Moments before our impact with the collector column of the storm drain at Cam Ranh, the formerly American but now Russian air force base, the radio operator, Nikolai Onopriyenko, had been sitting behind my co-pilot, tapping out the Morse code report of our landing to the headquarters of the fifteenth flotilla of the Pacific fleet. He had tried to crawl under the flight engineer’s seat to the navigator in the nose of the aircraft – obviously he wanted to see how I was going to land the plane on only half of the main landing gear. To him, it was more terrifying to remain ignorant of what was happening than to look the danger in the face. He had almost reached the cabin when the shock of the impact smashed threw him against the navigation equipment.

      …..My co-pilot is sitting without his head, amputated along with the headrest of his seat, by the ragged lining of the fuselage. His head, lifeless and immobile, held in place on the radio operator’s worktable by the headset, is cocked over to me and blank eyes stare back at me with what looks like contempt and shock. He didn’t get the chance to tell me how much the Vietnamese paid for transport on our plane from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh…

      Before takeoff, the flight engineer succeeded in cramming thirty locals into the pressurized cabin designed for ten without permission to transport them.

      On our way to the former capital of South Vietnam we were reassigned to go to the port city of Haiphong to pick up cargo, which had come by sea from the Soviet Union. Knowing that landing at this intermediate stop was going to cause no end of unpleasantness – like a long prison term for using USSR Ministry of Defense property to transport illegals – I quickly hatched a Plan C, as there was no Plan B. I sent the co-pilot, Sergey Kovalenko, to compile a list of passengers and get the signature of the senior aviation supervisor of the Hanoi International Airport military sector. Not a small task, and it would be costly. The normally stern Major Smirnov was ready to sign anything if the price was right, so I was sure that my assistant would be able to come to a meeting of the minds with him.

      Fifteen minutes later Sergey returned. He looked very upset.

      “What happened?” I asked.

      Breathless, he replied. “For his signature Smirnov wants twenty-five percent of the money collected from the Vietnamese.”

      “Yes. And how much would that be?” I took the handfuls of bills thrust at me with no time to count it.

      “Let’s say, you don’t want to know. This escapade of yours is definitely not going to be a money maker.” I groaned. Takeoff was imminent and I decided to deal with the financial questions after returning from the mission.

      …But now Kovalenko wouldn’t be saying anything to me or any military investigator.

      Rescuers run towards the plane from all directions. Oh won’t they be surprised to find my precious human cargo. But why were they all so quiet back there? Circling to land I had drained the fuel from the wing and fuselage tanks almost down to dry, precisely the reason we didn’t explode on impact. So while the command cabin is a twisted mess, the passenger cabin should be fine. Right? But they aren’t making a peep. It was strange. Well, to hell with them.

      Rescuers are all around now trying to direct my broken carcass out through the twisted metal. All I can really see, clearly that is, is a need to recall just how it was that I got myself into this shit-hole – both literally and figuratively. Memories are a bad sign. Clearly my brain has concluded that this organism will not survive and has decided to review the most significant episodes of my squandered life.

      Chapter 1

      Yelizovo Airport on the Kamchatka Peninsula met me with a warm wind and drizzle. With October drawing to a close, frosts were already reported elsewhere in the middle latitudes of Russia – but here on the peninsula there were still leaves on the trees, though only yellow and red. Visible across the contrails flowing off the wing of the IL-62 commercial liner, birds that had not yet departed for the south flocked low in the sky, perfecting their formation flight skills. It seemed a fitting introduction to my first posting immediately after graduating from the Navy’s Aviation College. I hoped I would soon be up there with the birds, doing what I was destined to do: fly. They, like me, are preparing for a long journey.

      The thought of the birds preoccupied my musings as I walked along the pedestrian walkway from the airport building to the headquarters of my new squadron.

      The officer on duty, a grimy captain, giant of a man, met me in the hall of the one-story fifties-era building and accompanied me to the reception room of the commander of the rocket carrier squadron. Behind a worn but sturdy oak desk sat a young and quite beautiful sergeant. Dressed in a cream blouse, a black necktie and a black skirt, she seemed somehow out of place in this remote station. Yet, visible in the space between the two columns of the desk her slender legs, crossed provocatively, offered up a most unexpected welcome. The officer accompanying me exchanged a few words with her, none of which I paid the slightest attention to as my thoughts were on the hemline of her skirt. Heeding my hungry gaze she lifted the telephone receiver and then, giving me inglorious look in return, reported my arrival to the commander.

      The captain nudged me with his elbow and whispered, “Don’t get your hopes too high. She has bigger fish to fry, if you get my drift…”

      The girl hung up the phone, silently nodded us toward the commander’s door, drumming her slender fingers on the keys of her typewriter.

      From the commander’s office I came out as a co-pilot of Commander Major Gribov’s crew. The co-pilot of an old rocket carrier, an outdated TU-16, with God knows what designation. But nobody had offered me anything better. I spent four long years flying in this position, whiling away my bachelor existence in wild drinking bouts with my coworkers and love adventures with the garrison beauties. Unfortunately, there were no commander’s secretaries among them. It was rumored that the girl was not merely an excellent typist, but had many other talents as well.

      I could have flown as a co-pilot another three or four years, but my commander had served in this garrison too long, and no longer considered it necessary to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. Assuming that he had the right to say whatever he felt like, he provoked a scandal with his bravado. It gave me the opportunity to get away from the fatal triangle of the card table, strangers’ beds, and bar counters.

      It happened that during a typical drinking bout Major Gribov told his friends a harmless anecdote, which was essentially an account of a conversation