The Hunt for Red October

“Just so?”

“Just so. We take pride in our hospitality, sir, and if I ever get transferred back from London, you and your men are welcome in my home at any time.”

“Tug’s turning to port.” Mancuso pointed. The conversation was taking too maudlin a turn for him.

“Give the order, Captain,” Ramius said. It was, after all, Mancuso’s harbor.

“Left five degrees rudder,” Mancuso said into the microphone.

“Left five degrees rudder, aye,” the helmsman responded. “Sir, my rudder is left five degrees.”

“Very well.”

The Paducah turned into the main channel, past the Saratoga, which was sitting under a massive crane, and headed towards a mile-long line of piers in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The channel was totally empty, just the October and the tug. Ryan wondered if the Paducah had a normal complement of enlisted men or a crew made entirely of admirals. He would not have given odds either way.

Norfolk, Virginia

Twenty minutes later they were at their destination. The Eight-Ten Dock was a new dry dock built to service the Ohio-class fleet ballistic missile submarines, a huge concrete box over eight hundred feet long, larger than it had to be, covered with a steel roof so that spy satellites could not see if it were occupied or not. It was in the maximum security section of the base, and one had to pass several security barriers of armed guards — marines, not the usual civilian guards — to get near the dock, much less into it.

“All stop,” Mancuso ordered.

“All stop, aye.”

The Red October had been slowing for several minutes, and it was another two hundred yards before she came to a complete halt. The Paducah curved around to starboard to push her bow round. Both captains would have preferred to power their own way in, but the damaged bow made maneuvering tricky. The diesel-powered tug took five minutes to line the bow up properly, headed directly into the water-filled box. Ramius gave the engine command himself, the last for this submarine. She eased forward through the black water, passing slowly under the wide roof. Mancuso ordered his men topside to handle the lines tossed them by a handful of sailors on the rim of the dock, and the submarine came to a halt exactly in its center. Already the gate they had passed through was closing, and a canvas cover the size of a clipper’s mainsail was being drawn across it. Only when cover was securely in place were the overhead lights switched on. Suddenly a group of thirty or so officers began screaming like fans at a ballgame. The only thing left out was the band.

“Finished with the engines,” Ramius said in Russian to the crew in the maneuvering room, then switched to English with a trace of sadness in his voice. “So. We are here.”

The overhead traveling crane moved down toward them and stopped to pick up the brow, which it brought around and laid carefully on the missile deck forward of the sail. The brow was hardly in place when a pair of officers with gold braid nearly to their elbows walked — ran — across it. Ryan recognized the one in front. It was Dan Foster.

The chief of naval operations saluted the quarterdeck as he got to the edge of the gangway, then looked up at the sail. “Request permission to come aboard, sir.”

“Permission is—”

“Granted,” Mancuso prompted.

“Permission is granted,” Ramius said loudly.

Foster jumped aboard and hurried up the exterior ladder on the sail. It wasn’t easy, since the ship still had a sizable list to port. Foster was puffing as he reached the control station.

“Captain Ramius, I’m Dan Foster.” Mancuso helped the CNO over the bridge coaming. The control station was suddenly crowded. The American admiral and the Russian captain shook hands, then Foster shook Mancuso’s. Jack came last.

“Looks like the uniform needs a little work, Ryan. So does the face.”

“Yeah, well, we ran into some trouble.”

“So I see. What happened?”

Ryan didn’t wait for the explanation. He went below without excusing himself. It wasn’t his fraternity. In the control room the men were standing around exchanging grins, but they were quiet, as if they feared the magic of the moment would evaporate all too quickly. For Ryan it already had. He looked for the deck hatch and climbed up through it, taking with him everything he’d brought aboard. He walked up the gangway against traffic. No one seemed to notice him. Two hospital corpsmen were carrying a stretcher, and Ryan decided to wait on the dock for Williams to be brought out. The British officer had missed everything, having only been fully conscious for the past three hours. As Ryan waited he smoked his last Russian cigarette. The stretcher, with Williams tied onto it, was manhandled out. Noyes and the medical corpsmen from the subs tagged along.

“How are you feeling?” Ryan walked alongside the stretcher toward the ambulance.

“Alive,” Williams said, looking pale and thin. “And you?”

“What I feel under my feet is solid concrete. Thank God for that!”

“And what he’s going to feel is a hospital bed. Nice meeting you, Ryan,” the doctor said briskly. “Let’s move it, people.” The corpsmen loaded the stretcher into an ambulance parked just inside the oversized doors. A minute later it was gone.

“You Commander Ryan, sir?” a marine sergeant asked after saluting.

Ryan returned the salute. “Yes.”

“I have a car waiting for you, sir. Will you follow me, please?”

“Lead on, Sergeant.”

The car was a gray navy Chevy that took him directly to the Norfolk Naval Air Station. Here Ryan boarded a helicopter. By now he was too tired to care if it were a sleigh with reindeer attached. During the thirty-five-minute trip to Andrews Air Force Base Ryan sat alone in the back, staring into space. He was met by another car at the base and driven straight to Langley.

CIA Headquarters

It was four in the morning when Ryan finally entered Greer’s office. The admiral was there, along with Moore and Ritter. The admiral handed him something to drink. Not coffee, Wild Turkey bourbon whiskey. All three senior executives took his hand.

“Sit down, boy,” Moore said.

“Damned well done.” Greer smiled.

“Thank you.” Ryan took a long pull on the drink. “Now what?”

“Now we debrief you,” Greer answered.

“No, sir. Now I fly the hell home.”

Greer’s eyes twinkled as he pulled a folder from a coat pocket and tossed it in Ryan’s lap. “You’re booked out of Dulles at 7:05 A.M. First flight to London. And you really should wash up, change your clothes, and collect your Skiing Barbie.”

Ryan tossed the rest of the drink off. The sudden slug of whiskey made his eyes water, but he was able to refrain from coughing.

“Looks like that uniform got some hard use,” Ritter observed.

“So did the rest of me.” Jack reached inside the jacket and pulled out the automatic pistol. “This got some use, too.”

“The GRU agent? He wasn’t taken off with the rest of the crew?” Moore asked.

“You knew about him? You knew and you didn’t get word to me, for Christ’s sake!”

“Settle down, son,” Moore said. “We missed connections by half an hour. Bad luck, but you made it. That’s what counts.”

Ryan was too tired to scream, too tired to do much of anything. Greer took out a tape recorder and a yellow pad full of questions.

“Williams, the British officer, is in a bad way,” Ryan said, two hours later. “The doc says he’ll make it, though. The sub isn’t going anywhere. Bow’s all crunched in, and there’s a pretty nice hole where the torpedo got us. They were right about the Typhoon, Admiral, the Russians built that baby strong, thank God.