But then, just as his spirit was waning to the point of surrender, he looked out the cockpit window. One of the soldiers had brought an American flag out onto the playa so Carl could see the wind direction and strength. He reached behind the copilot’s seat and withdrew his own flag: the flag of the Knights of the True Republic of America. It was a Stars and Stripes flag but with the coiled snake from the Gadsden flag, the original flag conceived by South Carolina army officer Christopher Gadsden and adopted by the colonial American Navy and Marine Corps, in the stripes field. But instead of a coiled timber rattlesnake shaking its rattle and warning others to stay away as on the Gadsden flag, the flag of the True Republic of America showed the rattlesnake striking. The symbology was plain: those who carried this flag would no longer be warning our enemies not to oppose us, but its followers were ready to attack.
The persons he was working for weren’t members of the Knights of the True Republic, but it was clear that they shared the same ideas and vision, and he was happy to contribute his flying skills for them. There were armies of men, women, and even children throughout the West, willing to risk their liberty and even their lives to stand under the Knights’ flag, willing to do whatever it took to wake up a comatose American public, warn them of the danger of those bureaucrats and politicians who wanted more government and more taxation, and call on others to follow them into battle against those who were driving the nation into the ground. But it was not enough to rally around the flag — someone had to carry it into battle.
This flag was speciaclass="underline" he had fashioned it out of material from old uniforms. He hated to soil it with his own blood and vomit, but a flag carried into battle would naturally be soiled with the stain of battle. The important thing was not to make sure the flag stayed clean, but make sure that the world, and especially the enemy, saw the flag at the front of an advancing and angry army. That was his mission: to carry the flag in the Knights of the True Republic of America’s next and greatest offensive.
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.
“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.”
“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.’ ”