Ramius was quiet for a moment. “Ah, I know this book. Yes, I read parts of it. You were wrong, Ryan. Halsey acted stupidly.”
“You will do well in my country, Captain Ramius. You are already a book critic. Captain Borodin, can I trouble you for a cigarette?” Borodin tossed him a full pack and matches. Ryan lit one. It was terrible.
The Avalon
The Mystic’s fourth return was the signal for the Ethan Alien and Scamp to act. The Avalon lifted off her bed and motored the few hundred yards to the old missile boat. Her captain was already assembling his men in the torpedo room. Every hatch, door, manhole, and drawer had been opened all over the boat. One of the officers was coming forward to join the others. Behind him trailed a black wire that led to each of the bombs aboard. This he connected to a timing device. “All ready, Captain.”
The Red October
Ryan watched Ramius order his men to their posts. Most went aft to run the engines. Ramius had the good manners to speak in English, repeating himself in Russian for those who did not understand their new language.
“Kamarov and Williams, will you go forward and secure all hatches.” Ramius explained for Ryan’s benefit. “If something goes wrong — it won’t, but if it does — we do not have enough men to make repairs. So, we seal the entire ship.”
It made sense to Ryan. He set an empty cup on the control pedestal to serve as an ashtray. He and Ramius were alone in the control room.
“When are we to leave?” Ramius asked.
“Whenever you are ready, sir. We have to get to Ocracoke Inlet at high tide, about eight minutes after midnight. Can we make it?”
Ramius consulted his chart. “Easily.”
Kamarov led Williams through the communications room forward of control. They left the watertight door there open, then went forward to the missile room. Here they climbed down a ladder and walked forward on the lower missile deck to the forward missile room bulkhead. They proceeded through the door into the stores compartments, checking each hatch as they went. Near the bow they went up another ladder into the torpedo room, dogging the hatch down behind them, and proceeded aft through the torpedo storage and crew spaces. Both men sensed how strange it was to be aboard a ship with no crew, and they took their time, Williams twisting his head to look at everything and asking Kamarov questions. The lieutenant was happy to answer them in his mother language. Both men were competent officers, sharing a romantic attachment to their profession. For his part, Williams was greatly impressed by the Red October and said as much several times. A great deal of attention had been paid to small details. The deck was tiled. The hatches were lined with thick rubber gaskets. They hardly made any noise at all as they moved about checking watertight integrity, and it was obvious that more than mere lip service had been paid to making this submarine a quiet one.
Williams was translating a favorite sea story into Russian as they opened the hatch to the missile room’s upper deck. When he stepped through the hatch behind Kamarov, he remembered that the missile room’s bright overhead lights had been left on. Hadn’t they?
Ryan was trying to relax and failing at it. The seat was uncomfortable, and he recalled the Russian joke about how they were shaping the New Soviet Man — with airliner seats that contorted an individual into all kinds of impossible shapes. Aft, the engine room crew had begun powering up the reactor. Ramius was speaking over the intercom phone with his chief engineer, just before the sound of moving reactor coolant increased to generate steam for the turboalternators.
Ryan’s head went up. It was as though he felt the sound before hearing it. A chill ran up the back of his neck before his brain told him what the sound had to be.
“What was that?” he said automatically, knowing already what it was.
“What?” Ramius was ten feet aft, and the caterpillar engines were now turning. A strange rumble reverberated through the hull.
“I heard a shot — no, several shots.”
Ramius looked amused as he came a few steps forward. “I think you hear the sounds of the caterpillar engines, and I think it is your first time on a submarine boat, as you said. The first time is always difficult. It was so even for me.”
Ryan stood up. “That may be, Captain, but I know a shot when I hear it.” He unbottoned his jacket and pulled out the pistol.
“You will give me that.” Ramius held out his hand. “You may not have a pistol on my submarine!”
“Where are Williams and Kamarov?” Ryan wavered.
Ramius shrugged. “They are late, yes, but this is a big ship.”
“I’m going forward to check.”
“You will stay at your post!” Ramius ordered. “You will do as I say!”
“Captain, I just heard something that sounded like gunshots, and I am going forward to check it out. Have you ever been shot at? I have. I have the scars on my shoulder to prove it. You’d better take the wheel, sir.”
Ramius picked up a phone and punched a button. He spoke in Russian for a few seconds and hung up. “I will go to show you that my submarine has no souls — ghosts, yes? Ghosts, no ghosts.” He gestured to the pistol. “And you are no spy, eh?”
“Captain, believe what you want to believe, okay? It’s a long story, and I’ll tell it to you someday.” Ryan waited for the relief that Ramius had evidently called for. The rumble of the tunnel drive made the sub sound like the inside of a drum.
An officer whose name he did not remember came into the control room. Ramius said something that drew a laugh — which stopped when the officer saw Ryan’s pistol. It was obvious that neither Russian was happy he had one.
“With your permission, Captain?” Ryan gestured forward.
“Go on, Ryan.”
The watertight door between control and the next space had been left open. Ryan entered the radio room slowly, eyes tracing left and right. It was clear. He went forward to the missile room door, which was dogged tight. The door, four feet or so high and about two across, was locked in place with a central wheel. Ryan turned the wheel with one hand. It was well oiled. So were the hinges. He pulled the door open slowly and peered around the hatch coaming.
“Oh, shit,” Ryan breathed, waving the captain forward. The missile compartment was a good two hundred feet long, lit only by six or eight small glow lights. Hadn’t it been brightly lit before? At the far end was a splash of bright light, and the far hatch had two shapes sprawled on the gratings next to it. Neither moved. The light Ryan saw them by was flickering next to a missile tube.
“Ghosts, Captain?” he whispered.
“It is Kamarov.” Ramius said something else under his breath in Russian.
Ryan pulled the slide back on his FN automatic to make sure a round was in the chamber. Then he stepped out of his shoes.
“Better let me handle this. Once upon a time I was a lieutenant in the marines.” And my training at Quantico, he thought to himself, had damned little to do with this. Ryan entered the compartment.
The missile room was almost a third of the submarine’s length and two decks high. The lower deck was solid metal. The upper one was made of metal grates. Sherwood Forest, this place was called on American missile boats. The term was apt enough. The missile tubes, a good nine feet in diameter and painted a darker green than the rest of the room, looked like the trunks of enormous trees. He pulled the hatch shut behind him and moved to his right.
The light seemed to be coming from the farthest missile tube on the starboard side of the upper missile deck. Ryan stopped to listen. Something was happening there. He could hear a low rustling sound, and the light was moving as though it came from a hand-held work lamp. The sound was traveling down the smooth sides of the interior hull plating.
“Why me?” he whispered to himself. He’d have to get past thirteen missile tubes to get to the source of that light, cross over two hundred feet of open deck.
He moved around the first one, pistol in his right hand at waist level, his left hand tracing the cold metal of the tube. Already he was sweating into the checkered hard-rubber pistol grips. That, he told himself, is why they’re checkered. He got between the first and second tubes, looked to port to make sure nobody was there, and got ready to move forward. Twelve to go. The deck grating was welded out of eighth-inch metal bars. Already his feet hurt from walking on it. Moving slowly and carefully around the next circular tube, he felt like an astronaut orbiting the moon and crossing a continuous horizon. Except on the moon there wasn’t anybody waiting to shoot you.