The Hunt for Red October

Groton, King’s Bay, Port Everglades, Charleston. A civilian port such as New York is less likely, I think. The problem is, what with Ivan sending all his Alfas racing to your coast, they will get there ahead of October. They may have a specific port target in mind. We’ll know that in another day. So, I’d say they have an equal chance. They’ll be able to operate far enough off your coast that your government will have no viable legal reason to object to whatever they do. If anything, I’d say the Soviets have the advantage. They have both a clearer idea of the submarine’s capabilities and a simpler overall mission. That more than balances their less capable sensors.”

“Why isn’t Ramius coming on faster?” Ryan asked. “That’s the one thing I can’t figure. Once he clears the SOSUS lines off Iceland, he’s clear into the deep basin — so why not crack his throttles wide open and race for our coast?”

“At least two reasons,” Barclay answered. “How much operational intelligence data do you see?”

“I handle individual assignments. That means I hop around a lot from one thing to another. I know a good deal about their boomers, for example, but not as much about their attack boats.” Ryan didn’t have to explain he was CIA.

“Well, you know how compartmentalized the Sovs are. Ramius probably doesn’t know where their attack submarines are, not all of them. So, if he were to race about, he’d run the off chance of blundering into a stray Victor and being sunk without ever knowing what was happening. Second, what if the Soviets did enlist American assistance, saying perhaps that a missile sub had been taken over by a mutinous crew of Maoist counterrevolutionaries — and then your navy detects a missile submarine racing down the North Atlantic towards the American coast. What would your president do?”

“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “We’d blow it the hell out of the water.”

“There you have it. Ramius is in the trade of stealth, and he’ll likely stick to what he knows,” Barclay concluded. “Fortunately or unfortunately, he’s jolly good at it.”

“How soon will we have performance data on this quiet drive system?” Carstairs wanted to know.

“Next couple of days, we hope.”

“Where does Admiral Painter want us?” White asked.

“The plan he submitted to Norfolk puts you on the right flank. He wants Kennedy inshore to handle the threat from their surface force. He wants your force farther out. You see, Painter thinks there’s the chance that Ramius will come straight south from the G-I-U.K. gap into the Atlantic basin and just sit for a while. The odds favor his not being detected there, and if the Soviets send the fleet after him, he’s got the time and supplies to sit out there longer than they can maintain a force off our coast — both for technical and political reasons. Additionally, he wants your striking power out here to threaten their flank. It has to be approved by the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and a lot of details, remain to be worked out. For example, Painter requested some E-3 Sentries to support you out here.”

“A month in the middle of the North Atlantic in winter?” Carstairs winced. He had been the Invincible’s executive officer during the war around the Falklands and had ridden in the violent South Atlantic for endless weeks.

“Be happy for the E-3s.” The admiral smiled. “Hunter, I want to see plans for using all these ships the Yanks are giving us, and how we can cover a maximum area. Barclay, I want to see your evaluation of what our friend Ramius will do. Assume he’s still the clever bastard we’ve come to know and love.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Barclay stood with the others.

“Jack, how long will you be with us?”

“I don’t know, Admiral. Until they recall me to the Kennedy, I guess. From where I sit, this operation was laid on too fast. Nobody really knows what the hell we’re supposed to do.”

“Well, why don’t you let us see to this for a while? You look exhausted. Get some sleep.”

“True enough, Admiral.” Ryan was beginning to feel the brandy.

“There’s a cot in the locker over there. I’ll have someone set it up for you, and you can sleep in here for the time being. If anything comes in for you, we’ll get you up.”

“That’s kind of you, sir.” Admiral White was a good guy, Jack thought, and his wife was something very special. In ten minutes, Ryan was on the cot and asleep.

The Red October

Every two days the starpom collected the radiation badges. This was part of a semiformal inspection. After seeing to it that every crewman’s shoes were spit-shined, every bunk was properly made, and every footlocker was arranged according to the book, the executive officer would take the two-day-old badges and hand the sailors new ones, usually along with some terse advice to square themselves away as New Soviet Men ought. Borodin had this procedure down to a science. Today, as always, the trip from one compartment to another took two hours. When he was finished, the bag on his left hip was full of old badges, and the one on his right depleted of new ones. He took the badges to the ship’s medical officer.

“Comrade Petrov, I have a gift for you.” Borodin set the leather bag on the physician’s desk.

“Good.” The doctor smiled up at the executive officer. “With all the healthy young men I have little to do but read my journals.”

Borodin left Petrov to his task. First the doctor set the badges out in order. Each bore a three-digit number. The first digit identified the badge series, so that if any radiation were detected there would be a time reference. The second digit showed where the sailor worked, the third where he slept. This system was easier to work with than the old one, which had used individual numbers for each man.

The developing process was cookbook-simple. Petrov could do it without a thought. First he switched off the white overhead light and replaced it with a red one. Then he locked his office door. Next he took the development rack from its holder on the bulkhead, broke open the plastic holders, and transferred the film strips to spring clips on the rack.

Petrov took the rack into the adjacent laboratory and hung it on the handle of the single filing cabinet. He filled three large square basins with chemicals. Though a qualified physician, he had forgotten most of his inorganic chemistry and didn’t remember exactly what the developing chemicals were. Basin number one was filled from bottle number one. Basin two was filled from bottle two, and basin three, he remembered, was filled with water. Petrov was in no hurry. The midday meal was not for two more hours, and his duties were truly boring. The last two days he had been reading his medical texts on tropical diseases. The doctor was looking forward to visiting Cuba as much as anyone aboard. With luck a crewman would come down with some obscure malady, and he’d have something interesting to work on for once.

Petrov set the lab timer for seventy-five seconds and submerged the film strips in the first basin as he pressed the start button. He watched the timer under the red light, wondering if the Cubans still made rum. He had been there, too, years before, and acquired a taste for the exotic liquor. Like any good Soviet citizen, he loved his vodka but had the occasional hankering for something different.

The timer went off and he lifted the rack, shaking it carefully over the tank. No sense getting the chemical — silver nitrate? something like that — on his uniform. The rack went into the second tank, and he set the timer again. Pity the orders had been so damned secret — he could have brought his tropical uniform. He’d sweat like a pig in the Cuban heat. Of course, none of those savages ever bothered to wash. Maybe they had learned something in the past fifteen years? He’d see.

The timer dinged again, and Petrov lifted the rack a second time, shaking it and setting it in the water-filled basin. Another boring job completed. Why couldn’t a sailor fall down a ladder and break something? He wanted to use his East German X-ray machine on a live patient. He didn’t trust the Germans, Marxists or not, but they did make good medical equipment, including his X-ray, autoclave, and most of his pharmaceuticals. Time. Petrov lifted the rack and held it up against the X-ray reading plate, which he switched on.

“Nichevo!” Petrov breathed. He had to think. His badge was fogged. Its number was 3-4-8: third badge series, frame fifty-four (the medical office, galley section), aft (officers’) accommodations.

Though only two centimeters across, the badges were made with variable sensitivity. Ten vertically segmented columns were used to quantify the exposure level. Petrov saw that his was fogged all the way to segment four. The engine room crewmen’s were fogged to segment five, and the torpedomen, who spent all their time forward, showed contamination only in segment one.