As bad as his domestic problems were, the internal strife was worse. In the Pentagon, he was a highly paid paper shuffler, many times removed from the decision-making process. In Egypt, however, he was again faced with the prospect of ordering men into dangerous situations.
Dixon paused in mid-thought and corrected himself. "Prospect" was a bad word — the wrong word. He was in fact ordering men into combat. Returning to his desk, he reread the message he was about to send out. Bypassing the Office of Military Cooperation (Sudan), the message would go directly to a newly promoted captain by the name of Kinsly. The message was an order that directed Kinsly to disregard all previous instructions to avoid the area around Al Fasher. Instead, Kinsly would take his A Team to Al Fasher by the fastest means available, place the airfield and any facilities used by the Soviets at Al Fasher under observation, and report any and all information on the units moving into and out of Al Fasher. The order was in direct violation of the official agreement between the United States and the Sudan that the United States would do nothing that would result in confrontation with the Soviets.
Dixon considered the order one more time. He didn't like the last paragraph. The bulk of the message enumerated the information that Kinsly's team was to gather. In the second-to-last paragraph, Kinsly was told that he could use whatever means he saw fit to accomplish his assigned mission. Then, in the last paragraph, Dixon added that Kinsly wasn't to take any unnecessary chances. Was Dixon using double-talk? Or was he sidestepping an unpleasant task and instead abdicating responsibility for deciding what was right and proper to some poor sap of a captain stuck in the bush?
Sliding the message into a folder, Dixon closed his mind to the matter. He didn't know, nor was he in any condition to sort out, what was right and proper. At that moment all he knew was that, like it or not, he had to issue that order and, for better or worse, trust that the man receiving it would act appropriately.
Chapter 6
A man who has to be convinced to act before he acts is not a man of action… You must act as you breathe.
A sharp buzz in his left ear woke Captain Ilvanich. Opening his eyes, he looked to his right and saw that the noise had been the intercom's buzzer. The crew chief of the Ilyushin 76 had already picked up the phone and was talking to someone in the cockpit. Unable to hear both sides of the conversation, Ilvanich looked around, all the while wondering how much further they had to go.
"YOU MUST BE VERY USED TO THIS BY NOW!" The shout came from Lieutenant Shegayev, who was sitting across the aisle from him, a nervous smile on his face.
Ilvanich had no doubt that Shegayev had been awake and staring at him the whole trip. He was nervous. It would be Shegayev's first jump with the unit. Ilvanich considered the young KGB officer across from him. I suppose I looked just like him two years ago, he thought. He considered harassing the young officer but decided against it. There still was the possibility that they would meet resistance at the airfield. There was no point in making things more difficult for the young political. Instead, Ilvanich just grunted, "Yes, one becomes used to this."
The crew chief hung up the phone to the intercom and turned to Ilvanich. Speaking loudly, slowly, and exaggerating his pronunciation so that he would not be misunderstood, the crew chief relayed to Ilvanich the message he had just been given by the pilot. "No jump. We will land you. We are twenty minutes out."
Relieved that there would be no jump or fighting, Ilvanich unsnapped his seat belt and stood up. As he did so, all eyes turned to him, waiting to hear the news or his orders. When Ilvanich announced that they were to remove their parachutes and prepare for an unopposed landing, a murmur of relief could be heard up and down the row of paratroopers. Everyone save Shegayev smiled and instantly began to shed the heavy parachutes that cut into their arms and legs. Noting Shegayev's disappointed look, Ilvanich bent over and whispered, "Have faith, my friend. I have great faith that the party will provide another opportunity for us to die a grand and glorious death for the motherland."
Shocked by Ilvanich's remark, Shegayev stared at him, ashen. Ilvanich, pleased that he had gotten the young officer's goat again, stood upright and smiled a sinister smile, winked, then continued to watch his men as they removed and stored their parachutes under their seats.
"Better look sharp there, Andy. Someplace down there is an aircraft carrier that has fifty-eight hundred pounds of fuel and a clean latrine waiting for us."
"Head, sir. Sailors use heads, not latrines. You go around asking those swabbies where the latrine is and they'll mess with you till you piss your pants."
Mennzinger laughed. "First, Andy, it wouldn't be the first time I pissed my pants. And second, if those yahoos fuck with me, I'll whip it out and piss all over their nice clean floor, or deck, or whatever they call it." After eight hours of being cramped into the gunner copilot seat, flying in total darkness over the monotonous ocean, Mennzinger was looking forward to stretching his legs, even if it meant landing on a carrier in the middle of the night. With nothing better to do, since it wasn't his turn to fly, he decided to scan the area to see if there was anything about. Seeing nothing on the screen displaying the pilot night-vision sensor, or PNVS, he leaned down, put his head up to the multipurpose sight, and switched on the target acquisition and designation sight. Once he had a good picture, Mennzinger began to scan the area to the front of the Apache, looking for a hot spot that would be the carrier.
Warrant officer Andy Post, Mennzinger's pilot, spotted the first ship before Mennzinger did. Post announced that he had a contact on the right. Automatically, Mennzinger traversed his sight over, centered the hot spot in his thermal sight, then increased the magnification. The thermal sight, detecting heat sources and translating them into a visible picture, displayed the image of a ship. The image, however, was not a carrier: there was no flat deck. "I think that's an escort, Andy. Try contacting the carrier. If that doesn't work, we'll try the E-3 Sentinel."
Flipping to the designated frequency, Post called the carrier. On his first try, the carrier's flight control responded and informed them that they were twenty miles out and on course. With an air of triumph, Post announced, "See, what did I tell you! Right on the money."
"Before we start congratulating ourselves," Mennzinger shot back without a pause, "let's see if we can put this bird down on the deck of that carrier in one piece, and soon."
"Your wish, sir, is my command."
The early-moming sun, streaming into the window of the Aeroflot Ilyushin 86 jet, scanned the faces of the passengers like a spotlight as the aircraft turned and began its approach into the airfield. The sudden flash of the sun and the steep banking of the jet woke Neboatov from his fitful sleep. A major of artillery seated next to him was turned sideways and staring out the window. "Huh," the major grunted to no one in particular. "Will you look at this! I doubt if they've ever seen this much activity in this pisshole of a country. No doubt we're going to find ourselves asshole deep in really big operations this time."
Curious, Neboatov stretched, then turned to look out the window himself. The scene before him was, as the artillery major had stated, most surprising. Lined up on the runway below them were four Red Air Force Antonov AN-124 transports and six Ilyushin 11–76 transports. Interspersed between the oversized military transports were several smaller civil aircraft, mostly Ilyushin 86s with Aeroflot markings, like the one they were on. Farther down the runway were a number of fighter aircraft — MIG-29s by the look of their tail sections. Between the aircraft, personnel were scattered, some obviously ground crews, others passengers lined up or in small groups waiting for embarkation.