by Dan Milton
Commander Carothers cut him off in mid-sentence and said, “How about Jeff and you meet with me later this week. What afternoon are you free?”
Ernie said, “I’ll check with Jeff. Friday is okay for me. If there is a problem with Jeff, I will come alone and fill Jeff in later.”
A little later, Ernie called Jeff and said, “Commander Carothers wants to meet with us on Friday afternoon. Can you make it?”
“That will work for me.”
“Great, I’ll pick you up at 2:00pm.”
“What’s the meeting about?”
“The Commander wants to discuss some problem with the University Research Team data.”
On Friday, They met with Commander Carothers. On the drive over, Ernie briefed Jeff on what he had found in analyzing the data with the research team.
Commander Carothers reminded them that the secret security agreement, they had signed, was still in effect, and they were not to talk to anyone about the conversation they were about to have.
He explained that the US Navy’s objective for the Lake Iliamna testing was, at the end of the effort, to have the towed sonar unit electronics end up in the hands of the Russian Navy. The testing effort was needed to legitimize the mission. He emphasized that they had carried out the task successfully. He also explained that he had to make the effort believable by keeping the real purpose of the mission secret from most of those directly involved including the two of you. He said he could understand if both of you were upset at being kept totally in the dark. He considered the pros and cons of letting them in on the subterfuge and decided it would be more credible if they did not know.
Carothers said, “The discrepancies in the data that Ernie analyzed were there on purpose. We used a previous generation of the technology for the testing sonar unit. In addition, the software engineers added a ghost image generation module. When you integrate the ghost image with the real image, it provides what appears as a valid, but incorrect image. Our hope in all of this was that the Russians would end up further behind using the technology they would steal from us.”
Ernie said, “I understand Commander. And, I see why you cut me off so abruptly the other day on the phone. I’m glad we were able to help even if it was not the way I thought we were.”
“Jeff and I are still pursuing the search for the wreck in Lake Iliamna.” Ernie brought Carothers up to date on their latest information. “One thing, that would help, is for us to be able to go through the recorded data from around the islands near Kokhanok. Everything, we have so far, indicates the boat sank somewhere in that group of islands. We spent about a week with the towed sonar scanning that area. Even with the discrepancies, we may be able to see something that would help.”
“I’ll set it up in one of our labs. Don’t worry about the data discrepancies. The team has developed a software enhancement that will correct the anomaly we built into the unit. You can start in about two weeks.”
Since classes for the spring session were to finish up next week, Ernie and Jeff had no problem in adjusting their schedules.
Most of the spare time, that Ernie and Jeff had during the summer, was spent with meticulously reviewing all of the recorded data in and around Kokhanok. It was only on the last day’s recorded data that they found something of interest. They played the data back dozens of times trying to visualize what the sonar unit was telling them. The enhancement software helped but what they were looking at was some distance from the towed sonar. The dim outline appeared to be a boat of some 30-40 feet in length with a busted mast. They finished viewing the rest of the data and found nothing else. They spent the next few days going back to the image they found, but though promising, it was not the conclusive evidence they sought. Even so, it was the best they had, and it would have to do.
It took another week with the help of a Navy Navigator, which Carothers borrowed for a few days, to associate the boat’s recorded position relative to the scanned data. They used the compass direction recorded in the journal that Captain Boyd and Alexei had headed when they left Iliamna. They were now able to narrow in on the location of the image they had found. They were confident now that they could identify to which small island the image belonged. Even so, they knew it would take some underwater time to correlate it correctly.
Ernie called Owen Hammond and told him that they had found an image from the towed sonar and had associated it to a particular small island near Kokhanok. Ernie asked him, even though the summer was over, the next time he flew over the lake, could he fly low over the island and take a look. Owen said he had a trip planned in two weeks that would get him into Kokhanok, and he would take a look.
Holding an aerial survey of Lake Iliamna, Ernie drew a circle around the island. They faxed a copy of it to Owen at the lodge.
At this point, they had only one image on which to base their entire effort in searching for the wreck. It was not much to go on!
Ernie received a call two weeks later from Owen. He said, “I flew low over the island you indicated on the aerial photo. I made several passes hoping to get a view down some 30-40 feet below the surface of the water, but the weather was bad. Three to four foot waves and 25 knot winds. I could see nothing below the surface. It is over for the year. The fall weather is upon us, and the lake will begin freezing soon. Sorry, I could not help.”
“You did the best you could Owen. Thanks. Maybe next spring after the ice melts we can take a look.”
“I did find out something very interesting when I was in Kokhanok. A boat had gone out fishing around the islands near Kokhanok. One of the fishermen hooked an object he finally pulled into the boat. It turned out to be a life jacket. There was no identification on the vest. It had been in the water a long time. They also could not remember at which location they hooked the vest. Not very reliable evidence, but you never know.”
The next Saturday, Ernie and Jeff got together to read the search report and see if there was anything there that could help them. After they had both read and then re-read the report, they could not find any other information that would assist in validating the location of the sonar image. They followed the flight paths the search aircraft and the courses the search boats had taken. Though the various search parties passed close to the island, there was no debris found or spotted.
Jeff said, “Well, what do you think? Is there enough to launch a full-blown underwater search?”
“We have nothing conclusive—just a somewhat fuzzy sonar image. It looks like it could be a boat about the right size. We have blueprints for the boat once we find it. The journal has not provided any additional help. We have exhausted the search report from the Coast Guard, and it provided no additional information. Owen’s overfly of the island was a waste of time. His visibility was severely limited due to the weather. They found a life jacket, but it could have fallen off any boat on the lake. It’s a mystery that they found no sign of the wreckage. Some debris should have floated to the surface from the wreck.”
“What’s the possibility that we are looking at this all wrong. Maybe we should ask some other questions. Like, did the boat sink in a storm? Did it sink at all? Was it possibly scuttled? Maybe Alexei wasn’t as he appeared in his journal. Maybe he saw a way to a new life in Alaska with the wealth he had from the village. Could he be living around there under an assumed name? Was his whole journey a con job? I could go on and on with these questions.”
“You bring up an entirely different aspect to this whole affair. What if he did walk off with the village’s wealth? I remember being told that the autopsy on Captain Boyd indicated that a heavy blunt object struck him in the head. Alexei could have hit him and rolled the body overboard. That would fit the scenario.”
“Where would he have gone? He probably would not have gone too far. He needed to stay out of sight. Especially from those he had seen on the Lake. If he stayed out of sight for five years or so, at age 21, his appearance, say with a beard, would be very different from that of the 16-year-old that arri
ved at Iliamna. Are we just speculating, or should we try and gather some facts to see if this scenario has some merit?”
“Before we go to the effort, and expense, of a major wreck hunt, we need to exhaust all possibilities. We don’t have any facts to support the ‘bad boy’ scenario. I don’t want this scenario to work. But, we need to do some detective work and get answers to either buy into it or rule it out. One thing, we must do, is keep quiet what we are doing. If anyone finds out, a lot of people will be upset, and we will destroy the reputation of the young Russian boy.”
“Agreed… So what do we do first?
“I’m going to contact the Bepa Village Elder as well as the Parish Priest of the Russian Orthodox Church there to find out how the villagers are taking the loss. I will also tell them that we haven’t given up entirely; that we are still looking for the boat wreck and Alexei. I will also let them know that I will keep them informed.”
“Jeff, review the search reports one more time to see if there is anything we missed that would fit this scenario. Talk to Owen and get his slant of how useful the search was. Find out if there was anything that anyone said or heard, outside the official Coast Guard report, that might we helpful.”
“I would like to read the journal again. I will contact the Historical Society and have them copy the English translation of the journal for us. I will also request a copy of the original Russian version, but it may take a few weeks. When I get a copy of the Russian version of Alexei’s journal, assuming the State Historian was able to find it, I will send it to the Bepa Village Elder. He deserves to know what happened to Alexei, as does the rest of the village.”
“I will be going back to the shipyard’s lab to see if the software engineers can provide any additional software for enhancing the image we found. Anything, they can do may be helpful. Not having stared at the sonar image for several weeks might allow me to see more of the picture or possibly, even less. I keep asking myself; do I see just what I want to see or is there something there? I guess what I’m saying is that we need to revisit our bases in light of a possible different scenario.”
Conflict in Bepa
Almost twenty years had passed since Alexei left to save the village of Bepa. It was a journey that was especially challenging since he was only 16 years old at the time. As you look at the community after all those years, one might ask, what was there to save? The villagers survived the war in a refugee center hundreds of miles from their village. With the German Army pushed out of Russia, the villagers returned. The damage to their village was minimal. It came mostly from looting by small gangs of hoodlums passing through on the main road.
The village of Bepa, though financially weak, was now governed by the State, or so the State thought. The Village Elder, as head of the Village Council, was the one who governed while giving lip service to the State. He controlled the day-to-day affairs of the village. Mikhail Timofeyovich, the Village Elder and the grandfather of Alexei, worked tirelessly after he returned from the refugee camp. His primary concern was their survival while restoring the community to the respectability it had before the war. Proven to be too much for someone in his 80s, Mikhail passed away shortly after the war ended. Some said he died, not because he was worn out, but because he failed his duty to the village. His duty was to protect the community and those in it. He failed when he sent his grandson on the journey that lost not only the life of his grandson, but the entire wealth of the village.
After Mikhail died, his son, Pyotr, was elected Village Elder, even though there were many who held the family responsible for the current condition of the community. Pyotr was a survivor of the devastating fighting around Stalingrad and had returned home after the war to a hero’s welcome with the rank of Captain. On his arrival, he asked his father Mikhail why he sent Alexei on such a perilous journey. Mikhail answered, “The Village Council and I could see no other way to save the village. I hope in time Pyotr that you can forgive me.”
Pyotr also learned of Father Alexander’s death adding to the massive number of those he had seen killed in the war. On hearing the news, Pyotr said, “It is so sad and what a waste!”
Many of the young people left the village to find work in the larger cities. Those, who left, felt that there was no future in the village. Anyone desiring an education would have to go to one of the major cities. Once gone, which of them would return? Those, who had gone away for technical training, did not return.
No matter how hard they tried, the village could not get ahead. In a year when the harvest was , State increased the tax burden, so they had to pay out more of their crops. In a year the crop was not so good, they barely had enough left to feed themselves. They always managed to keep a few extras by finding clever places to hide ‘this or that’ from the authorities.
Besides their crops and goats, they had milk, cheese, and butter because not long after the war ended they managed to trade some of their goats for a dairy cow.
The attitude of the majority of the villagers had not changed since word first reached the village that Alexei had perished in a shipwreck on Lake Iliamna. The words spoken,… “What of the wealth of the village. Is it also gone?” still rang in their ears. They felt that they had lost everything because of Mikhail’s stupid plan. Their attitude applied to his son Pyotr as well.
The only people, who kept faith in Alexei, were his father, Pyotr, his best friend Grigory and Tasha who he had known all his life. They would not believe that Alexei could do what the rest of the villagers were saying.
The villagers’ idea was that there had been no shipwreck. Alexei had run off with their wealth and settled in America. Or, even if there had been a shipwreck they felt that he had survived with the village’s wealth. It was folly to send someone so young on a trip that far. They should have kept their assets with them when they went to the refugee center.
Pyotr would argue with them, “You think you could have protected that wealth from the gangs that attacked you on the road to the refugee camp? Or, you could have hidden it where no one would have found it when in the refugee center? No, it would have been stolen, and maybe some of you killed in the process.” But, Pyotr’s argument fell on deaf ears. Their attitude would not change. So Pyotr, Grigory, and Tasha, who stuck up for Alexei, were treated with scorn. A stigma hangs over Alexei’s family and friends because of the villagers’ attitude.
During the intervening years, Tasha went off to the Saint Petersburg State Medical Academy for medical training. The reason they admitted someone from such a small village was because of her excellent service in several Army field hospitals, and that her mentor was Father Alexander. Before she returned home to the village of Bepa, she worked in several hospitals in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. She was happy to come home and be with her people. But this brought back memories of her mentor, Father Alexander, who she still missed.
After Tasha treated someone in the village for an ailment or a broken bone, they would subtly let her know their attitude. She got her mind off the village’s view by spending as much time as she could with a young girl in the village that had a natural aptitude for nursing and she has been getting her ready to go to a resident nursing school at a hospital in Volgograd.
There is no way that Pyotr believed his son stole the village’s property. He was determined to find out what happened, to clear his son’s name, and hopefully, recover the community’s property.
Grigory ran up to Pyotr’s door. He knocked furiously and shouted, “A package from America. Come quickly—from America.”
As Pyotr came to the door, he said, “Grigory, calm down. Let me have the package.” He noticed the return address was from an Ernie Donald in Seattle, Washington, USA. He did not know anyone named Donald in America. He opened the package and to his astonishment, saw that it was a copy of what appeared to be the journal that Father Alexander had given Alexei before he left on the journey.
There was a note, written in Russian, with the journal. It stated: Dear Village Elder, enc
losed is a copy of the journal kept by Alexei and found with the Captain’s body after the spring thaw. I believe Alexei and the Captain were on their way by boat to Kokhanok on Lake Iliamna, Alaska in the fall of the year. A terrible storm overtook them; the boat apparently capsized and sank. The journal was found and eventually sent to the Historical Society in Fairbanks where they translated it into English. I went there, held the journal in my hands and then read it from cover to cover. I requested a copy of the journal from the Society. I hope you will find some solace in the words that Alexei wrote. Just for your information; the search for the wreck and Alexei is not over. I and some others are determined, especially after reading the journal, to find out what happened and to recover Alexei and the parcel he was carrying.
Pyotr said, “Grigory, go get Tasha. We’ll read the journal together.”
Grigory, an assistant under Father Alexander, was an excellent student and had gained a good grasp of most of the duties of a parish priest. After Father Alexander’s death, the Russian Orthodox Church knew that Bepa needed a replacement. But, because of the war, there was a shortage of priests. The Church decided to have Grigory become the interim parish priest of Bepa. He spent two years in training at a nearby seminary. It was not easy until he became used to getting around. The others at the seminary helped him whenever he needed it. After two years, they felt that he had learned as much as one would typically learn in four years. He was ordained and sent back to Bepa as the Parish Priest. Pyotr and Tasha had a small celebration to welcome him home. The rest of the village would still not open up to him because of his belief in Alexei; they went to church, but with an underlying coolness.
As Grigory and Tasha hurried to Pyotr’s house, Tasha asked, “What’s this all about?”
“They found Alexei’s journal. Pyotr received a copy of it from America. He wants us to be there. He’ll read it aloud.”
