A Time for Patriots

He started the right engine of the King Air, manipulating the controls more by rote memory and feel than by sight, then taxied forward onto the playa. It even seemed as if the winds cooperated and died down right at that moment so he had his choice of which way to go, so he decided to head directly northwest toward his objective. Making sure he didn’t apply any brakes so he wouldn’t drive the nosewheel into the sand, Carl smoothly advanced the throttles and pulled the yoke all the way back to his stomach with trembling muscles. The nosewheel popped off the playa, helping the big turboprop accelerate. As soon as the King Air left the ground at best-angle-of-climb airspeed, Carl pushed the nose forward, flying just a few feet above the playa in ground effect, being buoyed by the plane’s wingtip vortices reflecting off the ground. He retracted the landing gear, staying in ground effect until reaching normal climb speed, then raised the nose, incrementally retracted flaps, and performed a normal climb.

His mission was finally under way. It might be his final mission, but, he reminded himself, it was the first for the Knights of the True Republic of America.

Northwest of Battle Mountain, Nevada

That same time

“We lucked out — I’m still getting an ELT,” John de Carteret said on intercom. He had set the L-Tronics emergency beacon locator to search for both VHF and UHF beacon signals and was monitoring a tiny needle mounted atop the glare shield. The GPS navigator — an older model, not updated for several years, but with the essential CAP info still valid — showed a series of rectangles with numbers designating their grid identification. “Ten miles to the grid entry point.”

“Good deal,” Patrick said. He pressed the radio transmit button on his control yoke and spoke: “Battle Mountain Base, CAP 2722 on Romeo-Seventeen, five minutes to grid entry, still receiving an ELT. Do you want us to start homing or continue to the entry point? Over.”

“CAP 2722, Battle Mountain Base, start homing right away,” Rob Spara radioed back. “I’d hate to lose the signal and not get a good bearing to it. We’ll log you in the grid at this time and turning onto an ELT bearing.”

“CAP 2722, roger,” Patrick said. On intercom: “I’m descending to fifty-five hundred, crew, flaps ten, fifteen inches,” reciting the power settings and flight-control settings aloud for everyone’s information. “Let’s go get ’em, John.”

“Roger that,” John said. “Right fifteen degrees.” He copied the latitude and longitude readouts from the GPS receiver, marked the coordinates on her sectional chart, took the magnetic heading from the compass once Patrick rolled out, matched the magnetic heading to a nearby radio navaid compass rose, and drew a line on his chart. That was the first search bearing — their target was somewhere along that line on the chart.

Unfortunately, the ELT signal was not very strong, and the directional needle refused to stay steady. Patrick made a few course corrections, trying to average out the swings in the directional indications, but it still refused to stay in the center of the dial. He made a few adjustments in the signal gain and volume, trying to get the needle to stay steady, then shook his head in frustration. “I’m chasing that needle too much and not getting a true bearing,” he said. “Let’s try a wing shadow and see if we can get a bearing.” He made a slight right turn so Leo could clear for traffic on the left, then said, “Coming left.”

“Clear left,” Leo said.

Patrick began a fifteen-degree bank left turn, and they all listened to the emergency locator beacon’s PING!… PING!… PING!

sound. Just before completing a circle, the signal stopped. As they continued the turn, the signal returned. The Cessna’s wing blocked the ELT’s signal from reaching the antenna atop the plane, which indicated that the ELT was somewhere off the right wing when the signal went dead. “Got it,” John said. “Bearing zero-five-zero.”

“Roger that,” Patrick said. “Zero-five-zero.” He turned to that heading, and both John and Leo searched out their windows. John punched up the GPS coordinates, marked the spot on his chart, then drew a line corresponding to the wing-shadow bearing to the ELT. “Let’s get this sucker, guys.”

But after ten minutes on that heading, nearing the edge of the grid, they hadn’t seen a thing. “I’ll go south and we’ll try another wing shadow before that ELT dies,” Patrick said. “Coming right.” He flew five minutes on a southerly heading, then set up another orbit.

The signal faded again — much quicker this time, indicating that the ELT’s battery was quickly dying — and John computed another bearing: “Now I have three-zero-zero bearing to the ELT, Patrick,” he said. He drew a large circle on his sectional chart where his two bearing lines crossed. “It’s there, plus or minus five miles.”