father's brigade became heroes in World War II, making Palcikas' own rise within the military easy. He rose quickly through the ranks to Colonel, served in the Far East Military District, then in Afghanistan as commander of a tank battalion. Later he was reassigned to the Western Military District after the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. But his career suffered because of the military defeat in Afghanistan, and he was reassigned to the Byelorussian SSR in the Interior Ministry's Troops of the Interior, in charge of a border patrol regiment. The sudden halt in his career affected his outlook on the Soviet Union: what the Soviet Union was turning Lithuania into was not much better than the poverty he saw in Afghanistan. He became a student of Lithuanian history, and his disenchantment with the Soviet occupation of Lithuania grew and peaked in 1989 and 1990 with the bloody massacres

in Riga and Vilnius at the hands of special units of the Soviet Interior Troops called the Black Berets. He resigned his commission in the Soviet Army in 1990 and emigrated to Lithuania.

Upon the independence of Lithuania in mid-1991, he accepted a commission in the Forces of Self-Defense, in the rank of General and Commander in Chief. He named his initial cadre of officers and enlisted volunteers the Iron Wolf Brigade, invoking not only the spirit of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, but the memory of the World War II unit, led by his father, that saved Lithuania.

"No reply, sir," the pilot reported. "Only a warning to stay away."

Palcikas was boiling: "This is my country and my airspace, and no one will tell me what I will do. Hover near that group of vehicles, the one with the flag. Tell the other helicopters to stay by."

"But sir, that appears to be the investigation team chiefs vehicle."

"I said hover near it. About twenty meters upwind and ten meters overhead." Palcikas unstrapped from the copilot's seat and made his way aft. On his way to the cargo section of the small Soviet-made twin-engine Mil-8 assault helicopter, he passed his aide-de-camp and headquarters executive officer, Major Alexei Kolginov, a young, Russian-born infantry officer who had served with Palcikas for many years. "Follow me, Alexei."

"Are we going to-?" And then Kolginov stopped and looked at Palcikas in surprise-his superior had just put a pair of heavy, rough leather gloves on his hands and had unstowed a four-centimeter-thick rope from its overhead storage bin. He checked that it was secure on its anchor hook on the ceiling of the helicopter's cabin. "Sir, what are you-?"

"Just follow me." Palcikas checked his sidearm, a Soviet-made Makaroy TT-33 automatic, then slid open the portside entry door 'and peered outside. Kolginov knew what Palcikas had in mind, and scrambled to put on his gloves and secure his AKSU submachine gun.

The three-star commander of all Byelorussian forces in the western part of his country, General Lieutenant Anton Osipovich Voshchanka, cursed aloud as the Lithuanian assault helicopter moved nearly overhead. It quickly drowned out all voices around him. He grabbed his service cap before it twisted away in the wind, raised his voice, and turned to his commander of detached forces in Lithuania and Kaliningrad, Colonel Oleg Paylovich Gurlo, and yelled, "Get that asshole's tail number and find out who the pilot is! I want him brought before me in thirty minutes!"