AK 239: The Enemy Is Already Here

Jennifer takes the empty five-gallon bucket used to separate fish. She smells it, reacts, pulls her gun and carefully places it at the bottom of the bucket.

Jack’s boat slowly pulls up alongside the barge.

The windows on this rusty old boat are all boarded up with plywood.

I couldn’t see any movement, anywhere.

Jennifer remarks, “It’s unusually quiet. Usually, birds are making noise. That is unless people are nearby.”

Jennifer later told me:

Practically everybody in Alaska owns a dog for warning but there is nothing but absolute silence.

So I just felt something was wrong too.

Jennifer already said that she would run point as she walks to the bow. We didn’t need to do this as I have a no-knock warrant issued by a federal judge in Portland for the arrest of George Ruddy.

Jennifer calls out to disarm anyone inside,

“Hello? Anybody on board?”

Her voice echoes across the calm waters of the bay but returns empty. After another attempt also yields no result, I exit the bridge. It’s as quiet as a mouse on the barge, as I see Jennifer motion Jack to pull closer.

As we touch the barge, Jennifer walks from the bow of her boat directly onto the barge.

She is holding a tie rope and looking like a giant target in those huge red overalls and that neon yellow jacket.

Meanwhile, at the back of the boat, even though it’s December, I notice hundreds of salmon swimming around and think,

I love Alaska.

Those thoughts would soon be gone as I jumped onto the back of the barge.

Jennifer and I have pulled our guns as we head for the doors.

I motion for Jennifer to stand back as I’m about to kick in the door.

Jennifer stops me and checks the handle.

The door easily opens.

Jennifer just looks at me in disgust.

So much for trying to impress my partner.

I shrug my shoulders.

Inside is a dreary mess. If the outside looks to be in shambles the inside is filled mostly with trash. This is one giant room. Toilet, kitchen, bed and trash are all together. The first thing I see is stacks and stacks of sockeye salmon tins.

I walk to them and pick up a can saying, “The salmon capital of the world and this guy is eating it out of a can?”

Jennifer is not paying any attention. She’s looking at some rocks on a table. They look to have a shiny silvery center. Another rock looks to be goldish in tone.

I begin going through the drawers on a desk. Nothing seems significant.

Jennifer spots a map that says, Bokan Mountain Road in large red letters.

“These look to be mine entrances,” Jennifer says.

I casually walk to a stack of identical black suitcases. Curious, I pull the top one off the stack and open it.

My mouth drops open!

Stacks of fresh $100 bills. There must be a million or more in just this one briefcase. I start opening other briefcases.

It appears there are fresh $100 bills in every one!

There are twenty-two briefcases.

“Uhh, we might have stumbled into something else here,” I said.

I don’t realize that Jennifer has already gone outside.

I pop the last suitcase and on top of a million dollars in cash is this picture:

^{Kendrick Bay, Alaska — Russian TK-20 and her Typhoon sister, TK-17, in a rare daylight appearance}

^{Photo: Kolokolov Igor}

The eyewitnesses were right!

And that’s a steel reinforced dock!

What the hell is going on here?

I walk out and show Jennifer this picture saying,

“Here are your Typhoons!”

She says, “Holy shit!”

“Well, now we know: There are at least two of them!”

“I know a mining company was testing up here.”

Jennifer looks at the heavy machinery in front of the subs.

“That’s no mining operation. That machinery looks specifically designed for these subs. It looks like they can offload something from the front of the subs, doesn’t it?” asks Jennifer.

“I guess.” I answer, carefully looking at all of this heavy equipment.

Jack is on the bow of his boat with binoculars toward Bokan Mountain.

I then say, “This isn’t the half of it. Inside there are twenty-two suitcases filled with…” I don’t have time to finish as Jack sounds worried saying, “There’s movement at the tree line.”

Jennifer and I stop to look.

An older man with a white beard appears in a small, beat up Honda 4-wheel ATV. He waves to them as he approaches. I can’t see well from my angle looking through binoculars.

“Is it Ruddy?” I ask.

“No,” Jennifer quickly answers.

As the man rides onto the long steel dock, he is dressed in a big parka and a pair of blue jeans. He looks harmless enough as he is about 60 years old.

As he drives out to the edge of the dock where we are, Jennifer and I both pull our Glocks and have them in our ridiculous yellow rain gear.

“Hello,” he says with a thick Russian accent.

Jennifer answers, “Hello. We’re with the FBI and would like to ask you a few questions.”

The man, a little too eagerly, says,

“All right.”

The man walks to the barge from the dock. Looking closely now, I realize Jennifer is right, this dock is designed to move heavy machinery as it’s definitely made of heavy reinforced steel!