PROLOGUE

L'vov, Republic of the Ukraine,
Eastern Europe
December 1994

BOUYED BY CRISP, COLD AIR, THE TANDEM TWO-SEAT MIKOYAN- Gurevich-23UB fighter leapt into the air on a tongue of flame like a tiger pursuing its prey through the trees. Pavlo Gngor'evich Tychina, a Captain First Class of Air Defense A'~iation of the Fourteenth Air Army, L'vov, Ukrainian Republic, moved the gear handle to the UP position as soon as he saw the altimeter swing upward. It was such a great day for flying, with light winds and near fifty-kilometer visibility, that Tychina didn't even mind when the LOW PNEU PRESSURE warning light came on. He simply started pumping the emergency manual landing gear pressurization handle near his right knee to build up enough pressure in the gear uplock system to fully raise the landing gear.

Nothing was going to spoil this flying day, even this cranky twenty-year-old warplane.

Tychina, a twenty-eight-year-old pilot and flight commander in the Ukrainian Air Force, immediately dropped his oxygen mask and took a deep breath, like a platform diver who had just risen to the surface after a deep dive, then swung a small auxiliary microphone to his lips. He never liked flying with his oxygen maskÄit was unnecessary anyway, since they rarely flew above four or five thousand meters where oxygen was really necessary. Flying in southeastern Europe was generally pretty good, as long as you stayed above the smog level of about one thousand meters. He raised flaps and slats passing 450 kph (kilometers per hour), then checked out the right side of his cockpit canopy on the progress of his wingman for today's orientation flight.

His wingman was an F-16D Fighting Falcon fighter from the Republic of Turkey. The sleek tandem two-seat fighter and attack plane was on a goodwill visit, representing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Since the Ukraine had applied for NATO membership earlier in the year, NATO member countries had been doing more and more of these exchange flights, getting to know their Ukrainian counterparts. While these exchange flights were taking place, Turkish radar controllers and military commanders were inspecting Ukrainian radar facilities and military bases, and Ukrainian military com- manders and politicians were doing the same in Turkey, Ger- many, Belgium, and even the United States. Pavlo Tychina never thought he would ever see his country join a Western military alliance, and he never expected that the West would ever so heartily embrace his country in return.

Someday soon, Tychina thought, the Ukraine will be wealthy enough to build planes like the F-16. Hell, Turkey was an agricultural country, not much more industrialized than the Ukraine, but, they were license-building F-16 Falcons there and even exporting them to other countries. He shook his head in disgust. The Ukraine should sell off its MiG-23s, MiG-27s, and Sukhoi-lls. The F-16, as both a fighter and attack plane, could replace them all. That's what they should buy: F-16s. It might take fifty MiGs to get one well-equipped F-16, but so what? Everyone knew the F-16 was at least fifty times better than the MiG-23.

His fantasy of flying an F-16 Fighting Falcon emblazoned with a Ukrainian flag on the tail was just that, a fantasy, so Tychina turned his attention to his backseater: "Are you all right back there?" he called back on interphone in English.

"I'm doing fine, sir," came the reply. Tychina had an Ameri- can "Combat Camera" military cameraman from March Air Force Base in California in the backseat of the MiG-23UB, filming this entire flight. NATO cameramen and producers had been at L'vov Air Base in western Ukraine and other bases all week, conducting interviews and taking pictures. It was a far cry from the old Soviet multilayered secrecy and isolation. But it made Tychina and his comrades feel good, as if they had finally joined the family of nations, as if they belonged to something other than the stifling, soulless Soviet-Russian domination.

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 try- ing 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 againÄhell, 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 fanns and modern German-designed factories, were very nervousÄeven terrifiedÄthat Romania might take away the Russians' land and property in Moldova upon reunification, so they rebelled against the Moldovan government, Tychina remembered from his intel- ligence briefings. That really took a lot of ballsÄMoldova 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, tell- ing 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 hereÄmilitary 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 stuffÄnot a real threat to fighters above two thousand meters or soÄbut 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 milesÄthat's one hundred and ten kilometersÄlow, 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 targetÄthe 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 impa- tient 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 pas- senger 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 1FF 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 uniden- tified 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 inter- cept 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-23Äwhich, unlike the F-16, did not light off in zones but came on full blast with a powerful bang!Äthen 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 mili- tary version of the similar civilian cargo planeÄthat was appar- ent as they closed in because..

the 11-76 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 11-76 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 flicking 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 11-76. Request instructions!"

There was no response, only the hiss of staticÄthey 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, "Unidenti- fled 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 11-76 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. S/mit."

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 sev- eral 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 itÄTychina 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 llyushin rolled onto its left side, crashed, and cartwheelecj 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 arro- gant 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 inci- dent that could be a prelude to something much bigger. And deadlier.