The Hunt for Red October

The michman listened to the headphones again and made some adjustments on his panel. “Perhaps…there is a good deal of surface noise, Comrade, and I — wait. There seems to be some noise. Our last target bearing was one-seven-one, and this new noise is…one-seven-five. Very faint, Comrade Captain — a ping, a single ping on active sonar.”

“So.” Tupolev leaned against the bulkhead. “Good work, Comrade. Now we must be patient.”

The Dallas

Chief Laval pronounced the area clear. The BQQ-5’s sensitive receptors revealed nothing, even after the SAPS system had been used. Chambers maneuvered the bow around so that the single ping would go out to the Pogy, which in turn fired off her own ping to the Red October to make sure the signal was received. It was clear for another ten miles. The Pogy moved out at thirty knots, followed by the U.S. Navy’s newest boomer.

The V. K. Konovalov

“Two more submarines. One single screw, the other twin screw, I think. Still faint. The single-screw submarine is turning much more rapidly. Do the Americans have twin-screw submarines, Comrade Captain?”

“Yes, I believe so.” Tupolev wondered about this. The difference in signature characteristics was not all that pronounced. They’d see in any case. The Konovalov was creeping along at two knots, one hundred fifty meters beneath the surface. Whatever was coming seemed to be coming right for them. Well, he’d teach the imperialists something after all.

The Red October

“Can anybody spell me at the wheel?” Ryan asked.

“Need a stretch?” Mancuso asked, coming over.

“Yeah. I could stand a trip to the head, too. The coffee’s about to bust my kidneys.”

“I relieve you, sir.” The American captain moved into Ryan’s seat. Jack headed aft to the nearest head. Two minutes later he was feeling much better. Back in the control room, he did some knee bends to get circulation back in his legs, then looked briefly at the chart. It seemed strange, almost sinister, to see the U.S. coast marked in Russian.

“Thank you, Commander.”

“Sure.” Mancuso stood.

“It is certain that you are no sailor, Ryan.” Ramius had been watching him without a word.

“I have never claimed to be one, Captain,” Ryan said agreeably. “How long to Norfolk?”

“Oh, another four hours, tops,” Mancuso said. “The idea’s to arrive after dark. They have something to get us in unseen, but I don’t know what.”

“We left the sound in daylight. What if somebody saw us then?” Ryan asked.

“I didn’t see anything, but if anybody was there, all he’d have seen was three sub conning towers with no numbers on them.” They had left in daylight to take advantage of a “window” in Soviet satellite coverage.

Ryan lit another cigarette. His wife would give him hell for this, but he was tense from being on the submarine. Sitting at the helmsman’s station left him with nothing to do but stare at the handful of instruments. The sub was easier to hold level than he had expected, and the only radical turn he had attempted showed how eager the sub was to change course in any direction. Thirty-some-thousand tons of steel, he thought — no wonder.

The Pogy/The Red October

The Pogy stormed past the Dallas at thirty knots and continued for twenty minutes, stopping eleven miles beyond her — and three miles from the Konovalov, whose crew was scarcely breathing now. The Pogy’s sonar, though lacking the new BC-10/SAPS signal-processing system, was otherwise state of the art, but it was impossible to hear something that made no noise at all, and the Konovalov was silent.

The Red October passed the Dallas at 1500 hours after receiving the latest all-clear signal. Her crew was tired and looking forward to arriving at Norfolk two hours after sundown. Ryan wondered how quickly he could fly back to London. He was afraid that the CIA would want to debrief him at length. Mancuso and the crewmen of the Dallas wondered if they’d get to see their families. They weren’t counting on it.

The V. K. Konovalov

“Whatever it is, it is big, very big, I think. His course will take him within five kilometers of us.”

“An Ohio, as Moscow said,” Tupolev commented.

“It sounds like a twin-screw submarine, Comrade Captain,” the michman said.

“The Ohio has one propeller. You know that.”

“Yes, Comrade. In any case, he will be with us in twenty minutes. The other attack submarine is moving at thirty-plus knots. If the pattern holds, he will proceed fifteen kilometers beyond us.”

“And the other American?”

“A few kilometers seaward, drifting slowly, like us. I do not have an exact range. I could raise him on active sonar, but that—”

“I am aware of the consequences,” Tupolev snapped. He went back to the control room.

“Tell the engineers to be ready to answer bells. All men at battle stations?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain,” the starpom replied. “We have an excellent firing solution on the American hunter sub — the one moving, that is. The way he runs at full speed makes it easy for us. The other we can localize in seconds.”

“Good, for a change,” Tupolev smiled. “You see what we can do when circumstances favor us?”

“And what shall we do?”

“When the big one passes us, we will close and ream his asshole. They have played their games. Now we shall play ours. Have the engineers increase power. We will need full power shortly.”

“It will make noise, Comrade,” the starpom cautioned.

“True, but we have no choice. Ten percent power. The Ohio cannot possibly hear that, and perhaps the near hunter sub won’t either.”

The Pogy

“Where did that come from?” The sonar chief made some adjustments on his board. “Conn, sonar, I got a contact, bearing two-three-zero.”

“Conn, aye,” Commander Wood answered at once. “Can you classify?”

“No, sir. It just came up. Reactor plant and steam noises, real faint, sir. I can’t quite read the plant signature…” He flipped the gain controls to maximum. “Not one of ours. Skipper, I think maybe we got us an Alfa here.”

“Oh, great! Signal Dallas right now!”

The chief tried, but the Dallas, running at thirty-two knots, missed the five rapid pings. The Red October was now eight miles away.

The Red October

Jones’ eyes suddenly screwed shut. “Mr. Bugayev, tell the skipper I just heard a couple of pings.”

“Couple?”

“More’n one, but I didn’t get a count.”

The Pogy

Commander Wood made his decision. The idea had been to send the sonar signals on a highly directional, low-power basis so as to minimize the chance of revealing his own position. But the Dallas hadn’t picked that up.

“Max power, Chief. Hit Dallas with everything.”

“Aye aye.” The chief flipped his power controls to full. It took several seconds until the system was ready to send a hundred-kilowatt blast of energy.

Ping ping ping ping ping!

The Dallas

“Wow!” Chief Laval exclaimed. “Conn, sonar, danger signal from Pogy!”

“All stop!” Chambers ordered. “Quiet ship.”