“Twenty seconds to impact.” Three seconds later, they heard a second loud blast from outside—the second 5V55K missile had popped out of its launch tube and was following the first on its way to the target. “Second missile away ... fifteen seconds to impact.”

“Stand by to switch to narrow-beam mode ... now.”

The engagement officer switched radar modes. ‘Target acquired in narrow-scan mode ... target locked, sir! Ten seconds to—”

Suddenly the entire command vehicle violently rocked on its eight wheels. The India/Juliett-band radar of the S-300 was carried aboard the same semi-trailer truck as the command unit. The lights flickered, then went out completely. Moments later, a second object struck the vehicle, harder than the first. A burst of fire erupted from the control console. “Evacuate! Now!” the lieutenant shouted. The crew members ran outside just as thick black smoke began billowing out of the command cab.

As the command crew assembled outside, the lieutenant quickly determined the cause of the double explosion—a Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter, just a few kilometers away, was firing guided antitank missiles at the S-300 battery. He realized then that the Mi-24 hadn’t crashed—it had just ducked down below the S-300’s radar coverage, cruised in, and attacked. It was flying perhaps ten meters above the desert, flying at just thirty or forty kilometers an hour, slowly and carefully picking its targets. Occasionally a blast of machine-gun fire erupted from its nose cannon, followed by a streak of fire as its laser-guided missiles sped off their launch rails and hit home.

In seconds, it was over—and the entire S-300 battery, eight launchers and a control/radar vehicle, had been destroyed, and the Mi-24 helicopter simply disappeared into the night sky. Soon, only the sounds of burning vehicles and screaming men could be heard.

King Sayyid Muhammad ibn al-Hasan as-Sanusi, on board die Mi-24 helicopter in the flight engineer’s station, patted the pilot on the shoulders, then turned to the radio console at the engineer’s station behind the cockpit. “Headbanger, Headbanger, this is Lion,” he radioed. “Target Alpha is down, repeat, Alpha is down. Commence your run.” At that moment, he saw a long trail of fire coming from the direction of Zillah Air Base. The bombers were on their way.

He hoped to hell the Megafortress could stop them.

“LADAR coming on.. . now,” Greg Wickland reported.

Seconds later: “LADAR standby” The image frozen in his wide-screen supercockpit display was almost as clear as a sixteen-color photograph. What he saw horrified him: “The bombers—they’re gone.”

“Oh, shit,” George “Zero” Tanaka muttered. He strained to take a look at the supercockpit display. “Looks like two planes still on the base, getting ready for takeoff.”