by Paul Greci
We could all learn from her. If only we had more time.
CHAPTER 93
A FEW HOURS LATER WE hit the broad, gray-brown waters of the Tanana River, dwarfing the small clear-water creek we’ve been paddling down. The overcast sky adds to the grayness, which is fine by me—the more we can blend in the better.
Shannon stops paddling, and I drift next to her and lay my paddle across my kayak. After another minute Brooke and Derrick are beside us, coasting in the current.
“We should press on,” I say. “I mean, I know the sun is coming up behind those clouds, but it seems like good conditions for making some progress.”
“I can keep going,” Brooke responds.
Shannon adds, “Regardless, we should be at the bridge by tomorrow morning. Barring any obstacles.”
“I don’t know what we’d do without your memory.” Derrick points at his head. “You know what to remember. For me, it’s more of a lottery.” He smiles.
“We won’t have to paddle single file on every stretch of the Tanana,” Shannon says, “but we’ll have to watch for the same hazards—sweepers, moose, gravel bars, people. The river is wide, so we’ll be able to see obstacles farther in advance, but since the current is faster, we’ll have to make the right moves sooner to avoid them.”
Shannon dips her paddle into the slurry of silt-laden water, and we all do the same, advancing downriver side by side.
Everything looks so peaceful. We’re tiny blips, floating in the wilderness. Right now, it doesn’t feel like we’re on the edge of nuclear war. My time at Simon Lake—running with Theo—seems like years ago, even though it’s been less than a month since the earthquake and the Russian invasion.
The tiny particles of silt make a hissing sound as they collide with our kayaks. We’re on top of a highway of swift-moving sediment, paddling boats and wearing clothes designed to look just like it. I doubt someone on the far side of the river could distinguish us from the water, especially in the dim light.
The river is making a broad turn to the right, and up ahead a series of small islands stretch across the water.
“We’ll have to pick a channel,” Shannon says.
“If we pick one of the middle ones,” I explain, “we’ll be less likely to see people.”
“Why’s that, Moose Man?” Derrick asks.
“People are more likely to be on the true shore than on an island in the middle of the river.” I give everyone a glance. “Right?”
“That makes sense,” Brooke responds.
“Stay with me.” Shannon digs her paddle into the river on her right side twice, shifting the nose of her kayak so it’s pointing toward the middle of the river.
We all do the same, and the islands come up faster than I anticipated. There are four. The top of each island is piled with driftwood, like the islands are strainers for anything coming downriver. If we just drifted and didn’t paddle, the current would be just as likely to jam us into the head of an island as it would to push us through a channel between them.
Shannon is giving the tops of the islands a wide berth, and we’re all right behind her doing the same thing. We float safely into the channel between the middle two islands.
“Why did you pick this one?” I ask, trying to learn something that may help me in the future.
Shannon rests her paddle across the center of her kayak. “I don’t know what will be on the downstream end of the islands, so I figured being in the middle would give us more options if we’re faced with having to make a quick decision.”
“We should land on an island when we stop for the day,” Derrick says. “I concur with Moose Man—less likely to run into people.”
“Wherever we stop,” I say, “we should get organized. As soon as we’re close to the bridge, we need to be ready to act on a moment’s notice.”
We all paddle on in silence. The ends of the islands disappear behind us, and now we’re in the middle of the Tanana, which stretches at least a quarter mile across, maybe more. We’re just gray dots on gray water.
Then the screams of jets pierce the sky, and my heart tries to beat its way out of my dry suit. Hopefully they’re flying too fast and too high to spot us. We’re banking on the gray-on-gray camouflage.
We stop paddling and hold our bodies still, just drifting with the current, knowing that movement—like our paddle blades rising and falling—is the number one thing that could give away our presence on the river.
CHAPTER 94
THE ISLAND WE BEACHED OUR kayaks on a little while ago is brushy with willows, but in the center there’s a small stand of spruce trees with less brush in the understory. After carrying our kayaks through the brush to conceal them, we’ve now got our gear spread out under the spruce trees.
“This island is less than a hundred feet across,” Brooke says, “but it’s the safest I’ve felt since before the earthquake.”
“It’s an unlikely spot to be found, that’s for sure,” Derrick says. “We could die and our bodies could turn to mummies before we’d be discovered by an archaeologist thousands of years in the future.”
I crack a smile. Derrick knows how to exaggerate, but does it in a way that isn’t outrageous or over-the-top.
We review how to set the explosives.
“Just to be clear,” I say to Shannon, “tell me what happens after you and Brooke drop me and Derrick off. After you’ve towed our kayaks with you to opposite sides of the river under the bridge.”
“When you and Derrick enter the water and start swimming toward the bridge,” Shannon says, “we’ll know it’s time to set our explosives.”
I nod. “Then after Derrick and I have set ours on the middle pylon, I’ll swim to Brooke and Derrick will swim to you.” I point at Shannon. “Then we’ll all kayak downriver to get out of the way.”
Brooke adds, “We’ll make sure we’ve untied the kayaks so we can have a quick escape.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Derrick says, “unless there’re snipers trying to pick us off. All we’ve got is this one gun.” Derrick picks up the pistol. “Should we carry it in our bag with the explosive?”
“Sounds good to me.” I don’t know what we’ll do if we get fired on. The one thing we have going for us is that we look like the river.
Sunlight filters through the trees, casting striped light and tree trunk shadows across our gear. I think about the jets we saw earlier and how they didn’t see us. Or if they did see us, they weren’t concerned. Or they’ve called in our location, and there’s a patrol searching for us.
Brooke’s words cut into my thoughts. “We should get some rest. Before we know it, we’ll be back on the water.”
Derrick lies down on his back. “Dry suit equals tent plus sleeping bag. Totally waterproof, too.” He crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes, which are in a patch of sunlight.
We all follow suit and take Derrick’s pose. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep, but sometimes rest is just as good. I’ve had countless nights before cross-country and track meets where I’ve barely slept but I’ve rested, and I’ve performed fine.
At sunset, we’ll start our biggest performance ever. I take a breath and think about the situation we’re in. I go away to leadership camp to broaden my horizons, explore the wilderness, and come back a changed person. I’ve changed, that’s for sure. I just hope I get to come back to a world that I know. To a world that’s intact. And I hope I can do my part to make that happen.
CHAPTER 95
“WE SHOULD SEE THE PIPELINE before the bridge,” I say, remembering what Sam told us.
While we rested away the day, two more groups of jets flew over us, but there was no way they could see us under the trees. And if they had some body-heat recognition technology, either it didn’t work or they mistook the heat we were generating for moose or wolves or caribou. Now the sun is setting, and we’re making our final preparations.
Derrick stuffs the rope with the carabiners into the waterproof backpack that holds the
explosive I’ll be carrying and says, “Gun, bear spray, explosive, communication device, waist straps, and rope—it’s all in there now.”
I take the pack and slip my shoulders through its straps.
“My pack’s ready, too,” Brooke says.
“Mine also,” Shannon says.
“I’m going to wear my flippers.” I point at them on the ground. “In case I need to jump out of my kayak and swim.”
“Good idea, Moose Man.” Derrick grabs his flippers and sets them next to mine.
“Do you think it’ll matter that one of my flippers is barely a flipper?” I point to the flipper that was munched by a bear.
“If we were swimming a long distance, it would,” Derrick says. “Or if we were swimming upriver, but we’re not.”
I nod. “Cool.” The last thing I want is this mission to fail because of one of my flippers.
Shannon looks at Brooke. “Maybe we should wear our flippers, too. We’ll have to take them off when we get to the bridge, but having them on while we paddle makes sense.”
Brooke nods. “Just in case we come under attack and need to abandon our kayaks.”
“We should all wear our waterproof packs with the explosives and our flippers, so if we do lose the kayaks, we’ll still have what it takes to do the job,” Shannon says.
The sun is dipping behind the trees. In my mind I go over our plan as I carry my kayak to the water’s edge. Paddle to within striking distance of the bridge. Drop off Derrick and me upriver from the bridge, ideally on the right side from what we remember Sam telling us, and no more than a quarter mile away. Shannon paddles across the river to the left side towing Derrick’s kayak and sets up under the bridge. Brooke tows my kayak and sets up under the bridge on the right side. Once we see Shannon and Brooke are in place, we press the button on the communication device and we wait for the signal.
I get my big backpack and rubber boots and strap them into the bow of my kayak. I scoot my kayak partway into the water, then I sit down and put my flippers on. I stand and pick up my paddle. It’s featherlight, and gray, like the color of everything else we have.
I wait for everyone else to finish with their flippers, and then I say, “For the good of Alaska and all its people, let’s go do this or die trying.”
CHAPTER 96
IF WE HADN’T STUMBLED UPON Sam’s camp, what would’ve happened to us? Would we have made it to the road and been captured by Russian soldiers? Would Sam be trying to pull off his mission by only blowing up two of the three bridges? I think about all of this as I dip my gray kayak paddle into the gray water and pull. A lot in life is left up to chance, but you can make a difference by what you do with the chances you encounter.
We work our way over to the right side of the river. I wish it would stay dusky like this for longer. We blend in better when the sun is down. Are the other teams already in position and waiting for us to press our button? The one thing I don’t get is how Sam would know if a team got caught before they reached their end point. Maybe that communication device is also tracking us, and Sam can see our progress, so he has an idea of what’s going on? He didn’t tell us that, but he’s got to be monitoring us or else he’d never know.
On a small muddy beach an old fish wheel rests, tied off right where the trees begin. It’s about eight feet tall and has two long woven baskets.
Shannon says, “My great-grandfather had a fish wheel, but his was closer to Fairbanks. He shared it with a few other elders. I was little when he died. I don’t know what happened to it.”
“I saw one in action when I went to Old Minto,” Brooke says.
“You went to Old Minto?” Shannon asks. “When?”
“Four or five years ago. My oldest sister was there as part of a class, and my dad and I took his friend’s motorboat down there for a day to visit. I think he was worried about her because it was her first time away from home. Everyone there was super friendly. All the elders kept offering us more and more food.”
“I’ve wanted to go there,” Shannon says. “Maybe someday. Depending on … everything.”
“What is it?” Derrick asks.
“Old Minto is a camp run by Athabascan elders on the Tanana River at an old village site,” Shannon responds, “but it’s way downriver from where we are. On the other side of Fairbanks, probably two hundred or three hundred river miles from here. It’s remote—off the road system. University classes go out there for some type of cultural-awareness training, I think.”
As the fish wheel fades in the distance, I say, “Do you think there’re people out there now? If so, they probably don’t even know about the invasion.”
Shannon rests her paddle across her kayak. “If there’re people out at Old Minto, they probably don’t know. And they’re probably a pretty low priority for the Russians. They wouldn’t be a threat out there.”
I think about being in a remote place and seeing a mushroom cloud. What would I do? What could I do? Would it even be possible to make sense of it? A lot of people live in remote places off the grid in Alaska. There must tons of people who have no clue about the Russians—like the two men who were canoeing.
Part of me thinks that it’d be nice to be living somewhere remote and not know. You’d just keep living your life up until the point when you were unknowingly killed by a massive nuclear explosion or you eventually came to town for supplies and found out that you no longer lived in the United States but now lived in a part of Russia. Would you be a citizen or a prisoner?
We round a bend, and I count four more islands in front of us. We decide to head for the middle channel, all agreeing that using the islands for cover is a good idea in case there are people on either shore. The set of islands is covered more with spruce trees than willows, like maybe the ground is a little higher on them than the island we camped on.
At the bottom of the channel, we see two people on the island to our left, dressed in military fatigues. We don’t know if they’re American or Russian, but they’ve spotted us and are raising their weapons.
CHAPTER 97
I DON’T KNOW WHAT REACHES me first: the sound of gunshots or the front of my kayak being pushed sideways as the bullet penetrates the fabric. I keep paddling, but the left front quarter of my boat is sagging from loss of air—listing to the left—so I lean to the right, trying to compensate as my arms work overtime in an attempt to get out of range of any more bullets.
Derrick, Shannon, and Brooke are all in front of me, paddling like crazy just like I am, but my partially deflated boat is slowing me down. They all round the point of the island, leaving the danger zone before me. Another shot whistles over my head, and I double down on my paddling, close in on my three partners, and yell, “My kayak’s been hit.”
They all stop paddling and turn toward me as I approach.
“Nailed the front of it.” I point with my paddle.
“One shot sounded like it went right over my head,” Derrick says. “Glad I’m not any taller than I am.”
“Why did they shoot at us?” Brooke asks. “Are they Russians? Is our whole plan blown now?”
Shannon shakes her head. “If they were Russian soldiers, they would have had automatic weapons, but they were only firing single shots. Otherwise we’d have been Swiss cheese. I think they’re part of one of those militias, and they thought we were Russian soldiers. We definitely look military, especially from a distance.”
“That makes sense,” I say.
“Everyone sees us as the enemy,” Brooke says. “Great.”
We all start paddling, and I work hard to keep up with the three of them. I’m thankful for the smart-wall technology that automatically isolated the front left section of my kayak.
“Is that boat going to hold up now that it’s damaged?” Shannon asks.
“Stable enough for now,” I reply, “but it’s a lot slower. I just hope it’s not too much farther to the bridge.”
“If those Rambo idiots have a radio,” Derrick says, “you can b
et they’re trying to communicate with their people.”
I think of Brooke’s phone and how the Russians have totally shut it down, and now I hope they’ve done the same for any basic radio equipment these backwoods militias might have.
“Why would they just start shooting if they didn’t know who we were?” Brooke asks.
“If they know we’ve been invaded by Russia,” I say, “then that’s what they’re expecting to see—Russians.”
“We’re assuming a lot,” Shannon says, “but in this case I don’t see how they could think we were anything but Russians and that they were bravely firing against the enemy.”
“How’d they get to that island in the first place?” Derrick asks. “Do they have a boat, or did they get dropped off? Either way, we’ve got to be on the lookout for anyone and everyone.”
“Until we get this job done,” I say, “everyone is more or less the enemy.”
The sky is starting to brighten, and I know the sun will be up soon. I think about almost getting shot, about how close those bullets came to putting holes in me, and I shudder. It doesn’t matter who’s shooting at you. Americans. Russians. Aliens from outer space. Bullets are bullets.
We round another bend, and, in the distance, we see two things spanning the river. They’re still a mile or so away, but the pipeline, and then the highway bridge, connect the two riverbanks.
If everything goes as planned, only the pipeline will be standing after we’re done.
We work our way over to the right side of the river and keep paddling in silence, searching for any movement anywhere. Are sentries stationed on the bridge? Or soldiers protecting the pipeline?
The sun is breaking over the horizon, casting shadows from left to right across the river, which works to our advantage because we can paddle in the shadows. Still, I feel more exposed now that the sun is up.
We all want to get into position, but doing it in daylight is risky. If we’re going to stop first, let the day pass, and move again at sunset, we’ll have to act soon, in the next few minutes; otherwise, we’ll be too close to not get into position.