Back In The USSR

I retraced my steps to the backpack.  I had left it a safe distance away from the settlement.  I stowed the food and supplies in one of the compartments and resumed walking.

 

I was tempted to revisit Border Station 1.  It was only a few miles away and I could see the glow of the flood lights.  But unlike my last visit, I won’t be heading back to Alaska.  I will keep going west.  There is no way to hide my footsteps.  To keep the game going as long as possible, I need to get to the mainland without being noticed. 

 

If I can make it across the ice, sneaking into Siberia should not be too difficult.  Thirty miles ahead of me is Cape Dezhnev.  It is desolate, and mostly unpopulated.  If the stories the old Inuits told me were true, the small trading post at the Cape had been evacuated.  I could come ashore there and spend a day or two resting in the abandoned buildings.  With luck, wind and snow will cover my tracks before anyone notices them.

 

There was not much in the way of entertainment for a young boy growing up in Wales, Alaska.  Of course, Eastwood and I did a pretty good job of making our own fun and games.  And, there was the general store.  When the weather was mild, the storytellers and liars gathered on the front porch.  When it was cold, they moved inside, and made a circle around the wood stove.

 

It was hard to tell how much of their yarns were true, and when they crossed the line to exaggeration or bald faced lying.  It didn’t matter.  They told great stories.  Eastwood verified that much of what they told me about Siberia was factual.

 

I knew that before World War II, the Inuit who lived in the region travelled freely between Alaska, Siberia, and the many islands in the Bering Sea.  I didn’t have any trouble visualizing the old storytellers, as young men, paddling their umiaks to the Cape. 

 

In the school library, Mrs. Nagel had photo albums filled with pictures from all over the Arctic.  I remember the picture of the statue dedicated to explorer Semyon Dezhnev, on the hill behind the four buildings that constituted the trading post.

 

Things changed when the Cold War started.  Travel across the imaginary line that separated US waters from those controlled by the Soviet Union was forbidden.  Still, skilled men paddling umiaks, or walking on ice, can come and go undetected, when traveling in very rugged, sparsely populated areas.

According to the liar’s circle, the Soviets had undertaken a massive population resettlement in the late 1950s.  The trading post was closed, and many of the Inuit in the region were forced to move.

It took two days for me to walk from the Diomede Islands to the Cape.  I made good time.  The ice was solid and I did not have to do any more iceberg hopping.  The snow that began falling slowed me down a little, but also made quick work of covering my tracks.

It was dark when I approached the coast.  I had been scanning with the Starlight scope and I had not seen any evidence of human activity.

When I got to the coast, I faced a steep, ice covered cliff.  I took the pair of ice axes out of the pack, and changed into my mountaineering boots.  Steel spikes, called crampons, protrude forward from the toe.  With an axe in each hand, and a set of crampons on each foot, I could secure myself to the icy surface of the slope.  I slowly made my way up.

After a short but intense climb, I reached the ledge that held the four buildings of the trading post.  A narrow band of dirt and rocks had been dug out to create a flat spot wide enough for the small buildings.  The structures looked to have intact roofs, but many of the windows were broken.  The building on the right seemed to be the most sound.  A window was missing and the front room was filled with snow.  But behind a door was a closet.  No windows.  Just big enough for me to stretch out.  I cleared out some trash, inflated my air mattress, and unrolled my sleeping bag. 

Lying down, it occurred to me.  This was the second time in less than a year that I was trespassing on the soil of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  The first time, on Big Diomede Island, I was terrified and excited.  This time, I felt nothing.  I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I slept for twelve hours.  When I woke, the snow was falling harder.  I had walked 60 miles in bitterly cold weather, across treacherous ice and snow.  A few days of rest were in order.  I inspected the wood stove in the front room of the building.  The chimney needed to be cleaned but otherwise it looked functional.  There are no trees in this barren place, but plenty of wood had been hauled in to construct the trading post.  One of the structures had a long set of stairs leading up to the door.  The nails pulled out easily when I pried up the boards with a climbing axe.

 

After I got a fire going in the stove, I nailed some of the boards over the missing window. I cut strips of foam rubber from a mattress and stuffed them in the cracks between the boards.  I shoveled as much of the snow as I could out the door.  The rest melted and drained through a hole I punched in the floor.

 

For the first time since I climbed out of Eastwood’s pickup truck, five days ago, I was warm.

 

Two days passed.  The snow stopped.  I could see stars in the dark morning sky.  No clouds.  I was bored and was running low on food.  Time to move on.

 

According to the Inuit stories, nine miles up the trail behind the trading post was Uelen, a small fishing village.  I was in the mood to steal the first four-wheel drive vehicle I could find, and see some of the countryside.

 

Just like much of the Alaskan wilderness I grew up in, there were no paved roads in this remote part of Siberia.  Only dirt or gravel trails.  And very few vehicles in the remote villages. 

 

I remembered the trips Eastwood and I took to Anchorage in the summers.  We spent hours in the University of Alaska library.  The reading room had newspapers from all over the planet.  Including Pravda, the official Soviet paper.  Eastwood would read the Russian language version, then hand it to me.  I knew there would be questions about the stories, asked in Russian, on the long drive home.

 

Aside from the obvious anti-American propaganda, I learned a lot about life in the Soviet Union.  For example, the government liked to brag about how they were modernizing the remote towns in Siberia.  The caption under one picture explained how each village would get at least one heavy duty vehicle, for use in town projects, and as emergency transport.

 

That is a big deal in a place like Siberia.  On the coldest days of winter, a vehicle must be kept in a heated garage when it is not running, or the oil will be too thick for the engine to start.   

 

So, I was hoping to steal some food in Uelen, then go on a joy ride.

 

I knew that was not a sustainable strategy.  I was able to get away with robbing the store on Diomede Island because no one in their right mind would have followed me across the ice.  Stealing a vehicle in the USSR would be a different story.  It will be a matter of time before men with weapons would be on my trail. 

 

I was tired of walking.  The plan was to ride as hard and as far as I could, make one last stand, then go out in a blaze of glory.

 

It was still daylight when the trail led me to the edge of the village.  I wasn’t too worried about being seen.  It was snowing again, and the alternating white and gray camouflage of my outerwear helped me to blend in.  Eastwood had taught me to move steadily, and close to the ground.  How to flow with the terrain.  When to stop, and when to go.

 

It did not take long to find the small garage that held the town’s vehicles.  I located the general store.  An elderly man with a backpack entered the store, then a few minutes later, walked back to his house.  I could tell by how he walked, the pack was heavier on the way home.  Tomorrow, he will need to return to the store, to repurchase what I will steal tonight.

 

The residents of Uelen fish in the Bering Sea, to the north of the village, as well as in the lagoon behind the town.  A row of sheds lines the lagoon, where they keep their boats and equipment.  I found a shed with a pile of fishing nets.  Suitable for a temporary bed.  I rested until the village was asleep.

 

In small towns like Wales, serious crime is rare.  It is not unusual for people to leave their doors unlocked.  I was hoping this was the case with the man I had seen at the store.  I crept under the window to his bedroom.  I listened carefully.  The soft snoring told me what I needed to know.  I gently turned the knob on the back door and it opened.

 

Eastwood had taught me how to walk toe to heel.  About the differences between types of shoes.  I crept through the house, careful not to make the floorboards creak.  On the kitchen table was a chunk of bannock.  A traditional type of bread.  And a jar of jam.  I opened the icebox and pulled out several packages, wrapped in white paper.  Meat and fish.  I loaded everything in the sack and quietly closed the door on my way out.

 

The garage was also unlocked.  Everything had gone my way so far.  Inside the shed were two 1950s era military vehicles.  A UAZ, the Russian equivalent of a Jeep, and a cargo truck, complete with snowplow.  Both had the keys in the ignition.  I knew which one would be best in the winter.  I pulled my knife out of the sheath and slashed the tires on the UAZ. 

 

The time for stealth ended as soon as I cranked the ignition on the truck.  I didn’t bother to open the garage door.  The thin wooden panels were no match for the plow.

 

I headed down the main road.  At the end of the lagoon it turns south and follows the edge of the water.  I looked back at the town and saw moving lights.  A few moments later, two snowmobiles rounded the corner and showed up in my rear view mirror.  I had company.

 

The road went around a curve.  For the moment, the hill opposite the lagoon was between me and the snowmobiles.  I stopped the truck, got out, and hid in the vegetation.  I had my Colt M1911 pistol in my hand.

 

The snowmobiles stopped when they came around the turn.  The men were right in front of me.  They were focused on the truck.  I had left the motor running and the lights on.  They took the rifles off of their shoulders and carefully moved ahead.  They did not notice me, coming up from behind.

 

I aimed the Colt between the men’s heads, and pulled the trigger.  The bullet ricocheted off of the side of the truck.  Both of the men instinctively ducked.  I shouted, in Russian, “Do not move, or I will watch your blood spill on the snow while you die! Drop your weapons!”  They did as I instructed.  I said, “I will make a deal with you.  I will take your rifles.  You can get on your snowmobiles and go back to Uelen.  You will live longer if you stick to fishing.”

 

I picked up the rifles and got back in the truck after I watched the men ride off.  I continued south.

 

Of course that would not be the end of it.  Just the beginning.  The men would be on the shortwave radio soon enough.  Others much tougher and better armed than fishermen would be looking for me soon.  In this remote wilderness, it will probably be the nearest unit of the Soviet Army.

 

If nothing else, the truck will eventually run out of fuel and I will end up on foot.  It will be much easier to catch up to me after that.  The game was getting to the good part.

 

I drove for several hours.  As I moved away from the coast, the elevation gradually increased.  The trail wound through hills and valleys.  I watched the fuel gage slowly move toward empty.  I quit wondering how much farther I could go when I saw the soldiers in the UAZ.

 

They were parked in the road, a few hundred yards ahead of me as I rounded a turn.  I stopped, threw the truck in reverse, and began backing up.  I saw dust kick up behind their vehicle as they accelerated towards me.  The trail had just passed through a gap, a break between two hills.  I slammed on the brakes and grabbed the Colt.  I jumped out and began running up the hill.

 

I heard the sound of the tires skidding on dirt as their UAZ stopped.  They were shouting at each other.  The sergeant was going to stay with the vehicle and take shots at me with his rifle.  The other three were to follow me.

 

Many times, during the long days of summer in Wales, Eastwood and I had shot each other with our paint guns.  To raise the stakes, we did not wear tee shirts.  The pain of the shot making direct contact with flesh made paying attention much easier.  We would take turns stalking each other, in all kinds of terrain.  I had learned how to stay behind cover and still move quickly.

 

The sergeant began firing.  Bullets bounced off of the rocks near me.  After a few minutes of climbing, I rounded a large outcropping and was out of his range.

 

I could hear the three men climbing below me.  I was having no problem outpacing them.  As I climbed, I would stop from time to time and listen to them.  They were getting tired.  One of the men complained he couldn’t breathe and would have to stop soon.  That was my cue.  I found a spot suitable for what I had in mind.  A ledge with a flat spot big enough for me to crouch down on.  I took the canister of pepper spray out of my vest.  Rocks were strewn everywhere.  I made a pile.  Some were bowling ball sized.  My Colt was in my left hand, pepper spray in the right.  I crouched down, out of sight, and waited.

 

I held my breath as they got close.  When the man’s head popped up over the ledge, he got a face full of pepper spray.  Then a fist sized rock in the middle of his forehead.  He screamed and fell backwards.  From the yelling, I could tell he landed on top of the man behind him.  I threw the rest of the rocks over the edge.  Further screams let me know when one hit its target.

 

Now was time for some trickery.  I shouted the Russian word for “See you!”  It would have sounded like “ooh vee dim sia!” to an American.  I climbed higher up on the hill.  Then waited to see if anyone pursued me.  I assumed at least two of the men were hurt.  I wasn’t sure about the third.  Regardless, no one pursued me.

 

I could hear the men talking.  I was able to make out, “Screw the orders.  My arm is broken and I can’t climb any more.  Let’s go back.”

 

I began climbing sideways on the slope, out of sight of the men below me.  Once I got around the edge of the hill, I began climbing down.  I was moving quickly, and I figured I would not have any trouble getting down before the injured men.  When I got to the road I was two hundred yards away from the sergeant, still waiting by the UAZ.  He was focused on the hill in front of him.  I crossed the road, then moved towards his position.  I used the brush as cover.  He had no idea I was crouched, just on the other side of their vehicle, when his men came hobbling down off of the hill.  When he saw the injured men approaching, he went to help. 

 

That gave me time to get in the UAZ.  The sergeant took some poorly aimed shots as I drove off.  He missed.

 

I drove for about an hour, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter.  The game just went to the next level.  It was flying low, and went directly over me.  It flew past, turned around, and began to head back.  At the same time, I realized the dark line in the distance in front of me was a convoy of military vehicles.   A dust spot showed up in my rear view mirror and began to get larger.  The cargo truck I had stolen.  The soldiers must have been able to hot wire it.

 

I reviewed the various survival techniques I had learned from Eastwood.  I realized he had not taught me how to evade an entire Army.  It was the end of the line.  Game over.  I stopped the UAZ, left the Colt on the front seat, and got out.  I pulled a harmonica out of my vest and sat, cross-legged on the dusty road.  I closed my eyes, put the instrument to my lips, and began playing the introduction to Neil Young’s Heart Of Gold.

 

I didn’t open my eyes.  I could hear everything.  The helicopter overhead.  The truck pulling up in front of me.  The door opening.  The man’s footsteps as he approached.  I kept playing the harmonica and ignored him when he told me to lie flat on the ground.  I heard the wooshing sound from the rifle butt when it swung through the air towards my head. 

 

When I woke up, my arms and legs were shackled.  I was in the back of a troop transport truck.  Two men with rifles sat across from me.  The truck was moving south.