“Their ambassador says they’ve lost a boat, and since it has a bunch of big shots’ kids aboard, they laid on an all-hands rescue mission. For what that’s worth.”
Tyler set his briefcase down and walked closer to the screen. “I can see the pattern for a search and rescue, but why blockade our ports?” He paused, thinking rapidly as his eyes scanned the top of the display. “Sir, I don’t see any boomers up here.”
“They’re in port — all of ‘em, on both oceans. The last Delta tied up a few hours ago. That’s funny, too,” Dodge said, looking at the screen again.
“All of them, sir?” Tyler asked as offhandedly as he could. Something had just occurred to him. The display screen showed the Bremerton in the Barents Sea but not her supposed quarry. He waited a few seconds for an answer. Getting none, he turned to see the two officers observing him closely.
“Why do you ask, son?” Dodge said quietly. In Sam Dodge, gentleness could be a real warning flag.
Tyler thought this one over for a few seconds. He’d given Ryan his word. Could he phrase his answer without compromising it and still find out what he wanted? Yes, he decided. There was an investigative side to Skip Tyler’s character, and once he was onto something, his psyche compelled him to run it down.
“Admiral, do they have a missile sub at sea, a brand new one?”
Dodge stood very straight. Even so he still had to look up at the younger man. When he spoke, his voice was glacial. “Exactly where did you get that information, Commander?”
Tyler shook his head. “Admiral, I’m sorry, but I can’t say. It’s compartmented, sir. I think this is something you ought to know, and I’ll try to get it to you.”
Dodge backed off to try a different tack. “You used to work for me, Skip.” The admiral was unhappy. He’d bent a rule to show something to his former subordinate because he knew him well and was sorry that he had not received the command he had worked so hard for. Tyler was technically a civilian, even though his suits were still navy blue. What made it really bad was mat he knew something himself. Dodge had given him some information, and Tyler wasn’t giving any back.
“Sir, I gave my word,” Skip apologized. “I will try to get this to you. That’s a promise, sir. May I use a phone?”
“Outer office,” Dodge said flatly. There were four telephones within sight.
Tyler went out and sat at a secretary’s desk. He took his notebook from a coat pocket and dialed the number on the card Ryan had left him.
“Acres,” a female voice answered.
“Could I speak to Dr. Ryan, please?”
“Dr. Ryan is not here at the moment.”
“Then… give me Admiral Greer, please.”
“One moment, please.”
“James Greer?” Dodge was behind him. “Is that who you’re working for?”
“This is Greer. Your name Skip Tyler?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have that information for me?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Where are you?”
“In the Pentagon, sir.”
“Okay, I want you to drive right up here. You know how to find the place? The guards at the main gate will be waiting for you. Get moving, son.” Greer hung up.
“You’re working for the CIA?” Dodge asked.
“Sir — I can’t say. If you will excuse me, sir, I have some information to deliver.”
“Mine?” the admiral demanded.
“No, sir. I already had it when I came in here. That’s the truth, Admiral. And I will try to get this back to you.”
“Call me,” Dodge ordered. “We’ll be here all night.”
CIA Headquarters
The drive up the George Washington Parkway was easier than he expected. The decrepit old highway was crowded with shoppers but moved along at a steady crawl. He got off at the right exit and presently found himself at the guard post for the main highway entrance to the CIA. The barrier was down.
“Your name Tyler, Oliver W.?” the guard asked. “ID please.” Tyler handed him his Pentagon pass.
“Okay, Commander. Pull your car right to the main entrance. Somebody will be there to meet you.”
It was another two minutes to the main entrance through mostly empty parking lots glazed with ice from yesterday’s melted snow. The armed guard who was waiting for him tried to help him out of the car. Tyler didn’t like to be helped. He shrugged him off. Another man was waiting for him under the canopied main entrance. They were waved right through to the elevator.
He found Admiral Greer sitting in front of his office fireplace, seemingly half asleep. Skip didn’t know that the DDI had only returned from England a few hours earlier. The admiral came to and ordered his plain-clothes security officer to withdraw. “You must be Skip Tyler. Come on over and sit down.”
“That’s quite a fire you have going there, sir.”
“I shouldn’t bother. Looking at a fire makes me go to sleep. Of course, I could use a little sleep right now. So, what do you have for me?”
“May I ask where Jack is?”
“You may ask. He’s away.”
“Oh.” Tyler unlocked his briefcase and removed the printout. “Sir, I ran the performance model for this Russian sub. May I ask her name?”
Greer chuckled. “Okay, you’ve earned that much. Her name is Red October. You’ll have to excuse me, son. I’ve had a busy couple of days, and being tired makes me forget my manners. Jack says you’re pretty sharp. So does your personnel file. Now, you tell me. What’ll she do?”
“Well, Admiral, we have a wide choice of data here, and — “
“The short version, Commander. I don’t play with computers. I have people who do that for me.”
“From seven to eighteen knots, the best bet is ten to twelve. With that speed range, you can figure a radiated noise level about the same as that of a Yankee doing six knots, but you’d have to factor reactor plant noise into that also. Moreover, the character of the noise will be different from what we’re used to. These multiple impeller models don’t put out normal propulsion noises. They seem to generate an irregular harmonic rumble. Did Jack tell you about this? It results from a backpressure wave in the tunnels. This fights the water flow, and that makes the rumble. Evidently there’s no way around it. Our guys spent two years trying to find one. What they got was a new principle of hydrodynamics. The water almost acts like air in a jet engine at idle or low speed, except that water doesn’t compress like air does. So, our guys will be able to detect something, but it will be different. They’re going to have to get used to a wholly new acoustical signature. Add to that the lower signal intensity, and you have a boat that will be harder to detect than anything they have at this time.”
“So that’s what all this says.” Greer riffled through the pages.
“Yes, sir. You’ll want to have your own people look through it. The model — the program, that is — could stand a little improvement. I didn’t have much time. Jack said you wanted this in a hurry. May I ask a question, sir?”
“You can try.” Greer leaned back, rubbing his eyes.
“Is, ah, Red October at sea? That’s it, isn’t it? They’re trying to locate her right now?” Tyler asked innocently.
“Uh huh, something like that. We couldn’t figure what these doors meant. Ryan said you might be able to, and I suppose he was right. You’ve earned your money, Commander. This data might just enable us to find her.”
“Admiral, I think Red October is up to something, maybe even trying to defect to the United States.”
Greer’s head came around. “Whatever makes you think that?”
“The Russkies have a major fleet operation in progress. They have subs all over the Atlantic, and it looks like they’re trying to blockade our coast. The story is a rescue job for a lost boat. Okay, but Jack shows up Monday with pictures of a new missile boat — and today I hear that all of their other missile boats have been recalled to port.” Tyler smiled. “That’s kind of an odd set of coincidences, sir.”
Greer turned and stared at the fire. He had just joined the DIA when the army and air force had pulled off the daring raid on the Song Tay prison camp twenty miles west of Hanoi. The raid had been a failure because the North Vietnamese had removed all of the captured pilots a few weeks before, something that aerial photographs could not determine. But everything else had gone perfectly. After penetrating hundreds of miles into hostile territory, the raiding force appeared entirely by surprise and caught many of the camp guards literally with their pants down. The Green Berets did a letter-perfect job of getting in and out. In the process they killed several hundred enemy troops, themselves sustaining a single casualty, a broken ankle. The most impressive part of the mission, however, was its secrecy. Operation KINGPIN had been rehearsed for months, and despite this its nature and objective had not been guessed by friend or enemy — until the day of the raid itself. On that day a young air force captain of intelligence went into his general’s office to ask if a deep-penetration raid into North Vietnam had been laid on for the Song Tay prisoner-of-war camp. His astonished commander proceeded to grill the captain at length, only to learn that the bright young officer had seen enough disjointed bits and pieces to construct a clear picture of what was about to happen. Events like this gave security officers peptic ulcers.