Fulcrum Read online

  Fulcrum

  Alexander Mikhaylovich Zuyev

  Malcolm Mcconnell

  He was a Soviet Top Gun—yet left all of the power and glory behind when he engineered the most audacious act of defection in Cold War history. On May 20, 1989, Soviet Air Force Captain Alexander Zuyev escaped from an air base in Soviet Georgia. Under the threat of Russian air defense missiles, and with other fighters in hot pursuit, Zuyev carried out a real-life flight to freedom even more breathtaking then classic works of fiction like The Hunt for Red October and Fire Fox.

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR FULCRUM

  “In the grand tradition of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov…. Anyone who seek to understand the collapse of communism must read this gut-wrenching true book.”

  —Stephen Coonts, author Under Siege

  “Fulcrum is a great story. Alex Zuyev gives us an incredibly clear picture of combat aviation in the Soviet Union, tearing apart the curtain of myth and rumor to show us just how the Russian air force trains and fights.”

  —Larry Bond, author of Vortex

  “Stunning!… I have never encountered a better ‘insider’ book—Fulcrum reads like the very best thrillers, but every word is true. Tough, crisp writing…. Bravo!”

  —Ralf Peters, author of Red Army

  “Alex Zuyev was a brave and talented Russian pilot… [and] one of America’s ‘Secret Weapons’ in the Gulf War. He deserves our respect and admiration—his book is a gripping and dramatic adventure.”

  —Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Eagle pilot, author of Men from Earth

  “Zuyev and McConnell have done us all a great service. Fulcrum is a must-read for anyone who wants to know why the Soviet Union collapsed.”

  — Joseph L. Galloway, senior writer, U.S. News & World Report

  Alexander Zuyev

  with Malcolm McConnell

  FULCRUM

  A Top Gun Pilot’s Escape from the Soviet Empire

  Acknowledgments

  I am pleased to acknowledge with gratitude the many people who have supported me in this project. This book would not have been possible without the help, friendship, and support of the following people:

  Larry Bond, Sergei Sikorsky, Steve Collins, Bill Reesman, Wayne Handley, Vice Admiral Richard M. Dunleavy, Bill Ghana, Don Duncan, Mike Warren, Chuck Brady, John Hansen, Dwight Murray, David North, Sandy Sanders, Barbara Woodbury, David Maybury, Pat Moneymaker, Ken Waiters, Brant James, and all the others who assisted me.

  My special thanks and appreciation goes to:

  Victor Belenko, for surviving his own escape flight, and for giving me advice (even when I didn’t want it!).

  Tom Clancy, for all his insight and know-how.

  Robert Gottlieb and Mel Parker, for taking a chance.

  Malcolm McConnell, for his patience and understanding, even though he didn’t speak Russian.

  Tom Boyd, for teaching me invaluable aviation terms like “sheet hot.”

  Tim, Harry, Ken, and Jan, for their trust and support working with me.

  And, most of all, I am grateful to my mother and brother for their love and support.

  Author’s Note

  Several of my friends and former colleagues described in this book are patriotic officers currently serving in the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In order not to jeopardize their careers, I have disguised some of their actual identities.

  Measurements of weight, distance, and altitude have been converted from metric units to the British/American system. Airspeed is expressed in knots.

  PROLOGUE

  Mikha Tskhakaya “Ruslan” Air Base,

  20 May 1989, 0520 hours

  I pulled the Makarov pistol from the left breast pocket of my leather flight jacket, cocked the action, but did not set the safety as I normally did. There was now a 9mm round in the chamber and seven more in the magazine. The serrated plastic grip felt comfortably familiar. Almost every day of my seven years as a pilot in Frontal Aviation regiments, I had handled the weapon. And I had carefully cleaned it only the day before. I knew I could trust the small automatic to shoot straight, but hoped I would not need to fire it. Slipping the gun into my right front jacket pocket, I strode through the cool dawn toward the duty-alert apron. As I walked, I checked the maintenance buildings and the line of the squadron ready rooms to the left. There was no one in sight.

  I had to hurry. The rising sun was already above the snowy wall of the Caucasus to the east. Ahead, the familiar outline of a soldier wearing a black quilted jacket and floppy southern field hat, an AKM assault rifle slung on his right shoulder, was silhouetted against the flank of the first aircraft. The four MiG-29s in the alert section were parked in two pairs, sharing the two squat generator trucks between their wings. Even trailing engine-start umbilical cables, their canopies, missiles, and instrument probes sheaved in canvas ground covers, the lean, shark-gray aircraft evoked power and speed. Drawing near the planes, I felt the same old excited anticipation that had always gripped me before an important wrestling match. But that emotion was shattered by the bizarre reality of my situation. It was just after dawn on a clear spring morning in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia. In half an hour I would be in Turkey, having escaped from the Soviet Union aboard one of my country’s most advanced fighters.

  But now I had to concentrate on the task at hand: disarming and binding Corporal Chomayev, the alert apron guard standing ahead in the shadows. It would have been simpler to slip up behind him and slit his throat with my thick-bladed Gypsy knife. But I had vowed to complete this escape with no bloodshed. I looked back one last time to the duty-alert building 350 yards behind me. It was still possible that someone there might wake up and sound the alarm, despite the elaborate precautions I had taken. Even with the telephone lines cut, they could use the emergency radio in the control tower. And there was certainly enough time for a resourceful officer in regimental headquarters on the far side of the base to order the runway blocked with fuel trucks or maintenance vans, even though I had already disabled the vehicles down here.

  But I was a fighter pilot trained for combat. I had carefully considered my decision. The time for doubts had passed. It was too late to hide what I had done. Conceivably I could blame food poisoning for the effects of the drug-laced cake I had fed the men of the alert section and the guardhouse. I had chosen that method to incapacitate them because I did not want any of my friends charged with aiding my escape.

  But there would be no way to explain the phone lines I had cut or the armory padlock I had jammed. These were acts of treason. And further undeniable proof of that treason was here in my blue flannel helmet bag that held my handwritten diagrams and specifications of weapons systems and air-combat maneuver tactics. If I were captured before escape, the security investigators of the Osobii Otdel would have ample evidence that my action was a meticulously planned hijacking of an advanced multi-role combat aircraft. Stealing a MiG-29 armed with the newest missiles and electronics and flying it to the West was high treason to the Socialist Motherland.

  There was no way back for me. I stepped around the number four plane and onto the apron. Chomayev stood near the nose of the number three aircraft. I knew he would be worried, prepared for a reprimand from the justifiably angry duty-alert officer. Arriving twenty minutes late to his guard post on the apron could cost a soldier a severe reprimand and an extra detail cleaning the latrine.

  “Chomayev,” I snarled in my best parade-ground voice, “tell me why you were late.”

  The burly Tatar soldier braced his shoulders, but did not come to rigid attention as I had hoped. “Comrade Captain,” he stammered, “it wasn’t my fault. They didn’t wake me up in time.”

  We were only three fe
et apart now, and he still gripped the stock of his Kalashnikov. I could no longer posture. I swung the pistol up and leveled it at Chomayev’s chin.

  “Hands up!” I hissed.

  For a shocked moment, Chomayev glared at me with flat Asian eyes. Then stunned recognition flashed. He knew why I was here. The guard bellowed hoarsely and lunged at me, seizing my right hand and forcing the pistol away from his face.

  It would have been easy to jam the muzzle into the folds of his quilted collar and pull the trigger. But that was murder. No matter how difficult, I intended to complete my escape with a minimum of violence. There had already been too much blood shed in seven decades of Soviet history.

  Chomayev dragged my pistol hand down and to the left, and was savagely twisting back my thumb. I heard the bone crack and saw my thumb jutting at a bad angle. So I dropped the pistol before he managed to injure my wrist. All those years on the wrestling teams at school and the Armavir Academy had tuned my reflexes. I was confident that I could quickly knock Chomayev out and bind him. As the gun fell to the concrete apron, I clubbed Chomayev with my left fist, putting all my force into the blows to strike his bent neck. The AKM rifle slung on his right shoulder was swinging clumsily, blocking his attempt to fend off the blows.

  He loosened his grip on my arm. I grabbed the front of his jacket with both hands and tried to drag him down so I could kneel on his chest and subdue him. His assault rifle clattered away to the left, and I pinned the weapon with my boot, then kicked it under the nose of the aircraft. Chomayev’s wide-brimmed hat went flying as he struggled against me.

  He was too strong for me to drag down by brute force, so I slipped sideways, jamming my right shoulder against his chest while shifting my grip to his right sleeve and collar to flip him. This was one of the most basic and effective maneuvers in mat wrestling. But there was no mat here to protect my opponent from injury.

  He flipped perfectly and came down hard, flat on his back. I heard the breath whistle from his open mouth. He should have been knocked out, but his thick, padded coat protected him.

  I was on top of Chomayev now, about to club him senseless. But he was too fast. He rolled away and was suddenly on top of me, his fists pounding. I now realized that Chomayev knew something about self-defense. He was a good barracks-room amateur, not highly skilled. That made him dangerously unpredictable.

  I flailed my legs and twisted away. Struggling to my feet, I dragged him up from the concrete. It was better to fight him upright. He had me by the front of my jacket now, and we grappled like two drunks in a street fight. But I controlled the situation, forcing him four or five yards in front of the aircraft, away from the rifle.

  Chomayev had the front of my jacket twisted stubbornly in both his hands. No matter how I jerked and pushed him, he would not let go. I tried to trip him, but he dodged away. I had to drag him down again to break that grip. This was an awkward way to drop an opponent, but he gave me no other opening.

  Too late, I saw the maneuver was not going to work. As I bent, putting my strength into dragging him down, Chomayev reared back. And when he finally fell off balance, his weight crashed onto my shoulders. My forehead smashed into the cold concrete. For a moment I saw a pinwheeling explosion of neon-yellow stars before my eyes. I had almost been knocked unconscious.

  Fighting the dizziness, I pushed Chomayev underneath me and pounded his face with three hammerblows. But my right was not working well. The thumb would not close into a proper fist. I knew that I was weakened by the blow to my head and that I had to finish this fight quickly, before Chomayev got lucky and did some real damage.

  I dragged him back to his feet, hoping to body-throw him again so that his head would smash into the apron even harder than mine had.

  Chomayev responded by grabbing my jacket again with both hands. I held his collar as best I could with my right hand and slammed at his face with my left fist. The shoddy material of the coat collar tore away, and Chomayev could dodge some of my blows.

  “Litovkin!” Chomayev screamed, calling for his friend in the guardroom of the maintenance control tower one hundred yards to the left. But I had checked the guard post and knew it was empty. “Litovkin… help me!” Chomayev yelled again. Each time I struck him, Chomayev yelled for his friend.

  This young Tatar soldier would simply not go down. I tried to strike him with a karate punch in a vulnerable spot, the sternum, throat, or the notch where the bridge of his nose joined his skull. But my left hand was clumsy, and when I tried to strike with my right, my damaged thumb would not move into a proper fist. Despite the blows, Chomayev clung tightly to my leather jacket.

  I kicked his knees viciously several times to weaken him. Still, he would not back off so that I could hit him a crippling blow. This fight was not going to end without bloodshed. I dug my left hand into the front pocket of my jacket and managed to flip open the blade of my Gypsy knife. But I had to pull the knife free in order to lock the blade.

  Chomayev saw the blade flash and again bellowed hoarsely like a startled animal. He broke free and dove backward for his rifle. I dropped the knife and scrambled to the right to retrieve my pistol. As I bent to snatch up the Makarov, I heard Chomayev cocking the bolt of his AKM.

  I rose and spun in one motion, bringing up my pistol in a two-handed combat grasp to sight on his chest. He was only three yards from me, crouching beneath the nose of the number three fighter, raising his rifle toward me. I saw the muzzle swing to level at my chest. But Chomayev was not braced well to fire, and the AKM always pulled hard right. In survival school we had been taught to sway like a serpent to confuse an enemy firing at close range. I swayed to my right just as Chomayev fired. The muzzle flashed with a short tongue of red flame. The burst cut through the air to my left, the bullets rasping loudly as they passed over my shoulder.

  I aimed at his torso and fired deliberately, cupping my right hand with my left to steady the gun. He was so close that I kept both eyes open as I fired. This was not a pistol range. I swayed to the left now as Chomayev swung his rifle muzzle back, correcting his fire.

  Then Chomayev screamed as one of my bullets hit. He rolled over under the number three plane, but managed to fire a second, shorter burst. The bolt slide of my pistol sprang open. I had fired eight rounds and the magazine was empty. This was no place to reload.

  I dashed around the nose of the airplane and sprinted toward the tail of the number two aircraft. Chomayev pivoted under the nose of the third plane and fired another burst. His aim was off. The bullets howled all around me, several whipping between my legs as I ran. Then my upper right biceps was seared by a hot knife of pain. A bullet had clipped me.

  The plane to my left was hit several times in the nose and left wingroot. Jet fuel leaked to the concrete. But I knew there was no danger of explosion because the tanks had been purged with inert gas. Reaching the tail of the second lane, I was past Chomayev’s field of fire. I stopped and reloaded my pistol with the spare magazine.

  Chomayev was out of sight. I knew he was wounded, maybe fatally. But I had no time to waste. He had fired a full thirty-round magazine. And the alert staff in the operations control tower behind me must have heard the noise, as had those men still awake in the duty-alert building next door to the tower.

  I would fly the number one plane, the aircraft furthest from the ramp guard, four hundred yards to my left. Dashing behind the fighter’s tail, I turned and ducked under the right wing. I had to work fast but carefully to prepare the plane for takeoff. One mistake now could mean the end. I bent at the right main landing gear and dragged the heavy red steel wheel chock away from the tire. Despite the blow to my head, I was thinking clearly. If I left the chock here on the ground, Chomayev might manage to sneak back and replace it on the wheel while I was up in the cockpit. The wheel chock had tempered steel claws that would dig into the pitted concrete of the apron, anchoring me in place. So I tossed the chock up onto the right wing, too high for Chomayev to recover.

  I scurried for
ward to the big rectangular inlet of the right engine, which was protected by a tan nylon ground cover. I jerked the pins from the restraining cord and stripped away the cover, then ducked under the nose to pull off the cover on the left engine inlet. After dragging the wheel chock from the left main gear, I found my right arm was going numb and I didn’t have enough strength to lift the heavy steel chock to the wing. Instead I tossed it backward, clanking on the concrete apron, toward the tail.

  As I bent, I saw the long centerline belly tank that held a ton of fuel. Every jet fighter pilot valued fuel. But I knew I would have to drop the tank soon after takeoff. The 30mm cannon in the left wingroot could not be fired while the fighter carried the external tank.

  And I certainly intended to fire the cannon. This escape was much more than one man’s personal liberation. I planned to avenge the innocent Georgians killed and maimed in the brutal Tbilisi massacre forty days before. After takeoff I would loop back on a cannon run and destroy twelve of the regiment’s MiG-29s parked in a neat line on the ramp to my left.

  As I ducked back under the nose, I saw the R-73 and R-27 missiles slung on the pylons beneath the wings. The missiles’ radar-homing and heat-seeking sensors were capped with canvas ground caps, and the pylon release points were locked with pins. I had no time to prepare the missiles. If any aircraft from this base managed to take off in pursuit, or if another regiment launched interceptors after me, I would have to depend on the plane’s 30mm cannon for self-defense.

  The main avionics Pitot tube thrusting from the nose radar dome like a medieval lance was still shrouded with its ground cover, which was linked with an elastic cord to the red aluminum cap of the infrared search and track sensor dome forward of the canopy. I tugged hard on the Pitot tube cover, but it would not rip free.