With the destruction of Engels Air Base, Gennadiy shifted his focus from flying bombers and, with the help of his father, attended the Alexander Mozhaysky Military Space Academy in St. Petersburg, with a slot already reserved for him at the Cosmonaut Training Center at Star City. But his training there too was interrupted. An American bomber unit attacked a Russian defensive antiaircraft battery in Turkmenistan . . .
. . . and, it was soon discovered, the raid was planned and ordered by Major General Patrick McLanahan, again without proper authority from his superior officers.
That raid, Gennadiy knew, had pushed his father over the edge. President Gryzlov recalled all bomber crewmembers and sent them to Belaya Air Base in Siberia for training. Gennadiy was able to use his father’s influence to stay at Mozhaysky, but he carefully followed the activities of the vast array of long-range aircraft at Belaya and other bases like Irkutsk, Aginskoye, and Yakutsk, including sleek Tupolev-22 Backfires, reliable turboprop-powered Tupolev-95 Bears, supersonic Tupolev-160 Blackjacks, and Ilyushin-62 aerial refueling tankers. Something big, Gennadiy knew, was going to happen.
In late summer 2004, it did. Waves of Russian long-range bombers attacked American air defense and early-warning radar sites in Alaska and Canada with AS-17 “Krypton” antiradar missiles and AS-16 “Kickback” supersonic attack missiles, then launched AS-X-19 “Koala” long-range hypersonic cruise missiles with micro-yield nuclear warheads against intercontinental-ballistic-missile launch control centers, bomber bases, and command and control bases in the United States. The United States lost almost its entire land-based ballistic missile force, a large portion of its strategic bomber fleet, and tens of thousands of military personnel, family members, and civilians in the blink of an eye.
It soon became known as the “American Holocaust.”
Gennadiy was happy and pleased with the bravery of his fellow heavy-bomber crewmembers—many of whom were lost over the United States and Canada—and proud of his father for finally striking a decisive blow against the Americans. He hoped McLanahan was under one of those nuclear warheads. In the meantime, all training at Mozhaysky was canceled, and Gennadiy was ordered to report to Aginskoye Air Base in southern Russia to stand up a new bomber regiment where more Tupolev-160 Blackjack bombers that were being refurbished and returned to service would be sent. Russia was beginning to go on a war footing, and Gennadiy was happy that he was not going to be stuck in school while other brave Russian aviators would be going toe-to-toe against the Americans.
The preparations for war with the United States had hardly begun when the unthinkable happened. Yakutsk Air Base in Siberia was overrun and captured by a small force of American commandos, and the United States began flying long-range bombers and aerial refueling tankers from the base. Within days, American bombers were roaming most of Russia from Yakutsk, hunting down and destroying Russian mobile intercontinental-missile launchers and underground launch control centers with ground-penetrating precision-guided cruise missiles and bombs.
Gennadiy was not surprised to learn that the bomber force was led by none other than Patrick McLanahan.
President Anatoliy Gryzlov was forced to make a fateful decision: to destroy Yakutsk before the American fleet could devastate the mobile ballistic-missile force, the mainstay of Russia’s strategic deterrent. He ordered bombers to launch nuclear-tipped AS-X-19 Koala cruise missiles against the American-occupied base, without first warning the Russians still being held there. Although most of the cruise missiles were shot down by American air-to-air missiles and by a sophisticated airborne laser system installed on a few B-52 bombers, a few managed to hit the base, killing hundreds, Russians and Americans alike, who were unlucky enough not to make it to hardened underground shelters.
Gennadiy felt sorry for his father, who had been forced to make an awful decision and kill Russians to prevent the widespread destruction of the nation’s prized ICBM force. He wanted so badly to be with his father and lend him some moral support, but the elder Gryzlov was undoubtedly safe and secure in one of over a dozen alternate command centers in western and central Russia. Gennadiy’s greatest concern now was for his base and his regiment, and he ordered all nonessential personnel into shelters, fearing an American counterattack, and an acceleration of preparations for the Blackjack bombers that would hopefully be arriving shortly.