by Paul Greci
Up ahead, a jagged piece of land stretches about a hundred yards into the river from the right, forming a bay that’s out of view of the bridge and the pipeline.
I point at the land formation ahead. “If we want to wait till sunset to get into position, there’s a hiding spot coming up.”
We all talk for a minute and agree to head for the bay created by the land jutting into the river.
We’re almost on shore when we notice people standing just back from the trees. They emerge from the forest, and even though they’re smiling, I’m scared out of my mind.
CHAPTER 98
“WE AREN’T WHO YOU THINK we are,” Shannon says, with her arms raised just like the rest of us. “I’m Athabascan, like you.”
The man pointing the rifle at us juts his head forward and nods, but doesn’t put the rifle down. “Speak.”
“We’re not Russian,” Shannon says. “We’re trying to stop the Russians.”
“They’ve been roundin’ people up,” the man says, “all people.” He takes a step toward Shannon. “The Americans rounded us up using diseases and boarding schools, and we survived that. We even learned to live with them. But the Russians are holding people in pens, like they’re animals.” He spits. The two other men standing behind him spit, too. They have rifles but are holding them with the barrels facing downward.
“Will you please put the gun down?” I say to the man who is pointing his weapon at us. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
The man points the gun at Derrick. “Say something.”
“Okay,” Derrick responds. “Um … I don’t want to say the wrong thing and get shot. Understand?”
The man points the gun at Brooke. “Say something.”
“Don’t shoot me,” Brooke responds. “Please.”
The man puts the gun down, and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.
“I believe you,” the man says. “I had to hear each of you speak to make sure all of you knew English. Understand?”
We all nod. Even though I know that his little test has its flaws—we could all be Russians fluent in English—I understand.
The man looks at Shannon. “Now, tell us what you’re doing.” And seeing that he and his two friends each have rifles, we all look at one another and nod, and decide to tell them everything.
I mean, if they hold us captive, we won’t be able to complete our mission, and the best shot we have at being released by these three is to level with them.
We get out of our kayaks and pull them ashore. Then we carry them to the edge of the woods and put them just inside the trees, so they’re invisible from the river. The sun is above the trees. It is full daylight now.
We sit down with the three men under the trees and recount our time at Simon Lake, our survival hike where we ran into Sam, and our commitment to helping him retake the missiles at Fort Greely by blowing the bridge spanning the Tanana River. We tell them that the United States plans to nuke Alaska to eliminate the missiles if Sam’s mission fails.
The three men look at one another. Albert, the one who pointed the gun at us, motions for the other two to scoot toward him. They confer quietly, then Albert says, “We know this land. That’s why the Russians haven’t rounded us up. We can help you blow that bridge.”
I think about what Sam emphasized—telling no one what we’re doing. We’ve already broken that rule. But then I think about our ultimate goal of blowing the bridge and how there’s no way that Sam could have anticipated every scenario we might find ourselves in. We tried to follow his directive to the letter when we assaulted the canoe people and took their canoes. But now that the bridge is in sight, and it’s obvious these guys have way more experience in the woods than we do, the least we can do is hear what they have to say.
CHAPTER 99
AS THE SUN IS SETTING and we’re moving our kayaks into position to put our plan into action, Albert’s words fill my mind: We’ll be up on the bluff, watching. When we see you and Derrick start swimming, we’ll create a distraction that’ll draw their attention toward us. Since the bluff is downriver, it should make your approach easier because they’ll focus their attention in the opposite direction from where you are.
I’ve got the small waterproof backpack on with the explosive device, the communication device, the rope, the waist straps, and the gun inside. Shannon and Brooke are also wearing their waterproof packs—each with an explosive device inside.
Albert and his friends also told us that if we get into trouble on our initial approach, like if we get spotted in our kayaks while getting into position, or if it looks like we’re going to get spotted, they’ll provide a distraction right away. If that happens, we might have to place our explosives regardless of whether we get the signal from Sam, because then it might just be a matter of time before the Russian military closes in on us.
Albert and his friends left several hours ago so they could get to their position by sunset.
I look downriver, and just beyond the bridge on the right is a sheer bluff towering a couple hundred feet above the river. According to Albert, there’s a way to climb the bluff from the backside even though, from the river, it looks unclimbable. Historically, the bluff was used as a lookout for the Athabascans. From the top you can see up and down the Tanana River and up the Delta River, which flows into the Tanana just below the bridge.
The trickiest part of getting to the bluff is having to leave the cover of the forest to cross the road. We haven’t heard any gunshots, so hopefully they’ve made it. But the reality is, even if they haven’t, we’re still going through with our part of the plan.
“We’ll pull off just before we get to the pipeline,” Shannon says. “We’ll drop you and Derrick, take your kayaks, and paddle our way to the bridge.”
“The most dangerous part,” Derrick says, “is when you”—he points at Shannon—“have to cross the river. I wish you didn’t have to do that.”
We all hate that part of the plan because Shannon will be so exposed.
“It’ll be dusk,” Shannon says softly. “Plus, Albert will be watching. If he sees something going on, he’ll go into action. And if anyone on the bridge starts shooting at me, I’ll dive into the river.”
I already know all of this, but it still leaves me feeling lousy because the open crossing so close to the bridge is such a glaring weakness in our plan. We thought about having Brooke and Shannon both stick to the right side of the river until they got to Brooke’s spot under the bridge, but then there’d be no way for Shannon to cross without getting swept downstream, because the current is so strong.
We paddle single file down the right side of the river, hugging the bank, until we’re a quarter mile above where the pipeline crosses the river. Derrick and I hop out of our kayaks and tie them to the backs of Shannon’s and Brooke’s kayaks, leaving only a few feet between boats so they’ll be easier to tow.
There’s no time for a long goodbye, so I just say, “When you get to your spots, keep your eyes on us. As soon as you’re in position, I’m pressing the button to alert Sam we’re ready.”
CHAPTER 100
DERRICK AND I SIT AT the edge of the willows, our gray flippered feet just touching the river. We work in silence as we snap our waist straps on. I lay the coiled gray rope between us, put the communication device on top of it, and then slip my arms through the shoulder straps of the backpack. The explosive, along with the handgun Derrick was carrying, rests in the middle of my back.
As I watch Shannon paddle across the river, in my mind I visualize swimming with the rope in one hand, rounding the middle pillar of the bridge, clicking the carabiner at the end of the rope onto the ring on my waist strap, meeting up with Derrick—who has the other end of the rope—and then having him get the explosive out of my pack, hand it to me, and then hoist me up so I can drill it into the pillar.
I whisper to Derrick, “Are you clear about the plan?”
Derrick nods. “Just try to stay calm when you’re
in the water swimming toward the bridge. You’ll use less energy.” He turns his head away from me and spits, then turns back toward me. “Sam presented this plan like it was obviously doable, but look at this river. It’s going to be a bitch to stay in place while you’re drilling.”
“We can do it,” I say, even though I have no clue if we actually can.
Now Shannon is a gray dot on top of a gray river. She’s most of the way to the other side.
Brooke—also a gray dot—is a little farther downriver than Shannon but on our side of the river.
I think about Albert and his friends. Did they make it to the bluff, or were they caught en route? There’s no way to know unless we hear gunshots. And even then, we can’t be sure who’s doing the shooting or from where. Or they could have been captured silently, without any gunshots.
“I think the girls made it to their spots,” Derrick says, pointing downriver.
I study the far side of the bridge and can make out Shannon standing beneath it, but on our side of the river I can’t see Brooke because the land juts out a little bit just before the bridge. “How do you know Brooke made it?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Derrick says, “but it should have taken her less time than Shannon since she didn’t have to cross the river. Plus, we didn’t hear any shouts or gunshots.”
“We still don’t know for sure,” I say. “I think we should hike up the bank a little so we can get a view to check. I think—”
“Look,” Derrick says, “I know you like her and want to protect her. She’s awesome. But if we do that—hike up the bank—we might get spotted. And that’d be bad news for everyone, especially Brooke and Shannon, who are way closer to the bridge than we are.”
I take a breath. “You’re right,” I say. “I wish you weren’t right, but you are.”
I pick up the communication device, a black box the size of an iPhone. I turn to Derrick, and he nods.
With my index finger I press the green button and wait.
I don’t have to wait very long.
CHAPTER 101
“I HOPE SHANNON AND BROOKE can see us,” I say as I grab one end of the rope and Derrick grabs the other.
“They’ll see us,” he says. “Even if they don’t see us right away, they’ll see us as we approach the bridge.”
My heart is pounding like I’ve just completed a cross-country race, so I take a breath and try to focus on finishing the mission. We’ve made it this far, and I don’t want my own panic to sink our effort—and be responsible for the nuking of Alaska and the start of World War III.
With my free hand, I chuck the communication device with the red glowing light into the river like Sam told me to do. I turn to Derrick, all decked out in river-color gray like me, and say, “Let’s do what you said—keep the rope mostly coiled up until we get closer to the bridge.”
“Roger that,” he responds. “We should work our way to the middle of the river right from the get-go, so we’ll have more room to maneuver when we get to the bridge. Just follow my lead. You’re the runner. I’m the swimmer.”
I hate the idea of being in the middle of the river on our approach because it’ll be easier for someone to spot us, but I know Derrick’s right.
On our bellies we slip into the river, just keeping our heads above the surface. Will Shannon and Brooke really be able to see us? At this point, I can’t care because I don’t have control over that. I only have control over what I’m doing. I try to swim so only my head from the nose up is exposed. I keep my legs hanging down and my shoulders and arms below the surface. If we were swimming upriver, this technique wouldn’t work. As it is, the current tugs at the coil of rope in my left hand, and I can feel the water on the toes of my left foot because of the bear that bit off the end of my flipper.
For a split second, my thoughts jump to bears, hoping that Shannon and Brooke aren’t having to deal with any. We made sure they each had our last two full canisters of bear spray before they headed for their spots.
About ten feet of rope separates Derrick and me. My hands are cold from the water, but there’s no way we could be wearing gloves given what we’ve got to do. Sam assured us that we wouldn’t be in the river so long that our hands would become numb, and he said that gloves would be one more thing that would just get in the way. I hope he’s right. When you plan a mission, you try to eliminate everything you can that could foul things up. Basically, that’s how you run a cross-country race, too. You wear the right clothes. You tie your shoes. You eat and drink what works for your body. The fewer variables or unknowns the better.
With the sun being down and my eyes just above the gray water of the river, things seem dark, but I know that if I were on the bridge I’d be able to see better. I hope the tops of our heads look like the river, or debris floating in the water. If they shoot us up and fill us full of holes, then we’ll be real debris.
“Okay,” Derrick says, “we’re in the middle of the river. Now we just need to stay here and drift.”
I really want to clip the carabiner onto my waist strap so I have no chance of losing the rope, but if I do that I’ll have less control over where the rope goes while we make our way downriver and it could get tangled with my legs.
Don’t clip in until you’ve rounded the pillar. You’ll have way more control. If you drown, the world may die.
We pass under the oil pipeline, and now the bridge is looking bigger and bigger. The river narrows and the current picks up.
“We should start spreading out,” Derrick says.
I let a couple of coils of the rope slide through my hand, and now I’m twenty feet from Derrick instead of ten. The conveyor belt of silty water keeps propelling us forward.
I want to glance up and study the bridge to see if there are people on watch up there, but the more of my head that is out of the water, the greater chance I’ll have of being seen. I’m hoping, if the bridge is guarded, that there are just roadblocks on both ends with guards facing the road.
I tilt my head toward Derrick, and now he’s about fifty feet away. He must’ve let more rope out from his side. I set a few more coils free, and now about seventy feet separate us. I don’t even know how long the rope is.
Should I let the rest of it go and just hang on to the end? If I let the rope out too early, it might not stretch out and the current could tangle it up in my legs.
I clip the carabiner to the ring on my waist strap and then slowly start letting the rest of the rope out. I’ve got one coil left in my hand when I hear gunshots.
CHAPTER 102
I DIVE AND KEEP SWIMMING downriver, like Derrick and I planned on doing. I hope the shots are Albert exchanging fire with the Russians. I don’t want Albert to get hurt, but according to him he’s got great cover just below the top of the bluff, in a natural rock shelter that’s mostly camouflaged by a wall of wild rose and alders.
I poke my head above the surface, and the middle pillar of the bridge sits in front of me like a giant’s leg rising from the river. My heart leaps into my throat. I turn and start kicking furiously, trying to swim to the right. I must’ve been oriented a little to the left when I dove, and now I’m way too far to the left. I feel like I’m making good progress but then there’s a yank on my waist.
The rope.
I turn and look for Derrick’s head. I don’t want to shout, which may draw attention to us, but if Derrick doesn’t know what I’m trying to do—swim more to the right—he might unintentionally stop me by maintaining his current direction. I can’t see his head, so I abandon my effort to find him and just keep trying to swim to the right, and now the rope is looser, like maybe he realized what I was trying to do and is swimming in my direction. The pillar is about a hundred yards away right now. Water flows around both sides of it in a rush, and I need to be in the rush on the right-hand side for our plan to work. If we both get sucked to the left, there’s no way we’ll be able to recover—to swim upriver and set the explosive.
A few minutes
have gone by since Derrick and I entered the river, but it feels like this thing I’m doing—swimming toward the pillar—is all I’ve ever done, like this has been my entire life. I’m not a runner. I’m not my parents’ son. I’m not anything but this—a swimmer with an explosive in a backpack. And my whole purpose is to set that explosive, even if someone is shooting the arms off my body as I do it. Even if there is nothing left of me when I’m done.
I’ve got plenty of slack on the rope now, but I’m not sure how long that’s going to last.
I start swimming the crawl stroke, kicking like crazy, not caring if anyone from above sees me. If I don’t round the pillar on the right-hand side, everything I’ve done up to this point has no meaning.
I kick and kick and kick.
And pull and pull and pull.
I catch a glimpse of the pillar. I’m too close to it. Way too close. Like a final insult the current increases, making the possibility of me reaching my goal even more remote.
Dead center. I’m going to hit the pillar dead center. The river is a freight train, I’m stuck on the front of the engine, and it’s driving me straight toward the pillar.
Even if I’m bludgeoned by my contact with the pillar and I die, if I can end up on the right side and Derrick on the left, then he can wrestle the explosive out of my pack and try to set it without me.
I lead with my left arm and leg, bracing for impact, trying to keep my head from bouncing against the concrete pillar.
Claw right. Claw right. Scratch your way around. Kick your way around. Crawl your way around, my mind screams above the rush of the river.
I’m going to make it, I think. I’m going to make it. I’m going to make contact, but I’m also going to make it around the right-hand side.
