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  “Got it, sir. Recommend course 318. I’ll have an update when I get the coast on radar. What altitude are you looking at for us to uh, eject?”

  Simpson considered this for a moment, “Since this thing will probably be going boom, I’m thinking we punch out at 5000 feet to give us separation from the impact.”

  “Roger that. Recommend 400 knots with 750 feet per minute rate of descent; that will put us over the coast six clicks east of Qishin at 5000 feet in twenty-two minutes. Coast is just appearing on my radar. That course looks good.”

  “Excellent. Okay crew, checklist for ejection. Report when ready.”

  As each station reported ready, Simpson concentrated on his instruments. The autopilot was still working so he didn’t have to match course, speed, and rate of descent by hand. Relieved of the burden of fighting for altitude while starved for fuel, the remaining six engines sounded normal and instrument readings looked good. His panel still glowed with more than a dozen warning lights, but mostly for systems he wouldn’t be needing. Like the nose gear.

  February 1, 1991 2205Z (Feb. 2, 0105 AST)

  USS Alvin L. Bowman

  120 kilometers southwest of Qishn, Yemen

  Bowman was now making twenty knots with only one of her two General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines turning. She could easily have done over thirty, but Piotrowski was concerned about fuel. They had an underway refueling from a fleet tanker scheduled in thirty-six hours and he didn’t know how long he would have to remain south of Yemen to effect their mission. He reasoned that with the SAR helo already launched, a few extra knots wouldn’t mean much, but once that second turbine was brought online, Bowman would suck fuel. Kestrel was due over the coast in seven minutes, and there the crew would eject. Ten minutes after that, Rabbit, Bowman’s SH-60B LAMPS III helicopter, would arrive on scene, and he would know a lot more about the situation. If a high speed sprint was needed, the second turbine could be brought online in a few minutes.

  Bowman’s XO, LCDR Randy Chen, stepped onto the bridge and came directly to Piotrowski. “The flight deck is clear and ready for recovery. Chief Johnson reports medical ready for casualties.” Chief Petty Officer Eugene Johnson was their independent duty corpsman, a specialty unique to the Navy. Small ships like Bowman didn’t rate a full-time medical officer, so a few of the most qualified enlisted corpsmen were given extra training to allow them to function autonomously, but with backup from the larger ships.

  “Randy, as soon as we recover Rabbit, have it refueled in case we need a medevac. Also, talk with ops about our medevac options.”

  “Been thinking about that already, skipper. The closest friendly airfield is at Salalah, just inside Oman. It isn’t a military field, but we can probably get permission for a medevac.”

  “Good work, XO. Keep on top of all our options as we know more.”

  At 0115 Piortowski picked up the handset. “Radar shows Kestrel just went feet dry,” ops reported. “They should be ejecting right now.”

  Instinctively, Piotrowski looked out towards the distant coast.

  February 1, 1991 2215Z (Feb. 2, 0115 AST)

  5 kilometers east of Qishn, Yemen

  Just south of the coast, Simpson had cut the throttles and deployed his flaps. Careful not to stall the heavily loaded bomber, he got the airspeed down to a reasonable two-hundred knots for ejection.

  “Eject, eject, eject!” Simpson activated the ejection system and after that it was all up to the aircraft. Simpson could have used the escape hatches, but he wanted everyone out together so they wouldn’t get too separated on the ground. Besides, the ejection system showed no faults and being largely mechanical and powered by compressed gas it would probably work just fine. Probably.

  Kerry Simpson’s last thought before he hit the two-hundred knot slipstream was that ejection system seemed to be working. After being slapped away from the plane by the slipstream, there was a moment of freefall, then his chute yanked him around yet again. He was a little surprised that not only had the system worked, but that he had so far survived the event.

  He looked around quickly. To the north, the huge B-52G had turned somewhat east and was gracefully descending her last few miles, God bless her. To the south and east he could see three other chutes. He prayed he just hadn’t spotted the other two.

  The light from the stars and the quarter moon allowed Simpson to see the ground only a few seconds before impact, and he had the sensation that rather than falling, the ground was rapidly rising to meet him. The impact rattled his teeth, but he’d had worse during training, and he found himself lying on a fairly flat plain sloping gently up to the north. The ground was covered with coarse, gritty sand and small rocks. At the edge of his vision to the north he saw another parachute descending, and after releasing his own chute and harness, he headed that way, homing in on the glow of a small flashlight.

  It was Lieutenant Brandt. “You okay?”

  “Twisted my knee, but otherwise fine.”

  He hardly paused to enjoy the relief before looking for more chutes. At that moment he saw a flash on the horizon to the north followed by an enlarging orange glow. He felt compelled to keep looking at it. He knew exactly what it was; thirty-six thousand pounds of high explosives and nine tons of JP-5 jet fuel made one hell of a signal flare. There was a tremor in the ground that was stronger than he expected, and after more than a minute, the rumble arrived. It was like thunder and lasted four or five seconds.

  “That’s going to leave a mark,” he said.

  “Timed it, sir” said Brandt. “Ninety-five seconds from the flash to the sound, puts the crash site about thirty kilometers north of us.”

  “Good thinking Ethan,” replied Simpson. “Should have thought of that myself. But enough of this, we need to find the rest of our crew.” Just then he thought he heard something, cocked his head and asked, “Do you hear a helicopter?”

  Less than a minute later, an MH-60 loomed out of the dark and settled on the sand fifty meters away. He got a shoulder under Brandt’s arm and helped him over.

  A crewman jumped lightly to the ground and met them halfway. “Evening, gentlemen. I’m Petty Officer Dave Wells. Let’s get you aboard.”

  As soon as he strapped in, Simpson grabbed an unused headset. “Thanks for getting here so quickly. We still have four men still out there.”

  “On top of it, Major,” Zimmerman assured him. “There are two on the beach. Spoke with them on the SAR frequency and they’re both okay. Plan is to pick them up on the retrograde. There’s an IR strobe about a click north of here, so only one unaccounted for right now.”

  Simpson did not care for the sound of one man unaccounted for, but he knew that, so far, the rescue mission was going amazingly well. He told Zimmerman, “The guys on the beach must be my navigator and bombardier; they eject downward and get a head start to the ground. My EW officer is with me so we’re looking for the co-pilot and gunner.”

  “Roger that,” the pilot said. “We’re heading north right now for the next man. Maybe he saw something that will help us find number six.”

  Within minutes, Jumbo Loewe was aboard the Navy helicopter, uninjured except for a dislocated pinkie finger. To the co-pilot’s great relief, the corpsman popped it back into place with a snap just audible over the engine sound. “Jumbo,” Simpson said, “have you seen Lewis?”

  “Doesn’t make sense that he would be north of me, the gunner is the first one out of the topside crew stations.”

  “He’s right,” added the pilot. “We should be looking south.”

  Zimmerman was trained mainly in anti-submarine warfare, but had a fair amount of SAR experience. Nonetheless there were always going to be small details, like the ejection sequence of the B-52G, he just didn’t know. Funny things happened in ejections—updrafts, parachute malfunctions, and changes in wind direction during descent that could put crewmembers down where the
y weren’t supposed to be—but these guys were right. That gunner should be down somewhere between their current location and the two men on the beach. “Okay then, we’ll lay out a search pattern one click wide between here and the beach.”

  Lieutenant (jg) Neill Washington, his co-pilot, was already laying out a pattern on his map board.

  The helo began its search from where it had picked up the co-pilot, making east-west sweeps a kilometer wide, each one a half-kilometer further south. On the next to last leg before reaching the beach Zimmerman saw one quick flash in his IR goggles while making a steep turn. Flying level over the same spot, he saw nothing.

  He was about to move to the final leg, when it occurred to him that if the strobe were in some kind of hole or deep depression, he might see it only when looking almost straight down—like in a steep turn. He went into a tight circle to the left, and there it was again, this time two flashes.

  Washington was wearing night vision. “Neill, you see any kind of hole or depression that would make the strobe visible only from directly overhead?”

  “There’s a cluster of rocks. If the strobe was between them, it would act like a hole.”

  “I’m putting down,” said Zimmerman. “Wells, check out the rocks just to out east.”

  “On it.” In a matter of seconds, they had settled onto the coarse sand, about thirty meters from the rocks. Wells, his rescue swimmer, and HM3 Tony Angelo, the corpsman, leapt out of the helo and headed for the rocks. In less than a minute came the report, “He’s here sir. Looks like a broken leg and probably a concussion. Angelo’s putting on an air splint and I’m coming back for the Stokes.”

  Welles jogged up to the helo, grabbed the Stokes stretcher, and less than ten minutes later, the two petty officers had the injured man aboard and strapped down.

  Zimmerman was now faced with a decision. Between his crew and the flyboys he’d already picked up, there were eight aboard the aircraft. The UH-60 was more than capable of handling the weight of ten men, but being configured for anti-submarine warfare, they were tight on space. He could be out to the ship and back in about forty minutes, but he couldn’t help thinking about what CDR Steve Watkins, a legend in the SAR community, had told them in SAR school again and again, “In SAR there is no later, there is only NOW!”

  “Wells,” said the pilot, “get those guys stowed as best you can; we have two more to pick up.”

  In minutes the bombardier and navigator were running towards the helicopter, smiling broadly when they saw the rest of their crewmates aboard. They shoehorned into whatever space the crew could find as Zimmerman took them up to five-hundred feet and headed back to Bowman.

  February 2, 1991 0015Z (0315 AST)

  USS Alvin L Bowman

  88 kilometers southwest of Qishin

  “Skipper,” Hull announced on the sound-powered telephone to the bridge. “Rabbit inbound with six, one serious injury. Recommend course 105 for recovery in ten minutes.”

  Piotrowski smiled. They got ‘em all. “Good news, Pete. Course acknowledged. Give Chief Johnson a heads up.”

  In ten minutes Piotrowski ordered the course change and felt a moderate pitch and roll as Bowman stopped taking the wind against her superstructure and was now heading directly into it. As the wind made small shifts in direction, it would nudge Bowman back and forth creating a slight roll. Piotrowski had expected this, and as soon as he got the feel of the wind, he began making small course changes that dampened the effect.

  Zimmerman smiled when he saw Bowman’s lights, and his smile broadened as they approached and he could see that, despite the gusting winds pushing him around, the skipper had the ship amazingly stable with only a modest pitch from the wave action.

  Zimmerman completed a tight 60 degree turn to align his course with the ship’s. He steadied up directly behind the ship and, while talking with a sailor in the tiny control tower just above the hanger, he brought the aircraft over the small flight deck. The stern pitched up and kissed the landing gear just as Zimmerman reduced power. A small jolt, and they were down.

  As the pilots went through the shutdown sequence and the aviation detachment prepared to secure the helicopter, the door was opened and Chief Johnson looked at the man strapped in the Stokes.

  “Broken leg, Chief,” said Angelo. “We need to get him below.”

  On the bridge, Piotrowski had just confirmed from operations that there was no radio chatter from the Yemeni military and no airborne or military surface radars within two-hundred kilometers. He had just ordered secure from general quarters when Chief Johnson climbed up to the bridge.

  “Everybody’s home, skipper.”

  “The injured?”

  “The broken leg needs a hospital, but he’s stable until we can get him there.”

  “What about the other injury?”

  “Cartilage tear in the knee. I’ve seen worse on a basketball court. I’m going to give him an ice pack and elevate. He’ll need to see an Ortho doc at some point, but it isn’t urgent.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  When the Chief had gone, Piotrowski went back out on the bridge wing and stared north towards Yemen. Still radio silence from the Yemeni government, such as it was. He shook his head. A fully-laden B-52 had plowed into the ground, and apparently no one had noticed.

  March 20, 1991, 1830Z (1330 EST)

  Defense Mapping Agency, Bethesda Maryland

  Someone had.

  Senior cartographer Drew Simpson had found what he was looking for. After dinner with his younger brother, in DC to brief Air Force officials on the unusual lightning strike that had downed his B-52G, the older Simpson had a pretty clear picture of where to look for the remains. The satellite images from both high and low angles showed the tail—oddly intact—about two hundred meters from a knife-edge ridge that ran east to west thirty kilometers north of the Yemeni coast. Most of the remaining wreckage had been reduced to pieces too small to identify on the satellite image.

  The really interesting thing, though, was how the explosion of twenty tons of bombs propelled into the ridge at over 200 knots had gouged out a semicircle of rock almost forty meters wide and twenty meters deep in the top of the ridgeline. Below lay boulders ranging from basketball size to pieces bigger than Volkswagens. Quite a notch.

  Then it hit him. For years he had been looking for an opportunity to attach his family name to a terrain feature and to insert it into the map database. This was it—Simpson’s Notch.

  Within an hour, the topographic mapping programs had updated the change in the ridgeline along with the small notation: ‘Simpson’s Notch.’ Over time he would see that the name was distributed to civilian map databases. It didn’t matter if no one ever noticed it. They were on the map. For a cartographer, that was everything.

  Chapter 1

  June 8, 2005 2230Z (June 9 0030 AST)

  76 kilometers North-Northeast of Al Bukamal, Syria

  (5 kilometers west of the Syria-Iraq border)

  The mission was proceeding exactly as briefed; not bad considering the entire plan had been slapped together in Baghdad only eight hours before. The four man team had been lifted by an aging ‘Huey’ helicopter an hour and a half earlier to a remote stretch of the Syrian border north of the heavily populated Euphrates River region. They had walked into Syria and, carefully avoiding the occasional small farm, had approached their target from the north. From a distance of about a hundred-fifty meters they could see a compound consisting of a small house and two out buildings. On closer inspection, through the eerie green and white of their night vision, the team could see no goats, or other animals, nor any evidence of cultivation. The random desert brush had been cleared to a distance of about one-hundred meters from the buildings. The hum of a generator carried easily to the observers and explained the lights burning in the house, and in one of the smaller buildings. The night sky was clear and t
here was a half-moon which allowed an excellent view of two vehicles, a pickup truck and a Range Rover, parked under camouflage netting on the north side of the house. Two men were visible, both carrying AK-47 assault rifles, one on the north, and one on the east side of the house. No doubt there were similar guards on the other sides. Despite everything visible from their observation post, only one man, the team leader and mission specialist, knew exactly what they were looking for.

  Lieutenant Commander Joe Castelli smiled. He knew what they were looking for, and there it was. There had never been guards visible on the satellite images. Something was happening tonight.

  A short, but powerfully-built man in his early thirties, with close-cropped dense black hair, a large Roman nose, and huge eyebrows, Castelli was an up-and-coming Academy grad from an old Navy family. Four generations back, when Antonio Castelli, newly arrived from Italy, was unable to save even a few pennies from his job in a New York ice house, he looked for something that would either pay better or provide a place to live so he might save enough to get married and start a family. That’s how he came to be a stoker in the U.S. Navy.

  He was aboard the cruiser USS Baltimore when Commodore Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898. He left the Navy after five years, but the tradition stayed with the Castelli family. His son, Antonio Jr., served on destroyers in WW1 and ultimately retired with the rank of Chief Petty Officer. His grandson Bill, Joe’s grandfather, was the first commissioned officer in the family. Like his father, he served on destroyers and, as a Lieutenant, was executive officer on the USS Terry (DD-513) during her service in the Marianas and at Iwo Jima. Joe’s father, Vince, was the first Castelli to attend Annapolis. He defied the family tradition of serving in the surface Navy, and opted instead for aviation. Flying the F-4 Phantom off the USS Enterprise, he destroyed three Mig-21’s and was awarded the Navy Cross for repeated aggressive low-level attacks on entrenched North Vietnamese positions. He was instrumental in the development of the F-14 Tomcat, and retired with the rank of Captain.