Short Season Read online

  Short

  Season

  Short

  Season

  A Novel by DJ Scott

  Copyright 2018 by David Scott

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

  including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other

  electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written

  permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations

  embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial

  uses permitted by copyright law. For permission

  requests, please address

  SEXTANT PRESS

  Suite 278

  2531 Jackson Av

  Ann Arbor, MI 48103

  Published 2018 by SEXTANT PRESS

  Printed in the United States of America

  20 19 18 1 2 3 4

  ISBN 978-1-943290-78-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018905783

  For Detachment 11

  Surgical Company A

  A note about time: Each chapter shows the time in both Universal Coordinated Time, or Z time, as well as the local time. The following time zones appear:

  IOT India Chagos Time (Z +6)

  MST Moscow Standard Time (Z +4)

  AST Arabia Standard Time (Z +3)

  CEST Central European Summer Time (Z +2)

  BST British Summer Time (Z +1)

  EST Eastern Standard Time (Z -5)

  EDT Eastern Daylight Time (Z -4)

  CDT Central Daylight Time (Z -5)

  PDT Pacific Daylight Time (Z -7)

  Prologue

  February 1, 1991, 1745Z (2345 IOT)

  Diego García, Indian Ocean

  Major Kerry Simpson had just completed the pre-flight inspection of his B-52G Stratofortress, which meant examining every control surface, every tire, all of the external ordnance, and each of the eight aging Pratt and Whitney TF-33 engines, all the while working in the tropical humidity of remote Diego Garcia. Drenched with sweat, but satisfied that everything they could check had been checked; Simpson, his co-pilot Jumbo Loewe, and his crew climbed aboard the big bomber and began their pre engine-start check list.

  By time they were strapped in, five hours had passed since the mission briefing. As operations officer for the 233rd Bomb Squadron, 2nd Bomb Wing, Simpson had given the briefing himself. The squadron’s other mission, a three aircraft strike on Iraqi Republican Guard positions deployed north of Kuwait City was more interesting. His was to target a new collection of vehicles, some armored, parked around a group of concrete block buildings just north of the Iraqi border and dispersed over several acres where no military activity had been previously observed. During the rest of pre-flight and engine run up, Simpson, Jumbo, and their EW officer, a sharp young Lieutenant named Ethan Brandt, reviewed everything they knew about the target, which wasn’t much. He and his crew were basically blowing up a parking lot.

  The preflight complete, all engines running perfectly, the vast array of instruments all nominal, and electronic systems showing no faults, Simpson called the tower and requested permission to taxi. The controller held them for just a minute while a huge C-5 Galaxy cleared the taxiway, and then let Simpson taxi and hold at the southwest end of to the island’s single runway. They swung into position and the tower cleared them for takeoff.

  “Air Force 6058, rolling.” Simpson and Loewe both grabbed the eight throttles and pushed them to the stops. Burdened by almost twenty tons of ordnance the bird crept forward at first, but then gained speed. With 12,000 feet of runway in front of him, Simpson wasn’t worried about finding flying speed, even though he was now racing straight towards the Indian Ocean. Long before he ran out of runway, he pulled back on the yoke and the big bomber climbed gently into the night.

  At eight thousand feet they passed through low clouds and into a clear, star-filled sky. Simpson engaged the autopilot and relaxed for the long mission.

  About two hours and a thousand miles out, Lieutenant Randy Carlson, the navigator, got his attention. “Sir, getting a weather update. Looks like that storm cell south of the Strait of Hormuz is developing a lot faster than predicted. Recommend we divert eight degrees left. We can get back on course after we clear the weather.”

  “Roger. Diverting now. Recalculate our tanker rendezvous and set it up. They’ll be happy to have quieter air to pass the gas.”

  “On it.”

  Simpson received the new tanker rendezvous and exact course and speed from his navigator. He selected the tanker frequency, “Junction, this is Kestrel.” In less than a minute, the crew of the KC-10 tanker had the details and confirmed time and location.

  The storm continued to develop. In half an hour, lightning flashes were visible to the northeast. Simpson wasn’t worried; thunderstorms were not much of a threat to the B-52, especially at this distance. Nonetheless, he asked Lewis to keep him updated with changes from the satellite weather center.

  He was thinking about a cup of coffee when the cockpit was flooded with a tremendous flash of light.

  “Holy shit!” Jumbo yelled. “What was that?”

  Simpson’s first thought was there had been a nuclear explosion. Then his training kicked in, and he knew that what he had just experienced was not nuclear. Lightning then, but if it was, it was the most intense he had ever encountered. As the afterglow faded, he could see red and yellow warning lights flashing across the instrument panel. They confirmed what the seat of his pants was already telling him. His bird was hurt. “Crew, report status,” Simpson ordered.

  “Navigator okay,” said Carlson, though he sounded anything but.

  “We’re both good down here sir,” Garcia said from the bombardier’s station, “but we’ve got two Christmas trees worth of warning lights on our panels. Give us a minute to sort it out.”

  “Roger that.”

  The co-pilot, EW officer, and their lone enlisted man, Staff Sergeant Andy Lewis—the gunner—all reported okay but, except for Lewis whose system seemed unaffected, all needed a minute to sort out just how bad things were.

  The bombardier was first to report. “Sir, we got trouble. I have arming lights on the external stores. Can’t tell if it’s some kind of electrical malfunction or if that mega-lightning strike somehow overloaded the system and actually armed those weapons.”

  “Internal stores are okay though?” Simpson asked.

  “Looks like it, assuming the system’s giving me good data.”

  Simpson was not happy. With their recently upgraded wing pylons, the B-52G could now carry twenty-four Mark-82 500 pound bombs on each wing. He was sitting just forward of twelve tons of bombs. Armed bombs. The B-52G had been hardened against the intense electromagnetic pulse released by a high altitude nuclear blast, so whatever hit them must have delivered an enormous amount of energy. He had to assume those bombs really were armed.

  “Comm trouble, sir,” Carlson said. “Satellite receiver seems fried. Radar is down and my compass bearings don’t match. You have comm up there?”

  “I’ve got nothing on satellite either,” replied Simpson, “but my HF looks good.”

  “Yes, I can hear one Navy ship on the HF. Cannot hear Eagle, and he was clear just a minute ago.”

  So they’d lost touch with the AWACS bird. “Not a problem. We can manage fine with local HF. Anything else?”

  “I’m going to reset the breakers on the radar and see what happens. Back in five.”

  “Roger. EW?”

  “Got a lot of w
arning lights and several breakers that won’t reset.” Brandt sounded rock solid. “Right now I wouldn’t count on anything.”

  Simpson and Jumbo went over their own warning lights, concentrating first on their most critical systems. Again, what he saw confirmed how the bird felt. He got on with the rest of the crew. “Looks like our other problem is fuel flow. We are slowly losing altitude, but only about a hundred to a hundred-fifty feet per minute and starting at 32,000 we have a lot of room to work with. Best guess is that if we lose the bombs we should be able to make Jeddah. Bombardier, what’s your take on that?”

  “Hard to say. I can’t confirm any information the system is giving me. If we can do a drop we better lose the internal stores as well since I can’t really be sure of their arming status and Jeddah sure won’t want us dropping in with those weapons on board.”

  Simpson considered that for a moment. “Risk of pre-detonation?”

  “The mechanical safeties should still be working.”

  “Cut ‘em loose.”

  “Bomb doors open.”

  Simpson took a firm hold of the controls waiting for the uplift as the B-52 suddenly shed 36,000 pounds. It didn’t come.

  “Negative release, sir. Internal and external. Three tries.”

  “Not your fault, Garcia. Time for Plan B.”

  Great. And here he had been looking forward to a boring mission.

  “Got the nav radar back up,” Carlson said. “Low power setting only so figure a hundred kilometers range at this altitude, and less as we descend. Looks like we just passed the western tip of a little island called Adb al Kuri, south of Yemen. That puts us on a good course for Jeddah.”

  “With those bombs aboard we’re not making Jeddah. Looks like Yemen.” Simpson said this with more confidence than he was feeling. The crew was dealing with a type of emergency that nobody had experienced before, or at least nobody who survived to write a report.

  “Uh Major,” Jumbo said, “aren’t there CENTCOM orders about Yemen?”

  “Least of our worries, Jumbo.” There were indeed orders forbidding over flight of Yemen. Landing was not even mentioned. But their options were limited, very limited.

  Major Kerry Simpson had never lost an aircraft, never even come close. In the twelve years since he graduated from the Air Force Academy he had experienced some engine problems, communications glitches and one complete hydraulic failure—the kind of problems he’d been trained for. This was new, and it might cost him his aircraft. But he would be damned if it would cost him his crew. Time to talk with the Navy.

  February 1, 1991 2030Z (2330 AST)

  USS Alvin L Bowman

  Gulf of Aden, 170 kilometers east-southeast of al-Mukalla, Yemen

  The USS Bowman, a Perry Class frigate FFG-62, was making a comfortable fifteen knots in the six foot swells that were just starting to calm as the storm system receded to the southeast. They had just left the Red Sea after transiting the Suez Canal, and were proceeding to the Persian Gulf to join the Saratoga battle group.

  Lt Dan Sherman, officer of the deck, was standing out on the port bridge wing enjoying a mug of coffee. A Miami native, Sherman preferred the warm, humid air to the artificially cooled, dry air on the bridge. He had just taken his first sip when Petty Officer Derrick Morales stuck his head out. “Comm sir, got a call from a B-52 in trouble.”

  Sherman stepped onto the bridge and grabbed the handset. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Kestrel, a B-52 out of Diego Garcia,” said Morales. “Took some kind of high intensity lightning strike and they’re having trouble maintaining altitude. Their SATCOM is out. Good comm with us on HF, but they can’t raise Eagle so they must be having receiver trouble or low power output.”

  “Put them on with ops. Advise the alert helo crew. And notify the skipper.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Within a few minutes, operations had relayed Kestrel’s situation to the AWACS commander and had assessed the situation. When CDR Vince Piotrowski, Bowman’s CO, arrived, they would have most of the information he needed.

  Piotrowski, a tall, rail-thin Chicago native, was in his quarters reviewing information on Persian Gulf ops. When the messenger told him he was wanted, he changed quickly into freshly pressed wash khakis. That, and a thirty second shave, let him seem alert, rested, and totally on top of the situation. From what the messenger had told him he knew he needed to be in the Combat Information Center, but he chose to climb the ladder from his small stateroom to the bridge in order to consult with Sherman, the officer of the deck. This was a courtesy, a formality really, but Piotrowski had learned years ago as a junior officer that maintaining respect and courtesy at midnight when rushed and weary was just as important as when doing routine ship’s business at noon. Probably more so.

  Piotrowski confirmed with Sherman what had happened so far, checked Bowman’s course and speed, and then climbed back down to operations. He opened the door to the darkened space, lit mainly by the radar and electronic status boards and took a quick look around. The watch standers were all at their stations, all systems appeared to be functioning, and there was nothing unusual in their demeanor. They were on top of it, and there was no immediate crisis. Relaxing, he walked over to several officers talking near the search radar and asked for a report.

  Lt Pete Hull, who had the watch in the combat information center, distilled what information they had down to thirty seconds and waited for questions.

  Piotrowski turned to LCDR Ken Zimmerman, the Officer in Charge of his aviation detachment, which consisted of two UH-60F LAMPS III helicopters. “What’s your take from a SAR standpoint, Ken?”

  “As Pete said, they were on course for Jeddah. We got them corrected east to close on us, and based on current course and speed we can reach them anywhere between their current location and the coast of Yemen. Keep in mind, though, that bird has a six-man crew and there’s a world of difference between a one or two man search and rescue over open ocean and a six man mission. The alert helo is good to go right now, but we have number two down for engine maintenance with a good four to six hours before we could launch. There’s no other SAR assets between here and the Strait of Hormuz, so unless they punch out feet dry there is a real risk we’ll lose one or more.”

  “Are you suggesting Yemen?”

  “Well sir, we have to trust their pilot when he says their original goal of Jeddah isn’t going to work, and that he can’t reach any other coalition airfield. Besides, his external ordnance may be armed so nobody would let them land anyway. Eagle just relayed orders from AIRCENT forbidding them to land in Yemen, so getting them out on the coast and letting the aircraft go down in those mountains just north of there looks like the best bet. There is a flat area about eight by eight kilometers just east of the little town of Qishn. Should be easy to spot on their nav radar and big enough for their entire crew to hit if they don’t punch out too high.”

  Piotrowski realized Zimmerman had put together a workable plan in just a few minutes. Well, aviation was his specialty. On the other hand, Yemen was not part of the coalition against Saddam, had recently developed tense relations with Saudi Arabia, and had a history of instability. Besides, Piotrowski had seen orders listing Yemeni waters and airspace as no go for coalition ships and aircraft.

  “Ken, Yemen’s off limits.” He said this more as a question than a statement of fact.

  “Well, skipper, Eagle seemed okay with them landing at Jeddah, and from their current position the only way to do that would be by overflying Yemen. I think we can take that as authorization for an exception to that policy.”

  That . . . was a stretch, especially if he considered that the Yemeni government would probably disagree. On the other hand, the survival of six men was at stake. The Skipper considered for a moment the man for whom his ship was named. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in WW1 Pharmacist’s Mate 2nd Class Alvin L. Bo
wman had advanced under heavy fire to carry three wounded men from the 5th Marines back across the Meuse River. He was awarded the Navy Cross—the first corpsman from the 5th Marine Regiment so honored.

  So, yeah, the six men were worth the risk of an international incident. After all, what were the Yemenis going to do?

  “Ken, if their pilot agrees, set up a rescue plan for the Yemen coast. Coordinate with ops. Ops, I’ll need course and speed recommendations in the next two minutes. I’ll be on the bridge.”

  “Aye, sir.” Zimmerman turned immediately to Pete Hull and began an animated conversation.

  Piotrowski stepped out of the CIC and climbed the ladder back to the bridge. There he found his watch standers alert and eager to know what was happening next. “This is the Captain, I have the deck and the conn.” He realized there actually were some things the Yemenis might do. Best to be prepared. “Sound general quarters.”

  The petty officer of the watch, a blond California surfer type, replied instantly, “Sound general quarters, aye.” The alarm was sounded and the Bowman sprang to life. In the enlisted quarters, feet hit the deck and uniforms were hastily pulled on as men rushed to their battle stations. Weapons systems were manned, watertight doors were dogged down, and the aviation detachment stood to flight quarters. As stations reported in, Piotrowski had the satisfaction of knowing that whatever happened, his crew would be ready.

  February 1, 1991 2045Z (2345 AST)

  22,000 Feet over the Gulf of Aden

  Simpson didn’t like what he was hearing. Jumbo had been working on the fuel problem and reported little progress. Shutting down the outboard engine on each wing seemed at first to improve flow to the remaining six TF-33s, but the B-52G continued to lose altitude at a slowly increasing rate. Frank Garcia had been working with gunner Andy Lewis on the bomb release problem, but the bombs remained firmly attached to the aircraft. Now Simpson was hearing from the SAR coordinator and the ops officer aboard a frigate that their best plan was for him and his crew to eject over the beach in Yemen. He had to admit, though, he had nothing better to offer. “Carlson, you been getting what the Navy is suggesting?”