Twenty minutes later, the terrorists had rounded up the entire crew and had them assembled on the bow with their hands on their heads. Two more helicopters soon arrived, carrying two dozen masked men, armed only with side arms, who took over the controls of the ship, plus several long crates and other supplies brought in slung under the helicopters. Soon the tanker Ustinov was heading south, toward Turkey.
But they were not alone for long. Several minutes later, several more helicopters arrived: one belonging to a state-controlled Turkish Radio and Television Corporation TV crew from Ankara, plus two Mil Mi-14 Haze land-based marine assault helicopters belonging to the Russian Federation Naval Infantry.
“Attention, commandos aboard the Ustinov, this is the Russian Federation Naval Infantry,” the radio call came. “You have illegally commandeered a Russian Federation flag vessel on the high seas. We have orders to take control of the vessel. We order you to immediately surrender control of the vessel and all of you come out on deck in plain sight and with weapons on the deck.” No reply. “Do not be a fool,” the Russian commander went on. “We have a Russian Navy destroyer less than two hours away. You will not reach any shore before our destroyer reaches you.” Still no reply. “Very well. Prepare to die.”
The Russian transport helicopters kept coming. They were within a mile of the Ustinov when suddenly a bright line of fire arced across the darkening evening sky from the mid-deck of the tanker. A missile struck one of the Russian Federation Navy helicopters, its engine exploded into a thousand pieces, and it plunged into the Black Sea. The other helicopter immediately reversed course and headed back to Russia. A Turkish Coast Guard helicopter, on the scene monitoring the tanker as it headed toward the Turkish coast, was on the crash scene immediately to help rescue survivors.
Darkness had fallen by the time the second wave arrived: a Russian Federation Navy Sukhoi-24 “Fencer” attack plane from Novorossijsk. The Su-24 carried two Kh-29 “Kedge” imaging-infrared guided air-to-surface missiles. It remained above fifteen thousand feet and kept its speed up to avoid being a target for shoulder-fired missiles from the hijackers on the ship. At a range of ten miles, the pilot was able to lock the stem of the Ustinov in his imaging-infrared telescopic sensor. His orders: shoot out the Ustinov’s rudder and propeller and disable it. At a range of five miles, the Kh-29 was within range. The pilot unsafed his firing button …
… and at that exact moment, the Su-24’s right engine exploded in a ball of fire, and the crew ejected seconds before the whole plane exploded.
It took another hour for a second Sukhoi-24 attack jet to reach the tanker, but it, too, disappeared from radar shortly before launching an attack on the tanker — and it, too, was well out of range of a man-portable antiaircraft missile. Several minutes later, one of the engines on a Russian Federation Navy Tupolev-95 maritime patrol and attack plane inbound toward the tanker was hit and destroyed by another missile, and the plane was forced to turn back.
By then, the Russian Federation Navy destroyer Besstrashny, originally based in Ukraine but moved to Novorossijsk when the ship was transferred back to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, was close on the scene. The tactical action officers aboard the Russian destroyer had warned all air and surface traffic away from the area, and its Kamov Ka-27 helicopter had already been datalinking the tanker’s exact position to the ship. There were several Turkish Coast Guard vessels in the vicinity, all coastal patrol vessels carrying light weapons — no threat to the Besstrashny, one of the largest warships in the Black Sea.
The skipper met with the weapons officers and tactical action officer in the Combat Information Center. “When will we be within range of the Ustinov?” Captain Boriskov asked.
“We are well within range of the 3M-82 Moskit, sir,” the weapons officer responded. The Moskit was a large supersonic, radar-guided antiship missile.
“I don’t want to sink the damn ship, just disable it,” the captain said.
“Then all we have is the forward AK-130 until we’re within helicopter range,” the TAO cut in.
“What do we target? The rudder area? The props? Engineering?”
“I suggest we hit the superstructure, sir,” the TAO said. “Create some confusion, maybe kill a bunch of the terrorists, and send the naval infantry aboard to try to take control of the ship again. If we disable the ship’s steering and propulsion systems, we could create an even larger disaster if we can’t stop the ship and it runs aground in Turkey.”
“Ask me if I care if it runs aground in Turkey,” the captain sneered.
“But if it did, it would be partially our fault — and that might be the terrorists’ ultimate objective,” one of the intelligence officers said. He lowered his voice, then added, “Remember who owns that ship and its cargo, sir.”
The skipper’s face blanched. Pavel Kazakov.
In the last several months, Pavel Kazakov had become one of the wealthiest, most well-known, and most talked-about men in the entire world. He’d already had an evil reputation that had made him simply dangerous. Now he had real, legitimate power behind him. His oil empire stretched from the Caspian to the Adriatic Sea. He was shipping more oil than half the members of OPEC, and he was doing it more cheaply and more efficiently than anyone could believe. Nations and corporations were becoming rich from him, which meant more and more nations were protecting and underwriting his ventures.
His chief underwriter seemed to be the Russian Army itself. From Georgia in the east to Albania in the west, the Russian army maintained a continuous, ominous presence. Although Russian troops were not in Georgia itself, the Republic of Georgia knew that thousands of Russian troops were massed on its northern border, ready to invade if the government was unwilling or unable to control rival factional fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region that might affect Metyorgaz oil-transport operations. The Russian army was already cracking down on the cross-border movement of Muslim rebels between the province of Chechnya and Georgia, and they were not shy about crossing the border on occasion to pursue Muslim guerrillas. The Russian navy had also increased patrols on the Black Sea to protect increased tanker traffic.
Most significantly, the Russian army was back in the Balkans with a force and presence unseen since World War II. Fifty thousand troops were stationed in eleven key bases in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, the Serbian provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo, and Albania, ostensibly as “peacekeepers” enforcing United Nations resolutions. Their presence was centered around the new Metyorgaz pipeline route, so there was very little doubt about their real mission, but they also enforced United Nations resolutions and even abided by most NATO rules of engagement and operations orders, operating almost at will throughout the Balkans, from Slovenia to the Black Sea, from Hungary to the Greek border.
But rather than feel threatened, the countries saw this as an advantage. Fighting between the government and gunrunners or drug dealers had all but vanished — the Russian army was ruthless in pursuing anyone even suspected of illegally crossing the borders, selling drugs, or trying to rearm rebel forces anywhere in the Balkans. Incidents of clashes between Serbs and other ethnic groups in the Balkans, and between the various religious factions, had all but ceased as well. The Balkans were actually enjoying the first real semblance of peace since the bad old days of Marshal Tito.