The Hunt for Red October

conference of his senior officers in the wardroom. Things had settled down somewhat. Mancuso had even managed to squeeze in a couple of four-hour naps and was feeling vaguely human again. They now had time to build an accurate sonar picture of the quarry, and the computer was refining a signature classification that would be out to the other fleet attack boats in a matter of weeks. From trailing they had a very accurate model of the propulsion system’s noise characteristics, and from the bihourly circling they had also built a picture of the boat’s size and power plant specifications.

The executive officer, Wally Chambers, twirled a pencil in his fingers like a baton. “Jonesy’s right. It’s the same power plant that the Oscars and Typhoons have. They’ve quieted it down, but the gross signature characteristics are virtually identical. Question is, what’s it turning? It sounds like the propellers are ducted somehow, or shrouded. A directional prop with a collar around it, maybe, or some sort of tunnel drive. Didn’t we try that once?”

“Long time ago,” Lieutenant Butler, the engineering officer, said. “I heard a story about it while I was at Arco. It didn’t work out, but I don’t remember why. Whatever it is, it’s really knocked down on the propulsion noises. That rumble though…It’s some sort of harmonic all right — but a harmonic of what? You know, except for that we’d never have picked it up in the first place.”

“Maybe,” Mancuso said. “Jonesy says that the signal processors have tended to filter this noise out, almost as though the Soviets know what SAPS does and have tailored a system to beat it. But that’s hard to believe.” There was general agreement on this point. Everyone knew the principles on which SAPS operated, but there were probably not fifty men in the country who could really explain the nuts and bolts details.

“We’re agreed she’s a boomer?” Mancuso asked.

Butler nodded. “No way you could fit that power plant into an attack hull. More important, she acts like a boomer.”

“Could be an Oscar,” Chambers suggested.

“No. Why send an Oscar this far south? Oscar’s an antiship platform. Uh-uh, this guy’s driving a boomer. He ran the route at the speed he’s running now — and that’s acting like a missile boat,” Lieutenant Mannion noted. “What are they up to with all this other activity? That’s the real question. Maybe trying to sneak up on our coast — just to see if they can do it. It’s been done before, and all this other activity makes for a hell of a diversion.”

They all considered that. The trick had been tried before by both sides. Most recently, in 1978, a Soviet Yankee-class missile sub had closed to the edge of the continental shelf off the coast of New England. The evident objective had been to see if the United States could detect it or not. The navy had succeeded, and then the question had been whether or not to react and let the Soviets know.

“Well, I think we can leave the grand strategy to the folks on the beach. Let’s phone this one in. Lieutenant Mannion, tell the OOD to get us to periscope depth in twenty minutes. We’ll try to slip away and back without his noticing.” Mancuso frowned. This was never easy.

A half an hour later the Dallas radioed her message.

Z140925ZDEC

TOP SECRET THEO

FR: USS DALLAS

TO: COMSUBLANT

INFO: CINCLANTFLT

A. USS DALLAS Z090414ZDEC

1. ANOMALOUS CONTACT REACQUIRED 0538Z 13DEC. CURRENT POSITION LAT 42° 35$$$ LONG 49° 12$ $$. COURSE 194 SPEED 13 DEPTH 600. HAVE TRACKED 24 HOURS WITHOUT COUNTERDETECTION. CONTACT EVALUATED AS REDFLEET SSBN GROSS SIZE, ENGINE CHARACTERISTICS INDICATIVE TYPHOON CLASS. HOWEVER CONTACT USING NEW DRIVE SYSTEM NOT REPEAT NOT PROPELLERS. HAVE ESTABLISHED DETAILED SIGNATURE PROFILE.

2. RETURNING TO TRACKING OPERATIONS. REQUEST ADDITIONAL OPAREA ASSIGNMENTS. AWAIT REPLY 1030Z.

COMSUBLANT Operations

“Bingo!” Gallery said to himself. He walked back to his office, careful to close the door before lifting the scrambled line to Washington.

“Sam, this is Vince. Listen up: Dallas reports she is tracking a Russian boomer with a new kind of quiet drive system, about six hundred miles southwest of the Grand Banks, course one-nine-four, speed thirteen knots.”

“All right! That’s Mancuso?” Dodge said.

“Bartolomeo Vito Mancuso, my favorite Guinea,” Gallery confirmed. Getting him this command had not been easy because of his age. Gallery had gone the distance for him. “I told you the kid was good, Sam.”

“Jesus, you see how close they are to the Kiev group?” Dodge was looking at his tactical display.

“They are cutting it close,” Gallery agreed. “Invincible’s not too far away, though, and I have Pogy out there, too. We moved her off the shelf when we called Scamp back in. I figure Dallas will need help. The question is how obvious do we want to be.”

“Not very. Look, Vince, I have to talk to Dan Foster about this.”

“Okay. I have to reply to Dallas in, hell, in fifty-five minutes. You know the score. He has to break contact to reach us, then sneak back. Hustle, Sam.”

“Right, Vince.” Dodge switched buttons on his phone. “This is Admiral Dodge. I need to talk to Admiral Foster right now.”

The Pentagon

“Ouch. Between Kiev and Kirov. Nice.” Lieutenant General Harris took a marker from his pocket to represent the Red October. It was a sub-shaped piece of wood with a Jolly Roger attached. Harris had an odd sense of humor. “The president says we can try and keep her?” he asked.

“If we can get her to the place we want at the time we want,” General Hilton said. “Can Dallas signal her?”

“Good trick, General.” Foster shook his head. “First things first. Let’s get Pogy and Invincible there for starters, then we figure out how to warn him. From this course track, Christ, he’s heading right for Norfolk. You believe the balls on this guy? If worse comes to worse, we can always try to escort him in.”

“Then we’d have to give the boat back,” Admiral Dodge objected.

“We have to have a fall-back position, Sam. If we can’t warn him off, we can try and run a bunch of ships through with him to keep Ivan from shooting.”

“The law of the sea is your bailiwick, not mine,” General Barnes, the air force chief of staff, commented. “But from where I sit doing that could be called anything from piracy to an overt act of war. Isn’t this exercise complicated enough already?”

“Good point, General,” Foster said.

“Gentlemen, I think we need time to consider this. Okay, we still have time, but right now let’s tell Dallas to sit tight and track the bugger,” Harris said. “And report any changes in course or speed. I figure we have about fifteen minutes to do that. Next we can get Pogy and Invincible staked out on their path.”

“Right, Eddie.” Hilton turned to Admiral Foster. “If you agree, let’s do that right now.”

“Send the message, Sam,” Foster ordered.

“Aye aye.” Dodge went to the phone and ordered Admiral Gallery to send the reply.

Z141030ZDEC

TOP SECRET