B00DSDUWIQ EBOK (20 page)

“They’ll
be painting us red in another few seconds,” he said.

“Bad
manners, those Russians,” said Ryan. “Here we are just flyin’ in fast and low, and
they get all miffed about it.” They were thirty kilometers out before they were
seen. Yet they could not bring weapons to bear on the target ahead until they
hit the 8 kilometer mark. Ryan had counted on speed and stealth to let him get
in close to get the job done. The Russian radar system, code named Gravestone” was
just too good.

“What
do you figure they’ll be shootin’ at us,” asked Wicks?

“Missiles
me boyo! Big fat missiles—probably S-300s, and maybe worse.”

“Not
a whole lot worse out there than that mean fire stick,” said Wicks, but he was wrong.
There was a whole lot worse, and the X-3s were about to meet it.

“Well
you just get the jammers fired and be ready on ECM and chaff. That’s all we have
between us and an early grave.”

The
847th Coastal Defense battery was firing the new Russian
Triumf
missile system,
a vertically launched missile using the deadly 9M96E medium range SAM.

“There’s
our target on radar,” he said. The two X-3s were riding very low now, right on the
water, the churning wash of their rotors leaving a long mark on the sea as they
came.

“Right,
and I think they’ve still got us on radar as well. I have missile lock!”

“Evasive
maneuvers and quick on those countermeasures!”Ryan pulled his X-3 up sharply as
Wicks fired everything he had, the chaff littering the sky above them before Ryan
dipped down low again. The first S-400 bought the ticket and they saw it streak
high overhead and right through the chaff cloud like an angry shark attacking a
school of fish.

“Damn!”
Wicks shouted. “Did you see how fast that monster was? If they fire a few more of
those, we’re toast for sure, Ryan.”

But
the Lieutenant was so focused on his flying that he could not respond. He looked
at his radar to check the position of his target…the signal was gone! The target
should be clearly visible now on the horizon, but peering out the forward
screen all he could see was a strange haze, like the shimmer of a mirage in a
desert.

“What’s
up Tommy? Where’s my target?”

Now
it was Wicks turn to gape at the screen. “They must be jamming us,” he said quickly.

“Jamming
us? Well the damn thing should be right in front of us by now, big as a beached
whale!”

“Missile!”
They saw a second SAM streaking up, then tipping over in a vicious high speed dive
as it acquired a target. The two helos split apart, both firing chaff and blasting
away with ECM countermeasures, but this time the missile was not fooled. It
locked mercilessly on to the other X-3 and blew it to hell, striking the bird
dead on and coming right in through the pilots cabin.

“This
is madness,” said Ryan. “God bless you Wilson,” he said of the other pilot, and
the sight of the fireball that had taken down the helo was enough to make him reconsider
this ill planned mission. “We’re out of here, Tommy. Leave a string of hot
flares and chaff behind us, and if you have any favors left with the old man
upstairs, now is the time to call them in. Whatever we were after has run for
cover. That had to be a damn submarine. It’s gone!”

It
was no submarine, but Lieutenant Ryan was correct about one thing. The
Anatoly
Alexandrov
was gone. Rod-25 had sang its song to infinity, and the big floating
power plant had suddenly vanished.

For
Ryan, his only thought now was to save his helo and the lives of all aboard before
the Russians fired another missile at them. He streaked away, so low that his
landing carriage was actually skimming the sea, his hand steady on the stick
and a quiet Irish song and prayer playing in his head. “Guard us now, Lord. We
could use a little of that luck of the Irish. And if this be the end of our
journey, may we be half an hour in Heaven before the Devil knows we’re dead.”

The
sudden disappearance of the
Anatoly Alexandrov
must have distracted the Russians
at Kaspiysk. Or perhaps Ryan’s invocation was heard and answered, but no other
missiles came for them that morning. The men at Kaspiysk had not been briefed
as to the true nature of Dobrynin’s mission, and now they came to believe the
enemy helicopters had gotten off a missile of their own and sunk the power
plant. But they were wrong. Rod-25 had worked its magic again, and
Anatoly Alexandrov
vanished into the misty fog of time.

The
mission was on.

Chapter 20

When
it happened, Bukin was on the bridge of the
big hovercraft with Captain Malkin, number 609, moored off the port side of
Anatoly
Alexandrov.
He was watching the battle unfold as the coastal defense
battery began firing S-400 missiles. Something was attacking, coming in low
from the south, and he saw that Captain Malkin was immediately engaging his short
range SAM system as a last ditch defense. He quickly ordered a squad of Marines
up to the roof of the facility with hand held 9K338
Igla
missiles. The
name meant “needle” and the needles were sharp. NATO called the infrared
seeking missile the SA-24
Grinch
, but by any name it was a very capable
infantry operated SAM system. If NATO was coming for them, they would greet
them rudely with a sky full of needles.

Yet
something about the moment seemed odd to him, the light breeze that had been blowing
from the east suddenly halted and there came a breathless stillness. He heard a
low pitched sound, descending even lower as if drawn into an unfathomable abyss
until it was sucked beneath the range of human hearing to become a thrumming
vibration, felt but not heard. The light seemed to waver around him, as if the
day were fluttering in doubt.

Off
in the distance he thought he saw the oncoming attack, two aircraft very low on
the sea and firing flares and chaff. A shore based missile found one and ignited
it in an angry fireball, the other seemed to dance wildly in the sky for a
moment…and then dipped away low, obscured by mist on the sea. Perhaps it, too,
was struck by fragments from that explosion and went down. What was NATO thinking
by sending in a few helicopters like this? They had no chance to get through a
battery of S-400s.

Then
he heard a strange sound, high up, and growl of engines that were obviously aircraft,
but very unfamiliar. In a split second he realized the attack must still be
underway. He looked up to see the dark shapes falling like crows from the sky
to attack…ships! A long column of what looked to be commercial cargo vessels
sat in the dull gray light of the morning where the sea had once been completely
empty. Could they have emerged from an unseen bank of fog in the distance? What
were they doing there? These were restricted waters and Admiral Volsky assured
him that no other traffic would be in the vicinity.

“Malkin—look
there!” He pointed out the surface contacts.

Captain
Malkin was equally surprised. A veteran in the Caspian flotilla, he had been charged
with the command of the last remaining hovercraft for some years. It had mostly
been a dull job of maintenance at the edge of the listless sea, with no more
than one or two real live exercises per year. When he got news that he had been
selected by Admiral Volsky to lead a special ops mission he swelled with pride.
Then he heard the briefing and could not believe his ears.
Vranyo
was
vranyo
,
a nice habitual stretching of the truth between Russians that was always part
of the daily interchange of life. But Bukin seemed deadly serious.

“Yes,
I know it seems madness,” he had told him, “but if this mission is successful you
will see with your own eyes. I know,” he nodded confidently, “I was on
Kirov
.”

Now
the madness was all around him, on the sea, in the sky above, and the natural shock
of suddenly finding himself in completely different circumstances imposed a
momentary paralysis as he gaped at the scene. Dark black aircraft were screaming
down from the sky like birds of prey. What kind of planes were these? No…this
was not NATO at all. This was what Bukin had warned him about. This was the
Great Patriotic War!

His
shock and surprise soon gave way to the rush of adrenaline that imminent battle
produced. He could hear the distant, urgent peal of ships’ bells ringing out the
alarm, and the sound of machine gun fire. Bright tracer rounds scored the sky
as the cargo vessels put up their pathetic air defense. Then he saw a tall geyser
of water and heard the booming explosion of a bomb as the first plane swooped
low and began climbing again. It was a very near miss.

“Come
on, Malkin! They’ll be after us next. Engage the bastards, Those must be German
planes out there!”

Thankfully
the squad of Marines on the roof had the same idea. A second bomb hit one of
the cargo vessels with an enormous explosion. Then, seconds later, Bukin saw
thin streaks lace through the slate gray sky as the needles sprang up after the
diving planes. One, then three, then five missiles fired. He heard a loud whistling
scream from above and ducked reflexively as another bomb fell very near the
Anatoly
Alexandrov
sending a wash of seawater up high enough to wet the props of
the big Mi-26 on the roof deck.

Malkin
had finally shaken off the shock of the sudden transition and was rapidly engaging
with the quad 9K32
Strela
(arrow) missile defense battery on the 609
craft. It quickly put four arrows up to join the needles, and soon the sky was
alight with flaming explosions as one missile after another found targets
overhead and ignited them. The Germans got two hits on a single ship, but the
missiles had thinned their ranks considerably and given them pause. The remaining
planes were wheeling away to the west, heading for the perceived safety of the
shoreline.

Bukin
smiled, clasping Malkin on his shoulder. “Welcome to World War Two!” he shouted
over the noise of the battle. “We got here just in time to kick the Germans in the
ass! Those were Stukas!”

* * *

Fedorov
was out on the weather deck with Troyak and
Zykov when he heard the first bells ring. Thus far the journey south had been
uneventful. The
Amerika
was last out of port, sailing to rendezvous with
three other ships out of Astrakhan and bringing up the rear in a line of four
commercial vessels. He could barely see the lead ship, and had wondered about
the names of the other vessels in the line, worried about their prospects on
this voyage.

When
he inquired in the radio room he learned the bad news. The flotilla leader was
Caspian tanker
Kulibekov
. Next came the
Komitern
, followed by
Ubelikov
and
Amerika
. He had made a point of studying the situation in the Caspian
before they launched the mission. All these ships had been sunk by German air
strikes!
Kulibekov
survived until November of 1942, but the other three,
including their own ship
Amerika
, would go down in late October. He had
double checked the dates of the attacks. The last two ships in the line would
die together on October 26th.
Komitern
would be hit on the 30th and
Kulibekov
the following month. That was weeks away.

Then
came the sound of aircraft overhead, the warning bells, the chatter of the machine
guns. He stood calmly on deck by a gunwale, watching the skies and confident
that this attack would fail—until the first bomb struck
Ubelikov
just
ahead of them.

“My
God!” he exclaimed. “It’s happening early. It’s happening now! If the rest of the
history holds true, we’re next to be hit. We had better look to our lives, Troyak.”

Troyak
was looking at something else. He pointed, a big grin on his face. “Have a look
there,” he beamed. “Those are hand held
Igla
missiles!”

Fedorov
looked to see the thin streaks of the missile tails threading the sky. They were
coming from a point on the horizon ahead where he could dimly see the dark squat
shape of something glowing with a wavering sheen like a mirage. “It’s
Anatoly
Alexandrov!
They’re early! They’re here!”

They
watched as a salvo of four more missiles went up, and Troyak said they were the
arrow system off one of the hovercraft. The sight of the missiles in the sky filled
them with renewed courage. It had been a long, hard journey from Vladivostok.
All along the way the prospect that they would be marooned here indefinitely
was very real, and each man sat with that, wondering if Stalin’s Russia would
be their new home for the remainder of their lives.

“It
worked!” Fedorov shouted over the sound of the growing battle. “Rod-25 did it again…Only
they’re here early, or perhaps we’re late. I suppose there was no way we could
really coordinate a mission like this. But one thing remains
consistent—Rod-25—and those missiles are a welcome sight!”

“We
could have saved ourselves that long train ride, Fedorov. Why didn’t we just go
with the
Alexandrov?”

“True,
but we did not know that back then, Sergeant. All we knew was that we had a good
chance of shifting back from the Primorskiy center reactor. We hoped our plan with
the
Alexandrov
would work, but we could not be sure. Besides…” Fedorov
paused, as if deep in thought now. “I think we needed to take that journey—that
we were somehow
meant
to take it. That business on the stairwell at
Ilanskiy was very important.”

Even
as he said that Fedorov revisited his feeling that the encounter with Mironov at
Ilanskiy was fated. Things had played out in a haphazard way. Yes, Troyak was
correct to point that out. We could just as easily be sitting over there aboard
Anatoly Alexandrov
now, and would not have had to trek over a thousand
miles to make this rendezvous. But then I would not have found that rift in
time on the stairwell at Ilanskiy. I would not have met with Mironov, with Sergei
Mironovich Kostrikov—Kirov!

Troyak
was listening, still smiling, and already mounting his ear buds to use the radio
set woven into the fabric of his service jacket. “Shall we give them a call to
let them know we are here?”

Fedorov
considered that, then looked around for any sign of a small boat or life raft. He
spied a weathered dinghy on the aft deck and pointed. “We’ll need that,” he said
quickly. “I don’t think it would be wise if the hovercraft come steaming up to
these ships. We’ll get off in that boat and head out to sea. They can pick us
up there, without so many eyes to bulge.”

“Very
well, sir. Troyak nodded at Zykov, who immediately set off to secure the boat. A
boatswain protested, but quickly silenced himself when Fedorov and Troyak came
striding up. Fedorov decided to cover their tracks a bit.

“This
is far too dangerous,” he said to the boatswain. “Did you see those German planes?
Did you see the Katyushas hit them? Amazing! We’re going ashore now, so get out
of the way.”

The
man gave way, unwilling to challenge a colonel in the NKVD, but as they got the
dinghy up on the winch and began lowering it, a few sailors whistled at them in
rebuke.

“Looks
like the rats are leaving the ship,” one man said. “Afraid of the Germans, eh?”

Troyak
gave the man a hard look, but Fedorov waved him on and the three men slowly climbed
down to the dinghy where it now bobbed in the water next to the steamer.

“Good
riddance!” they heard another sailor yell at them from above. “Go back to the other
NKVD bastards where you belong.”

Fedorov
shook his head, eager to get underway. There was no motor on the launch, so they
were going to have to row. Troyak pushed off, inwardly angry when he heard the
sailors on the
Amerika
jeering at them, but he swallowed his pride and
ignored them. There was no way they could explain their situation or make the
men understand what they were doing. He knew Fedorov’s plan was for the best.

They
rowed hard, and Fedorov saw that the Germans got two hits on
Ubelikov
. That
ship was burning hard, and listing to starboard where obvious flooding threatened
to capsize the vessel and sink it. They could hear the faint cries of alarm and
calls for help as they rowed, and Fedorov was torn by the urge to go back and
render assistance.

You
must not, he told himself, swallowing hard. You must stay the course and make a
rendezvous with the detachment on
Anatoly Alexandrov
. A man’s fate is a man’s
fate. And that ship was supposed to be hit. You can’t try to save the entire
world from death and pain. Keep pulling those oars.

He
could hear Troyak speaking through his collar microphone now on a secure coded channel.
“Wild Geese to Mother Lode—come in. Wild Geese to Mother Lode—come in.”

“Wild
Geese, this is Mother Load, Lieutenant Bukin here. We have a locator beacon signal
on you in the middle of the Caspian Sea! What is your situation—Over?”

“
Lieutenant
Bukin? You mean to say you now outrank me, Arseny? This is Troyak here. We were
on one of those ships, last in the line, but put off in a lighter. We’re heading
east into the Caspian to stay out of sight. Fedorov doesn’t want to show the
locals any more than we have to.”

 “Understood,
Sergeant. Hey, you gave me the slip back in Vladivostok! Good to hear your voice
again. We’ll be a few minutes getting one of the hovercraft operational. Is
Orlov with you as well?”

“We
haven’t even made landfall to look for him yet. You’re early, but it was good to
see those
Ilgas
go up. We’ll keep rowing east. I’m leaving my signal locator
beacon on and you can track us easily.”