The Encounter

by Donal Myrick

  With the hoverbarrows integrated into the bottom of the hovercraft, testing was resumed. What a difference that extra five hundred pounds of lift made. When power was applied, the vehicle sprung up like a jackrabbit, and hard landings were virtually eliminated. It was decided that the time had arrived to initiate the assault across the arctic ice to that lonesome and remote site on the north side of Meighen Island.

  CHAPTER 57

  Thanks Dad

  Glen Neely approached his dad with a request. “Dad, I would like to borrow the yacht again since you and your buddies didn’t make your summer fishing trip this year.”

  “Would you now? You know, it’s about time I transferred title of the boat to you, and let you worry about its upkeep and everything.”

  “Don’t do that, Dad. You know I couldn’t afford the insurance on that thing. I like it better when I can just borrow it from you when I need to.”

  “Son, you know you are a spoiled brat, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know. I am what I am, and it’s all your fault. So, can I have the boat?”

  “Of course you can. You know you can have it whenever you like, it’s going to be yours someday anyway.”

  “One other thing; when the time comes, can I use your captain and crew also?”

  “Oh, now it gets interesting. How come you don’t want to captain it yourself?”

  “Sometime, probably next month or towards the end of August or early September, we would like to make a voyage up north near Greenland, and I don’t have the experience for that kind of water. Captain Erik is licensed for all oceans, and I know he has previously worked extensively in the North Sea. I would feel more comfortable with him driving the boat.”

  “You know that is kind of late in the season to be going up there. What are you up to now, Son? Is this related to what you were doing in South America?”

  “Yes, but keep that under your hat. It is still kind of secret stuff.”

  “Well, be careful. I’ll make sure the insurance is paid up.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Getting Ready for an Arctic Expedition

  Max put out a call to the entire crew, including the Venezuelan contingency, inviting them to an offshore fishing trip just as a reason to get together again. Everyone knew, of course, that it was for more than just fun, so they responded enthusiastically that they would be delighted to attend the party. The plan was for the Huntsville contingency to ride with Glen on the yacht down to Mobile, Alabama, meet everyone else there, and then depart for a week at sea. Max thought that meeting this way would draw the least suspicion, and even if it did, they would be out of sight.

  Prior to leaving, an attempt was made to contact Sergei. At the last minute, he responded, and Scott asked point-blank, “Do you know if we are still being surveilled by Kuznetsov? We have all been on our best behavior, hoping that he would lose interest in us. Our entire group has said that they feel like they are living under a constant threat. Is that still the case?”

  Sergei replied, “There is still intense interest in what Dr. Baldridge and Dr. Schillinger might turn up with their research. However, their work is being shielded very effectively. And even I, and by extension Kuznetsov as well, am very intrigued with your sudden interest in air cushion vehicles. I know that you are up to something, so I urge you to be very careful. So the answer to your question is ‘yes, you are being watched’.”

  “That is disappointing news. We were all hoping we could start living normal lives.”

  “I don’t think you will ever again be able to do that.”

  “Okay, thanks for the update.”

  The next day instead of cruising down the Tennessee River heading for the Tombigbee and Mobile, Max notified everyone to come to Huntsville instead. Based on what Scott had just learned, they determined that it would be too dangerous to have the entire crew on the yacht together out in the Gulf. It would be just too easy of a target for Kuznetsov, who Max was guessing was still smarting from having failed at intercepting them in the Florida Straits.

  It took two more days for everyone to rearrange their flight plans and make it to Huntsville. Once everyone was settled in their accommodations, they regrouped at the Mueller Foundation office, where they were greeted by Connie and escorted down below the SCIF.

  Max opened the meeting, saying, “I appreciate everyone dropping whatever you were doing and coming here. I had hoped that we could meet while enjoying a little cruise, but we are informed that despite all of our efforts, we are still being closely watched. Hence cruising in the Gulf became out of the question.”

  Max continued, “The work on the air cushion vehicle is complete, and she is an unbelievable success. We have named her ‘Journey’, and she is ready to go. This meeting is so we can put all our heads together and figure out a way to get from here to the Arctic Ocean without being detected. Scott and I and others here have thought long and hard about it, and we haven’t come up with a plausible solution. We need our collective brains to solve this riddle.”

  Ted asked, “Do we have a time table or a deadline we must meet?”

  “No, the schedule is ours to determine, but obviously conditions up north vary immensely with time-of-year, so that will have to be considered.”

  Glen informed the group, “Dad has generously given us free rein use of the yacht, but with Kuznetsov watching us, I don’t know if it will be of any use to us. We might use it as a decoy to draw attention away from what we intend to do, but we probably will have to stay on the inland waterways.”

  Sam speaking to Geraldo said, “You guys are the experts on airdropping stuff. Can Journey be packaged so that she could be airdropped in some remote location near the destination?”

  “Sure,” replied Geraldo, “but the resources required to do so would be immense, much greater than what was required for getting stuff out of Venezuela. We would need to charter something like a C-123 or a C-130. Those capabilities are for hire.”

  Max pointed out, “Also, in Venezuela, we didn’t care if they were looking. Now we must be totally secret. I think an airdrop in that region would be seen by the whole world, and it wouldn’t take them long to know who we were and know pretty close to where we would be heading. While flying in would be desirable, there is no way we could keep our activities secret.”

  Peggy said, “Well, that leaves only one choice. We have to get there or at least close by boat.”

  “When you say close, just how close do you mean?” Ted asked.

  Max said, “I don’t really know, but for starters, let’s say four to five hundred miles. Journey is not range limited, we the humans are.”

  Scott pulled up on the screen a map of the top of the world. “Let’s put a five hundred mile circle around our target and see what lies within.”

  Max said, “Looks like most of Nunavut and the northwestern portion of Greenland.”

  Geraldo pointed out, “That part of Greenland has Thule AFB. We probably want to avoid that part of the map.”

  Peggy asked, “What do we know about Nunavut?”

  Dr. Fred joined the conversation, “Well, Nunavut is comprised mainly of a bunch of islands, and is sparsely inhabited. But despite being sparsely inhabited, there is a lot going on up there. Several universities have arctic research stations, a lot of companies are exploring for minerals, it is a rich area for fishing, NASA has a Mars research laboratory up there somewhere, and there is a lot of cruise ship traffic in the region. I also heard that there is a fossil forest on I think Axel Heiberg Island.”

  Max said, “Axel Heiberg is near where we are going. What else is going on the island?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, “but Google will tell us. Oh crap, I can’t access the internet from in here.”

  Scott said, “Go outside and check right quick. Meanwhile, let’s take a coffee break.”

  Sam left the SCIF and pulled up Google. “Aha, one of the Canadian universities has an arctic research station there,
but it is only manned during the summer. And yes, the fossil forest is on this island, and apparently, cruise ships stop there as well.”

  Sam returned to the SCIF and reported his findings.

  Max said, “Axel Heiberg looks like a good starting place, and it certainly is within Journey’s range. Now we just need to find a way to get her there.”

  Dr. Fred said, “A lot of the mining interests in the arctic are supplied by boats operating out of Hudson Bay, if we could get her to one of the ports on Hudson Bay, we could hire a supply boat to take her to that fiord where the cruise ships go. I doubt that there is much of a dock there, though, so I don’t know how you would offload her there.”

  “That won’t be a problem, trust me,” Max said confidently.

  “Okay, how do we get her to Hudson bay?” Glen asked.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Scott said. “Let’s prevail on our friends at HyTech Marine. After all, they have their name on the side of Journey as one of her sponsors. Let’s get them to ship her to Hudson bay. They have all the export licenses and procedures for shipping their stuff all over the world. They could ship her out, and our name wouldn’t even be on the manifest. No one would be the wiser.”

  “In order to ship her without special ‘Wide Load’ permits, she will have to be partially disassembled.”

  “Yes,” Max agreed, “Then we have to decide on where we do the reassembly. I’m thinking that if we hire one of those boats that have the big aft deck, like the boats that service the oil rigs, we could just put her parts on the deck and assemble her when we are at sea, and nobody is watching. We could just fly her off the deck when we get to Axel Heiberg or wherever if we get stopped by ice before we get there.”

  “It sounds like this plan could work,” remarked Geraldo, “but we need some insurance. The way I see it, once Journey leaves the local scene, and several of us disappear at the same time, every traffic camera, every spy satellite, and every eyeball asset Kuznetsov can muster will be looking for Journey and whoever is with her. And if we aren’t a long way off when they start looking, they will find us.”

  Glen was thinking that this is where the yacht could be of use. “If we all boarded the yacht for an inland waterway tour or a long Mississippi boat ride, they would have us all in one pile. They would have to think that they know where we all were, but they couldn’t actually watch us. Then, if Max, Peggy, and two others, say Jim and Sam could slip off unnoticed, make their way back to Huntsville. They could load up Journey and head out as just another product being shipped from HyTech Marine, and they could be all the way to the Canadian border before they were missed. Kuznetsov and company wouldn’t know where to begin looking.”

  Scott voiced his opinion, “That would work, but Max and whoever goes with him will need fake IDs and credit cards. The problem is, I don’t know how to set up fake IDs.”

  “No problem, “Interjected Geraldo, “I do, or rather I have contacts that do. Scott, what you need to do is convince our friends at HyTech Marine to let us operate under their corporate umbrella while we make this delivery. You might need to give them a rather substantial bond to secure their cooperation.”

  “I’ve gotten to know the owners pretty well. I think I can convince them to help us. We might need to work up a credible cover story to explain our secretiveness, though.”

  “We are also going to need a diesel crew cab dually and a gooseneck trailer to haul Journey and her disassembled parts. HyTech needs to acquire that soon also.”

  Max said, “Okay, we can make this work. How soon do you all think we can everything ready?”

  “It all depends,” Scott said. “What do you think is the long pole in this tent? Prepping Journey with the actual RMD instead of the big battery? Getting the truck and trailer? Working out and implementing the details for Max and company to sneak off the yacht?”

  “You also need to contract with someone with a boat to get us from Hudson Bay to Axel Heiberg,” Sam reminded Scott. “Actually, you probably shouldn’t tell them Axel Heiberg, but maybe somewhere indefinite like on Ellesmere Island. Then specify the destination later on. I think that will be the long pole in the tent.”

  “That is a good point. So how much time do we need? A month? Six weeks?”

  Ted pointed out, “We better shoot for no more than a month. If we wait much longer, the arctic waters will start freezing over, and you might not be able to travel much further north than Baffin Island.”

  “Okay,” Scott said, “One month it is, and it won’t hurt if we get it done ahead of schedule.”

  The ensuing days were frantically busy. It seemed that each task completed spawned at least two others that had been overlooked. The two owners of HyTech Marine were actually excited about participating in a super-secret adventure, and their enthusiasm only increased when they learned that Scott was offering them a cool half-million dollars for their support. The only thing they were concerned about was whether Scott was involved in something illegal. Scott assured them that their activity definitely was not illegal, but that it was very important and that it was very dangerous. It was because of the danger that the secrecy was required.

  HyTech bought the appropriate truck and a thirty-two-foot gooseneck trailer. Journey was configured in her final form for shipping and stocked with supplies to last Max and Peggy for a month. The bolt-on wings and stabilizer props were packaged for shipping, as were the side pontoons and skirt. A tool kit was included so that Journey’s wings and pontoons could be attached when they arrived at their destination.

  Rebreather scuba equipment and dry suits, insulated tarps to conceal their infrared signature, miscellaneous tools, and drills that would be required at the final destination were all packaged in durable containers that would be lashed to Journey’s roof in transit. It was going to be a heavy load, but Journey’s powerful electric motors and stabilizing ducted fans would be more than up to the task.

  It turned out that Sam was right. The long pole in the tent was finding a suitable boat to transport them north. Scott finally found the perfect boat. They had a contract to haul fuel oil and other supplies to small villages along the east side of Baffin Island all the way up to Grise Fiord, on the south end of Ellesmere Island. They agreed to take Journey on board, but could not guarantee that they could go much further. They operated out of Iqaluit on the south end of Baffin Island. They were planning to make a run-up to Grise Fiord in just six weeks. Further research revealed that monthly freighter trips were made from Goose Bay, Labrador to Iqaluit, so the problem boiled down to how to get Journey to Goose Bay. It turned out that one could drive all the way to Goose Bay from Huntsville in five days if all went well. This led to another problem: Journey had to be configured to fit in a large sea-land container in order to be transported on either of the boats. Here they got unbelievably lucky. When Journey was stripped down, she measured seven feet six inches wide by seven feet two inches high by eighteen feet eleven inches long. She would barely fit into a twenty-foot container. All of her other parts and other supplies would have to be packed into a second ten foot container. This was going to max out the capacity or the thirty-two-foot trailer and the F-450 dually truck. But the main thing was that it was doable. That left less than one week complete all remaining tasks, then get everyone on board the yacht underway in party mode, and get Journey on the road to Goose Bay undetected.

  CHAPTER 59

  Sneaking Out of Huntsville

  When the day came to execute the plan, a big to-do was made as everyone boarded the yacht for an openly talked about a two-week cruise down the Tennessee to the Ohio, and then down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Since they knew they were constantly being watched, the image that they were trying to present to their watchers was that they were just a bunch of party folks out to spend a bunch of Glen’s Daddy’s money. They were fortunate in that the weather cooperated very well with their plans.

  By early evening a massive thunderstorm rolled in and masked their actions. On a dark part o
f the river during the heavy rain, they were met by a small boat, and Max, Peggy, Jim, and Geraldo snuck unobserved off of the yacht and were ferried back to Decatur. From there, they went directly to HyTech Marine, where they picked up Journey and drove out into the storm. They hit I-65, and from there, it was interstate all the way to Detroit, where they would pass into Canada. It rained steadily upon them until they were north of Nashville, and Max felt confident that they were successful in their stealthy exit.

  Five uneventful days later, they pulled into Goose Bay Labrador road-weary and ready for a good seafood dinner.

  Jim said, “This is lobster country, so you know what I’m looking forward to this evening.”

  Max replied, “First things first. Let’s locate the Harbor Master and get on the docket for getting Journey loaded on the freighter. Then we need to make plans for this evening, that is to say, sleep in a hotel or sleep in the truck again.”

  Peggy announced, “I’m for the hotel. None of you guys have showered for five days.”

  “Well, neither have you,” Max reminded her.

  “I’m a girl, so you don’t need to remind me.”

  Max said, “Let’s find the Harbor Master, then we can figure out what we do next.”

  The Harbor Master informed them that the freighter wasn’t scheduled to sail for two more days, so they had plenty of time to get their freight loaded. He put them in contact with the ship’s Master so that they could complete the necessary paperwork. As it turned out, they wouldn’t be able to load Journey until the next afternoon.

  The Harbor Master also gave them directions to a hotel that he would recommend and suggested the best place in town to get a great lobster dinner. It was decided that Max and Peggy would get the hotel room the first night, then Jim and Geraldo would get it the second night. That way, Journey would be under their watchful eye continuously until she was securely loaded on the freighter. By the third day, Max and Peggy would be on board the freighter, and Jim and Geraldo would be heading back to Alabama.