The Hunt for Red October

We asked them what kind of a sub, the captain thought, meaning whether it was a nuke or not. What if they thought we were asking if it was a missile sub? That makes sense, doesn’t it? Yeah. A missile sub right off our coast, and all this activity in the North Atlantic. Christmas season. Dear God! If they were going to do it, they’d do it right now, wouldn’t they? He walked down the hall. A nurse came out of the room with a blood sample to be taken down to the lab. This was being done hourly, and it left Petchkin alone with the patient for a few minutes.

Tait walked around the corner and saw Petchkin through the window, sitting in a chair at the corner of the bed and watching his countryman, who was still unconscious. He had on green scrubs. Made to put on in a hurry, these were reversible, with a pocket on both sides so a surgeon didn’t have to waste a second to see if they were inside out. As Tait watched, Petchkin reached for something through the low collar.

“Oh, God!” Tait raced around the corner and shot through the swinging door. Petchkin’s look of surprise changed to amazement as the doctor batted a cigarette and lighter from his hand, then to outrage as he was lifted from his chair and flung towards the door. Tait was the smaller of the two, but his sudden burst of energy was sufficient to eject the man from the room. “Security!” Tait screamed.

“What is the meaning of this?” Petchkin demanded. Tait was holding him in a bearhug. Immediately he heard feet racing down the hall from the lobby.

“What is it, sir?” A breathless marine lance corporal with a.45 Colt in his right hand skidded to a halt on the tile floor.

“This man just tried to kill my patient!”

“What!” Petchkin’s face was crimson.

“Corporal, your post is now at that door. If this man tries to get into that room, you will stop him any way you have to. Understood?”

“Aye aye, sir!” the corporal looked at the Russian. “Sir, would you please step away from the door?”

“What is the meaning of this outrage!”

“Sir, you will step away from the door, right now.” The marine holstered his pistol.

“What is going on here?” It was Ivanov, who had sense enough to ask this question in a quiet voice from ten feet away.

“Doctor, do you want your sailor to survive or not?” Tait asked, trying to calm himself.

“What — of course we wish him to survive. How can you ask this?”

“Then why did Comrade Petchkin just try to kill him?”

“I did not do such a thing!” Petchkin shouted.

“What did he do, exactly?” Ivanov asked.

Before Tait could answer, Petchkin spoke rapidly in Russian, then switched to English. “I was reaching for a smoke, that is all. I have no weapon. I wish to kill no one. I only wish to have a cigarette.”

“We have No Smoking signs all over the floor, except in the lobby — you didn’t see them? You were in a room in intensive care, with a patient on hundred-percent oxygen, the air and bedclothes saturated with oxygen, and you were going to flick your goddamned Bic!” The doctor rarely used profanity. “Oh sure, you’d get burned some, and it would look like an accident — and that kid would be dead! I know what you are, Petchkin, and I don’t think you’re that stupid. Get off my floor!”

The nurse, who had been watching this, went into the patient’s room. She came back out with a pack of cigarettes, two loose ones, a plastic butane lighter, and a curious look on her face.

Petchkin was ashen. “Dr. Tait, I assure you that I had no such intention. What are you saying would happen?”

“Comrade Petchkin,” Ivanov said slowly in English, “there would be an explosion and fire. You cannot have a flame near oxygen.”

“Nichevo!” Petchkin finally realized what he had done. He had waited for the nurse to leave — medical people never let you smoke when you ask. He didn’t know the first thing about hospitals, and as a KGB agent he was accustomed to doing whatever he wanted. He started speaking to Ivanov in Russian. The Soviet doctor looked like a parent listening to a child’s explanation for a broken glass. His response was spirited.

For his part, Tait began to wonder if he hadn’t overreacted — anyone who smoked was an idiot to begin with.

“Dr. Tait,” Petchkin said finally, “I swear to you that I had no idea of this oxygen business. Perhaps I am a fool.”

“Nurse,” Tait turned, “we will not leave this patient unattended by our personnel at any time — never. Have a corpsman come to pick up the blood samples and anything else. If you have to go to the head, get relief first.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“No more screwing around, Mr. Petchkin. Break the rules again, sir, and you’re off the floor again. Do you understand?”

“It will be as you say, Doctor, and allow me, please, to apologize.”

“You stay put,” Tait said to the marine. He walked away shaking his head angrily, mad at the Russians, embarrassed with himself, wishing he were back at Bethesda where he belonged, and wishing he knew how to swear coherently. He took the service elevator down to the first floor and spent five minutes looking for the intelligence officer who had flown down with him. Ultimately he found him in a game room playing Pac Man. They conferred in the hospital administrator’s vacant office.

“You really thought he was trying to kill the guy?” the commander asked incredulously.

“What was I supposed to think?” Tait demanded. “What do you think?”

“I think he just screwed up. They want that kid alive — no, first they want him talking — more than you do.”

“How do you know that?”

“Petchkin calls their embassy every hour. We have the phones tapped, of course. How do you think?”

“What if it’s a trick?”

“If he’s that good an actor he belongs in the movies. You keep that kid alive, Doctor, and leave the rest to us. Good idea to have the marine close, though. That’ll rattle ’em a bit. Never pass up a chance to rattle ’em. So, when will he be conscious?”

“No telling. He’s still feverish, and very weak. Why do they want him to talk?” Tait asked.

“To find out what sub he was on. Petchkin’s KGB contact blurted that out on the phone — sloppy! Very sloppy! They must be real excited about this.”

“Do we know what sub it was?”

“Sure,” the intelligence officer said mischievously.

“Then what’s going on, for Lord’s sake!”

“Can’t say, Doc.” The commander smiled as if he knew, though he was as much in the dark as anyone.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard

The USS Scamp sat at the dock while a large overhead crane settled the Avalon in its support rack. The captain watched impatiently from atop the sail. He and his boat had been called in from hunting a pair of Victors, and he did not like it one bit. The attack boat skipper had only run a DSRV exercise a few weeks before, and right now he had better things to do than play mother whale to this damned useless toy. Besides, having the minisub perched on his after escape trunk would knock ten knots off his top speed. And there’d be four more men to bunk and feed. The Scamp was not all that large.

At least they’d get good food out of this. The Scamp had been out five weeks when the recall order arrived. Their supply of fresh vegetables was exhausted, and they availed themselves of the opportunity to have fresh food trucked down to the dock. A man tires quickly of three-bean salad. Tonight they’d have real lettuce, tomatoes, fresh corn instead of canned. But that didn’t make up for the fact that there were Russians out there to worry about.

“All secure?” the captain called down to the curved after deck.

“Yes, Captain. We’re ready when you are,” Lieutenant Ames answered.

“Engine room,” the captain called down on intercom. “I want you ready to answer bells in ten minutes.”

“Ready now, Skipper.”

A harbor tug was standing by to help maneuver them from the dock. Ames had their orders, something else