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After Vietnam, the pilot ended up in the Caucasus. After the Arctic, the Kuril Islands, and the war in the jungle, Shilin thought the Caucasus was heaven on earth: the promised land, a gift.
He patrolled the Caucasus near Turkey. Turkish and American fighters prowled the area along the border, too. Often the pilot would take off on a paired patrol whenever an American RC-135 Cobra electronic reconnaissance plane took off from a Turkish air base and headed toward the border – a frequent occurrence, practically routine. The planes, divided by the invisible and conditional line of the border, would fly on their parallel courses over the mountainous terrain. Below them was a series of ridges and gorges, forested hilltops in burned brown and yellow, cliffs, and wrinkled gullies resembling f
