The first targets to hit were the antiaircraft defensive emplacements. Like most Soviet-era client-state factories, the Kukes carpet factory had several antiaircraft gun emplacements mounted on the rooftops, mostly twin-barreled 37-millimeter optically guided units with a few single 57-millimeter heavy-caliber guns. Kukes had six 37-2 emplacements and two 57-1 emplacements, scattered throughout the compound, with the 37s at the corners and on the east and west sides of the compound along the river and the 57s in the center of the compound; two additional 37-2 units and two 57-1 units were situated near the hydroelectric power plant east of the town.
But most of these weapon systems had been decimated by the Albanian civil war of 1997 and had been only partially refurbished in response to the Serbian aggression in neighboring Kosovo. The radars and electro-optical sensors had long ago been stolen and sold for food or drugs, leaving the guns with only iron sights with uncalibrated and grossly inaccurate lead-computing mechanisms. The gun emplacements on the dam were not a threat — it was easy to maneuver around them, and the gunners never reacted to the jet’s presence anyway. The smaller-caliber guns were probably not a threat, especially if they were only optically or manually guided. But the big 57-millimeter guns could be trouble. They had to be neutralized.
Using the infrared sensor, Yegorov targeted the two gun emplacements from ten miles away, well outside the antiaircraft gun’s maximum range. The Mt-179’s laser rangefinder/ designator clicked down the range. Inside seven miles, the Mt-179 Shadow started a steep climb to three thousand feet above the ground. Inside five miles to the target, well outside the antiaircraft artillery’s maximum range, Yegorov opened its right bomb bay doors and released a Kh-29L Ookoos, or “Sting,” missile.
The Kh-29L Sting missile dropped free of the right bomb bay, fell for about a hundred feet as it stabilized in the slipstream, then ignited its solid-rocket motor. The missile’s semi-active laser guidance seeker homed in on the reflected energy of the Shadow’s laser designator. Yegorov had only to keep the crosshairs on the target, carefully magnifying and refining his aimpoint. He steered the missile in for a direct hit on the base of the 57-millimeter gun emplacement, blowing a hole in the roof and sending the gun crashing through to the dozens of workers below. Yegorov immediately switched to the second 57-1 emplacement and sent it crashing through the roof just like the first.
Yegorov then switched his infrared sensors to the front of the carpet factory, targeting another Sting missile at the main administrative entrance to the plant and the last missile at the main worker’s entrance, where hundreds of workers were leaving or entering. Each Sting missile had a six-hundred-pound high-explosive warhead, and the devastation was enormous. Secondary explosions from each of the Sting missiles fired on the factory blew out windows with tongues of fire, finally collapsing part of the administrative section. Rolling waves of fire belched from the workers’ entrance as the Sting missile broke open gas and fuel lines inside the plant.
Stoica started a steep climb, then rolled left to survey the damage. “Ahuyivayush’iy, Gennadi,” he said. “Right where we planned it.”
“Shyri zhopy ni p’omish, “Yegorov replied. “Couldn’t have missed that if I tried.”
Stoica flew outbound about three minutes — long enough for folks to think the attack was over and start coming out of hiding — then executed an easy turn back toward the plant at five thousand feet above ground. Yegorov immediately locked his infrared sensor on the last four remaining targets: the refugee center, which according to Kazakov’s intelligence acted as the terrorist training center; the Red Cross/Red Crescent Aid Center, suspected of being a terrorist headquarters because supposedly it would never be targeted in an attack; the distribution center, where food and supplies were unloaded from trucks or rails, warehoused, inventoried, and disbursed to the camp residents; and finally the building with the largest restaurant and shops, suspected of being owned by and filled with Muslim terrorists.
The Mt-179 made only one pass, dropping just two weapons-two PLAB-500 laser-guided fuel — air explosive canisters. Each FAE canister created a cloud of highly flammable gas several hundred feet in diameter. The gas mixed with oxygen in the air, and was then detonated by releasing explosive charges into the cloud. The resultant explosion, resembling a miniature nuclear mushroom cloud, was a hundred times greater than the equivalent weight of TNT.
Over two hundred men, women, and children died instantly in the two huge fireballs; another one thousand persons died or were injured and thousands more were left homeless in the ensuing firestorm as the entire town was consumed in the galloping wildfires caused by the fuel-air explosives. The fires would last for days, spreading to char hundreds of thousands of acres of surrounding forests. Investigators would later find nothing but devastation.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Kremlin,
Moscow, Russian Federation
“Minister Schramm. What a pleasant surprise. Good morning to you.”
“Let us dispense with the pleasantries, Mr. Filippov,” Republic of Germany Foreign Minister Rolf Schramm snapped. He was in the living room of his residence in Bonn, with only a jogging suit on, surrounded by his senior advisors. “I am watching the news of your little attack on Kukes, Albania. My God, man, has Sen’kov lost his senses? Or is he not in charge of the government anymore? Has the military finally taken charge?”
“Calm yourself, Mr. Minister,” Russian Federation Foreign Minister Ivan Ivanovich Filippov said in stiff but very passable German. “Albania? What—?” He was at home, not even dressed yet. He immediately ran out of the bathroom and flipped on the television. Nothing on Russian TV on anything happening in Albania. What in hell was going on? “I … I cannot comment on what has happened, Minister,” Filippov said. He couldn’t confirm or deny anything — nor would he, even if he could.
“I want you to pledge to me, Mr. Minister, that these attacks have ended,” Schramm said. “No more attacks in the Balkans. You must promise me this is not the prelude to an offensive in the Balkans.”
Filippov was excitedly pressing his radio button that rang his aide’s radio — there was no answer. “I will not promise anything, Minister,” Filippov replied, winging it as best he could. He did not want to say he didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t want to admit culpability, either. “Russia will act in its best interests. We will never negotiate or deal that away. Never.” At that moment, his housekeeper opened the door, and Filippov’s aide came rushing in with a thin file. He saw that the TV was on and switched it over to CNN International. Sure enough, there was a remote broadcast from somewhere in Macedonia — it looked like a plane crash.
“What I cannot understand is the attack on the NATO E-3 radar plane,” Schramm went on. “Why did you attack the radar plane? Are you mad? NATO will certainly find out it was Russia, and they will certainly retaliate!”
“We categorically deny any such involvement!” Filippov retorted — it was an almost automatic response to any such allegation, no matter how truthful it really was. But he still gulped in surprise. Someone shot down a NATO radar plane? This was tantamount to an act of war! “What will Germany do, Minister?” Filippov asked cautiously. “You will participate in the investigation, of course. Has Germany already decided to punish Russia?”