“What is he shooting at …?” His question was interrupted by another bright flash and explosion from the mission site, the boom rolling across the airfield and slamming into the slanted windows of the control tower — but this time no missile left the site.
Tret’yak stared in amazement at the remains of the SA-8 site on the small hill overlooking the runway — half the hill had been blown away, men and vehicles scattered around like a child’s upended toy box. The sudden destruction was clearly visible in the glare of a massive fuel fire on top of the hill.
“The missile site has been hit,” Tret’yak called out. “Launch the fighters; send units three and four south to engage the aircraft that is launching those missiles; get five and six airborne—”
Another volley of gunfire from the fifty-seven-millimeter unit, followed by an explosion and fireball not a half-kilometer off the end of the runway that lit up almost the entire base. The shock wave from the explosion knocked Tret’yak sideways. The area was littered with secondary explosions, and fires erupted in the forests surrounding Sebaco.
“We got one,” someone in the tower yelled. “We got an American aircraft … “
The celebration was cut short by another volley of gunfire from the fifty-seven-millimeter gun emplacement. Tret’yak, back on his feet, stared out to watch the gun’s tracers streak into the night. Suddenly the significance of what he was watching hit him full force: “Why is the anti-aircraft artillery unit firing tracers?” he yelled. “Their gun is radar-guided, and it’s nighttime — they don’t need tracers. It will only give away their position. Order them to—”
Too late. As Tret’yak watched, the gun site was obliterated. When the glare of the explosion cleared from Tret’yak’s eyes, he saw that the gun’s radar-trailer, located inside a bunker of its own fifty meters away from the gun itself, had been destroyed. There was collateral damage to the gun itself but it was still intact.
“Anti-radar missiles,” Tret’yak said angrily. “They are launching anti-radar missiles. Order the north gun site to use infrared and electro-optical guidance. I want an ambulance over to that south gun sight to—”
“Another missile,” someone yelled, pointing toward the southeast. In the glare of the forest fires and the burning radar trailer, Tret’yak saw it — a large, sleek, slow-moving winged-missile. It drifted lazily past the burning trees, past the fifty-seven-millimeter gun emplacement — Tret’yak could see men pointing at the missile, but the gun never slewed around and never got a shot off at the object. As if the thing was doing an approach to the runway, the missile cruised right onto the field just to the south of the taxiway, right on the northern edge of the parking ramp. As soon as the missile was over the ramp area, objects like small boxes began to eject themselves from both sides of the craft.
And then huge columns of fire began erupting from the parking ramp every ten or fifteen meters. The main taxiway was hit almost directly down the center, carving large craters in the tarmac. The bombs did the same to the north half of the parking ramp, lifting sections of concrete as if the earth itself was opening up. Bombs fell on the two fully loaded and fueled MiG-23s on the ramp, creating a destruction that spread across the parking ramp. Burning missiles from the MiGs arched across the base, and twenty-three-millimeter gun rounds pinged off the control tower, creating jagged holes in the shatterproof glass. Tret’yak, the controllers and the radiomen dove for the floor. The cluster-bomb drone continued on, dropping its load of destruction. It missed the two MiGs parked on the runway hammerhead by several meters, showering the fighters with pieces of concrete.
Tret’yak stumbled to his feet, grabbing for a microphone. “Sebaco three and four, take off.” He did not issue the order in Spanish, but the MiG pilots needed little prompting. The number three MiG put his plane in full afterburner and roared down the runway, pulling his nose up in a hard fast climb. The fourth MiG taxied up to the end of the runway but chose to wait until the third MiG was clear before starting its takeoff.
Finally the fourth MiG lined up with the runway, slapped in max afterburner, released brakes and sped away. The fighter just managed to get its gear up at the end of the runway when an explosion ripped off the MiG’s tail section. The MiG flipped up and backward, and the pilot ejected just as the fighter continued its backward spiral and slammed into the ground about a mile off the end of the runway.
A nightmare, Tret’yak thought — except this one was real. One by one, Sebaco’s defenses had been neutralized — and not one enemy fighter had yet been spotted — a blur of motion off to the south attracted his attention, and then he did see it … a massive dark shape hugging the ground no higher than the ten-story control tower. It flew diagonally across the south end of the runway about a half-mile from the tower. It was huge, one of the biggest aircraft Tret’yak had ever seen. The sound of its engines was like a freight train rumbling by at full speed.
The aircraft banked sharply left, aligning itself with the row of buildings and hangars along the parking ramp area. Tret’yak could see a few soldiers firing their rifles at the apparition, but to the KGB general it was as if they were trying to kill a whale with squirt guns. The aircraft roared down the runway with the sound of a gigantic waterfall. Illuminated as it was in the fires on the parking ramp, Tret’yak could see that the monstrosity had a long pointed nose, no visible tail-control surfaces and huge sprawling wings with missiles of different sizes hanging from them. It was not like any aircraft he had ever seen.
Just as quickly as the thing appeared it was gone, leaving in its wake clouds of dust and smoke swirling around the few remaining fires. The silence was awesome, as if the huge black craft had sucked all air and all sound away with it. Tret’yak stood in the control tower, staring through the shattered glass of the control tower at the scene below. What had been an important Soviet military base a few minutes before had been turned into chaos.
“What was that thing?” the senior controller asked, shaking bits of glass off his tunic. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It had to be some sort of bomber,” Tret’yak said, shaking his head. “But I’ve never known such a large aircraft to fly so low on a bomb run. It was obviously the aircraft that launched the anti-radar missiles and set off those bombs that cratered our ramp.
“Could it have destroyed our fourth fighter?”
“It could not have—” But Tret’yak paused. A bomber carrying air-to-air missiles? Why not? That bomber that passed by seemed to be carrying several kinds of weapons under its huge wings. Instead Tret’yak replied, “Any reports from our radar sites? Any reports from Managua?”
“No, sir, not yet. We should have communications reestablished shortly.”
Tret’yak turned to the communications operator. “I want a rescue crew out to find the pilot of our fourth MiG. And I want that ramp cleared as soon as possible. Our fighters will need to land in about an hour.” The operator nodded and began to issue the orders. Lights snapped on, further revealing the damage caused by the strange drone. But as men and machines moved out to the ramp to put out the fires, the extent of the damage was not as total as first thought.
“We have been hit, but not put out of action,” Tret’yak said. “The runway appears open, our fuel stubs and hangars are intact’ and only half our ramp space has been affected. This base is still operational.”
“We’ve been fortunate, sir,” the senior controller said, “that bomber looked large enough to carry a hundred bombs. It could have caused much destruction …”
Tret’yak was about to reply, but the words caught in his throat. He remembered seeing weapons hanging off the wings … the bomber did not drop any bombs over the base …