A Time for Patriots

“Sounds like my early days in celestial navigation in the B-52,” Patrick said as he began a turn to the new bearing. “If I was within four miles of actual position after an hour of taking celestial sextant shots, I was ‘king of the wing.’ ”

“‘Celestial navigation’?” Leo remarked. “You mean, navigation using the sun, moon, and stars? Are you kidding me?”

“Long before the days of GPS, we flew bombers all over the world using nothing but a calibrated telescope shoved up a hole on top of a bomber or tanker, celestial precomputation tables, a watch, and a compass,” Patrick said. “Just two generations removed from Sir Francis Drake circumnavigating the globe, and one generation from Curtis LeMay in World War Two, leading hundreds of bombers across the Atlantic. The idea was to get close enough to your target to see it visually, or at least on radar, if you had it and it was working. We’re doing the very same thing now. Relay the coordinates of the center of that circle and we’ll have the Hasty team head that way.”

“Battle Mountain Hasty copies those coordinates,” Bellville radioed after John had transmitted the coordinates on the FM repeater channel. A moment later: “Looks like it’s at the southeastern edge of the Townsend ranch. Can you give them a call and get us permission to go on their land, Base?”

“Roger that,” Spara replied.

“We’ll get him this time,” Slotnick said as they rolled out on the new heading. Leo began a series of visual scans, starting at the top of the window he was looking out of, then traveling down toward the bottom of the window in a series of stop-look-scan, stop-look-scan segments, then starting at the top again but shifted slightly in the direction of flight. Stopping and looking at the ground for brief moments was the best way to spot a target, because in continuous scanning, the human brain would fill in fine details of the terrain, so important details such as debris could be missed.

But after thirty minutes of searching both bearings they had computed, Patrick could tell Slotnick was getting frustrated. “How’s it looking, Leo?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Leo said. “It’s clear as a bell, there’s no vegetation or anything blocking the view, but I don’t see anything — no smoke, no signs of disturbed ground, nothing.”

“We’re losing the ELT,” John said. “The needle on the DF is just flopping around. Maybe we should go to the center of the grid and search from there.”

“I’m not ready to give up on it just yet, John,” Patrick said. “I think we had a good position. It’s the best clue we’ve got. How are you doing back there, Leo? Need a break yet?”

“Five minutes would be good,” Slotnick replied, rubbing his eyes.

“I’ll start a right-expanding box search around the intersection of those two bearings,” Patrick said. “You got it, John.” John programmed the GPS receiver with the starting coordinates and a right-expanding-box-search pattern, then started his own search scan out the right window as Patrick reversed course and began flying the box-search pattern with shallow right-hand turns — Patrick had to make shallower turns because otherwise the lowered right wing would block John’s view out the window.

Meanwhile, the ground team was approaching the original search reference point. The ground was muddy but drivable using four-wheel drive. “Okay, guys, we’re coming up on the original intersection spot,” David Bellville said to the others in the van. “The air team reports that the ELT signal is fading and might not be reliable, so we’re going to proceed to the intersection spot and get ready to respond if the air team makes contact. While we’re waiting, we’ll search for any signs of a crash. Let’s get sunscreened up and ready to go fast and hard.”

Just then, they heard on the repeater radio: “Battle Mountain Hasty Team, this is CAP 2722, we’re starting an orbit over a possible objective sighting, stand by.” A moment later, John read off the geographic coordinates from the plane’s GPS navigation device.

Bellville quickly plotted the coordinates on his county map. “About seven miles northeast,” he said. “The Andorsen ranch. Do we have standing permission to go on their property, or do we need to give them a call first?”

“We have standing authorization,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s offered to lend us some of his ranch hands in the past — a stand-up guy. Want to head that way?”

“A-firm,” Bellville said. He checked his portable GPS receiver. “Need a steer to the nearest gate, Fid?”

“I know every inch of this desert, Dave — I don’t need no stinkin’ GPS.”

Bellville just shrugged and shook his head — he could never tell when Fitzgerald was kidding or not.

Several minutes later they reached the gate plotted on Fitzgerald’s chart, only to find it padlocked. “It’s locked!” Fitzgerald exclaimed. “Since when does Andorsen lock his remote gates?”

Bellville read the large sign mounted next to the gate. “It’s not just a ‘No Trespassing’ sign — he’s warning intruders of the use of deadly force! What’s going on?”