The Hunt for Red October

“All stop.” Lieutenant Goodman relayed the orders a second later. Aft, the reactor watch reduced steam demand, increasing the temperature in the reactor. This allowed neutrons to escape out of the pile, rapidly slowing the fission reaction.

“When speed gets to four knots, go to one-third speed,” Chambers told the officer of the deck as he went aft to the sonar room. “Frenchie, I need data in a hurry.”

“Still going too fast, sir,” Laval said.

The Red October

“Captain Ramius, I think we should slow down,” Mancuso said judiciously.

“The signal was not repeated,” Ramius disagreed. The second directional signal had missed them, and the Dallas had not relayed the danger signal yet because she was still traveling too fast to locate the October and pass it along.

The Pogy

“Okay, sir, Dallas has killed power.”

Wood chewed on his lower lip. “All right, let’s find the bastard. Yankee search, Chief, max power.” He went back to control. “Man battle stations.” An alarm went off two seconds later. The Pogy had already been at increased readiness, and within forty seconds all stations were manned, with the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Tom Reynolds, as fire control coordinator. His team of officers and technicians were waiting for data to feed into the Mark 117 fire control computer.

The sonar dome in the Pogy’s bow was blasting sound energy into the water. Fifteen seconds after it started the first return signal appeared on Chief Palmer’s screen.

“Conn, sonar, we have a positive contact, bearing two-three-four, range six thousand yards. Classify probable Alfa class from his plant signature,” Palmer said.

“Get me a solution!” Wood said urgently.

“Aye.” Reynolds watched the data input as another team of officers was making a paper and pencil plot on the chart table. Computer or not, there had to be a backup. The data paraded across the screen. The Pogy’s four torpedo tubes contained a pair of Harpoon antiship missiles and two Mark 48 torpedoes. Only the torpedoes were useful at the moment. The Mark 48 was the most powerful torpedo in the inventory; wire-guided — and able to home in with its own active sonar — it ran at over fifty knots and carried a half-ton warhead. “Skipper, we got a solution for both fish. Running time four minutes, thirty-five seconds.”

“Sonar, secure pinging,” Wood said.

“Aye aye. Pinging secured, sir.” Palmer killed power to the active systems. “Target elevation-depression angle is near zero, sir. He’s about at our depth.”

“Very well, sonar. Keep on him.” Wood now had his target’s position. Further pinging would only give it a better idea of his own.

The Dallas

“Pogy was pinging something. They got a return, bearing one-nine-one, about,” Chief Laval said. “There’s another sub out there. I don’t know what. I can read some plant and steam noises, but not enough for a signature.”

The Pogy

“The boomer’s still movin’, sir,” Chief Palmer reported.

“Skipper,” Reynolds looked up from the paper tracks, “her course takes her between us and the target.”

“Terrific. All ahead one-third, left twenty degrees rudder.” Wood moved to the sonar room while his orders were carried out. “Chief, power up and stand by to ping the boomer hard.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Palmer worked his controls. “Ready, sir.”

“Hit him straight on. I don’t want him to miss this time.”

Wood watched the heading indicator on the sonar plot swing. The Pogy was turning rapidly, but not rapidly enough to suit him. The Red October—only he and Reynolds knew that she was Russian, though the crew was speculating like mad — was coming in too fast.

“Ready, sir.”

“Hit it.”

Palmer punched the impulse control.

Ping ping ping ping ping!

The Red October

“Skipper,” Jones yelled. “Danger signal!”

Mancuso jumped to the annunciator without waiting for Ramius to react. He twisted the dial to All Stop. When this was done he looked at Ramius. “Sorry, sir.”

“All right.” Ramius scowled at the chart. The phone buzzed a moment later. He took it and spoke in Russian for several seconds before hanging up. “I told them that we have a problem but we do not know what it is.”

“True enough.” Mancuso joined Ramius at the chart. Engine noises were diminishing, though not quickly enough to suit the American. The October was quiet for a Russian sub, but this was still too noisy for him.

“See if your sonarman can locate anything,” Ramius suggested.

“Right.” Mancuso took a few steps aft. “Jonesy, find what’s out there.”

“Aye, Skipper, but it won’t be easy on this gear.” He already had the sensor arrays working in the direction of the two escorting attack subs. Jones adjusted the fit of his headphones and started working on the amplifier controls. No signal processors, no SAPS, and the transducers weren’t worth a damn! But this wasn’t the time to get excited. The Soviet systems had to be manipulated electromechanically, unlike the computer-controlled ones he was used to. Slowly and carefully, he altered the directional receptor gangs in the sonar dome forward, his right hand twirling a cigarette pack, his eyes shut tight. He didn’t notice Bugayev sitting next to him, listening to the same input.

The Dallas

“What do we know, Chief?” Chambers asked.

“I got a bearing and nothing else. Pogy’s got him all dialed in, but our friend powered back his engine right after he got lashed, and he faded out on me. Pogy got a big return off him. He’s probably pretty close, sir.”

Chambers had only moved up to his executive officer’s posting four months earlier. He was a bright, experienced officer and a likely candidate for his own command, but he was only thirty-three years old and had only been back in submarines for those four months. The year and a half prior to that he’d been a reactor instructor in Idaho. The gruffness that was part of his job as Mancuso’s principal on-board disciplinarian also shielded more insecurity than he would have cared to admit. Now his career was on the line. He knew exactly how important this mission was. His future would ride on the decisions he was about to make.

“Can you localize with one ping?”

The sonar chief considered this for a second. “Not enough for a shooting solution, but it’ll give us something.”

“One ping, do it.”

“Aye.” Laval worked on his board briefly, triggering the active elements.

The V. K. Konovalov

Tupolev winced. He had acted too soon. He should have waited until they were past — but then if he had waited that long, he would have had to move, and now he had all three of them hovering nearby, almost still.

The four submarines were moving only fast enough for depth control. The Russian Alfa was pointed southeast, and all four were arrayed in a roughly trapezoidal fashion, open end seaward. The Pogy and the Dallas were to the north of the Konovalov, the Red October was southeast of her.

The Red October

“Somebody just pinged her,” Jones said quietly. “Bearing is roughly northwest, but she isn’t making enough noise for us to read her. Sir, if I had to make a bet, I’d say she was pretty close.”

“How do you know that?” Mancuso asked.

“I heard the pulse direct — just one ping to get a range, I think. It was from a BQQ-5. Then we heard the echo off the target. The math works out a couple of different ways, but smart money is he’s between us and our