The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)

by Tom Clancy

Ramius looked aft at the bluffs of the Kola Fjord. They had been carved to this shape millennia before by the remorseless pressure of towering glaciers. How many times in his twenty years of service with the Red Banner Northern Fleet had he looked at the wide, flat U-shape? This would be the last. One way or another, he’d never go back.

We will pass all of the imperialist sonar nets, and we will not be detected! This will be a true test of our submarine and his capabilities. Our own ships will engage in a major exercise to locate us and at the same time to befuddle the arrogant imperialist navies. Our mission, first of all, is to evade detection by anyone. We will teach the Americans a lesson about Soviet technology that they will not soon forget!

In the galley aft a petty officer was standing still, holding a warm loaf of bread and looking curiously at the bulkhead-mounted speaker. That wasn’t what their orders were supposed to be, was it? Had there been a change in plans?

In the Soviet Union every worker is a government worker, and they have a saying: As long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work.

The Good of the People was a laudable enough goal, but in denying a man’s soul, an enduring part of his being, Marxism stripped away the foundation of human dignity and individual value.

The CIA had too many people whose only skill was kissing ass.

“Irregular,” Thompson said. “Yeah, it’s funny. It sounds regular, but it doesn’t look regular. Know what I mean, Mr. Thompson?” “No, you’ve got better ears.” “That’s ’cause I listen to better music, sir. That rock stuff’ll kill your ears.”

It was one thing to use computers as a tool, quite another to let them do your thinking for you.

“How about Red October? ” Ryan asked. “Nothing. Maybe our information was bad, and she didn’t sail. Wouldn’t be the first time.” “You don’t suppose they’ve lost her?” Ryan wondered aloud.

“Captain Ramius? Petrov here. Could you come aft to my office, please?” “On the way, Comrade Doctor.” Ramius took his time. He knew what the call was about. The day before they sailed, while Petrov had been ashore procuring drugs for his cupboard, Borodin had contaminated the badges with the X-ray machine.

It is a principle of diplomacy,” Pelt observed, “that one must know something of the truth in order to lie convincingly.”

His most vivid memory was of waking up, eight days later he was to learn, to see his wife, Jean, holding his hand. His marriage up to that point had been a troubled one, not an uncommon problem for nuclear submarine officers. His first sight of her was not a complimentary one—her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was tousled—but she had never looked quite so good. He had never appreciated just how important she was. A lot more important than half a leg.

What was the purpose of a commanding officer if his every order had to be approved by a political flunky?

He decided that the Russians were on some sort of fishing expedition. His job was to show them that the fish in these waters were dangerous.

“Of course, the water pressure would do bad things to you if anything went wrong, but it would be so fast you’d never know it.

It took Shavrov a moment to realize that he had a wingman. Two wingmen. Fifty meters to his left and right, a pair of American F-15 Eagle fighters. The visored face of one pilot was staring at him. “YAK-106, YAK-106, please acknowledge.” The voice on the SSB (single side band) radio circuit spoke flawless Russian. Shavrov did not acknowledge. They had read the number off his engine intake housing before he had known they were there.

“Comrade Chairman, this is a better cover assignment than you may imagine.” Padorin did not flinch, wanting to show these men what he was made of. “On Red October the officers’ accommodations and galley are aft. The crew’s quarters are forward—the crew eat there since they do not have a separate messroom—with the missile room in between. As a cook he must travel back and forth many times each day, and his presence in any particular area will not be thought unusual. The food freezer is located adjacent to the lower missile deck forward. It is not our plan that he should activate the scuttling charges. We have allowed for the possibility that the captain could disarm them. Comrades, these measures have been carefully thought out.”

“The Americans would not be so brash.” “Are you sure of that, Comrade Political Officer? Sure? What if one of their aircraft commits a ‘pilot error’? And sinks one of our destroyers? And what if the American president gets a direct link to Moscow to apologize before we can ever report it? They swear it was an accident and promise to punish the stupid pilot—then what? You think the imperialists are so predictable this close to their own coastline? I do not. I think they are praying for the smallest excuse to pounce on us.

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

Mancuso was in sonar a second later. “Still doing the turn to port, Cap’n. He’s astern of us ’cause of the turn we made,” Jones observed as neutrally as he could. It was close to an accusation, Mancuso noticed. “Flushing the game, Jonesy,” Mancuso said coolly. You’re the boss, Jones thought, smart enough not to say anything else. The captain looked as though he was going to snap somebody’s head off, and Jones had just used up a month’s worth of tolerance. He switched his phones to the towed-array plug. “Engine noises diminishing, sir. He’s slowing down.” Jones paused. He had to report the next part. “Sir, it’s a fair guess he heard us.” “He was supposed to,” Mancuso said.

When the third set of crewmen left under the control of Lieutenant Svyadov, a cook at the end of the line broke away, explaining that he wanted to retrieve his cassette tape machine, something he had saved months for. No one noticed when he didn’t return, not even Ramius.

“Commander Ryan,” Ramius said, drawing himself to attention, “my officers and I request political asylum in the United States—and we bring you this small present.” Ramius gestured towards the steel bulkheads. Ryan had already framed his reply. “Captain, on behalf of the president of the United States, it is my honor to grant your request. Welcome to freedom, gentlemen.”

“We haven’t got a physician, we have an independent duty corpsman. He’s pretty good, and Pogy’s man will be here in another couple minutes. Who are you, by the way?” “He is a spy,” Borodin said with palpable irony. “Jack Ryan.” “And you, sir?” “Captain Second Rank Vasily Borodin. I am—first officer, yes? Come over into the station, Commander. Please excuse me, we are all very tired.”

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!”

Kaganovich allowed the Americans their small victory. It could have been worse. Much worse. “Shall we continue to search for more wreckage?” “No, I think we’ll go back up,” Johnsen decided. “But your orders—” “My orders, Captain Kaganovich, were to search for the remains of a Victor-class attack submarine. We found the grave of a boomer. You lied to us, Captain, and our courtesy to you ends at this point. You got what you wanted, I guess. Later we’ll be back for what we want.”

“Tell him if he ever wants to study medicine, I’ll tell him how to get started. If he knows how to do the right thing at the right time, he might just be good enough to do it for a living.” The young officer was pleased by this comment and asked how much money a doctor could make in America. “I’m in the service, so I don’t make very much. Forty-eight thousand a year, counting flight pay. I could do a lot better on the outside.”

On the way to and from the facilities, the Red October’s crewmen met with American sailors, some of whom were Russian-speaking officers disguised as enlisted men, others of whom were Russian language specialists in the enlisted rates flown out just as the last load of Soviets had arrived aboard. The fact that they were aboard a putatively hostile vessel and had found friendly Russian-speaking men had been overpowering for many of the young conscripts. Their remarks had been recorded on hidden tape machines for later examination in Washington. Petrov and the three junior officers had been slow to catch on, but when they did they took to escorting the men to the toilet in relays, like protective parents. What they were not able to prevent was an intelligence officer in a bosun’s uniform making an offer of asylum: anyone who wished to remain in the United States would be permitted to do so. It took ten minutes for the information to spread throughout the crew.

Along the way each man found himself alone with a U.S. Navy officer who asked politely if that individual might wish to stay in the United States, pointing out that each man making this decision would be required to make his intentions known in person to a representative of the Soviet embassy—but that if he wished to do so, he would be permitted to stay. To the fury of the embassy officials, four men made this decision, one recanting after a confrontation with the naval attaché.

Ryan was watching something he had never seen before, men from two different places and two very different cultures trying to find common ground. Both sides were reaching out, seeking similarities of character and experience, building a foundation for understanding.

In the past two days he had come to realize what courage it took for men to defect. Facing a gun in a missile room was a small matter compared with walking away from one’s whole life. It was strange how easily Americans put on their freedoms. How difficult would it be for these men who had risked their lives to adapt to something that men like Ryan so rarely appreciated? It was people like these who had built the American Dream, and people like these who were needed to maintain it.

“And I wish to work on a real computer,” Bugayev went on, wishful. Jones laughed quietly. “So, buy yourself one.” “Buy a computer?” “Sure, we got a couple of little ones, Apples, on Dallas. Cost you about, oh, two thousand for a nice system. That’s a lot less than what a car goes for.” “A computer for two thousand dollars?” Bugayev went from wishful to suspicious, certain that Jones was leading him on. “Or less. For three grand you can get a really nice rig. Hell, you tell Apple who you are, and they’ll probably give it to you for free, or the navy will. If you don’t want an Apple, there’s the Commodore, TRS-80, Atari. All kinds. Depends on what you want to use it for. Look, just one company, Apple, has sold over a million of ’em. They’re little, sure, but they’re real computers.” “I have never heard of this—Apple?” “Yeah, Apple. Two guys started the company back when I was in junior high. Since then they’ve sold a million or so, like I said—and they are some kinda rich! I don’t have one myself—no room on a sub—but my brother has his own computer, an IBM-PC. You still don’t believe me, do you?” “A working man with his own computer? It is hard to believe.”

“Finished with the engines,” Ramius said in Russian to the crew in the maneuvering room, then switched to English with a trace of sadness in his voice. “So. We are here.”

You know, there may be people left alive on that Alfa . . .” “Too bad,” Moore said. Ryan nodded slowly. “I figured that. I don’t know that I like it, sir, leaving men to die like that.” “Nor do we,” Judge Moore said, “nor do we, but if we were to rescue someone from her, well, then everything we’ve—everything you’ve been through would be for nothing. Would you want that?” “It’s a chance in a thousand anyway,” Greer said. “I don’t know,” Ryan said, finishing off his third drink and feeling it. He had expected Moore to be uninterested in checking the Alfa for signs of life. Greer had surprised him. So, the old seaman had been corrupted by this affair—or just by being at the CIA—into forgetting the seaman’s code. And what did this say about Ryan? “I just don’t know.”