AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

Bokan Mountain

^{Christmas Morning}

Jennifer and I are huddled asleep together. My arms are wrapped around her bare chest. It sounds sexy but it wasn’t. I had dried blood stuck to me, which was stuck to her.

So, much for sexy, I thought.

She acts very comfortable snuggled, asleep, under my chin.

Feels pretty good too.

My God, I hope she’s alive!

I could feel her heartbeat all night long and knew she made it but I checked her neck again just to make sure.

“Thank God!”

Although it was cold, the tree covered area and the log-covered moss kept us from freezing to death.

I woke up a few minutes ago with a spider crawling across my face. Without opening my eyes, I calmly picked it up and placed it outside a hole in our log.

Luckily, I didn’t look at it until I put it outside the log. It was large and black, with ominous bright yellow zigzags on its underside.

That didn’t look good.

All we need now is to have a lethal spider bite.

FBI Hostage Rescue will find us dead, naked and huddled together months from now.

Those pictures won’t look good in our performance review file!

I’ve gotta stop thinking like this.

I carefully lift off the moss and check her duct-taped wounds. Being satisfied she’s not bleeding; I gently place the moss over her naked body. I try to wake her and realize she is trying to open her eyes but is clearly struggling.

I know that if I don’t clean out this GSW (gunshot wound) soon, she will die.

I peer outside the log and see the sun once again peek out of the rain clouds.

Thank God it didn’t rain last night!

I check her sat phone and see it’s still being actively jammed. I then check my iPhone and it’s working but still showing:

No Service.

“Funny, it’s working but I only got two percent battery left. Any last requests?” I say as she opens her eyes.

“Ya, Funeral for a Friend, Jennifer says without wasting a moment.

I get all excited as I search through my playlist saying,

“Elton John? I think I’ve got it, but the song’s ten minutes long. That’ll wipe out the battery for sure.”

She’s so far gone she doesn’t react at all.

I hit play.[8]

I see fresh blood oozing out of the peeling duct tape as I hear Elton singing,

“Love lies bleeding in my hands.”

I have to get her help and fast. I reach to grab my clothes and see a book sticking out from under Jennifer’s neatly folded clothes.

It’s Jack Tanner’s captain’s log!

I open a page Jennifer has folded over.

This sad alcoholic really had a tough life.

It’s not right that someone “just following orders” ended his life.

He really did see that sub.

Well, that would have been helpful to know about before we started on this little disaster, I thought as I quickly put on my clothes.

I set the diary down as my mind races through of all our options, none are good.

As I crawl out of the log I’m immediately met with a revolver.

My first reaction is to fight.

But what I see is a kindly looking old man in a long white beard that goes to his waist. He also has crazy white hair and blue eyes that pierced through to my soul. He looks different.

Different is good.

I decide to slowly put my hands in the air.

“Who are you? the crazy old man asks.

“Who are you? I reply.

We stare down each other forever before I think: “This is ridiculous!”

“My name is John Denning. I’m with…”

“Are you one of them?” Al asks with a gun pointed squarely now into the middle of my forehead.

“No. No. We’re FBI.”

“Do FBI agents generally sleep together naked?” asks our Santa look alike.

“No. No. It’s not like that. She’s shot. Needs medical help. You have a two-way radio?” I ask.

“Ain’t got no radio.”

My hopes are instantly crushed.

“But I know where one is,” he says.

“How far?”

“In the mine.”

“Can you take me there?”

“Ya, but you better take her.”

Why?

“There’s a doctor up there.”

“Really?”

I study the old man to see if he’s nuts or believable.

I’m not sure.

But since I really didn’t have another choice, I decide to follow him.

I pick up the unconscious Jennifer and follow him into the woods.

By the way, what’s your name?” I ask.

“Al Reynolds,” the old man answers.

I’m carrying Jennifer over my shoulder as we slowly ascend Bokan Mountain. This is still a densely wooded area. There is some snow in the trees and on the ground but not on the trail.

As we near a mine entrance, I have to stop as I’m not in as good of shape as I was sixteen years ago.

There are no boards or doors or anything. Just a black hole that looks just like the crevasse into which Trevor fell at the top of Mt. Hood just days ago.

Al encouragingly says, “It’ll be OK. The Russians are on the other side of the mountain right now.”

I’m suspicious. I look around but without any other real choice I head into the mine with Al.

Inside the mine it’s actually much warmer than in the snow. Al turns on a halogen light he picks up from behind some rocks and I continue to follow him.

As we walk deeper and deeper into the mine Jennifer mumbles something.

I stop.

“You okay?”

Jennifer is too weak to speak but moves her good arm up to her wound. It’s bleeding again.

“Oh hell!” I exclaim as I stop and put her down.

I rip off my shirt, tear it and put it around her wound and chest. Suddenly everything goes black.

I look down the vein and see Al has travelled so far that there is nothing between him and me except blackness.

“Hey! She’s bleeding!”

Al responds, “Then c’mon!”

I have no choice but to trust this crazy old man. I lift Jennifer and now carry her in my arms. I have to run in pitch black toward Al’s light.

Al finally shines his halogen lamp toward me. It is a good thing as there is a rock that I would’ve hit. The fall could’ve killed us as we would’ve likely fallen onto some larger boulders.

Again, I feel like I’m in my elementary school hall with a fever and running forever.

I finally catch up to Al and just keep running. Al now starts walking fast behind me and shining the halogen on my path.

We finally come to a three way split in the mountain. Two ways are pitch black. The other way an iron gate with thick bars block their way. Several signs are hanging on the steel bars that say,

Without pausing, Al pulls a bunch of keys from his belt and puts one in the lock, opening the gate. Al starts down the tunnel then realizes I’m still standing at the gates. Al flashes the light back to me, I’m still frozen, staring at the signs.

“C’mon.”

Again, I figure I really have no choice and follow Al.

The cave walls soon turn into a reddish brown.

I’m probably getting poisoned and will end up like Madame Curie.

Now I see Jennifer is bleeding again and I set her down.

I try to stop the bleeding but can’t.

“Al, how much farther?” I look up and Al has vanished.

“AL!”

Al is nowhere to be seen or heard.

Now I’m screaming, “AL!”

Nothing.

I try to feel for a pulse on Jennifer’s wrist.

Nothing. I try to feel for a pulse on her neck.

Nothing.

I’m walking in absolute blackness when someone grabs my arm. It’s Al.

He takes me in another direction, just a few yards.

We now stop at a solid steel wall with a solid steel door.

“I hope you have the key?”

“Nope.” Al says with confidence.

Al wonders down the side of this shaft until he finds another shaft, which is hard to see as a giant boulder sits in the way.

“C’mon. We’re almost there!” says Al.

Again with hesitation, I follow.

This vein in the mountain is much smaller and I can barely fit. My six foot four-inch frame has to bend down to keep going. Al has now crawled into this tiny space about four feet off the ground.

“What are you doing?”

Al says, “You have to hand her to me.”

I say, “What?”

I can’t believe Al has even fit into this space. I set Jennifer down and use my phone’s flashlight to look at her face.

I open Jennifer’s eyelids, one at a time, and her pupils are rolled upwards and are dilated. This signifies brain death.

I have no choice but to push her lifeless body into the tiny space.

Al pulls her out of sight.

I can barely crawl into this tiny hole.

I flash my light down the hole and Al has disappeared with Jennifer’s body around a corner.

This crawlspace looks no larger than a ventilation duct in a large office building.

In fact, that’s exactly what this is as suddenly a blast of air comes rushing through the vent.

We continue to crawl on our stomachs.

I’m pushing Jennifer and Al is pulling.

We finally reach a large opening. Al fumbles through a bunch of keys and can’t find the right one.

Finally, he says, “Duh!”

He grabs a key from around his neck and sticks it into the lock.

Al opens the ventilation door near the ground and we push and pull a lifeless Jennifer onto a stockroom floor filled with supplies. This room is probably twenty feet high and maybe fifty feet by fifty feet on its sides. I can’t believe the amount of supplies in here. I pick Jennifer up and we run through this room and exit out another door.

We are in a very modern facility hall. Bright lighting, smooth floor, and a camera system are all part of the hallway.

I can’t believe that we’re inside a mountain in Alaska!

It could be any modern office building!

Al waits ’til the camera pans away from us before taking me down to a door.

He pulls out an electronic card and swipes it. The door opens and we go inside.

We’re standing in darkness ’til Al flips a light.

To my amazement this is a full surgical room!

It’s filled with everything from heart monitors to IV fluids.

Al locks the door and I immediately place Jennifer on an operating table in the middle of the room.

I grab an oxygen mask and put it on her.

I have to look where to turn on the oxygen.

Eventually, I find it and open the valve.

I notice a camera in the corner.

I grab a surgical mask and hang it over the camera, so the camera can’t see.

“Find me something to take bullet fragments out. And get me lots of gauze!”

Al starts looking around while I take off my shirt I wrapped around her and then her shirt.

The duct tape has almost completely fallen off and she’s bleeding again. Al hands me some gauze and a mean looking scalpel. It’s not for taking a bullet out but this will have to do.

I probe around with this thing not knowing, at all, what I’m doing.

Finally, I see what looks to be gold in color and move it.

Jennifer winces in pain.

Al has found a pair of needle nose pliers and hands them to me. I grab the unsterilized and most inappropriate nonsurgical device and pull a large bullet fragment from her left upper chest wall. Al helps me push gauze on her wound to close it.

The door tries to open but Al locked it from the inside so it won’t open.

Someone unlocks the door.

Al runs and turns off the light just before the door opens.

In walks a young Russian woman in a white doctor’s coat.

Al grabs her mouth and slams the door shut. He flips the light on and she clearly is terrified. I’m standing over Jennifer holding the gauze on her wound and ask,

“Do you speak English?”

The Russian doctor nods in the affirmative.

“This woman was shot by you people. Are you a doctor?”

Again, the Russian doctor nods in the affirmative.

“Can you look at her?”

The Russian doctor now sees it’s Al who is holding his hand over her mouth.

Al slowly removes his hand and she quickly walks over to Jennifer.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was you, Al? says the doctor.

Al and her clearly know each other.

“Tatiana Ivanov! The best doctor in Alaska!” says Al.

The doctor puts on a pair of gloves before touching Jennifer.

She takes the gauze away and sees Jennifer is in pain so she grabs a bottle of something, opens it and starts to pour it into the wound when I stop her.

The doctor says, “It’s a one percent solution of lidocaine. This will ease her pain.”

I let her do this.

The doctor actually pushes pretty hard and with a syringe, forcing more lidocaine into the wound area. Jennifer winces, at first, but soon looks to be more comfortable.

The doctor then takes a sterile scalpel out of a surgical case and holds it up for us to see and then debrides the area around the wound. She then irrigates the wound and area with an IV bag of saline. She then uses a small medical probe to search around further.

The doctor picks up the pliers they were using, shakes her head and puts them to the side.

After that, she grabs a pair of forceps and penetrates the wound deeply. Soon she pulls out a much larger bullet fragment and drops it like a big piece of lead in a metal pan nearby.

Jennifer looks relieved as her eyes fully open for just a second. She glances at the doctor and me before going unconscious again.

She again irrigates the wound then wheels around and grabs some suture equipment. She quickly returns and prepares the damaged tissues for a suture. She then uses a running suture deep inside Jennifer’s upper chest. That means she is weaving it in an out continuously closing the area damaged by the bullet. She begins another running suture to close Jennifer’s dark skin. The nylon suture fits snugly to Jennifer’s skin.

Worried, she reacts and starts speaking in Russian before catching herself.

The doctor turns to me, “In a few more minutes this woman would have bled to death.”

The doctor then turns her attention to Al,

“You can put the gun down, Al. Open that refrigerator and get me two pints of ‘O’ blood.”

Al opens a door and this unit is stacked with blood.

“What is this place?” comes out of my mouth realizing this would have taken some time to put just this room together in the middle of a mountain!

And in the middle of Alaska!

The doctor does not answer me as she is working feverishly on Jennifer.

“I still don’t know if she’ll make it,” says the doctor.

I panic saying, “We gotta go.”

“Impossible. They will kill you and now me too. No one comes in here but me. You’re safe right here,” says the doctor.

Al pipes up, “She’s treated me before. She’s the only person I trust.”

I still don’t trust her; I think to myself.

“You don’t have to trust me but she needs rest,” says the doctor, seeming to read my mind.

“Where are your communication systems?” I ask.

“On the other side of the complex but you’d never make it. They’re looking for you.” The doctor then looks at Al,

“And you, they’ve been hunting you for weeks.”

“Haven’t caught crazy Al Reynolds yet!” says Al with a growl.

“They’re tryin’ ta poison us all with aluminum, ya know. Big shiny aluminum. It’s in all their suitcases. We have ta stop ’em. The only place they can’t poison us in the mine. They’ve stolen my mine.”

That’s not all they’ve stolen! I think to myself.

The Russian doctor reacts to me: He’s nuts but I’ll handle it.

“What is this place?” I ask again.

Tatiana says, “Russia wanted a place in North America that was remote, had uranium, dysprosium, thorium and easy access to deep water. Bokan is the only place on earth with all of the above.”

Just then a beeping sound goes off on a machine in the corner of the room.

“Can we turn this off?” I ask.

“You can but it’s telling you there is excess radiation in here.” The doctor walks to an air conditioning panel by the door and opens it.

I run over and shove a gun into her neck.

“I can either suck the radiation out of this room or you can absorb ionizing radiation into your body which will kill you, eventually.”

Al says, “It’s okay. You can trust her.”

After considering my options, I put the gun down.

Al is in the corner peeling paint off the wall and acting totally insane.

The doctor says,

“He’s a leftover from the old days when uranium was originally found here in the 1950’s. He came here to find gold but instead found uranium. He purchased a couple of these mine claims long after they were abandoned then got everyone in his family to purchase claims too. When the price of uranium dropped they all left.”

The doctor and I look at Al trying to lick paint, “Al never did,” she says.

“I’d say he’s been here long enough,” I say with sarcasm.

She smiles than asks me,

“So what’s your plan?”

Al stops chewing on paint and we look at each other with nothing but blank stares.

I have fallen asleep next to the table where Jennifer is resting.

Jennifer moves a bit which wakes me. I look around. Al and the doctor are gone!

I jump to my feet and run to the door.

Peering out I see no one in the hall.

Knowing I must move her, I close the door and go to Jennifer.

She has on a shoulder arm sling and a new shirt.

I nudge her, “Jennifer.”

Jennifer struggles to open her eyes.

“Jennifer, we have to move.”

“Where are we?”

“Inside the mountain.”

“Bokan?”

“Yes.”

“How can that be?”

“I dunno but we have to leave. Now.”

Jennifer tries to lift her head but she is too weak.

I pick her up and head for the door.

Peeking out the open door, I see nothing and exit the surgical room. I pull the door shut with my little finger as the other nine are holding an unconscious Jennifer.

Stopping at the same door I came through on our way in, I try the handle.

It opens!

Inside the room I run and try to get into the vent we entered.

It’s locked and now we’re trapped. I look around and see a tall stack of fifty-five gallon drums of something in the corner. I set Jennifer down behind the drums. A large red light in the ceiling goes on and starts spinning like An old police car light.

“Great!”

Just then the steel door opens and I produce my water logged Glock, which I’m pretty confident will fire.

Crazy Al steps through the door.

“We’ve gotta get outta here.” I say.

“No. Wait.” Al looks up.

I think he’s nuts.

Then the air system turns on.

“It’s just the ventilation system. The radiation is everywhere in this place.”

“Great! So we were just exposed to radiation in that air blast on the way in?” I ask.

Al looks like he has no idea what I’m talking about. So then I ask him,

“Can’t we go out the way we came in?”

“No. It’s guarded now. They know we’re down here.”

I walk over to Jennifer seeing she is really weak but trying to speak.

Al walks over. “How’s she doing?”

Jennifer rolls her eyes as if: Not too good.

Al says, “I was in the big one: WWII. Navy. Only three things I fear in this world:

“God, electricity and German subs. You know why?”

“You can’t see any of ’em but cha know they’ll all kill ya!”

Al has a crazy laugh and I realize this guy isn’t playing with a full deck but he saved our lives so I strike up a conversation.

“So what’d ya do after the Navy?”

“Went to L.A. and worked for the Department of Water and Power for 30 years.

“What’d ya do there?”

“Repaired power lines.”

Great! This guy spent his whole life with things he’s afraid of.”

“I came up here to get lucky and strike it rich. Wasn’t so lucky, I guess.” says Al.

“So the Russians are after the uranium?” I ask.

“Uranium and rare earths, I guess. We’re sittin’ on five million tons of rare earths. In those rare earths is thorium.”

“What’s thorium,” I ask.

Al says, “Scientists have told me the radiotoxicity of thorium waste is 10,000 times less than that of uranium. Meaning: It’s a good fuel to safely run nuclear power in close quarters.”

I add, “Like a submarine or a mine?”

“Exactly,” mumbles Jennifer. She is groggy but says, “So if the Russians aren’t already mining thorium when the uranium runs out, I’ll bet they go after the thorium and the largest deposit of dysprosium in the United States which is right here.”

“Dysprosium? What’s that?”

“It’s used in the control rods of nuclear reactors and in bombs,” says Jennifer waking up. “I was a reactor controls tech on two ships. What I don’t understand is: Why wouldn’t the Russians just let some front company mine here openly?”

I’m now looking at the labels on the barrels, “This is a whole lot more than some mining operation.”

Al’s mind has wondered off somewhere and is no longer paying any attention.

Looks like he’s been in this mine just a little too long, I think to myself.

The thought now hits me:

“Ruddy! He’s a math professor. That’s why Ruddy’s here. He’s working for the Russians!”

“The sub comes in here every week with supplies,” says crazy Al.

“Every week?” JD wonders, “How many subs are there?”

No one answers him.

“It’s all a conspiracy. They’re tryin’ ta poison us with their aluminum they keep bringin’ in.

It’s everywhere. They’re gonna take over the world.”

I’m ignoring Mr. Crazy’s rants when suddenly the steel door opens.

Two Russian Special Forces guys appear. They are all in black with their weapons in hand. They walk through the storage room without saying a word.

I say to Jennifer and Al, “Stay here.”

I watch the Russians exit and decide to follow.

Jennifer, delirious, calls out, “Is it Christmas yet?”