Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (59 page)

 
          
It
was a last-ditch defensive effort, hoping against hope that the missile would
lock onto the afterburner plume and then lose track completely when he shut off
the burner, and the Turkish F-16 flight leader knew it. He knew he was toast
long before the R-60 missiles plowed into his tailpipe and exploded, blowing
his Fighter into a huge cloud of flying metal and flaming jet fuel.

 
          
“Control,
Control,
aman allahim
,
homhok,
Zodyak One has been hit! Zodyak
One has been hit by two missiles!” the young pilot aboard Zodyak Two screamed
on the command channel. "I do not have a radar lock! I am completely
defensive! Do you have radar contact on the bandit?”

 
          
“Negative,
Zodyak Two, negative!” the ground radar controller responded. “Negative radar
contact' Recommend vector heading one-niner-zero, descend to base plus zero,
maximum speed. Get out of there now! Cekic flight is inbound, ETA eight
minutes, base plus twenty.”

 
          
The
wingman thought momentarily about avenging his leader: searching the skies with
radar and eyeballs and with sheer luck, then Finding the
pic
that had
shot his friend and teacher down. But what he did was turn around back toward
land and plug in full afterburner power. As much as he wanted to Fight, he knew
he had nothing but anger with which to do it, and that would do him no good at
all.

 
          
“He’s
turning! He's bugging out!” Yegorov crowed. “Full afterburner power—running
scared at Mach One. So long, great Turkish warrior.” But his celebration was
short-lived, because he had fault indicator lights on both missile launch
tubes, and they would not clear. The missiles’ rocket motors had obviously
damaged the titanium launch tube shutters, leaving them partly open or jammed
inside the tubes.

 
          
Stoica
immediately turned eastbound once again, descending at idle power to keep his
heat signature as low as possible and to try to hide in the radar clutter of
the
Black Sea
until they were out of maximum radar
detection range. “Don’t laugh too hard, Gennadi,” Stoica said. “That was very
nearly us crashing to the
Black Sea
.
Now we have to pray we have enough fuel to make it to base—we could end up at
the bottom of the
Black
Sea
if we’re not
careful.”

 
          
They
were very lucky—one engine flamed out shortly after landing, and they barely
had enough fuel to taxi off the runway and to the parking ramp before the
second engine flamed out. The ground support crews had to frantically get a
towbar and tug and pull the Metyor-179 into its hangar before anyone spotted
the plane. The fuel tanks were literally bone-dry.

 
          
The
attack was a complete success—but neither Stoic nor Yegorov felt like
celebrating anything except their own survival.

KFOR Headquarters,
Camp
Bondsteel
, Pristina, Kosovo

Later that morning

 
          
“The
situation is unraveling before our eyes, gentlemen,” General Sir Edmund
Willoughby, commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Kosovo Force
(NATO KFOR), exclaimed. “I have the unfortunate task of advising everyone here
this morning that the former
Yugoslavian
Republic
of
Macedonia
has just declared war on the
Republic
of
Albania
, and vice versa.”

 
          
The
conference theater, once a motion picture screening theater, erupted into a
hubbub of shock and anguish.
Willoughby
was presiding over an early-morning
strategy session of all of the KFOR commanders at
Camp
Bondsteel
, the headquarters for all NATO and United
Nations peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, set up at a motion picture production
studio near
Pristina
Airport
in Kosovo. Also in attendance at
Camp
Bonsteel
was the United Nations Special Envoy of the
United Nations Preventative Diplomacy Mission, or UNPREDEP, Arhbassador Sune
Joelson of
Sweden
. UNPREDEP was the military-civilian command that had taken over for the
United Nations Protection Force in
Macedonia
in 1995 to try to restore law and order
between
Albania
and
Macedonia
when border clashes had threatened to
escalate to all-out war.

 
          
“Have
we any information on what touched off this incident?”
Oberst
(Colonel)
Rudolph Messier, the German KFOR commander, asked.

 
          
“Nothing,”
Willoughby
responded. “Eyewitnesses claim that
Macedonian artillery units opened fire and destroyed several Albanian
observation posts. Macedonia denies this, but claimed that those observation
posts were really target spotting units, and they say they intercepted several
coded messages broadcast from those posts that they believed were target grid
reports.”

 
          
“That
does not sound like sufficient provocation to open fire,” Colonel Misha
Simorov, the Russian KFOR commander who had taken over Colonel Kazakov’s post,
said.

 
          
“Exactly—and
that goes double for
Albania
,” Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Timothy
Greer, the American KFOR commander, inteijected. “Over one hundred and sixty
confirmed deaths in Struga so far.
Albania
hit several historical locations, too,”

 
          
“I
am sure this w as a knee-jerk response to the Macedonian attack against Kukes,”
Simorov said. “Two to three times as many died there.”

 
          
“I’m
not disputing the seriousness of either attack, sir,” Greer said to Simorov.
“But why bombard a town with sustained artillery and rocket attacks for almost
four hours over some hothead artillery officer lobbing a few across the
border?”

 
          
“You
seem so eager to minimize the danger in this, Colonel,” Simorov said. “
Macedonia
committed an act of war—a preemptive strike
against an observation post along a critical communications and transportation
route. It certainly could have been interpreted as a prelude to an invasion.”

 
          
“Invasion?
” Greer retorted. “
Macedonia
invading
Albania
? With what? The Albanian army outnumbers
Macedonia
’s by two to one;
Macedonia
has virtually no armor or artillery. That’s
a ridiculous notion.”

 
          
“Absurd
or not, Colonel, an artillery assault—”

 
          
“Suspected
artillery assault,” General Messier said. “There is no hard evidence yet that
Macedonia
had any artillery of any kind near Struga.”

 
          
“—An
artillery assault in that area could easily be construed as the prelude to an
invasion,” Simorov went on. despite the interruption. “That highway where the fighting
broke out is the main transportation route between the
Aegean
and
Adriatic
seas, between
Greece
and
Albania
. If
Macedonia
takes control of it, tanks can be roaring
into
Tirane
within hours. They can encircle
Tirane
with ease.”

 
          
“Encircle
Tirane
?”
Greer again asked incredulously. “Colonel Simorov, this is nonsense.
Albania
is not being threatened by anyone,
especially
Macedonia
.”

 
          
“Then
whom. Colonel?” Simorov asked angrily. “Who else would want to slap
Albania
down?”

 
          
“No
one is trying to—”

 
          
“
Macedonia
is supported and is being armed by NATO,”
Simorov said. “Only NATO benefits by destabilizing
Albania
and strengthening
Macedonia
. Perhaps I should inquire to the NATO
secretary-general what he has in store for
Albania
?” “Colonel Simorov, as the KFOR commander
and a deputy chief of staff of the NATO High Command, I assure you NATO has no
designs on
Albania
,”
Willoughby
said. “Quite the contrary. NATO and all of
Europe
would benefit greatly by forging closer
ties with
Albania
.
Macedonia
is a friend and prospective member of the
Alliance
, but they are not being armed by NATO, nor
are they acting as a NATO military surrogate.”

 
          
“Sir,
only NATO and
Macedonia
stand to gain if an invasion of
Albania
is successful,” Simorov said. “
Macedonia
wants to cut off all arms and drug
smuggling across its borders, and it wants to be able to eject ethnic Albanians
from its territory at will. What better way to topple the Albanian government
and create a safe, secure outlet to the Adriatic Sea than by committing mysterious
hit-and-run attacks in Albania, along the main corridor linking two seas, and
then letting NATO make excuses and apologies for its actions?”

 
          
“I
don’t know what you’re talking about, Colonel,” General Sir Willoughby said
seriously, “but if you please, let us hear some constructive suggestions rather
than wild speculation. What should we do now? Both the United Nations and the
European Union are waiting for recommendations.”

 
          
“Obviously
it is in all of our best interests to keep the fighting from escalating?”
Colonel Messier said. He turned to Ambassador Joelson and went on, “With all
due respect, sir, UNPREDEP has been a dismal failure. I almost wish we had kept
the Protection Force in place. Even Swedish peacekeepers are ineffective in
this situation. We need an armed military force in place in both
Albania
and
Macedonia
to prevent this conflict from reigniting a
general Balkan and possibly even a European war/’

 
          
“I
agree: The United Nations Protection Force was, with all due respect, a
failure,” Colonel Simorov said, nodding toward the Italian force commander.
Italy
had supplied most of the peacekeeping force
in UNPROFOR-Albania about eight years earlier. “Besides,
Italy
has all but withdrawn from NATO
peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans anyway.”

 
          
“
Italy
finds it is safer and better for ourselves
to patrol and police our own borders,” the Italian colonel said. “Perhaps it
might be better if
Macedonia
did the same.” He turned to look at
Lieutenant-Colonel Greer and said with a sneer, “Of course, the Americans would
certainly provide a credible force—if the American president would ever agree
to provide more than a token air base and logistics force to assist. Just when
Europe
seems to be on the brink of all-out war,
the Americans decide to become conscientious objectors.”

 
          
“The
United
States
is willing to do its part to provide protection forces for NATO member
nations,” Colonel Greer said. “The
United States
is not divorcing itself from any potential
crisis situations—”

 
          
“Certainly
not divorce—it is more like
frigidity
!” the Italian commander shouted.
That got a chuckle from most of the KFOR commanders—all except Greer, of
course.

 
          
“Very
funny, sir,” Greer said, with a smile that he hoped would disarm the growing
tension in the room. “I disagree with Colonel Simorov—the Italian peacekeepers
were most effective in
Albania
, as has been UNPREDEP in
Macedonia
. I can’t explain this sudden outbreak of
hostilities.
Macedonia
and KFOR have been relatively successful in
reducing arms smuggling into Kosovo through
Macedonia
. Weapons are still getting through
Albania
. But we trace much of the instability in
the region to the Kosovo Liberation Army’s activities. KFOR needs time to work
to be effective until we find a political solution.”

 
          
“Easy
for you to say, Colonel—your commander was not skinned and burned alive in the
streets of Prizren,” Simorov said acidly. ‘The Russians have suffered half of
all KFOR casualties in Kosovo at the hands of Muslim rebels. The incidents of
violence increase every day. Obviously, our presence in Kosovo is not enough—we
must cut off and flush out the source of weapons and guerrillas. That means
stationing peacekeepers in
Albania
. And since
Macedonia
appears unwilling or unable to stop this
flow of Muslim freedom-fighters and weapons into Kosovo, someone must set up
border security forces in
Macedonia
.”

 
          
“And
the
United States
disagrees,” Greer said. “I don't understand
this sudden need to expand the peacekeeping operation’s scope of involvement.
Two small-scale border skirmishes don't signal a complete deterioration in the
political situation. Let’s not act too hastily.”