Hostile Territory

by Paul Greci

  “We might not have homes if things stay as they are,” I say. “I don’t like the idea of agreeing to some plan before we know what it is either. But if those are the choices, then those are the choices.”

  “What’s he going to do with us if we don’t agree to help?” Derrick asks. “Do you think he’d even let us walk out of here? We stumbled onto some top-secret camp that has more authority than the United States Military. These are the people who they call when the military fails.”

  “How can we not agree to help with the plan?” Shannon says. “You heard him. The Russians are holding our entire country hostage, and the key lies a couple hundred miles away at Fort Greely. If we can get those missiles back under our control, they lose all their power.”

  “True,” Derrick says. “Then our military can ask them to leave, and if they don’t, wage war on them.”

  “Look what we’ve been through already,” Brooke says. “I thought when we actually found this place, our struggle with death was over. And now we’re going to intentionally put ourselves at risk.” She shakes her head. “I just—”

  “Brooke,” Shannon says, “you’ve impressed me by how much you’ve come through.” She pauses. “Honestly, out of all of us, you’ve pushed yourself the most. This next thing. This thing that none of us knew was coming. This thing that might save the world political system as we know it. This thing”—she puts her hand on Brooke’s shoulder—“whatever it is, you can do it.”

  “But what if we die trying?” Brooke asks. “I just—”

  “Is that really worse than not trying to save our country?” I cut in. “If we do nothing and the plan fails, then what?”

  Derrick says, “Which side of history do we want to be on? Do we want to be the people who shied away in a time of need or the people who stepped up to the plate?”

  Brooke says, “It’s obvious where the three of you stand. I’m not saying I won’t do it, I’m just saying how I feel. Everything seems so easy for you three. Hike up mountains and through swamps. Go without food for days.”

  “Don’t forget, Brooke,” Shannon says, “it was you who gave me the EpiPen.”

  “And it was you,” I add, “who walked for miles with the worst blisters I’ve ever seen.”

  Derrick puts his hands on his hips. “I’m with these two. Don’t underestimate what you’ve accomplished. And don’t underestimate what you’re capable of.” Derrick puts his hands on the top of his head. “Yikes, that last thing sounds like something my dad would say—even if it is true.”

  “Okay,” Brooke says. “If all of you are in, then I’m in, too.”

  CHAPTER 58

  THE NEXT DAY, AFTER A breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, we start our training.

  “Basically,” Sam says, “we’ve got to create some distractions and cut off road access to Fort Greely simultaneously.” He points to the map spread out on the counter. “We need to blow three bridges—one on each road leading toward Fort Greely. If we do it right, we’ll cut off transportation into the fort, and hopefully we’ll draw significant numbers of soldiers away from the fort to deal with the disturbances.”

  “Do you think simultaneous really is best?” Shannon asks. “I think an initial explosion would tend to draw a large response. Then when another one follows, say, fifteen minutes later, that creates another response. And the third one fifteen minutes later would create another response. It might result in more soldiers being drawn away.”

  “Very perceptive thinking.” Sam smiles at Shannon. “What you say is true. If we come out of this alive and you want a job, we’ll talk.”

  Derrick says, “You’d be lucky to have her. We’d basically be dead if it weren’t for Shannon. She’s the only one of us who didn’t mistake marmots for people.”

  Sam tilts his head sideways. “Let’s get back to business. We considered staggering the explosions for the very reason Shannon stated. However, we can’t guarantee that we can block their communications, so the patrols at the other two bridges would likely be put on high alert because of the first explosion. If that happens, it would make it harder for our other teams to blow the other bridges, and, as a result, more difficult to take control of the missiles. Your job will be to blow one of the bridges.”

  Derrick asks, “Which one?”

  “This one.” Sam points to the bridge spanning the Tanana River just north of Delta Junction.

  “What if there’re people on it when it goes?” I say.

  “The Russians are controlling the traffic over all three of the bridges. The majority of the traffic is troop-and-weapons related. The other traffic is supply delivery. No Americans are allowed to drive their cars around. Everyone is basically confined to their communities, so there’s very little chance of civilian casualties.”

  “But there’s a chance we might end up killing some people?” Brooke asks.

  Sam takes a breath and exhales. “We’re trying to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Not just from the Russians launching toward the Lower Forty-Eight but from our own president trying to strike first. So far, he’s complied with the worldwide withdrawal of our troops and the takeover of Alaska, but his actions could change. He hasn’t scuttled the submarines yet. So, yes, some soldiers may die. Or a person driving a delivery truck. Although supply delivery for civilians has been sporadic. They’re living pretty close to the edge.”

  “Dudes,” Derrick says. “This is war, and we’ve agreed to help. People could die. I just hope it’s not us.”

  “More people could die if we don’t do this,” Shannon says. “Winter will come. If the supply shortage worsens, people could starve or freeze to death, and not just in Fairbanks. Villages depend on food and fuel deliveries in the fall to make it through the winter. If those don’t happen, we could lose a lot of Alaska Natives.”

  “The way to have the best chance at success is to totally give yourself over to the mission. One hundred percent,” Sam says.

  Just like running cross-country, I think. You give it your all if you want a shot at coming in first.

  “I’ll give you every tool you need to succeed,” Sam says. “And I’ll show you how to use the more complicated ones. It’ll take concentration, effort, and a certain amount of risk. I’m totally invested in you succeeding because if you don’t, it greatly lessens the chance that I will.”

  “So,” Shannon says, “you won’t be with us when we blow up the bridge?”

  “You’re just going to kick back here,” Derrick says, “eat crackers and cheese and monitor the whole thing?”

  Sam shakes his head. “I’m the one who knows how to bypass the Russian hack job that unlocked and pointed our missiles at the Lower Forty-Eight. Hopefully I’ll be breaching the security systems they’ve set up, but I need to do it from inside the fort. There’s a secret control panel that needs to be physically accessed and activated. And I helped design it.”

  CHAPTER 59

  “LET’S WORK BACKWARD,” SAM SAYS. “I want to start with how to blow the bridge, because those are the skills you’re probably least familiar with.”

  We follow Sam away from the shelter and toward the hillside with the antenna. At the base of the hill, Sam stops and says, “After this is over, you’ll need to keep mum about this site as well as the mission in general. We’ll make something up about where you hiked to after the earthquake. We’ve got stations like this all over the United States, and we can’t have people intentionally looking for them. I’m still baffled that you stumbled upon this one.”

  We all agree that we won’t talk about this place.

  Sam parts some brush at the base of the hill and reveals a metal storage unit. “This whole hillside, at least the front side of it, has storage capacity. Units like this are hidden by the brush.”

  I think about the effort that went into making this place what it is. About the sheer volume of supplies. About how it had to be developed carefully so as to not disturb the landscape too much; otherwise, it’d be easy to spot from the air.


  Sam unlatches the door, and we can see that it is basically a wide locker with deep shelves. He pulls out a dark cylindrical object about as big around as a coffee can and twice as long. “On this end, there’s a heavy-duty drill with a fully charged battery. The middle is packed with explosives.” Sam runs his hand along the cylinder. “There are also two handles that pull up.” He pulls them up and they click into place. Then, holding the device by the handles, he shows us the part opposite the drill. “This end has two buttons. The gray one operates the drill. Once you’ve got the device situated, you press it and the drill will engage. It will stop automatically when it reaches its predetermined depth. The drill is powerful. Designed to penetrate metal, concrete, wood. It’s multipurpose.”

  “Do we keep hanging on to the handles once the drill has penetrated and is drilling?” Shannon asks.

  “At the start, yes,” Sam says, “so you can do some initial guiding, but it’s not essential to hang on the whole time. The red button arms the device and activates the timer. If you drill but don’t press the red button, or if the red button malfunctions, then it self-activates after fifteen minutes. Either way, once the explosive is activated, it will go off in twenty minutes.”

  “How is this synchronized?” Derrick asks. “If we press the timing devices independent of the other teams blowing the other bridges, what makes them all go off at the same time?”

  “Good question,” Sam says.

  Derrick glances at Shannon. “Maybe I’ll get a job offer, too.” He smirks.

  “You’ll have a communication device,” Sam says. “It’s simple.” Sam hands Derrick the explosive and roots around in the storage locker, emerging with a small black rectangle. “You’ll have one of these. You press the green button when you’re in position and ready to place your explosives. When you see the red light illuminate, then you place your explosive devices”—he points to the device Derrick is holding—“and activate them.”

  Brooke says, “What if you’re not ready when the red light lights up?”

  “That shouldn’t be an issue,” Sam says, “because you’ve communicated via the green button that you’re ready. I won’t activate your red light until all teams are in position.”

  “How much time could elapse between when we press the green button and when the red light goes on?” Shannon asks.

  “That depends on how long it takes you to get to your spot,” Sam replies. “There are three teams. The first team to press their button will obviously have to wait the longest, the last team the shortest.” Sam pauses. “The other variable is when my team will be in position to penetrate the fort. Be prepared to act immediately after you press the button. Also be prepared to wait up to a day or two.”

  Sam has us each hold the explosive device by the handles. He tells us it weighs about twelve pounds, and although the drill makes noise when it’s on, the sound from the rush of the river should cover it up.

  “You’ll have three devices to place,” Sam says. “I understand that you haven’t been trained to work in cold, swift-moving water, but you’ll all be wearing dry suits.”

  “What if we can’t place all the devices?” Brooke asks. “Will this still work if we only get one or two drilled into the bridge?”

  “Obviously the goal is to place all the devices,” Sam answers. “Just do your best. The bigger the distractions from the explosions, and the more access we can cut off to the fort, the more likely I’ll succeed with my part.”

  Sam has us repeat back to him everything we’ve learned so far. He makes us each recite the information twice and I go over it in my head one more time: We get into position and hit the green button on our communicator. Once the red light goes on, we drill our explosive devices into the bridge and arm them with the red buttons. If we don’t arm them, they’ll arm themselves after fifteen minutes. After they’re armed, they’ll blow up twenty minutes later.

  “Okay,” Sam says, “you’re done with the first part of the training. After we have some chow, we’ll talk about how you’ll be getting to the bridge, which is about two hundred miles from here.”

  CHAPTER 60

  INSIDE THE SHELTER, SAM STANDS at a built-in counter and heats some kind of dehydrated stew he’s added water to. I notice he’s shorter than Derrick but taller than me.

  “What I don’t get,” I say, “is why the Russians are doing this. Would they really want to start a nuclear war?”

  Sam says, “Although we have a president who says America has never been stronger, the reality is that we’ve never been weaker in modern history.”

  “But our military is the strongest in the world,” Derrick says.

  “True,” Sam replies, “but it’s being held hostage by the threat of a nuclear strike on basically all major American cities by American missiles in Alaska. Maybe if we hadn’t snubbed our nose at our allies and insulted them repeatedly the last couple of years and pulled out of long-standing defense agreements, they’d be more willing to take a risk to help us out.”

  “Even if they did,” Shannon says, “what could they do? I mean, wouldn’t Russia just launch a nuke from Alaska if our allies initiated a military response?”

  Sam continues to stir the stew. “It’s likely that they would. The other piece to the puzzle is that our digital defenses have weakened over the past few years. We’ve never been more vulnerable to cyberattacks.”

  “How many people are involved in this operation to take back the missiles?” I ask.

  “I don’t mind talking some politics,” Sam says, “but specifics about the mission I’ll need to limit to what you need to know, in case you’re captured. I’ve probably already told you too much, but under the circumstances…”

  Sam spoons the stew into five bowls and says, “Enjoy the hot food while you’re here because it’ll be all cold, dry rations during the mission.”

  The chunks of solid food in the stew are kind of chewy, and the liquid part has a salty beef taste to it. We all eat in silence for a few minutes.

  “One thing about this mission bothers me,” I say. Everyone stops eating and looks at me. “If Russia has threatened to use the nukes if anyone retaliates, aren’t they going to use them when we blow the bridges?”

  We all turn toward Sam. He swallows a mouthful of stew and says, “Our government is going to say some local militias must be acting independently to sabotage the bridges, and that this wasn’t a retaliatory response from the United States.”

  “Will they believe that?” Shannon asks.

  “The Russian government would rather hold the nuclear threat over us as a means of control than actually use it,” Sam says. “My guess is that, at the most, they might do a limited launch to show they’re serious. The more likely response is some embarrassment that a local militia caused a ton of damage right under their noses, with some wrath from the Kremlin. The Russian soldiers stationed here will be more worried about being punished than about the enemy.”

  Brooke says, “Will they lash out at random civilians? Like our parents in Fairbanks?”

  My stomach burns. “Our parents, if they’re even alive, have it bad enough. I don’t want to make it worse for them.”

  Sam sets his bowl on the counter. “The Russians will probably respond locally around Delta Junction by searching houses and detaining people, if they’re still in charge after the operation, which they will be if we fail. And any militia activity across the state will most likely be dealt with swiftly and harshly.”

  “How long will it take,” I say, “if the mission is successful, for the United States to resume control of Alaska?”

  “The Russians definitely have the advantage in the short term,” Sam says. “But as our military gets up and running, their advantage will disappear. I think they would eventually lose a conventional war. They didn’t take Alaska because they wanted Alaska. They took it for the missiles, and the main reason they were able to take it was because they initially gained control of the missiles remotely.” Sam puts
his hands on his head. “They may have had a little help from the inside, too. That’s something we don’t know.”

  “What are we going to do after we do our part?” Shannon says. “Provided we even survive.”

  “I’ll show you on a map where you should go after you’ve finished,” Sam says. “Right now, it’s time for dessert.” He rustles around to the left of where he was cooking and comes back with a package of chocolate cookies. “Eat as many as you want,” he says. “After I’m done—”

  Something beeps three times, and we all turn toward the communication panel.

  Sam says softly, “That means that something is flying overhead.” He quickly walks to the panel, sits in the swivel chair, and puts his headphones on.

  CHAPTER 61

  “HEAT SEEKING?” DERRICK SAYS.

  “That’s one way to detect our presence,” Sam replies. He points to the ceiling. “This shelter is pretty well insulated, so it’s less likely to show up as significant on a heat detector. But we’ve just increased the number of humans from one to five, so we’ve increased our heat output four hundred percent.”

  “You think the Russians are onto us?” I ask.

  “Not necessarily,” Sam says. “But we need to be cautious. If the number of flyovers increases, I’ll be more concerned. But if we stay on schedule, we’ll be out of here in two days anyway.”

  Brooke stands up and stretches. “I wish we could just stay here.” She yawns.

  “That’s a natural desire,” Sam says. “Who wants to be in a situation where their life is at risk? And hopefully when we’re through, you and your families will be at less risk. Hopefully everyone will. That’s the goal of the mission.”

  Brooke just nods and then sits back down.

  And I realize I feel the same way that Brooke does; I just wasn’t saying it out loud and wouldn’t have tapped into it if Brooke hadn’t spoken up. We’ve all got to be feeling that way. No one wants to do this. Sam acknowledged it. And now that I’ve acknowledged it in myself, thanks to Brooke, I can put all my energy into moving forward.