Late that night I pulled my kitchen curtain and sat before my tape recorder. It was time for me to explain my decision to my family, my colleagues, and the people of my country. I knew the KGB would search this apartment, and wanted them to know exactly why I had taken this drastic step. Investigators at many different echelons would hear this tape, and I hoped reformers in both the Air Force and the KGB would unofficially spread news of my message. I also wanted to make it clear that I had acted alone.
I clicked on the machine and spoke, addressing my words to “the people of Russia and the country called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
I began by stating that many would wonder why a veteran Soviet fighter pilot, “ready to give his life for his country and the ideals of Marxism-Leninism,” had taken this drastic step. Then I suggested they ignore whatever official explanation the authorities gave and to listen to my own version. “I have come to hate Socialism, the system into which I was born and raised.” I explained that I had believed too strongly in that system, but that now all I felt for it was “hatred and contempt.” But I did feel pity and compassion for all those still suffering under this totalitarian system that had already massacred millions of innocent people and was obviously intent on continuing the slaughter. “Communism has created the greatest prison in the world,” I said. And Marxism-Leninism had ruined the country’s economy and enslaved hundreds of millions simply to support a criminal clique that wrapped itself in the protection of the Party.
I spoke about the sad state of the Soviet military, in which young recruits and old veterans alike found release only in suicide. I exposed the hypocrisy of Gorbachev’s “defensive” force reduction.
Then I detailed what I knew of the Tbilisi massacre and the elaborate efforts in the military to suppress the truth. My flight, I said, had been planned for May 19, forty days after that horrible carnage. I spoke directly to the Organs of State Security, the KGB and the MVD, and to the special units under their command.
“Fellows, what are you defending, the people? If so, why do you herd them like cattle to be slaughtered with gas and shovels?” I asked them if they were prepared to become as cruel as Stalin’s butchers.
“Wait before you pull the trigger,” I concluded. “Listen to the voices of the demonstrators. Think before you pull the pin from that gas grenade. The consequences you face are more frightening than ever before in our history.”
I clicked the switch of the tape recorder. The room fell silent.
Then I started the machine for the last time. “My dear mother,” I said, “please forgive me. I have to do this. I have no way out. I love you all.”
As I removed the tape and put away the recorder, I again carefully reviewed all the steps I had taken to protect my family from official retribution after my escape. First, I had kept them completely ignorant of my plans. All my mother knew was that I was trying to obtain a discharge from the Air Force. My family had no idea of the drastic action I was about to take. So they would be absolutely convincing during their inevitable questioning by the KGB. There was nothing I could do to prevent this interrogation, but I was confident that it would not be especially harsh. The record of my movements over the last several months was clear; I had spent very little time with my family, so they were obviously not coconspirators.
More to the point, the days of the KGB’s ruthless Stalinist methods were over forever. With glasnost, the Organs of State Security could no longer simply dispatch their Black Raven vans in the night to haul innocent people away to the gulag. The independent press, especially the popular investigative magazine Argumenti i Facti, which had supported the work of the Memorial organization so effectively, would be certain to publicize any illegal retribution against my family.
And I was also confident that the United States government would intervene on their behalf. Gorbachev desperately needed the support of the West. He simply could not afford to reveal a Stalinist side to his government, especially after the Tbilisi massacre. And, once I was safely in American custody, my first priority would be to appeal for my family’s protection, and, if possible, for their emigration to the West. So, as I carefully planned for the most dangerous and difficult military operation of my life, my family’s welfare was one problem I felt certain would be successfully resolved.
I climbed down the narrow steps from the control tower at 2330 hours that Friday night, leaving the duty dispatcher and a communications sergeant in the greenhouse. The regiment had just completed a three-hour night flying exercise, the last training of a hard ten-day stretch, which had been marred by the poor flying weather that morning. Now the sky had cleared. A quarter-moon was rising over the snowy ridges to the east. The weather forecast for the morning called for thin, scattered ground fog, but no wind or overcast.
I would make my attempt in less than six hours, at dawn on Saturday, May 20. Appropriately Antonovich had just declared Saturday a holiday. At this moment he and most of the regiment’s pilots were in the sauna, drinking beer. I hoped they became very sleepy.
I strolled across to the concrete-block duty-alert building. Officially I had about seven more hours to serve before the section was relieved at 0700 Saturday.
A lanky Ukrainian sergeant sat at the operations alert desk. He hardly glanced up when I returned from the control tower. The first door off the hall was the officers’ dormitory. I peered inside, noting the double row of empty cots. As I had planned, my colleagues would be in the dayroom.
The door of the armory was made of steel and framed with heavy girders. Inside I touched the twin racks of AKM assault rifles and tested the padlock securing them. I opened the safe and deposited the bundle of secret intelligence folders the duty officer carried with him to the control tower during training operations.
In the hall I pulled shut the steel armory door and snapped the heavy padlock. Then I tapped the pocket of my flying jacket to feel the narrow file I would use later to jam this lock.
The officers’ dayroom was brightly lit, cheerful. The television and videocassette deck stood like an altar at the far end of the room, beyond the pilots’ roster blackboard. The two pilots on duty alert tonight were Major Vladimir Petrukhin and Captain Vladimir Voldeyev. They sat uncomfortably in easy chairs, dressed in their tight stratospheric pressure suits. Petrukhin nodded coolly as I entered the room. Voldeyev was a good fellow, not the world’s greatest fighter pilot, but a steady wingman. Typically he accepted the drudge work. Tonight he was laboring diligently on the next week’s flight schedule.
Petrukhin lounged in his chair, leafing through a sports magazine with colorful pictures. The three maintenance officers were grouped before the television, watching the late edition of Vremya from Moscow. Judging from the clean tea glasses around the electric stainless-steel samovar, they had just come back from helping secure the regiment’s aircraft for the weekend. Now they were waiting for the Friday night broadcast ofVzglyad, “Glance,” the new investigative show that was scheduled to report on the findings of the official investigation of the Tbilisi massacre.
“Zuyev,” Dmitri Karpov, the maintenance captain, called, seeing me enter, “where the hell are the videos? You promised something new tonight.”
I grinned, held up my empty hands, and shook my head. “Be patient,” I answered. “I just got out of the tower.”
Following my plan that week, I had bent regulations to rent another new Western movie from Malhaz. The duty section had already been treated to Sweet Dreams and a sexy French farce about a bigamist airline pilot. “I’ll go fetch the new movie as soon as Colonel Antonovich is in the sauna,” I added.
The two officers closest to the television groaned in unison. The news from Moscow had just ended with an announcement that Vzglyad had been canceled on the orders of the Central Committee, pending the “completion” of the Tbilisi investigation.
“Shitmouths!” Karpov cursed. “Glasnost, unlike turds, does not seem to float across the Moscow River.”
I looked at my watch. “I’ll go get us something decent to watch.”
“Not too decent,” Voldeyev called.
When I came back through the doorway of the duty-alert dayroom carrying the cake, the men cheered. This was a much better treat than a video. I cleared a place on the samovar table and sliced the cake into generous pieces. But I kept my eye on the right-hand comer, where I had placed the largest ripe strawberry. Before I invited the men to help themselves I took the untainted wedge for myself.
Major Sergei Stupnikov came in to check the flight schedule with Lieutenant Voldeyev. I could see the major had drunk a few beers in the sauna. His face was flushed, and his normal hearty laugh was boisterous. He
