“Borodin, bring the ship to periscope depth. Battle stations.”
The Invincible
“Come up, Marko,” Barclay urged. “We have a message for you, old boy.”
“Helicopter three reports contact is coming up,” the speaker said.
“All right!” Ryan pounded his hand on the rail.
White lifted a phone. “Recall one of the helicopters.”
The distance to the Red October was down to a mile and a half. One of the Sea Kings lifted up and circled around, reeling in its sonar transducer.
“Contact depth is five hundred feet, coming up slowly.”
The Red October
Borodin was pumping water slowly from the October’s trim tanks. The missile submarine increased speed to four knots, and most of the force required to change her depth came from the diving planes. The starpom was careful to bring her up slowly, and Ramius had her heading directly towards the Invincible.
The Invincible
“Hunter, are you up on your Morse?” Admiral White inquired.
“I believe so, Admiral,” Hunter answered. Everyone was getting excited. What a chance this was!
Ryan swallowed hard. In the past few hours, while the Invincible had been lying still on the rolling sea, his stomach had really gone bad. The pills the ship’s doctor had given him helped, but now the excitement was making it worse. There was an eighty-foot sheer drop from the flag bridge to the sea. Well, he thought, if I have to puke, there’s nothing in the way. Screw it.
The Dallas
“Hull popping noises, sir,” Jones said. “Think he’s heading up.”
“Up?” Mancuso wondered for a second. “Yeah, that fits. He’s a cowboy. He wants to see what he’s up against before he tries to evade. That fits. I bet he doesn’t know where we’ve been the past few days.” The captain went forward to the attack center.
“Looks like he’s going up, Skipper,” Mannion said, watching the attack director. “Dumb.” Mannion had his own opinion of submarine captains depending on their periscopes. Too many of them spent too much time looking out at the world. He wondered how much of this was an implicit reaction to the enforced confinement of submarining, something just to make sure that there really was a world up there, to make sure the instruments were correct. Entirely human, Mannion thought, but it could make you vulnerable…
“We go up, too, Skipper?”
“Yeah, slow and easy.”
The Invincible
The sky was half-filled with white, fleecy clouds, their undersides gray with the threat of rain. A twenty-knot wind was blowing from the southwest, and a six-foot sea was running, its dark waves streaked with whitecaps. Ryan saw the Bristol and Fife holding station to windward. Their captains, no doubt, were muttering a few choice words at this disposition. The American escorts, which had been detached the previous day, were now sailing to rendezvous with the USS New Jersey.
White was talking into the phone again. “Commander, I want to know the instant we get a radar return from the target area. Train every set aboard onto that patch of ocean. I also want to know of any, repeat any, sonar signals from the area …That is correct. Depth of target? Very well. Recall the second helicopter, I want both on station to windward.”
They had agreed that the best method of passing the message would be to use a blinker light. Only someone placed in the direct line of sight would be able to read the signal. Hunter moved to the light, holding a sheet of paper Ryan had given him. The yeomen and signalmen normally stationed here were gone.
The Red October
“Thirty meters, Comrade Captain,” Borodin reported. The battle watch was set in the control center.
“Periscope,” Ramius said calmly. The oiled metal tube hissed upward on hydraulic pressure. The captain handed his cap to the junior officer of the watch as he bent to look into the eyepiece. “So, we have here three imperialist ships. HMS Invincible. Such a name for a ship!” He scoffed for his audience. “Two escorts, Bristol, and a County-class cruiser.”
The Invincible
“Periscope, starboard bow!” the speaker announced.
“I see it!” Barclay’s hand shot out to point. “There it is!” Ryan strained to find it. “I got it.” It was like a small broomstick sitting vertically in the water, about a mile away.
As the waves rolled past, the bottommost visible part of the periscope flared out.
“Hunter,” White said quietly. To Ryan’s left the captain began jerking his hand on the lever that controlled the light shutters.
The Red October
Ramius didn’t see it at first. He was making a complete circle of the horizon, checking for any other ships or aircraft. When he finished the circuit, the flashing light caught his eye. Quickly he tried to interpret the signal. It took him a moment to realize it was pointed right at him.
AAA AAA AAA RED OCTOBER RED OCTOBER CAN YOU READ THIS CAN YOU READ THIS PLEASE PING US ONE TIME ON ACTIVE SONAR IF YOU CAN READ THIS PLEASE PING US ONE TIME ON ACTIVE SONAR IF YOU CAN READ THIS AAA AAA AAA RED OCTOBER RED OCTOBER CAN YOU READ THIS CAN YOU READ THIS
The message kept repeating. The signal was jerky and awkward. Ramius didn’t notice this. He translated the English signal in his head, at first thinking it was a signal to the American submarine. His knuckles went white on the periscope hand grips as he translated the message in his mind.
“Borodin,” he said finally, after reading the message a fourth time, “we set up a practice firing solution on Invincible. Damn, the periscope rangefinder is sticking. A single ping, Comrade. Just one, for range.”
Ping!
The Invincible
“One ping from the contact area, sir, sounds Soviet,” the speaker reported.
White lifted his phone. “Thank you. Keep us informed.” He set it back down. “Well, gentlemen…”
“He did it!” Ryan sang out. “Send the rest, for Christ’s sake!”
“At once.” Hunter grinned like a madman.
RED OCTOBER RED OCTOBER YOUR WHOLE FLEET IS CHASING AFTER YOU YOUR WHOLE FLEET IS CHASING AFTER YOU YOUR PATH IS BLOCKED BY NUMEROUS VESSELS NUMEROUS ATTACK SUBMARINES ARE WAITING TO ATTACK YOU REPEAT NUMEROUS ATTACK SUBMARINES ARE WAITING TO ATTACK YOU PROCEED TO RENDEZVOUS 33N 75W WE HAVE SHIPS THERE WAITING FOR YOU REPEAT PROCEED TO RENDEZVOUS 33N 75W WE HAVE SHIPS THERE WAITING FOR YOU IF YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE PLEASE PING US AGAIN ONE TIME
The Red October
“Distance to target, Borodin?” Ramius asked, wishing he had more time as the message was repeated again and again.
“Two thousand meters, Comrade Captain. A nice, fat target for us if we…” The starpom’s voice trailed off as he saw the look on his commander’s face.
They know our name, Ramius was thinking, they know our name! How can this be? They knew where to find us — exactly! How? What can the Americans have? How long has the Los Angeles been trailing us? Decide — you must decide!
“Comrade, one more ping on the target, just one.”
The Invincible
“One more ping, Admiral.”
“Thank you.” White looked at Ryan. “Well, Jack, it would seem that your intelligence estimate was indeed correct. Jolly good.”
“Jolly good my ass, my Lord Earl! I was right. Son of a bitch!” Ryan’s hands flew up in the air, his seasickness forgotten. He calmed down. The occasion called for more decorum. “Excuse me, Admiral. We have some things to do.”
The Dallas
Whole fleet is chasing after you… Proceed to 33N 75W. What the hell was going on? Mancuso wondered, catching the end of the second signal.
“Conn, sonar. Getting hull popping noises from the target. His depth is changing. Engine noise increasing.”
“Down scope.” Mancuso lifted the phone. “Very well, sonar. Anything else, Jones?”
“No, sir. The helicopters are gone, and there aren’t any emissions from the surface ships. What gives, sir?”
“Beats me.” Mancuso shook his head as Mannion brought the Dallas back in pursuit of the Red October. What the hell was happening here? the captain wondered. Why was a Brit carrier signaling to a Russian submarine, and why were they sending her to a rendezvous off the Carolinas? Whose subs were blocking her path? It couldn’t be. No way. It just couldn’t be…
The Invincible
Ryan was in the Invincible’s communications room. “MAGI TO OLYMPUS,” he typed into the special encoding device the CIA had sent out with him, “PLAYED MY MANDOLIN TODAY. SOUNDED PRETTY GOOD. I’M PLANNING A LITTLE CONCERT, AT THE USUAL PLACE. EXPECT GOOD CRITICAL REVIEWS. AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS.” Ryan had laughed before at the cod; words he was supposed to use for this. He was laughing now, for a different reason.
The White House
“So,” Pelt observed, “Ryan expects the mission will be successful. Everything’s going according to plan, but he didn’t use the code group for certain success.”
The president leaned back comfortably. “He’s honest. Things can always go wrong. You have to admit, though, things do look good.”