the incredible videotape shot by U.S. Air Force cameramen in the backseats of Turkish and Ukrainian fighter planes. They saw the entire intercept, heard the radio calls—the cameramen used “Y” cords to plug their video cameras into the fighter’s interphone—and saw the big Russian transport get blown to pieces by Moldovan surface-to-air missiles.

  “No one survived?” Air Force general Martin Blaylock, the curmudgeonly chief of staff of the Air Force, asked. “I saw several ‘chutes …”

  “Our information comes from press releases and official mem
oranda from the Moldovan government,” Albert Sparlin, assistant deputy director for Eastern European Affairs of the Central Intelligence Agency, replied. Sparlin was providing a lot of background data on the incident, stuff the Defense Intelligence Agency normally does not gather on its own. “I wouldn’t exactly call it reliable information. If the Moldovans or Romanians captured any Russians, the first thing they’d do is declare them dead—it’s easier to extract information from a prisoner who thinks he’s dead than one who knows he’s alive. Judging by the tape, several may have survived. But the Moldovan Army pulled off a big one.”

  “Great. The Russians are ready to blow Moldova off the map over this Dniester stuff—if they find out they’re violating their prisoners, they’ll kick their asses for sure,” Freeman said, feeling a headache coming on.

  Everyone assembled in the Command Center knew that when the Russians living in the Dniester region declared themselves independent from Moldavia and formed the Dniester Republic, it had gone up Moldavia’s ass sideways. And, of course, Mother Russia couldn’t wait to step in and “help” Dneister remain a separate Republic from the despised Moldavians. They knew that it all went way back to when Moldava was once a province of Romania. Moldova was ceded to Russia in 1940 as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. They have, and always will, loathe the Russians and the Russians have felt, thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, very proprietary of Moldavia (even though the country declared independence from the then-USSR in 1991). The Russians felt especially proprietary now with regards to Dniester. It was a situation that had been brewing to the boiling point.

  “All right,” Freeman continued, “I’ve got your staff recommendations, so let’s put all this together so I can recommend a military course of action.”

  “If the President even asks you for one,” scoffed Admiral Robert Marise, Chief of Naval Operations.