Roger Ellis - AK-239

“Great! Now what?”

The doctor reaches for her shoe and takes it off. Confused, I pick it up and out falls a key.

With it, I open the steel bars that look like a jail cell door and then have to run with her around a bend in the vein. Light rushes in to the cave entrance just ahead.

We act like vampires who haven’t seen daylight for months as we shield our eyes from the brightness. It’s not sunny but it’s clearly far brighter than the light I’ve seen in almost twenty-four hours.

The sun has already set long ago behind the 2,302-foot mountain.

Snow covers this entire area and there are not many trees up this high.

I’m confused as we are clearly higher than where Al took me into the mountain.

I check my pockets and pull out my cellphone:

No service.

“Damn!”

I figure, What do I have to lose? I try to send a text to the Ketchikan Police Chief.

The text read…

AMBUSHED

BOKAN MT.

PARTNER SHOT…

I accidentally hit send but the phone says: Not Delivered.

“Damn it!”

“I have ta go back, Tatiana.”

She tries to speak but is having difficulty. I lean over to try to hear what she’s saying.

The doctor says,

“Go.”

“Leave your phone.”

“I’ll keep texting.”

“Lock the gate.”

I hesitate but realize she’s right. I hand her my phone and say,

“I’ll be back for you.”

I stand, unlock the steel door and step back into the mine.

I look back at the poor, beat up doctor who risked her life for us and I think to myself:

“Well, I’ve already lived a week longer than I thought I would!”

Ketchikan, AK

Diary of Police Chief — Robert Stone

Christmas Day

The sun had already set.

I’m the Chief of Police of Ketchikan, Alaska.

My name is Robert Stone, and up until today I was a by the book kind of cop.

I’m really tired of never seeing my family for any of the holidays. We all have to work. But I guess I shouldn’t complain, as my biggest case was usually a missing dog or pulling a police cruiser out of Thomas Basin.

Our department owns this 2000 Ford Escape that can barely make it up and down the hills in town.

I hate this car!

The engine really never ran properly again after my deputy “accidentally” ran the SUV into the basin. I suspected my deputy had been drinking on the job but never did a breathalyzer, blood, or any other test as he’s my son, and, besides, I desperately needed the help.

It also helped that his mother had a twenty-year career as an emergency dispatcher for the entire region and, is my wife!

So, my deputy son, in plain clothes, is following MAA after he arrived from Portland, Oregon. I left several text messages with that FBI, Denning, guy.

“We don’t know where the hell he is!”

I’m pulling into the lot when my deputy calls over the radio:

“Dad, I think I just lost our suspect. He was in the bar and went to the bathroom. I just checked the bathroom. He’s gone.”

“I’m on my way over.”

I shook my head, thinking, I better not find out my kid has been drinking again on the job. I call Tony’s mother on the two-way radio, “Yura?”

She answers, “Yes?”

“Make sure everyone knows we lost our suspect. Put out that picture of him and say: If anyone sees him don’t do anything but call me immediately.”

I don’t want any trouble.

I like my town just the way it is. Nice and quiet!

Too bad I never saw my phone, which was upside down on the seat, of the squad car.

I didn’t want trouble but trouble was not far away.

Bokan Mountain

Russian Command and Control Center

Two GRU soldiers walk up to a very large and very sophisticated door.

It looks much like the large, steel door of NORAD inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado before the facility was pretty much shuttered.

This door has multiple biometric scans.

They put all five fingers of their right hand on a scanner.

Then they place their entire face in front of another scanner.

Finally, something right out of a Star Trek movie:

A laser shoots thousands of tiny grid patterns across their entire body.

You still cannot get in unless a security team visually sees you and then opens the door from the inside.

The first Russian does the dance and the door opens.

Inside this room is the military nerve center for the new Russian Alaska Command.

An entire wall, the size of three movie screens, take up the front wall. All of them are currently dark.

Twenty monitors with GRU operators sit busily working.

General Victor Zelin, a grey haired man who is as mean as they come, stands overlooking his creation. He is proud that he has accomplished something no one in history has done:

Place a Russian military command center on U.S. soil.

He was given military strength briefings on the Americans for years. He knew the Americans were weak. When the American economy crumbles he believed it would be his duty to make sure any military threat was communicated back to Moscow and to communicate Moscow’s orders to his Proyekt -239 team and execute them.

A lieutenant looks over to the general.

“We’re ready, sir.”

The general says, “Do it.”

The three giant screens light up with the shape of Alaska and all North America thanks to the work of TK-20 and their underwater team.

Soon after, the room has work lights turned on as exactly twenty-two beautiful Russian women enter the room.

The women are dressed not for combat but rather what, confusingly, looks to be more similar to evening gowns.

All the GRU operators stand at military attention. The women line up in front of the general as in some sort of bizarre fashion show, slash military drill.

The general slowly walks looking over all of them.

He is clearly pleased.

“Today you will embark on a very special mission. You have been trained your whole lives for this moment. The suitcases and the money are for you. Follow your training and do your duty. You are most important to Mother Russia and me. At any moment you may be called upon to complete your mission. It may not come for many years. The moment may come tomorrow. But when that moment comes, know you shall be doing this to make this world a better place. President Mironovich and I thank you.”

The general salutes them,

“Za vas!”

As all of the “beauty pageant” women march out of the room, General Zelin has one of his top lieutenants approach him.

“We still haven’t found him, sir.”

“Keep looking. He’ll be back for the girl. Use her as bait.”

“Yes sir!”

Inside the mountainous hallway of Bokan Mountain, Katrina and George Ruddy open a door to their room and close it behind them.

As they enter the dark room she flips on a light. George and Katrina begin to passionately kiss each other.

“Look!” She exclaims, placing a suitcase on a nearby table. She opens the suitcase and it’s one of the twenty-two that JD found on the barge. It’s loaded with one million U.S. dollars. The room is small but has a kitchen area. There is also a couch.

One-armed George grabs her and kisses her again.

“Where are we going?”

“Washington D.C.” she answers.

He begins to unbutton her blouse. She smiles and wants to take this further. She lets him slowly take off her blouse as he continues to kiss her. He walks her to the bedroom door, continuing to kiss her. George Ruddy steps into the darkness first and suddenly stops. He then slowly keeps moving into the darkness along with his redheaded beauty.