The Hunt for Red October

locate and reach a sunken nuclear sub quickly enough to save her crew. She was outfitted with a variety of sophisticated equipment, chief among them the DSRV. This vessel, the Mystic, was hanging on its rack between the Pigeon’s twin catamaran hulls. There was also a 3-d sonar operating at low power, mainly as a beacon, while the Pigeon cruised in slow circles a few miles south of the Scamp and Ethan Allen. Two Perry-class frigates were twenty miles north, operating in conjunction with three Orions to sanitize the area.

“Pigeon, this is Dallas, radio check, over.”

“Dallas, this is Pigeon. Read you loud and clear, over,” the rescue ship’s captain replied on the secure radio channel.

“The package is here. Out.”

“Captain, on Invincible we had an officer send the message with a blinker light. Can you handle the blinker light?” Ryan asked.

“To be part of this? Are you kidding?”

The plan was simple enough, just a little too cute. It was clear that the Red October wanted to defect. It was even possible that everyone aboard wanted to come over — but hardly likely. They were going to get everyone off the Red October who might want to return to Russia, then pretend to blow up the ship with one of the powerful scuttling charges Russian ships are known to carry. The remaining crewmen would then take their boat northwest into Pamlico Sound to wait for the Soviet fleet to return home, sure that the Red October had been sunk and with the crew to prove it. What could possibly go wrong? A thousand things.

The Red October

Ramius looked through his periscope. The only ship in view was the USS Pigeon, though his ESM antenna reported surface radar activity to the north, a pair of frigates standing guard over the horizon. So, this was the plan. He watched the blinker light, translating the message in his mind.

Norfolk Naval Medical Center

“Thanks for coming down, Doc.” The intelligence officer had taken over the office of assistant hospital administrator. “I understand our patient woke up.”

“About an hour ago,” Tait confirmed. “He was conscious for about twenty minutes. He’s asleep now.”

“Does that mean he’ll make it?”

“It’s a positive sign. He was reasonably coherent, so there’s no evident brain damage. I was a little worried about that. I’d have to say the odds are in his favor now, but these hypothermia cases have a way of souring on you in a hurry. He’s a sick kid, that hasn’t changed.” Tait paused. “I have a question for you, Commander: Why aren’t the Russians happy?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Kind of hard to miss. Besides, Jamie found a doctor on staff who understands Russian, and we have him attending the case.”

“Why didn’t you let me know about that?”

“The Russians don’t know either. That was a medical judgment, Commander. Having a physician around who speaks the patient’s language is simply good medical practice.” Tait smiled, pleased with himself for having thought up his own intelligence ploy while at the same time adhering to proper medical ethics and naval regulations. He took a file card from his pocket. “Anyway, the patient’s name is Andre Katyskin. He’s a cook, like we thought, from Leningrad. The name of his ship was the Politovskiy.”

“My compliments, Doctor.” The intelligence officer acknowledged Tait’s maneuver, though he wondered why it was that amateurs had to be so damned clever when they butted into things that didn’t concern them.

“So why are the Russians unhappy?” Tait did not get an answer. “And why don’t you have a guy up there? You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew what ship he escaped from, and you knew why she sank…So, if they wanted most of all to know what ship he came from, and if they don’t like the news they got — does that mean they have another missing sub out there?”

CIA Headquarters

Moore lifted his phone. “James, you and Bob get in here right now!”

“What is it, Arthur?” Greer asked a minute later.

“The latest from CARDINAL.” Moore handed xeroxed copies of a message to both men. “How quick can we get word out?”

“That far out? Means a helicopter, a couple of hours at least. We have to get this out quicker than that,” Greer urged.

“We can’t endanger CARDINAL, period. Draw up a message and get the navy or air force to relay it by hand.” Moore didn’t like it, but he had no choice.

“It’ll take too long!” Greer objected loudly.

“I like the boy, too, James. Talking about it doesn’t help. Get moving.”

Greer left the room cursing like the fifty-year sailor he was.

The Red October

“Comrades. Officers and men of Red October, this is the captain speaking.” Ramius’ voice was subdued, the crewmen noticed. The incipient panic that had started a few hours earlier had driven them to the brittle edge of riot. “Efforts to repair our engines have failed. Our batteries are nearly flat. We are too far from Cuba for help, and we cannot expect help from the Rodina. We do not have enough electrical power even to operate our environmental control systems for more than a few hours. We have no choice, we must abandon ship.

“It is no accident that an American ship is now close to us, offering what they call assistance. I will tell you what has happened, comrades. An imperialist spy has sabotaged our ship, and somehow they knew what our orders were. They were waiting for us, comrades, waiting and hoping to get their dirty hands on our ship. They will not. The crew will be taken off. They will not get our Red October! The senior officers and I will remain behind to set off the scuttling charges. The water here is five thousand meters deep. They will not have our ship. All crewmen except those on duty will assemble in their quarters. That is all.” Ramius looked around the control room. “We have lost, comrades. Bugayev, make the necessary signals to Moscow and to the American ship. We will then dive to a hundred meters. We will take no chance that they will seize our ship. I take full responsibility for this — disgrace! Mark this well, comrades. The fault is mine alone.”

The Pigeon

“Signal received: ‘SSS,’” the radioman reported.

“Ever been on a submarine before, Ryan?” Cook asked.

“Nope, I hope it’s safer ’n flying.” Ryan tried to make a joke of it. He was deeply frightened.

“Well, let’s get you down to Mystic.”

The Mystic

The DSRV was nothing more than three metal spheres welded together with a propeller on the back and some boiler plating all around to protect the pressure-bearing parts of the hull. Ryan was first through the hatch, then Williams. They found seats and waited. A crew of three was already at work.

The Mystic was ready for operation. On command, the Pigeon’s winches lowered her to the calm water below. She dived at once, her electric motors hardly making any noise. Her low-power sonar system immediately acquired the Russian submarine, half a mile away, at a depth of three hundred feet. The operating crew had been told that this was a straightforward rescue mission. They were experts. The Mystic was hovering over the missile sub’s forward escape trunk within ten minutes.

The directional propellers worked them carefully into place and a petty officer made certain that the mating skirt was securely fastened. The water in the skirt between Mystic and Red October was explosively vented into a low-pressure chamber on the DSRV. This established a firm seal between the two vessels, and the residual water was pumped out.

“Your ball now, I guess.” The lieutenant motioned Ryan to the hatch in the floor of the middle segment.

“I guess.” Ryan knelt by the hatch and banged a few times with his hand. No response. Next he tried a wrench. A moment later three clangs echoed back, and Ryan turned the locking wheel in the center of the hatch.