“Indeed, Marko Aleksandrovich — they may even be safe to use in another fifty years.” Melekhin laughed raucously.
That was a hell of a thing to say in front of a young officer, Petrov thought. There was nothing, nothing at all funny about a reactor leak. But Melekhin was known for his heavy sense of humor, and the doctor imagined that twenty years of working on reactors allowed him and the captain to view the potential dangers phlegmatically. Then, there was the implicit lesson in the story: never let someone who does not belong into the reactor spaces.
“Very well,” Melekhin said, “now we check the pipes in the generator room. Come, Svyadov, we still need your young legs.”
The next compartment aft contained the heat exchanger/steam generator, turboalternators, and auxiliary equipment. The main turbines were in the next compartment, now inactive while the electrically driven caterpillar was operating. In any case, the steam that turned them was supposed to be clean. The only radioactivity was in the inside loop. The reactor coolant, which carried short-lived but dangerous radioactivity, never flashed to steam. This was in the outside loop and boiled from uncontaminated water. The two water supplies met but never mixed inside the heat exchanger, the most likely site for a coolant leak because of its more numerous fittings and valves.
The more complex piping required a full fifty minutes to check. These pipes were not as well insulated as those forward. Svyadov nearly burned himself twice, and his face was bathed in perspiration by the time he finished his first sweep.
“Readings all safe again, comrades.”
“Good,” Melekhin said. “Come down and rest a moment before you check it again.”
Svyadov almost thanked his chief for that, but this would not have done at all. As a young, dedicated officer and member of the Komsomol, no exertion was too great. He came down carefully, and Melekhin handed him another cigarette. The chief engineer was a gray-haired perfectionist who took decent care of his men.
“Why, thank you, Comrade,” Svyadov said.
Petrov got a folding chair. “Sit, Comrade Lieutenant, rest your legs.”
The lieutenant sat down at once, stretching his legs to work out the knots. The officers at VVMUPP had told him how lucky he was to draw this assignment. Ramius and Melekhin were the two best teachers in the fleet, men whose crews appreciated their kindness along with their competence.
“They really should insulate those pipes,” Ramius said. Melekhin shook his head.
“Then they’d be too hard to inspect.” He handed the counter to his captain.
“Entirely safe,” the captain read off the cumulative dial. “You get more exposure tending a garden.”
“Indeed,” Melekhin said. “Coal miners get more exposure than we do, from the release of radon gas in the mines. Bad badges, that’s what it has to be. Why not take out a whole batch and check it?”
“I could, Comrade,” Petrov answered. “But then, due to the extended nature of our cruise, we’d have to run for several days without any. Contrary to regulations. I’m afraid.”
“You are correct. In any case the badges are only a backup to our instruments.” Ramius gestured to the red-circled detectors all over the compartment.
“Do you really want to recheck the piping?” Melekhin asked.
“I think we should,” Ramius said.
Svyadov swore to himself, looking down at the deck.
“There is no extravagance in the pursuit of safety,” Petrov quoted doctrine. “Sorry, Lieutenant.” The doctor was not a bit sorry. He had been genuinely worried, and was now feeling a lot better.
An hour later the second check had been completed. Petrov took Svyadov forward for salt tablets and tea to rehydrate himself. The senior officers left, and Melekhin ordered the reactor plant restarted.
The enlisted men filed back to their duty stations, looking at one another. Their officers had just checked the “hot” compartments with radiation instruments. The medical corpsman had looked pale a while earlier and refused to say anything. More than one engine attendant fingered his radiation badge and checked his wristwatch to see how long it would be before he went off duty.
THE EIGHTH DAY
FRIDAY, 10 DECEMBER
HMS Invincible
Ryan awoke in the dark. The curtains were drawn on the cabin’s two small portholes. He shook his head a few times to clear it and began to assess what was going on around him. The Invincible was moving on the seas, but not as much as before. He got up to look out of a porthole and saw the last red glow of sunset aft under scudding clouds. He checked his watch and did some clumsy mental arithmetic, concluding that it was six in the evening, local time. That translated to about six hours of sleep. He felt pretty good, considering. A minor headache from the brandy — so much for the theory that good stuff doesn’t give you a hangover — and his muscles were stiff. He did a few sit-ups to work out the knots.
There was a small bathroom — head, he corrected himself — adjoining the cabin. Ryan splashed some water on his face and washed his mouth out, not wanting to look in the mirror. He decided he had to. Counterfeit or not, he was wearing his country’s uniform and he had to look presentable. It took a minute to get his hair in place and the uniform arranged properly. The CIA had done a nice job of tailoring, given such short notice. Finished, he went out the door towards the flag bridge.
“Feeling better, Jack?” Admiral White pointed him to a tray full of cups. It was only tea, but it was a start.
“Thank you, Admiral. Those few hours really helped. I guess I’m in time for dinner.”
“Breakfast,” White corrected him with a laugh.
“What — uh, pardon me, Admiral?” Ryan shook his head again. He was still a little groggy.
“That’s a sunrise, Commander. Change in orders, we’re heading west again. Kennedy’s moving east at high speed, and we’re to take station inshore.”
“Who said, sir?”
“CINCLANT. I gather Joshua was not at all pleased. You are to remain with us for the moment, and under the circumstances it seemed the reasonable thing to let you sleep. You did appear to need it.”
Must have been eighteen hours, Ryan thought. No wonder he felt stiff.
“You do look much better,” Admiral White noted from his leather swivel chair. He got up, took Ryan’s arm, and guided him aft. “Now for breakfast. I’ve been waiting for you. Captain Hunter will brief you on your revised orders. Weather’s clearing up for a few days, they tell me. Escort assignments are being reshuffled. We’re to operate in conjunction with your New Jersey group. Our antisubmarine operations begin in earnest in another twelve hours. It’s a good thing you got that extra sleep, lad. You’ll bloody need it.”
Ryan ran his hand over his face. “Can I shave, sir?”
“We still permit beards. Let it wait until after breakfast.”
Flag quarters on HMS Invincible were not quite to the standard of those on the Kennedy — but close. White had a private dining area. A steward in a white livery served them expertly, setting a third place for Hunter, who appeared within a few minutes. When they started talking, the steward was excused.
“We rendezvous with a pair of young Knox-class frigates in two hours. We already have them on radar. Two more 1052s, plus an oiler and two Perrys will join us in another thirty-six hours. They were on their way home from the Med. With our own escorts, a total of nine warships. A noteworthy collection, I think. We’ll be working five hundred miles offshore, with the New Jersey-Tarawa force two hundred miles to our west.”
“Tarawa? What do we need a regiment of marines for?” Ryan asked.
Hunter explained briefly. “Not a bad idea, that. The funny thing is, with Kennedy racing for the Azores, that rather leaves us guarding the American coast.” Hunter grinned. “This may be the first time the Royal Navy has ever done that — certainly since it belonged to us.”
“What are we up against?”
“The first of the Alfas will be on your coast tonight, four of them ahead of all the others. The Soviet surface force passed Iceland last night. It’s divided into three groups. One is built around their carrier Kiev, two cruisers and four destroyers; the second, probably the force flag, is built around Kirov, with three additional cruisers and six destroyers; and the third is centered on Moskva, three more cruisers and seven destroyers. I gather that the Soviets will want to use the Kiev and Moskva groups inshore, with Kirov guarding them out to sea — but Kennedy’s relocation will make them rethink that. Regardless, the total force carries a considerable number of surface-to-surface missiles, and potentially, we are very exposed. To help out with that, your air force has an E-3 Sentry detailed to arrive here in an hour to exercise with our Harriers, and when we get farther west, we’ll have additional land-based air support. On the whole our position is hardly an enviable one, but Ivan’s is rather less so. So far as the question of finding Red October is concerned?” Hunter shrugged. “How we conduct our search will depend on how Ivan deploys. At the moment we’re conducting some tracking drills. The lead Alfa is eighty miles northwest of us, steaming at forty-plus knots, and we have a helicopter in pursuit — which is roughly what it amounts to,” the fleet operations officer concluded. “Will you join us below?”