Sure enough, at 0625 he saw the General come thumping down the stairs, fling open the doors from his quarters and take a deep breath. “Bondarev,” was all he said before nodding and pointing up the single road out of the base and then padding off down the road. Once he might have been a sprinter or a hurdler, but Lukin was slower now, thank God. He pounded down the road like a heavyweight boxer and Bondarev jogged by his side, wondering who should speak first. It was a little awkward, because quality time with the most senior officer in the 3rd Command of Air Force and Air Defense was not something he got that often, and spending that time running through the snow in the dark with him was something he’d never had to do before.
Luckily Lukin broke the silence, “That shifty bastard Arsharvin has brought you into the circle then?”
“Sir?” Bondarev asked, not wanting to throw his friend under the bus.
Lukin was the annoying type who could apparently talk and run without panting. The only sign he was exerting himself was that he spoke in clipped sentences and timed his words with his exhalations.
“You don’t have to cover for him,” Lukin said. “I know you two served together in Syria. You asked my staff for an urgent meeting with me and I can’t believe it’s because you misunderstood your orders from yesterday. It’s a pretty simple CAP cover role, no matter the context. You take your machines to Saint Lawrence, scare away anyone who gets in the way, and make sure by the end of two days our troops are boiling tea and cooking pork and potatoes on the ground below you without any bombs or missiles upsetting their appetites.”
“Yes sir,” Bondarev agreed. “The Saint Lawrence objective is clear. But I have a suspicion that this is just our first move in a larger maneuver.”
“Suspicion, Major-General?”
“Unfounded suspicion, Sir,” Bondarev said carefully. “But if I’m right, I’d like permission to bring my 6983rd Okhotniks up to full readiness. It’s not the weapons platforms sir, they are already on trucks, moving to Anadyr. I’m short of pilots and systems operators.”
They had left the base now, and were headed up a hill to a tree-lined horizon, dark on dark. As though to test him, Lukin perversely picked up the pace when they began the climb. Bondarev easily matched his pace, but was glad to see the older man at least begin to breathe more heavily.
“I can’t confirm your ‘suspicions’ Major-General,” he said. “But I am concerned to hear the 6983rd is not at full readiness already. It is intended to be a front-line unit. No one has told me anything about pilot or systems officer shortages.”
Bondarev knew that was not true. He had been warning of the personnel shortages monthly in his reports to the General Staff for nearly 18 months and knew these were read personally by Lukin. He had been told that Russian Aerospace Command was prioritizing combat operations in the Middle East and Africa and that the Eastern Military District was too far down the list for anyone to listen to him. He had accepted that, but hadn’t stopped flagging the shortages in his monthly reports, or in fact, at any opportunity. He had personally had a conversation with Lukin about it six months earlier.
“The Comrade General is not expected to be across such details,” Bondarev panted. “But it is the case that I am currently 20 crew short of being able to field my full regiment of 48 Okhotniks.”
He half expected criticism from Lukin for Bondarev not keeping him informed, or at least something about the incompetence of his staff. Instead, he was silent. They jogged side by side, Lukin apparently in thought, Bondarev in stasis, until they crested the hill and began the curving downhill part of the run that would take them through a small village and then back toward the base.
“Twenty crew you say,” Lukin said finally.
“Yes sir. For full operational capability I would require 24 to allow for… rotations.”
Bondarev had hoped that Lukin would ease off his pace as they jogged through the darkened, quiet town. Only one or two houses were lit, with early risers who no doubt had duties somewhere on the military base. A dog barked off in the distance, highlighting to Bondarev how still the early morning was. There was no traffic, neither foot nor wheeled. In his soul, Bondarev hoped to hear at least a cock crow, but he knew that was a thought dredged up from a semi-rural childhood and not likely here in the middle of the icy wind blasted desolation of Khabarovsk.
“You are not to commit the 6983rd’s Hunters to the operation over Saint Lawrence,” Lukin said finally, as the lights of the base appeared over a rise. “I expect a limited reaction from the Americans. They are weak and indecisive but if the 4th and 5th Air Regiments suffer losses, you will bear them, Major-General.”
“Yes sir.”
If Bondarev had hoped for Lukin to share any of the grand plan with him, he was disappointed. They ran in silence for the rest of the distance back to the base, threading their way through the main gates, around a dead circle of hedge rustling in the early morning Arctic wind and then back to the front door of the General’s quarters.
Bondarev expected a curt dismissal, but was a little surprised as Lukin stopped on his steps, stretched out a leg and bent over it, warming down. “I am a fighting pilot like you Bondarev,” he said. He was looking at his foot, grabbing the toe as he pulled on his hamstrings.
“Yes sir,” Bondarev said.
“Did you know I am still current on the Yak-130?” he asked pulling in his right leg and stretching out his left, still not looking at Bondarev directly.
Bondarev smiled, of course he knew. The whole of the 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command knew that Lukin had his own Yak-130 trainer — a red two-seater light ground-attack fighter and trainer that had hardpoints for weapons and drop tanks and was painted like an Italian Ferrari. He flew himself and his adjutant from base to base for inspections, to observe exercises and join staff meetings.
“Yes sir,” he replied simply.
“You do your job,” Lukin said. “Keep those skies clear. And I’ll look forward to flying my Yak into that American airfield at Savoonga. You join me, and we will toast a job well done. Deal?” The General held out his hand, looking directly into Bondarev’s eyes for the first time.
Bondarev took his hand, “A deal General.”
The General held his hand a moment longer than necessary. The gesture had a feeling of finality about it that unsettled Bondarev. It was as though they were saying a final goodbye. But Lukin dropped his hand and smiled, “You will also ensure your Okhotnik drivers are trained and working together like the cogs in a Swiss clock,” Lukin said. “I will see about that personnel shortage, Major-General. The fighting in Syria is more or less over now, from what I hear.” He patted Bondarev on the shoulder and pulled open the door to his quarters and Bondarev watched as he bounded upstairs for a shower. Something about Lukin’s tone was less hearty than his words though.
He’s sending us off to die, Bondarev was thinking. He knows it, but he won’t say it.
“You don’t know your history,” Arsharvin was telling him. It didn’t quite come out that way though. It was more like, “Youdunnoyahistry.”
Bondarev was nowhere near as far gone as his friend. He was aware, and he spat upon, the clichéd Western images of Russians as big drinkers. He came from a family of teetotalers, in which he was the first in many generations who had ever taken a drink and recent anniversaries aside, it was rare he took more than two. His grandfather had been head of the entire Russian Air Force and he had never seen him touch a drop, even on the day he had turned up at a family dinner, pale-faced and quiet, clearly shocked over something that had happened. Yevgeny’s mother had plagued him to know what had happened, but he had told her not to worry, it was just a military matter, not something he could share with her. Bondarev remembered his 13-year-old self-watching the grey-haired, box jawed older man sitting at the table, staring into his cold tea for nearly an hour without moving. A week later they heard an entire Russian air base inside Syria had been overrun by Turkish forces, with dozens dead and the rest of the personnel taken prisoner.