Roger Ellis - AK-239

What the hell was I thinking?

I reach into my pocket and pull out my Glock.

“I give the Glocks about a ninety percent chance of firing.”

Jennifer playfully points her gun in my general direction and says,

“Let’s find out.”

I push the gun aside and get serious,

How’s the wound?”

“I think it stopped bleeding,” says Jennifer as she looks at my ferns.

“Plan on making a call with those?”

I ignore her, “There’s nothing around here. They must have a jamming device on the mountain.”

Jennifer confidently says, “No. No way. How would they get it up there? Unless…”

“Unless what? I ask.

“Unless that Russian sub is closer than we think.” Jennifer continues, “I blame myself. I should’ve turned our boat around as soon as Jack Tanner told me the story. Thanks to me, Jack and Mike are dead.”

“Don’t blame yourself.”

“You’re the one ta talk,” she says accusingly.

“Those are definitely Russian Special Forces. I overheard them speaking Russian. I didn’t show you but there were twenty-two suitcases on that barge filled with at least one million dollars each.”

Jennifer is truly shocked,

“What?” Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was trying to when we played: Shoot the large yellow targets!”

Jennifer is thinking but all that comes out is:

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this.”

“Your office will know you’re missing, right?”

Jennifer sighs, “Probably not. I was supposed to go to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for a month. They might think I left early.”

“Aren’t you suppose to check in after field work?” I ask.

“Ya, but this is Alaska. Things are a bit more casual up here. People go away for weeks. Our best chance is with that SAT phone.”

I think for a minute, “You told the harbor master where we are, right?”

“This is Ketchikan and we’re the FBI. I didn’t tell anyone anything,” says Jennifer.

“Well only three things can happen here.”

“One: We die.”

“Two: We’re captured.”

“Three: We escape!”

“I prefer option number three!”

Jennifer, “Oh you might escape. I’ll be dead by morning.”

I look at her body that is now partially uncovered by moss.

“Don’t touch the moss. Find your own moss.”

I take off my shirt and pull a big chunk of moss off the inside of the tree.

I really am cold.

I start to shiver.

“All right, come over here but you try anything, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

I sarcastically say, “What do I gotta lose, we’ll be dead by morning.”

National Security Agency (NSA)

Fort Meade, MD

Christmas Eve

Fred is comfortably eating his tuna fish sandwich, again, as he carefully reviews his screen.

“Jerry come here.”

Jerry walks over.

“What is it now?”

“ TK-20 looks now to be half apart with its nuclear reactor missing.”

“I thought we decided that wasn’t TK-20,” says Jerry.

“No, I think it is. They had just dismantled so much then pulled it into that new covered dry dock to take out the reactor. By the time they pulled it back here we thought it was another sub.”

“So what d’ya want from me?”

“I enlarged the SAT images as much as possible. COMINT gave me the an old KH-11 satellite and I can’t make the image resolution clearer but does that look like a Typhoon class sub tail sticking out of that covered port to you?”

Jerry can clearly see T K-20’ s tail sticking out of a covered port but they can’t see anything else.

“Ya, looks like it. But see here the tail on the sub is missing, so it’s right there.”

“Does that make sense to you? How is just the tail in the water floating?”

“You’re the expert. I’m just the tech guy,” says Jerry as he eyes Fred’s half eaten tuna fish sandwich. Without another thought and while not looking at Jerry, Fred simply hands Jerry his sandwich as they both continue to gaze at the blurry images.

Jerry finally stands up saying, “Oh well, it’s Christmas Eve. What ya say we go home?”

Fred checks his government issued plastic watch he got at his twenty-year anniversary, “Jeez, I didn’t realize it was that late. I probably should pull from some other sats.”

“Have fun,” says Jerry as he stands to leave.

“I’m going home. Merry Christmas, Fred!”

Jerry leaves.

Not wanting to be the only idiot in the office on Christmas Eve, Fred collects his things, pauses one more time to take a long look at his computer, then leaves his tiny little cubicle.

USS Alaska

Arctic Ocean

Tom Watson’s Diary

Christmas Morning

Tom Watson,

Chief Communications Officer’s Log,

USS Alaska

08:00

What I’m about to do I really, really do not want to do.

As I walk down the hall of the USS Alaska , the commander’s door seemed fifty feet tall.

I didn’t want to knock.

Maybe I’ll just go back to my bunk.

Let someone else worry about this.

I turned around and started to walk away and then stopped again.

Nope! This will bother me until I do it.

I’m already in trouble.

I alerted Admiral Baker of the 7th Fleet.

Even though I haven’t heard back, I knew it was only a matter of time before my commander got wind of this.

I knock on the commander’s door.

I knew this would be an awkward conversation at best.

This idiot, the second dumbest man on the boat, replaced my old girlfriend, Commander Jennifer Tavana.

“Come in,” answers Lieutenant Commander Bert Parks.

His name always reminded me of a game show host!

He’s a bald, short, stupid looking little wisp of a man that had waited forever to get his own sub.

He always tried to sabotage Jennifer and me when he was second in command. “Little Bert” was vindictive and cattier than any woman I had ever met. His nickname, that he made up for himself, he thought was cool was: Bert, ‘P’ man, Parks.

(Don’t ask how he devised that nickname.)

That gives you the idea of the brains on this guy.

We avoided each other like the plague ever since Jennifer was made commander of the sub.

Bert is sitting, working at his desk. He sees me standing in his door and cannot look me in the eye. Bert continues to pretend he’s doing paperwork.

“What is it?” Bert asks.

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but have you seen the AOAIA report from Bob outlining the anomalies we’ve heard?”

Bert is barely paying attention and answers in the affirmative a faint,

“Uh huh.”

“And what were your conclusions?”

Bert looks up clearly not knowing he what he’s talking about but pretending so as to get rid of me.

“Don’t worry about it. We’re taking a look.”

I don’t believe him.

“Have you heard from ASWOC in San Diego about this?” I ask.

“Why would I bother them?” asks Bert.

I don’t want to let him know that I’ve already alerted Admiral Baker and ASWOC as this will likely tick off Bert for going above him. So I say,

“Because, sir, I believe that AOAIA has never seen this signature before and so it’s possible another class of sub or subs are out there.”

“Ok ‘chief’ thank you for that. I’ll look into it,” says an annoyed Burt.

I pause as Bert continues to ignore me, knowing this idiot won’t do a thing.

“Dismissed,” says Bert.

“Yes, sir.”

Again I pause, staring at this stubborn idiot before leaving the room.