Esther's Sling (23 page)

All four inert BLU-
121s hit their targets within the span of a tenth of a second. Had they been live bombs, they would have all detonated at the same instant about 20 feet past the doors they had just penetrated.

Gadget and Pacer were the top scorers during this training exercise and were easy picks to be one of two aircraft to make a simultaneous run on day thirteen to cap off the IAF’s time in Australia. The squadron commander made the decision to launch a night attack shortly after sunset on July 27, 2011. He had all of his pilots ferried to a clearing about one mile north of the target hill, along with several cases of beer. His Australian hosts supplied two Weber grills and a cooler full of steaks. His men were in place and well fed as night descended on the Delamere
range. In the crowd of men, all in a celebratory mood, were the two senior officers of Olympus. The availability of this weapon system had already influenced their planning and they were eager to return to Tel Aviv to make alterations.

At exactly 7:00 p.m., two F-15I Ra’am fighter bombers streaked out of the east, the two
planes only a hundred yards apart and flying at an altitude of 175 feet
above
the earth. To increase the show for his men, the squadron commander had the fusing on each bomb set to detonate only five feet after penetrating the plywood doors. The pass was perfect and each bomb struck its target at the same instant, their warheads of 355 pounds of AFX-757 explosive detonating only one millisecond apart. The thermobaric explosions lit up the night sky for just an instant. The booms of the two explosions hit the assembled Israeli airmen with just a split moment’s difference, but still enough to clearly discern two distinct blasts. Men were high fiving each other and offering toasts with half empty beer bottles.

This group of flyers was ready to go operational. They would begin their long
journey home the next morning.

On September 12, 2011, Gennady Masrov showed up at the offices of Swiss-Arab Air Cargo unannounced. Much had changed since the speech he gave to introduce himself to his new team at the start of February more than seven months earlier. The small cargo airline was growing rapidly under the day-to-day leadership of the Russian manager who had been brought in by Masrov in the middle of March.

The company had purchased two Ilyushin-76TD cargo planes. Unfortunately, the planes came with D-
30Kp-2 engines, not the new high-bypass turbofan engines that Masrov wanted. But they were still impressive aircraft. Each plane could carry a payload of up to 110,000 pounds and, with a typical payload of about 50,000 pounds, could fly 4,500 miles without refueling. They were proven airframes – the jet age version of the DC-3 of World War II era.

The company had also purchased two CASA C-212 turboprop cargo aircraft. They were tiny compared to the
Ilyushins, but they were economical to operate and perfect for the growing trade and mail volume across the Saudi peninsula. Even more exciting, rumors circulated through the company that they were looking to purchase two or three Ilyushin 78 “Midas” aerial refueling tankers. The Midas was a variant of the Il-76 modified to carry a little over 34,000 gallons of fuel that could be transferred to three aircraft at a time using drogues trailing from each wingtip and from the fuselage. It was said that the growing military air forces of the region, especially the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Indian Air Force, were willing to pay attractive rates to private companies that could provide reliable airborne refueling capacity.

With these aircraft added to the legacy fleet,
the company had hired pilots  in large numbers. The Ilyushin 76 Candid required a crew of seven: two pilots, a flight engineer, navigator, radio operator and two cargo masters. The company now had twenty-six employees just to crew the two Ilyushins. Ads were running online to recruit more experienced air crewmen and mechanics.

But of all the new employees for the Il-
76s, the two senior Ilyushin pilots stood out. One was a Russian named Oleg Kolikov, in his fifties. Oleg was handsome and had the personality of a man with the world at his fingertips. Better yet for Swiss-Arab Air Cargo, he had almost 10,000 hours of flight time piloting the Il-76, having first earned his wings flying the big plane into and out of Afghanistan for the Soviet armed forces during the 1980s. There was hardly a rivet on the plane that he didn’t know.

He had become famous in the Soviet Union by successfully landing an Il-76 that had been hit by an American-made Singer antiaircraft missile fired by the Mujahedeen. The missile’s warhead had exploded just under the plane’s right wing, its course having been diverted ever so slightly as it tracked a red hot flare fired defensively by the big plane’s recently installed flare dispenser. The course deflection was just enough to keep the plane from losing its wing and plummeting to the earth from 12,000 feet. But the explosion had sent shrapnel upward that penetrated each of the two starboard engines, their delicate turbines being damaged enough that both engines disintegrated in fiery displays. A piece of shrapnel punched through the cockpit wall and lodged itself in the right leg of the co-pilot, effectively putting the man out of action. In the cargo hold, 94 Soviet soldiers suddenly converted from atheists to true believers,
each man praying for his life.

Kolikov kept his cool throughout, ordering his flight engineer to cut the fuel to each
starboard engine, thereby allowing the wind to smother the fires. He turned the plane around and headed back to the big airfield at Bagram on just his two remaining engines. He had to fight the tremendous yaw force being put on the airplane by the two port side engines – the nose of the plane wanting to rotate to the right on its axis – threatening to deprive the wings of lift in the process. Thinking quickly, Kolikov had gone to full power on engine two, the inboard port side engine, and minimal power on engine one, the outboard port side engine. With his feet, he maintained almost full left rudder, keeping the big plane’s nose pointed forward. Thankfully, his landing gear deployed and he evacuated his plane with no loss of life. The Soviet military at the time was desperate for heroes and the state media had their man. The press rightly called it a miraculous display of flying. Kolikov was awarded the medal for Distinction in Military Service, First Class.

The other senior pilot was an American named James Miller, but everyone called him
Captain Jim. Jim was 62 and had impulsively accepted an early retirement offer two and a half years earlier, shortly after his 60
th
birthday. His career as a captain flying 747 jetliners for United Airlines had voluntarily come to an end when he convinced himself that the airline was only weeks from another bankruptcy filing. Accepting the early retirement buyout, his advisors assured him, would protect his pension.

When
Jim Miller returned to his home in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights the day of his retirement party, he spent the afternoon tending to his garden and drinking beer. Two weeks later, when he realized that he had accomplished everything in his garden that he wanted and was now left with simply drinking beer, he realized he had made a mistake. He went online and it took him less than an hour to make contact with an air cargo carrier based in Moscow that had a single 747-400F cargo freighter in its inventory and needed an experienced pilot. Within a week he was on his way to Russia and a new career.

Moving had been easy for him. He had no f
amily. Jim Miller was a gay man. He had briefly married at the age of 29 during the final year of his short tenure as a C-141 pilot in the USAF. After leaving the air force, an offer to join United Airlines was eagerly given and eagerly accepted. But the marriage ended two years later when his wife ran off with the man she was sleeping with. He was grateful at the time that he had no children, but had often regretted it since.

Miller came out of the closet a few years after his divorce in a time when the budding gay rights movement was colliding with the growing backlash of the straight world’s reaction to AIDS. Like all gay men of the era, he was at first appalled and then increasingly angered at the anti-gay
hysteria characterized by the “Gay Plague” headlines of the day. The loss of friends to the disease did nothing to lessen the anger. But the fear of catching the disease was especially frightening to a pilot. By 1986, FAA licensed physicians were beginning to test pilots for the recently discovered virus, HIV, and this fact created a new fear for Miller. A positive test meant a death sentence of another kind, the immediate revocation of your pilot’s license.

Captain Jim went through his period of sexual profligacy, always careful to practice safe sex in the process, but eventually fell in love at the age of 42 and lived with his partner for the next sixteen years, until the day his partner
died in a motorcycle accident. Since then, Jim lived only to fly. He was very good at it, and by relocating to Russia he was able to continue his life doing what he did best.

Jim Miller
realized quickly that the standards maintained in a small Russian cargo carrier were something less than what he had experienced at United. When he found out that the company had decided to sell the 747 he was flying only five months after he arrived in Moscow, he thought hard about whether or not to return to the States. But weighing against his concerns and his homesickness, Miller was widely respected in the company for his skill as a pilot. The company no longer had a 747, but it had half a dozen Ilyushin 76 aircraft, and the owner offered to pay Miller to learn to fly the old Soviet-era workhorse. He accepted the proposal and was elevated into the captain’s seat after six months flying as co-pilot. To his surprise, he found that he enjoyed flying the older plane. It made him feel like it was his skill that made all the difference, not a computer making decisions as was all too often the case in a modern plane.

Miller’s Jewish ancestry never came up in any of his cockpit discussions or nights spent at restaurants in cities across the Middle East and Asia. No one ever asked him because no one cared. It reflected the overwhelmingly agnostic or atheistic views of the Russian flying community. Nor did anyone ask him about his sexuality. Miller realized that the latter
fact was, unfortunately, a reflection of his age. The American’s hair had gone completely gray and had thinned significantly over the prior 15 years. The fact was that he had been essentially asexual since the death of his partner. Neither his religion nor his sexuality were reflected in his personnel file. Miller often thought that business practices in Russia had to be similar to what things were like in the United States during the growth years after World War II, before regulations and litigation had turned every single process into a pre-defined set of forms to be followed to the letter.

Miller spent the next year flying as the chief pilot of whichever Ilyushin 76 required his skills. He was satisfied and being well paid – nothing like what he made in his final years at United, but enough to make him feel good. He didn’t need the money anyway
; it was the flying that mattered to him.

But change often comes in the strangest form and at the most unexpected times. Captain Jim was enjoying a beer in a Moscow
bar that catered to English speaking expatriates. The crowd this particular evening consisted of a group of Indians, three Brits, two Canadians and Jim Miller, who sat alone, one ear listening to the Canadians and the other listening to the Brits. A man came in and sat down two seats over from the pilot, ordering a draft Spaten pilsner, German beers being a popular drink in Moscow. After a couple of sips, the man struck up a conversation with the American. The man spoke English, though not particularly well. After some discussion about nothing important, the man asked Miller if he ever attended synagogue. The question was in Hebrew. Jim Miller had not spoken the language since his Bar Mitzvah and had forgotten most of what little he knew.

The simple question opened the door for Jim Miller to make a meaningful turn in his life. The man who asked the question was officially an Israeli embassy employee. In reality, the man was a recruiter for Mossad. The question led to a
meeting in Miller’s small Moscow apartment, and that led to a long discussion on life, religion and the state of world affairs. After two more meetings, the offer was made: If Jim Miller was interested, there was a job waiting for him in the United Arab Emirates doing what he loved. The pay would be a little better and Dubai would be a lot warmer, but the real reason to make the change was that Captain Jim would have the opportunity to serve the state of Israel. Jim Miller accepted. He was in the UAE three weeks later.

Now on this late summer day, with the temperature outside well into triple digits, Masrov surveyed his gathered team with great satisfaction. So many pieces had been put in place. Swiss-Arab Air Cargo was doing business in countries all across the region, its success in gaining business driven by very aggressive pricing. The profit and loss statements were a disaster as the company added expenses with seemingly careless abandon, but it was growth and market penetration that Gennady Masrov cared about. The accounting department, which worked in
downtown Dubai in the office space leased by Masrov, kept the books faithfully. The company controller, a young Emirati with a recent MBA from the University of Michigan, kept warning his boss about the growing rate of losses, but no one was concerned about their jobs. When cash in the bank fell below $3 million, a wire transfer from Switzerland for $15 million showed up in the account. The money appeared to be endless.

Masrov had the team assembled in
its new hanger building. Negotiations were already underway to lease yet another hanger at the airport. The Russian owner called everyone to order and praised their growth and success in winning business since his prior visit earlier in the summer. He had a projector set up on a folding table and turned the floor over to a young Emirati who had been leading the effort to build their new website. The meeting was to introduce the website to the team. It had been promoted from their development server to the live Internet the night before. After a twenty minute presentation of the site and what it could do for customers and employees alike, the audience applauded as it had the first time Masrov was onsite. The team was highly motivated.

That night, Gennady Masrov took his a small group of managers and senior pilots out to dinner in Dubai. Everyone in attendance was a new employee added since the acquisition. He raised a toast to his team. “I am very proud of all of you,” said the Russian in English for the benefit of Jim Miller. “Once we acquire some Midas aircraft, we will be where we need to realize our vision.” Glasses were clinked all around.