The Hunt for Red October

The radioman pressed a button. The signal, sent in a fraction of a second, was received by photovoltaic cells, read over to a UHF transmitter, and shot back down by a parabolic dish antenna towards Atlantic Fleet Communications headquarters. At Norfolk another radioman noted the reception and pressed a button that transmitted the same signal up to the satellite and back to the Dallas. It was a simple way to identify garbles.

The Dallas operator compared the received signal with the one he’d just sent. “Good copy, sir.”

Mancuso ordered Mannion to lower everything but the ESM and UHF antennae.

Atlantic Fleet Communications

In Norfolk the first line of the dispatch revealed the page and line of the one-time-pad cipher sequence, which was recorded on computer tape in the maximum security section of the communications complex. An officer typed the proper numbers into his computer terminal, and an instant later the machine generated a clear text. The officer checked it again for garbles. Satisfied there were none, he took the printout to the other side of the room where a yeoman was seated at a telex. The officer handed him the dispatch.

The yeoman keyed up the proper addressee and transmitted the message by dedicated landline to COMSUBLANT Operations, half a mile away. The landline was fiber optic, located in a steel conduit under a paved street. It was checked three times a week for security purposes. Not even the secrets of nuclear weapons performance were as closely guarded as day-to-day tactical communications.

COMSUBLANT Operations

A bell went off in the operations room as the message came up on the “hot” printer. It bore a Z prefix, which indicated FLASH-priority status.

Z090414ZDEC

TOP SECRET THEO

FM: USS DALLAS

TO: COMSUBLANT

INFO: CINCLANTFLT

//NOOOOO//

REDFLEET SUBOPS

1. REPORT ANOMALOUS SONAR CONTACT ABOUT 0900Z 7DEC AND LOST AFTER INCREASE IN REDFLEET SUB ACTIVITY. CONTACT SUBSEQUENTLY EVALUATED AS REDFLEET SSN/SSBN TRANSITING ICELAND INSHORE TRACK TOWARDS ROUTE ONE. COURSE SOUTHWEST SPEED TEN DEPTH UNKNOWN.

2. CONTACT EVIDENCED UNUSUAL REPEAT UNUSUAL ACOUSTICAL CHARACTERISTICS. SIGNATURE UNLIKE ANY KNOWN REDFLEET SUBMARINE.

3. REQUEST PERMISSION TO LEAVE TOLL BOOTH TO PURSUE AND INVESTIGATE. BELIEVE A NEW DRIVE SYSTEM WITH UNUSUAL SOUND CHARACTERISTICS BEING USED THIS SUB. BELIEVE GOOD PROBABILITY CAN LOCATE AND IDENTIFY.

A lieutenant junior grade took the dispatch to the office of Vice Admiral Vincent Gallery. COMSUBLANT had been on duty since the Soviet subs had started moving. He was in an evil mood.

“A FLASH priority from Dallas, sir.”

“Uh-huh.” Gallery took the yellow form and read it twice. “What do you suppose this means?”

“No telling, sir. Looks like he heard something, took his time figuring it out, and wants another crack at it. He seems to think he’s onto something unusual.”

“Okay, what do I tell him? Come on, mister. You might be an admiral yourself someday and have to make decisions.” An unlikely prospect, Gallery thought.

“Sir, Dallas is in an ideal position to shadow their surface force when it gets to Iceland. We need her where she is.”

“Good textbook answer.” Gallery smiled up at the youngster, preparing to cut him off at the knees. “On the other hand, Dallas is commanded by a fairly competent man who wouldn’t be bothering us unless he really thought he had something. He doesn’t go into specifics, probably because it’s too complicated for a tactical FLASH dispatch, and also because he thinks that we know his judgment is good enough to take his word on something. ‘New drive system with unusual sound characteristics.’ That may be a crock, but he’s the man on the scene, and he wants an answer. We tell him yes.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the lieutenant said, wondering if the skinny old bastard made decisions by flipping a coin when his back was turned.

The Dallas

Z090432ZDEC

TOP SECRET

FM: COMSUBLANT

TO: USS DALLAS

A. USS DALLAS Z090414ZDEC

B. COMSUBLANT INST 2000.5

OPAREA ASSIGNMENT //N04220//

1. REQUEST REF A GRANTED.

2. AREAS BRAVO ECHO GOLF REF B ASSIGNED FOR UNRESTRICTED OPS 090500Z TO 140001Z. REPORT AS NECESSARY. VADM GALLERY SENDS.

“Hot damn!” Mancuso chuckled. That was one nice thing about Gallery. When you asked him a question, by God, you got an answer, yes or no, before you could rig your antenna in. Of course, he reflected, if it turned out that Jonesy was wrong and this was a wild-goose chase, he’d have some explaining to do. Gallery had handed more than one sub skipper his head in a bag and set him on the beach.

Which was where he was headed regardless, Mancuso knew. Since his first year at Annapolis all he had ever wanted was command of his own attack boat. He had that now, and he knew that the rest of his career would be downhill. In the rest of the navy your first command was just that, a first command. You could move up the ladder and command a fleet at sea eventually, if you were lucky and had the right stuff. Not submariners, though. Whether he did well with the Dallas or poorly, he’d lose her soon enough. He had this one and only chance. And afterwards, what? The best he could hope for was command of a missile boat. He’d served on those before and was sure that commanding one, even a new Ohio, was about as exciting as watching paint dry. The boomer’s job was to stay hidden. Mancuso wanted to be the hunter, that was the exciting end of the business. And after commanding a missile boat? He could get a “major surface command,” perhaps a nice oiler — it would be like switching mounts from Secretariat to Elsie the Cow. Or he could get a squadron command and sit in an office onboard a tender, pushing paper. At best in that position he’d go to sea once a month, his main purpose being to bother sub skippers who didn’t want him there. Or he could get a desk job in the Pentagon — what fun! Mancuso understood why some of the astronauts had cracked up after coming back from the moon. He, too, had worked many years for this command, and in another year his boat would be gone. He’d have to give the Dallas to someone else. But he did have her now.

“Pat, let’s lower all masts and take her down to twelve hundred feet.”

“Aye aye, sir. Lower the masts,” Mannion ordered. A petty officer pulled on the hydraulic control levers.

“ESM and UHF masts lowered, sir,” the duty electrician reported.

“Very well. Diving officer, make your depth twelve hundred feet.”

“Twelve hundred feet, aye,” the diving officer responded. “Fifteen degrees down-angle on the planes.”

“Fifteen degrees down, aye.”

“Let’s move her, Pat.”

“Aye, Skipper. All ahead full.”

“All ahead full, aye.” The helmsman reached up to turn the annunciator.

Mancuso watched his crew at work. They did their jobs with mechanistic precision. But they were not machines. They were men. His.