The Hunt for Red October

“We have you,” Ryan said aloud.

“You have nothing.” It was a young voice, young and very scared.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.

“What do you think, Yankee?” This time the taunt was more effective.

Probably figuring a way to set off a warhead, Ryan decided. A happy thought.

“Then you will die too,” Ryan said. Didn’t the police try to reason with barricaded suspects? Didn’t a New York cop say on TV once, “We try to bore them to death?” But those were criminals. What was Ryan dealing with? A sailor who stayed behind? One of Ramius’ own officers who’d had second thoughts? A KGB agent? A GRU agent covered as a crewman?

“Then I will die,” the voice agreed. The light moved. Whatever he was doing, he was trying to get back to it.

Ryan fired twice as he went around the tube. Four to go. His bullets clanged uselessly as they hit the forward bulkhead. There was a remote chance that a carom shot — no…He looked left and saw that Ramius was still with him, shading to the port side of the tubes. He had no gun. Why hadn’t he gotten himself one?

Ryan took a deep breath and leaped around the next tube. The guy was waiting for this. Ryan dove to the deck, and the bullet missed him.

“Who are you?” Ryan asked, raising himself on his knees and leaning against the tube to catch his breath.

“A Soviet patriot! You are the enemy of my country, and you shall not have this ship!”

He was talking too much, Ryan thought. Good. Probably. “You have a name?”

“My name is of no account.”

“How about a family?” Ryan asked.

“My parents will be proud of me.”

A GRU agent. Ryan was certain. Not the political officer. His English was too good. Probably some kind of backup for the political officer. He was up against a trained field officer. Wonderful. A trained agent, and just like he said, a patriot. Not a fanatic, a man trying to do his duty. He was scared, but he’d do it.

And blow this whole fucking ship up, with me on it.

Still, Ryan knew he had an edge. The other guy had something he had to do. Ryan only had to stop him or delay him long enough. He went to the starboard side of the tube and looked around the edge with just his right eye. There was no light at his end of the compartment — another edge. Ryan could see him more easily than he could see Ryan.

“You don’t have to die, my friend. If you just set the gun down…” And what? End up in a federal prison? More likely just disappear. Moscow could not learn that the Americans had their sub.

“And CIA will not kill me, eh?” the voice sneered, quavering. “I am no fool. If I am to die, it will be to my purpose, my friend!”

Then the light clicked off. Ryan had wondered how long that would take. Did it mean that he was finished whatever the hell he was doing? If so, in an instant they’d be all gone. Or maybe the guy just realized how vulnerable the light made him. Trained field officer or not, he was a kid, a frightened kid, and probably had as much to lose as Ryan had. Like hell, Ryan thought, I have a wife and two kids, and if I don’t get to him fast, I’ll sure as hell lose them.

Merry Christmas, kids, your daddy just got blown up. Sorry there’s no body to bury, but you see…It occurred to Ryan to pray briefly — but for what? For help in killing another man? It’s like this, Lord…

“Still with me, Captain?” he called out.

“Da.”

That would give the GRU agent something to worry about. Ryan hoped the captain’s presence would force the man to shade more to the port side of his tube. Ryan ducked and rushed around the port side of his. Three to go. Ramius followed suit on his side. He drew a shot, but Ryan heard it miss.

He had to stop, to rest. He was hyperventilating. It was the wrong time for that. He had been a marine lieutenant — for three whole months before the chopper crashed — and he was supposed to know what to do! He had led men. But it was a whole lot easier to lead forty men with rifles than it was to fight all by himself.

Think!

“Maybe we can make a deal,” Ryan suggested.

“Ah, yes, we can decide which ear the shot comes in.”

“Maybe you’d like being an American.”

“And my parents, Yankee, what of them?”

“Maybe we can get them out,” Ryan said from the starboard side of his tube, moving left as he waited for a reply. He jumped again. Now there were two missile tubes separating him from his friend in the GRU, who was probably trying to crosswire the warheads and make half a cubic mile of ocean turn to plasma.

“Come, Yankee, we will die together. Now only one puskatel separates us.”

Ryan thought quickly. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d fired, but the pistol held thirteen rounds. He’d have enough. The extra clip was useless. He could toss it one way and move the other, creating a diversion. Would it work? Shit! It worked in the movies. It was for damned sure that doing nothing wasn’t going to work.

Ryan took the gun in his left hand and fished in his coat pocket for the spare clip with his right. He put the clip in his mouth while he switched the gun back. A poor highwayman’s shift…He took the clip in his left hand. Okay. He had to toss the clip right and move left. Would it work? Right or wrong, he didn’t have a hell of a lot of time.

At Quantico he was taught to read maps, evaluate terrain, call in air and artillery strikes, maneuver his squads and fire teams with skill — and here he was, stuck in a goddamned steel pipe three hundred feet under water, shooting it out with pistols in a room with two hundred hydrogen bombs!

It was time to do something. He knew what that had to be — but Ramius moved first. Out the corner of his eye he caught the shape of the captain running toward the forward bulkhead. Ramius leaped at the bulkhead and flicked a light switch on as the enemy fired at him. Ryan tossed the clip to the right and ran forward. The agent turned to his left to see what the noise was, sure that a cooperative move had been planned.

As Ryan covered the distance between the last two missile tubes he saw Ramius go down. Ryan dove past the number one missile tube. He landed on his left side, ignoring the pain that set his arm on fire as he rolled to line up his target. The man was turning as Ryan jerked off six shots. Ryan didn’t hear himself screaming. Two rounds connected. The agent was lifted off the deck and twisted halfway around from the impact. His pistol dropped from his hand as he fell limp to the deck.

Ryan was shaking too badly to get up at once. The pistol, still tight in his hand, was aimed at his victim’s chest. He was breathing hard and his heart was racing. Ryan closed his mouth and tried to swallow a few times; his mouth was as dry as cotton. He got slowly to his knees. The agent was still alive, lying on his back, eyes open and still breathing. Ryan had to use his hand to stand up.

He’d been hit twice, Ryan saw, once in the upper left chest and once lower down, about where the liver and spleen are. The lower wound was a wet red circle which the man’s hands clutched. He was in his early twenties, if that, and his clear blue eyes were staring at the overhead while he tried to say something. His face was rigid with pain as he mouthed words, but all that came out was an unintelligible gurgle.

“Captain,” Ryan called, “you okay?”

“I am wounded, but I think I shall live, Ryan. Who is it?”

“How the hell should I know?”

The blue eyes fixed on Jack’s face. Whoever he was, he knew death was coming to him. The pain on the face was replaced by something else. Sadness, an infinite sadness…He was still trying to speak. A pink froth gathered at the corners of his mouth. Lung shot. Ryan moved closer, kicking the gun clear and kneeling down beside him.

“We could have made a deal,” he said quietly.

The agent tried to say something, but Ryan couldn’t understand it. A curse, a call for his mother, something heroic? Jack would never know. The eyes went wide with pain one last time. The last breath hissed out through the bubbles and the hands on the belly went limp. Ryan checked for a pulse at the neck. There was none.

“I’m sorry.” Ryan reached down to close his victim’s eyes. He was sorry — why? Tiny beads of sweat broke