“Right ten degrees,” Ryan said.
“Near-field effect, range down to four hundred yards, bearing is two-two-five to the center of the target. Target is spreading out left and right, mostly left,” Jones said rapidly. “Range … three hundred yards. Elevation angle is zero, we are level with the target. Range two hundred fifty, bearing two-two-five to target center. We can’t miss, Skipper.”
“We’re gonna hit!” Mancuso called out.
Tupolev should have changed depth. As it was he depended on the Alfa’s acceleration and maneuverability, forgetting that Ramius knew exactly what these were.
“Contact spread way the hell out — instantaneous return, sir!”
“Brace for impact!”
Ramius had forgotten the collision alarm. He yanked at it only seconds before impact.
The Red October rammed the Konovalov just aft of midships at a thirty-degree angle. The force of the collision ruptured the Konovalov’s titanium pressure hull and crumpled the October’s bow as if it were a beer can.
Ryan had not braced hard enough. He was thrown forward, and, his face struck the instrument panel. Aft, Williams was catapulted from his bed and caught by Noyes before his head hit the deck. Jones’ sonar systems were wiped out. The missile submarine bounded up and over the top of the Alfa, her keel grating across the upper deck of the smaller vessel as the momentum carried her forward and upward.
The V. K. Konovalov
The Konovalov had had full watertight integrity set. It did not make a difference. Two compartments were instantly vented to the sea, and the bulkhead between the control room and the after compartments failed a moment later from hull deformation. The last thing that Tupolev saw was a curtain of white foam coming from the starboard side. The Alfa rolled to port, turned by the friction of the October’s keel. In a few seconds the submarine was upside down. Throughout her length men and gear tumbled about like dice. Half the crew were already drowning. Contact with the October ended at this point, when the Konovalov’s flooded compartments made her drop stern first toward the bottom. The political officer’s last conscious act was to yank at the disaster beacon handle, but it was to no avail: the sub was inverted, and the cable fouled on the sail. The only marker on the Konovalov’s grave was a mass of bubbles.
The Red October
“We still alive?” Ryan’s face was bleeding profusely.
“Up, up on the planes!” Ramius shouted.
“All the way up.” Ryan pulled back with his left hand, holding his right over the cuts.
“Damage report,” Ramius said in Russian.
“Reactor system is intact,” Melekhin answered at once. “The damage control board shows flooding in the torpedo room — I think. I have vented high-pressure air into it, and the pump is activated. Recommend we surface to assess damage.”
“Da!” Ramius hobbled to the air manifold and blew all tanks.
The Dallas
“Jesus,” the sonar chief said, “somebody hit somebody. I got breakup noises going down and hull-popping noises going up. Can’t tell which is which, sir. Both engines are dead.” “Get us up to periscope depth quick!” Chambers ordered.
The Red October
It was 1654 local time when the Red October broke the surface of the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, forty-seven miles southeast of Norfolk. There was no other ship in sight.
“Sonar is wiped out, Skipper.” Jones was switching off his boxes. “Gone, crunched. We got some piddly-ass lateral hydrophones. No active stuff, not even the gertrude.”
“Go forward, Jonesy. Nice work.”
Jones took the last cigarette from his pack. “Any time, sir — but I’m gettin’ out next summer, depend on it.”
Bugayev followed him forward, still deafened and stunned from the torpedo hit.
The October was sitting still on the surface, down by the bow and listing twenty degrees to port from the vented ballast tanks.
The Dallas
“How about that,” Chambers said. He lifted the microphone. “This is Commander Chambers. They killed the Alfa! Our guys are safe. Surfacing the boat now. Stand by the fire and rescue party!”
The Red October
“You okay, Commander Ryan?” Jones turned his head carefully. “Looks like you broke some glass the hard way, sir.”
“You don’t worry till it stops bleeding,” Ryan said drunkenly.
“Guess so.” Jones held his handkerchief over the cuts. “But I sure hope you don’t always drive this bad, sir.”
“Captain Ramius, permission to lay to the bridge and communicate with my ship?” Mancuso asked.
“Go, we may need help with the damage.”
Mancuso got into his jacket, checking to make sure his small docking radio was still in the pocket where he had left it. Thirty seconds later he was atop the sail. The Dallas was surfacing as he made his first check of the horizon. The sky had never looked so good.
He couldn’t recognize the face four hundred yards away, but it had to be Chambers.
“Dallas, this is Mancuso.”
“Skipper, this is Chambers. You guys okay?”
“Yes! But we may need some hands. The bow’s all stove in and we took a torpedo midships.”
“I can see it, Bart. Look down.”
“Jesus!” The jagged hole was awash, half out of the water, and the submarine was heavily down by the bow. Mancuso wondered how she could float at all, but it wasn’t the time to question why.
“Come over here, Wally, and get the raft out.”
“On the way. Fure and rescue is standing by, I — there’s our other friend,” Chambers said.
The Pogy surfaced three hundred yards directly ahead of the October.
“Pogy says the area’s clear. Nobody here but us. Heard that one before?” Chambers laughed mirthlessly. “How about we radio in?”
“No, let’s see if we can handle it first.” The Dallas approached the October. Within minutes Mancuso’s command submarine was seventy yards to port, and ten men on a raft were struggling across the chop. Up to this time only a handful of men aboard the Dallas had known what was going on. Now everyone knew. He could see his men pointing and talking. What a story they had.
Damage was not as bad as they had feared. The torpedo room had not flooded — a sensor damaged by the impact had given a false reading. The forward ballast tanks were permanently vented to the sea, but the submarine was so big and her ballast tanks so subdivided that she was only eight feet down at the bow. The list to port was only a nuisance. In two hours the radio room leak had been plugged, and after a lengthy discussion among Ramius, Melekhin, and Mancuso it was decided that they could dive again if they kept their speed down and did not go below thirty meters. They’d be late getting to Norfolk.
THE EIGHTEENTH DAY
MONDAY, 20 DECEMBER
The Red October
Ryan again found himself atop the sail thanks to Ramius, who said that he had earned it. In return for the favor, Jack had helped the captain up the ladder to the bridge station. Mancuso was with them. There was now an American crew below in the control room, and the engine room complement had been supplemented so that there was something approaching a normal steaming watch. The leak in the radio room had not been fully contained, but it was above the waterline. The compartment had been pumped out, and the October’s list had eased to fifteen degrees. She was still down by the bow, which was partially compensated for when the intact ballast tanks were blown dry. The crumpled bow gave the submarine a decidedly asymmetrical wake, barely visible in the moonless, cloud-laden sky. The Dallas and the Pogy were still submerged, somewhere aft, sniffing for additional interference as they neared Capes Henry and Charles.
Somewhere farther aft an LNG (liquified natural gas) carrier was approaching the passage, which the coast guard had closed to all normal traffic in order to allow the floating bomb to travel without interference all the way to the LNG terminal at Cove Point, Maryland — or so the story went. Ryan wondered how the navy had persuaded the ship’s skipper to fake engine trouble or somehow delay his arrival. They were six hours late. The navy must have been nervous as all hell until they had finally surfaced forty minutes earlier and been spotted immediately by a circling Orion.
The red and green buoy lights winked at them, dancing on the chop. Forward he could see the lights of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, but there were no moving automobile lights. The CIA had probably staged a messy wreck to shut it down, maybe a tractor-trailer or two full of eggs or gasoline. Something creative.
“You’ve never been to America before,” Ryan said, just to make conversation.
“No, never to a Western country. Cuba once, many years ago.”
Ryan looked north and south. He figured they were inside the capes now. “Well, welcome home, Captain Ramius. Speaking for myself, sir, I’m damned glad you’re here.”