Shattered Bone (24 page)

Inside the troop compartment, most of the seventy-five soldiers were thrown against the walls and ceiling of the aircraft by the centrifugal force. Their knees buckled and their arms were pinned to their sides. They could hear and feel the structure of the IL-76 bend and twist as the aircraft tumbled through the air. A gaping hole was ripped along the left side of the aircraft where the wing root used to be. A violent wind filled the cabin with a horrible noise. Discipline and order were quickly replaced by a dark despair.

A handful of lucky soldiers were sucked out of the aircraft and into the night sky where they could safely descend in their parachutes to the marshlands below. A few more pushed themselves out of the already open door, fighting against the centrifugal G-forces that were trying to pin them inside. But most of the paratroopers rode with the Ural Moon as she spun to the ground, howling and scratching at the darkness as they fell.

The Ural Moon impacted the side of a small hill and burst into flames. Within minutes, the only recognizable part of aircraft number 8-0564 was the core of its four jet engines. Everything else, from the composite structural spines to the pilot's seats, was melted into a semifluid aluminum goo. Eighty-thousand pounds of burning jet fuel would do that to an aircraft. Inside the wreckage, only a few skeletal remains and charred weapons would ever be recovered.

No accident investigation board or review panel would ever be convened to determine what had caused the deaths of so many men. No one would ever try to identify the human remains or give them a proper buria1. Instead, the wreckage was bulldozed into a large pit and then covered up, along with a burned-out tank and some unexploded ordinance that was discovered nearby. The exact location of the pit was forgotten. Such was the indignity of death during war.

Huge searchlights illuminated the sky over Sevastopol as thousands of Russian paratroopers descended onto the airfield. White and blue tracers arced upward to meet the descending paratroopers, making them easy targets for the Ukrainian forces. Although there was some question in the minds of a few of the Ukrainian officers as to the legality of firing upon an enemy soldier who was still descending in a parachute, none of them considered withholding their fire.

So the Ukrainian ground forces continued to light up the sky as they fired upon the descending paratroopers, while their missile batteries sent salvo after salvo of missiles up into the darkness. An occasional explosion encouraged them onward as they fired upon the transports that flew four miles above their heads.

But in the end, it didn't make all that much difference. The Ukrainians were wholly unprepared, and thus were outnumbered, out-trained, and outgunned. Within twelve hours, seventeen thousand Russian paratroopers were on the ground in Sevastopo1. The Russians quickly secured a defensive parameter around the airfield. Further reinforcements were quickly flown in. Within a day, more than thirty thousand Russian soldiers, along with their armor and equipment, were grouping into squads and regiments along the outskirts of the city. Within fifty-six hours, the Ukrainian port commander was forced to surrender what remained of his defensive forces. The Sevastopol operation would go down as one of the largest and most successful aerial assaults in the history of modern day war.

The Russians soldiers continued pouring in—the line of holding Russian IL-76 transports stretched through the sky for twenty miles as the aircraft waited their turn to land at the captured base and unload their troops and equipment. The Black Hogs began to fan out through the city, taking control of the area's major communication lines, power supplies, radio and television stations, industrial centers, and military facilities. Terror fell upon the port city like a dark winter snow—heavy and bitter and cold. The streets ran red with the blood of cowering civilians and poorly trained home-soldiers who were hopelessly attempting to protect their families and homes. The captured Ukrainian troops, what few there were, were taken to the rusty docks that lined the Black Sea and loaded onto transport ships, which acted as POW holding facilities. There, the officers were separated from the enlisted. Late in the night on the second day of the invasion, the officers were loaded into the back of transport trucks, taken out to the country and shot twice in the head. Their bodies were then burned in mass crematoriums made of huge pits of burning oil.

Throughout the city, Russian soldiers began to enjoy the spoils of war. Russian officers looked away as their men raped and plundered with abandon, a reward for a job well done. The Hogs knew that they only had a few days to pillage the city before they would battle again, and they sought to take advantage of the opportunity in a violent and brutal way.

Soon, they would begin their long and deadly march northeast-ward—toward the mass of Ukrainian soldiers that were waiting for them along the five-hundred-mile stretch of Russian front. Moving across the unprotected belly of the Ukraine, they would attempt to meet up with other divisions of Russian ground troops that were even now battling their way across the heavily defended border. Approaching from the enemy's rear, they hoped to pin them from two sides, wedging the outgunned Ukrainian forces in a crushing vice.

As the Hogs were landing in Sevastopol, one thousand kilometers to the north, along the Ukrainian border, the war raged in full force. Twenty Russian divisions, along with their tanks and field artillery, hacked at the Ukrainian forces in a coordinated land-air attack. Supported by waves of supersonic fighters and thousands of crushing 120 millimeter guns, the Russian soldiers pounded soft spots along the Ukrainian front. Batteries of deadly, multiple-rocket-launchers and hundreds of laser-guided rockets fired from attack helicopters rained exploding metal upon the hunkered-down defensive forces. Thirty kilometers behind the front, two thousand Russian T-80 tanks waited for any opening, prodding for any hint of a weakness, pushing at every fracture, in hopes of punching a hole through the enemy lines.

___________________________ 

__________________________       

HELSINKI, FINLAND

A
NDREI
L
ISKI, THE
U
KRAINIAN
D
IRECTOR OF
S
TATE
B
ORDER
D
EFENSE
, opened the door into Richard Ammon's room without knocking, then walked silently over to sit on a black metal chair. The room was a small cubicle built from gray cinder block and white cement. Besides the black chair, the only other furniture in the room was a short bed and the small wooden desk where Ammon sat reading.

Ammon immediately recognized him as one of the four Ukrainians he had been introduced to that first night in the cabin. He was so frail. So droopy and thin. Ammon remembered him well.

Neither man spoke for a moment as Liski surveyed Ammon's sparsely furnished room. From where he was sitting, he could touch the foot of Ammon's bed, and he reached over to push on the bed springs, as if to test them for comfort and strength. After compressing the bed several times, he smoothed out the covers, then turned to Richard Ammon.

“Have you found everything to your liking so far?” he asked. “We want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

Ammon couldn't tell if Liski was serious, or just trying to make light of his obviously uncomfortable living conditions. Ammon studied Liski for a moment before he answered. The expression on Liski's face didn't change, and Ammon decided he probably wasn't the kind of man who sported a great sense of humor. He decided to keep his answer simple. “Everything is fine,” was all he said.

Liski pointed to the huge manual that was laying on top of Ammon's desk and then asked, “Do you feel that you have enough information now? Or is there something else we could get you?”

Richard turned back to the manual and thumbed through the pages as he considered the question. The book was almost three inches thick, and full of charts, graphs, and very small print. It was the manufacturer's flight manual for the Rockwell B-1 bomber. It told the pilot everything he needed to know in order to safely fly the B-1 and use all of its systems. There were more than two thousand pages in the manual, and everything in it was critical. Ammon flipped the book closed with a heavy thump, then turned back to face his unwelcome visitor.

“I think you have given me what I need,” he said. “But I'll tell you right now, it's apparent you guys haven't done your homework on this one. I have found a problem that was obviously overlooked, and it isn't some insignificant detail. It could cause a real kink in our plans.”

Andrei Liski continued to stare at Ammon, his eyes unblinking, his face revealing nothing as he thought.

“What do you feel is the problem?” Liski asked.

“Very simply, we won't have enough fuel,” Ammon replied. “I've been going over the fuel charts and it just doesn't add up. Even if we assume that we get a B-1 that is fully loaded with fuel, including an auxiliary tank in the forward weapons bay, that still isn't enough gas to make it to Russia. Now if you consider the high fuel burn rates that we will use in combat, lighting our afterburners and maneuvering down low, I figure we will flame out just about a thousand miles short of the Strait of Gibraltar. That's a long way from our targets in Russia. It would appear that your planners have screwed this one up.”

For the first time Liski smiled.

“Mr. Ammon,” he said, pushing back a strand of hair before rubbing his hands on his pants, “do you really think we could have made such a critical mistake? I think you should give us a bit more credit than that.” His voice was sarcastic and hard.

Ammon realized that Liski had taken his remarks as a personal insult. He also realized that it wouldn't help him to anger this man.

“Will you tell me then how we will get enough fuel for the mission?”

Liski's response was immediate. “Yes, Mr. Ammon, I will tell you. But not now. Just be assured, we do have a plan and we know what we're doing. We have been in this business a very long time.

“And keep this in mind as well, Mr. Ammon, because it is important for you to understand. I personally couldn't care less whether you live to see the light of day. Your personal safety is of no concern to me. Still, I will be praying for you to succeed. You see, we have to have the aircraft. We absolutely have to have it. If you die, we all have failed. The whole thing is over for us, too. So peace to your mind, Mr. Ammon, we haven't screwed up the plan.”

After a short pause, Liski continued. “When will you and Morozov be ready?” he asked intently.

Richard turned back to his desk. Once again he thumbed through the two thousand pages of his flight manual. He considered the lack of success that he and Morozov had been having so far in the simulator. He thought of his old buddies flying F-16s, and how easily they could blast a B-1 from the sky unless it were flown by a highly trained and experienced crew. He thought of the Migs and the other Russian fighters, some of the best in the world. He thought for a very long moment before he answered Liski's question.

“Three months,” Ammon said matter-of-factly. “If you want us to have a better than fifty-fifty chance, you've got to give us at least three months. Anything less, and you'll never see your B-1 over Russia. We'll never even make it out of United States' airspace. All you'll have is wreckage scattered across the west Texas prairie, because that is as far as we'll get without time to prepare.”

Andrei Liski pushed back his hair once again.

“It has started in Russia,” he said calmly. “You only have a few days left to prepare.”

Ammon's jaw dropped.

“We won't be ready,” he said matter-of-factly while looking Liski straight in the eye.

“Be ready,” Liski said. His face was as expressionless as before.

Ammon rose up in his chair. “No!” he said. “No! We will not be ready. Do you think that just by saying the words, suddenly everything changes? Do you think this situation is that much under your control? Look at what you are saying! Look at what you want us to do!” Ammon reached beside him to pick up a set of flying charts and threw them toward Liski, dropping them square in his lap. “Look at these charts!” he commanded. “You are sending us into the very heart of Russia! Novomoskovsk, Razayevka, Buturkinoovka! We must penetrate thousands of kilometers behind enemy lines! It would be like the Russians attacking St. Louis. And good as the B-1 is, it isn't invisible. Nothing is. They will know we are there. They will be chasing us down. After all, that is the thrust of your plan. For us to be seen. For the Russians to know they are under attack so they will be forced to respond.

“So don't sit there and pretend that by just saying ‘Go,' suddenly things will just drop into place. We need time. We need more training, or simply put, this mission is screwed.”

Liski watched Ammon settle back into his chair. “Sometimes, Mr. Ammon, we do what we're told, even though it may not be what we like. And, yes, I think that I do have control, for when I say go, you will go. I thought that was something which you understood?”

Ammon didn't reply. He sat speechless, his mouth dry, his throat too tight to swallow. Liski stretched against his chair, arching backward, then stood up as if to leave. He walked to the door and stepped out into the hallway, then paused and poked his head back into the room.

“I have a message for you,” he said. Richard slowly looked up from his chair. “It's from a mutual friend of ours,” he continued. “Someone who seems to care about you very deeply.” Liski paused. Ammon's heart began to pulse wildly. He knew immediately he was talking about Jesse.

“You know, Mr. Ammon, I don't believe you ever mentioned the fact that you were married. I've got to say, if my wife looked anything like Jesse, I surely wouldn't keep it a secret.” Liski watched Ammon's face grow pale, his chest tremble, his eyes narrow with anger and fear. Liski smiled again. It was things like this that made his job fun.