The Hunt for Red October

Kennedy. The ride became rocky as Parker descended through the clouds, and it occurred to Ryan that they were on the leading edge of the same storm he’d endured the night before. The canopy was coated with rain, and he heard the impact of thousands of raindrops on the airframe — or was it hail? Watching the instruments, he saw that Parker leveled out at a thousand feet, while they were still in clouds, then descended more slowly, breaking into the clear at a hundred feet. The Invincible was scarcely a half the Kennedy’s size. He watched her bobbing actively on the fifteen-foot seas. Parker used the same technique as before. He hovered briefly on the carrier’s port side, then slid to the right, dropping the fighter twenty feet onto a painted circle. The landing was hard, but Ryan was able to see it coming. The canopy came up at once.

“You can get out here,” Parker said. “I have to taxi to the elevator.”

A ladder was already in place. He unbuckled and got out. A crewman had already retrieved his bag. Ryan followed him to the island and was met by an ensign — a sublieutenant, the British call the rank.

“Welcome aboard, sir.” The youngster couldn’t be more than twenty, Ryan thought. “Let me help you out of the flight suit.”

The sublieutenant stood by as Ryan unzipped and took off his helmet, Mae West, and coverall. He retrieved his cap from the bag. In the process he bounced off the bulkhead a few times. The Invincible seemed to be corkscrewing in a following sea. A bow wind and a following sea? In the North Atlantic in winter, nothing was too crazy. The officer took his bag, and Ryan held onto the briefing material.

“Lead on, leftenant,” Ryan gestured. The youngster shot up a series of three ladders, leaving Jack panting behind, thinking about the jogging he wasn’t getting in. The combination of the ship’s motion and an inner ear badly scrambled from the day’s flying made him dizzy, and he found himself bumping into things. How did professional pilots do it?

“Here’s the flag bridge, sir.” The sublieutenant held the door open.

“Hello, Jack!” boomed the voice of Vice Admiral John White, eighth earl of Weston. He was a tall, well-built man of fifty with a florid complexion set off by a white scarf at his neck. Jack had first met him earlier in the year, and since then his wife Cathy and the countess, Antonia, had become close friends, members of the same circle of amateur musicians. Cathy Ryan played classical piano. Toni White, an attractive woman of forty-four, owned a Guarnieri del Jesu violin. Her husband was a man whose peerage was treated as the convenient afterthought. His career in the Royal Navy had been built entirely on merit. Jack walked over to take his hand.

“Good day, Admiral.”

“How was your flight?”

“Different. I’ve never been in a fighter before, much less one with ambitions to mate with a hummingbird,” Ryan smiled. The bridge was overheated, and it felt good.

“Jolly good. Let’s go aft to my sea cabin.” White dismissed the sublieutenant, who handed Jack his bag before withdrawing. The admiral led him aft through a short passageway and left into a small compartment.

It was surprisingly austere, considering that the English liked their comforts and that White was a peer. There were two curtained portholes, a desk, and a couple of chairs. The only human touch was a color photograph of his wife. The entire port wall was covered with a chart of the North Atlantic.

“You look tired, Jack.” White waved him to the upholstered chair.

“I am tired. I’ve been on the go since — hell, since 6:00 A.M. yesterday. I don’t know about time changes, I think my watch is still on European time.”

“I have a message for you.” White pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it over.

“Greer to Ryan. WILLOW confirmed,” Ryan read. “Basil sends regards. Ends.” Somebody had confirmed WILLOW. Who? Maybe Sir Basil, maybe Ritter. Ryan would not quote odds on that one.

Jack tucked it in his pocket. “This is good news, sir.”

“Why the uniform?”

“Not my idea, Admiral. You know who I work for, right? They figured I’d be less conspicuous this way.”

“At least it fits.” The admiral lifted a phone and ordered refreshments sent to them. “How’s the family, Jack?”

“Fine, thank you, sir. The day before I came over Cathy and Toni were playing over at Nigel Ford’s place. I missed it. You know, if they get much better, we ought to have a record cut. There aren’t too many violin players better than your wife.”

A steward arrived with a plateful of sandwiches. Jack had never figured out the British taste for cucumbers on bread.

“So, what’s the flap?”

“Admiral, the significance of the message you just gave me is that I can tell this to you and three other officers. This is very hot stuff, sir. You’ll want to make your choices accordingly.”

“Hot enough to turn my little fleet around.” White thought it over before lifting the phone and ordering three of his officers to the cabin. He hung up. “Captain Carstairs, Captain Hunter, and Commander Barclay — they are, respectively, Invincible’s commanding officer, my fleet operations officer, and my fleet intelligence officer.”

“No chief of staff?”

“Flew home, death in the family. Something for your coffee?” White extracted what looked like a brandy bottle from a desk drawer.

“Thank you, Admiral.” He was grateful for the brandy. The coffee needed the help. He watched the admiral pour a generous amount, perhaps with the ulterior motive of making him speak more freely. White had been a British sailor longer than he’d been Ryan’s friend.

The three officers arrived together, two carrying folding metal chairs.

“Admiral,” Ryan began, “you might want to leave that bottle out. After you hear this story, we might all need a drink.” He passed out his two remaining briefing folders and talked from memory. His delivery took fifteen minutes.

“Gentlemen,” he concluded, “I must insist that this information be kept strictly confidential. For the moment no one outside this room may learn it.”

“That is too bad,” Carstairs said. “This makes for a bloody good sea story.”

“And our mission?” White was holding the photographs. He poured Ryan another shot of brandy, gave the bottle a brief look, then stowed it back in the desk.

“Thank you, Admiral. For the moment our mission is to locate Red October. After that we’re not sure. I imagine just locating her will be hard enough.”

“An astute observation, Commander Ryan,” Hunter said.

“The good news is that Admiral Painter has requested that CINCLANT assign you control of several U.S. Navy vessels, probably three 1052-class frigates, and a pair of FFG Perrys. They all carry a chopper or two.”

“Well, Geoffrey?” White asked.

“It’s a start,” Hunter agreed.

“They’ll be arriving in a day or two. Admiral Painter asked me to express his confidence in your group and its personnel.”

“A whole fucking Russian missile submarine…” Barclay said almost to himself. Ryan laughed.

“Like the idea, Commander?” At least he had one convert.

“What if the sub is heading for the U.K.? Does it then become a British operation?” Barclay asked pointedly.

“I suppose it would, but from the way I read the map, if Ramius was heading for England, he’d already be there. I saw a copy of the president’s letter to the prime minister. In return for your assistance, the Royal Navy gets the same access to the data we develop as our guys get. We’re on the same side, gentlemen. The question is, can we do it?”

“Hunter?” the admiral asked.

“If this intelligence is correct…I’d say we have a good chance, perhaps as good as fifty percent. On one hand, we have a missile submarine attempting to evade detection. On the other, we have a great deal of ASW arrayed to locate her, and she will be heading towards one of only a few discrete locations. Norfolk, of course, Newport,