The Hunt for Red October

“Andre Katyskin, a cook petty officer from Leningrad.”

“Good, Alex, I am informed that USS Pigeon has rescued nearly the entire crew of another Soviet submarine off the Carolinas. Her name, evidently, was Red October. That’s the good news, Alex. The bad news is that the vessel exploded and sank before we could get them all off. Most of the officers, and two of our officers, were lost.”

“When was this?”

“Very early yesterday morning. Sorry about the delay, but Pigeon had trouble with the radio, as a result of the underwater explosion, they say. You know how that sort of thing can happen.”

“Indeed.” Pelt had to admire the response, not a trace of irony. “Where are they now?”

“The Pigeon is sailing to Charleston, South Carolina. We’ll have your crewmen flown directly to Washington from there.”

“And this submarine exploded? You are sure?”

“Yeah, one of the crewmen said they had a major reactor accident. It was just good luck that Pigeon was there. She was heading to the Virginia coast to look at the other one you lost. I think your navy needs a little work, Alex,” Pelt observed.

“I will pass that along to Moscow, Doctor,” Arbatov responded dryly. “Can you tell us where this happened?”

“I can do better than that. We have a ship taking a deep-diving research sub down to look for the wreckage. If you want, you can have your navy fly a man to Norfolk, and we’ll fly him out to check it for you. Fair enough?”

“You say you lost two officers?” Arbatov played for time, surprised at the offer.

“Yes, both rescue people. We did get a hundred men off, Alex,” Pelt said defensively. “That’s something.”

“Indeed it is, Dr. Pelt. I must cable Moscow for instructions. I will be back to you. You are at your office?”

“Correct. Bye, Alex.” He hung up and looked at the president. “Do I pass, boss?”

“Work a little bit on the sincerity, Jeff.” The president was sprawled in a leather chair, a robe over his pajamas. “They’ll bite?”

“They’ll bite. They sure as hell want to confirm the destruction of the sub. Question is, can we fool ’em?”

“Foster seems to think so. It sounds plausible enough.”

“Hmph. Well, we have her, don’t we?” Pelt observed.

“Yep, I guess that story about the GRU agent was wrong, or else they kicked him off with everybody else. I want to see that Captain Ramius. Jeez! Pulling a reactor scare, no wonder he got everybody off the ship!”

The Pentagon

Skip Tyler was in the CNO’s office trying to relax in a chair. The coast guard station on the inlet had had a low-light television, the tape from which had been flown by helicopter to Cherry Point and from there by Phantom jet fighter to Andrews. Now it was in the hands of a courier whose automobile was just pulling up at the Pentagon’s main entrance.

“I have a package to hand deliver to Admiral Foster,” an ensign announced a few minutes later. Foster’s flag secretary pointed him to the door.

“Good morning, sir! This is for you, sir.” The ensign handed Foster the wrapped cassette.

“Thank you. Dismissed.”

Foster inserted the cassette in the tape player atop his office television. The set was already on, and the picture appeared in several seconds.

Tyler was standing beside the CNO as it focused. “Yep.”

“Yep,” Foster agreed.

The picture was lousy — no other word for it. The low-light television system did not give a very sharp picture since it amplified all of the ambient light equally. This tended to wash out many details. But what they saw was enough: a very large missile submarine whose sail was much farther aft than the sails on anything a Western country made. She dwarfed the Dallas and Pogy. They watched the screen without a word for the next fifteen minutes. Except for the wobbly camera, the picture was about as lively as a test pattern.

“Well,” Foster said as the tape ended, “we got us a Russian boomer.”

“How ’bout that?” Tyler grinned.

“Skip, you were up for command of Los Angeles, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We owe you for this, Commander, we owe you a lot. I did some checking the other day. An officer injured in the line of duty does not necessarily have to retire unless he is demonstrably unfit for duty. An accident while returning from working on your boat is line of duty, I think, and we’ve had a few ship commanders who were short a leg. I’ll go to the president myself on this, son. It will mean a year’s work getting back in the groove, but if you still want your command, by God, I’ll get it for you.”

Tyler sat down for that. It would mean being fitted for a new leg, something he’d been considering for months, and a few weeks getting used to it. Then a year — a good year — relearning everything he needed to know before he could go to sea…He shook his head. “Thank you, Admiral. You don’t know what that means to me — but, no. I’m past that now. I have a different life, and different responsibilities now, and I’d just be taking someone else’s slot. Tell you what, you let me get a look at that boomer, and we’re even.”

“That I can guarantee.” Foster had hoped he’d respond that way, had been nearly sure of it. It was too bad, though. Tyler, he thought, would have been a good candidate for his own flag except for the leg. Well, nobody ever said the world was fair.

The Red October

“You guys seem to have things under control,” Ryan observed. “Does anybody mind if I flake out somewhere?”

“Flake out?” Borodin asked.

“Sleep.”

“Ah, take Dr. Petrov’s cabin, across from the medical office.”

On his way aft Ryan looked in Borodin’s cabin and found the vodka bottle that had been liberated. It didn’t have much taste, but it was smooth enough. Petrov’s bunk was not very wide or very soft. Ryan was past caring. He took a long swallow and lay down in his uniform, which was already so greasy and dirty as to be beyond hope. He was asleep in five minutes.

The Sea Cliff

The air-purifier system was not working properly, Lieutenant Sven Johnsen thought. If his sinus cold had lasted a few more days he might not have noticed. The Sea Cliff was just passing ten thousand feet, and they couldn’t tinker with the system until they surfaced. It was not dangerous — the environmental control systems had as many built-in redundancies as the Space Shuttle — just a nuisance.

“I’ve never been so deep,” Captain Igor Kaganovich said conversationally. Getting him here had been complicated. It had required a Helix helicopter from the Kiev to the Tarawa, then a U.S. Navy Sea King to Norfolk. Another helicopter had taken him to the USS Austin, which was heading for 33N 75W at twenty knots. The Austin was a landing ship dock, a large vessel whose aft end was a covered well. She was usually used for landing craft, but today she carried the Sea Cliff, a three-man submarine that had been flown down from Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

“Does take some getting used to,” Johnsen agreed, “but when you get down to it, five hundred feet, ten thousand feet, doesn’t make much difference. A hull fracture would kill you just as fast, just down here there’d be less residue for the next boat to try and recover.”

“Keep thinking those happy thoughts, sir,” Machinist’s Mate First Class Jesse Overton said. “Still clear on sonar?”

“Right, Jess.” Johnsen had been working with the machinist’s mate for two years. The Sea Cliff was their baby, a small, rugged research submarine used mainly for oceanographic tasks,