Jack Ryan 4 - The Hunt for Red October (41 page)

“No, I do not.” Henderson's voice was raspy.

“Oh, you will,” the inspector observed. “You will.” He turned to the three agents who accompanied him. “Take this place apart. Neatly, gentlemen, and quietly. We don't want to wake anyone. You, Mr. Henderson, will come with us. You can change first. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. If you promise to cooperate, no cuffs. But if you try to run—you don't want to do that, believe me.” The inspector had been in the FBI for twenty years and had never even drawn his service revolver in anger, while Loomis had already shot and killed two men. He was old-time FBI, and couldn't help but wonder what Mr. Hoover would think of that, not to mention the new Jewish director.

The
Red October

Ramius and Kamarov conferred over the chart for several minutes, tracing alternate course tracks before agreeing on one. The enlisted men ignored this. They had never been encouraged to know about charts. The captain walked to the aft bulkhead and lifted the phone.

“Comrade Melekhin,” he ordered, waiting a few seconds. “Comrade, this is the captain. Any further difficulties with the reactor systems?”

“No, Comrade Captain.”

“Excellent. Hold things together another two days.” Ramius hung up. It was thirty minutes to the turn of the next watch.

Melekhin and Kirill
Surzpoi, the assistant engineer, had the duty in the engine room. Melekhin monitored the turbines and Surzpoi handled the reactor systems. Each had a michman and three enlisted men in attendance. The engineers had had a very busy cruise. Every gauge and monitor in the engine spaces, it seemed, had been inspected, and many had been entirely rebuilt by the two senior officers, who had been helped by Valintin
Bugayev, the electronics officer and on-board genius who was also handling the political awareness classes for the crewmen. The engine room crewmen were the most rattled on the vessel. The supposed contamination was common knowledge—there are no long-lived secrets on a submarine. To ease their loads ordinary seamen were supplementing the engine watches. The captain called this a good chance for the cross-training he believed in. The crew thought it was a good way to get poisoned. Discipline was being maintained, of course. This was owing partly to the trust the men had in their commanding officer, partly to their training, but mostly to their knowledge of what would happen if they failed to carry out their orders immediately and enthusiastically.

“Comrade Melekhin,” Surzpoi called, “I am showing pressure fluctuation on the main loop, number six gauge.”

“Coming.” Melekhin hurried over and shoved the michman out of the way when he got to the master control panel. “More bad instruments! The others show normal. Nothing important,” the chief engineer said blandly, making sure everyone could hear. The whole compartment watch saw the chief engineer whisper something to his assistant. The younger one shook his head slowly, while two sets of hands worked the controls.

A loud two-phase buzzer and a rotating red alarm light went off.

“SCRAM the pile!” Melekhin ordered.

“SCRAMing.” Surzpoi stabbed his finger on the master shutdown button.

“You men, get forward!” Melekhin ordered next. There was no hesitation. “No, you, connect battery power to the caterpillar motors, quickly!”

The warrant officer raced back to throw the proper switches, cursing his change of orders. It took forty seconds.

“Done, Comrade!”

“Go!”

The warrant officer was the last man out of the compartment. He made certain that the hatches were dogged down tight before running to the control room.

“What is the problem?” Ramius asked calmly.

“Radiation alarm in the heat-exchange room!”

“Very well, go forward and shower with the rest of your watch. Get control of yourself.” Ramius patted the michman on the arm. “We have had these problems before. You are a trained man. The crewmen look to you for leadership.”

Ramius lifted the phone. It was a moment before the other end was picked up. “What has happened, Comrade?” The control room crew watched their captain listen to the answer. They could not help but admire his calm. Radiation alarms had sounded throughout the hull. “Very well. We do not have too many hours of battery power left, Comrade. We must go to snorkling depth. Stand by to activate the diesel. Yes.” He hung up.

“Comrades, you will listen to me.” Ramius' voice was under total control. “There has been a minor failure in the reactor control systems. The alarm you heard was not a major radiation leak, but rather a failure of the reactor rod control systems. Comrades Melekhin and Surzpoi successfully executed an emergency reactor shutdown, but we cannot operate the reactor properly without the primary controls. We will, therefore, complete our cruise on diesel power. To ensure against any possible radiation contamination, the reactor spaces have been isolated, and all compartments, engineering spaces first, will be vented with surface air when we snorkle. Kamarov, you will go aft to work the environmental controls. I will take the conn.”

“Aye, Comrade Captain!” Kamarov went aft.

Ramius lifted the microphone to give this news to the crew. Everyone was waiting for something. Forward, some crewmen muttered among themselves that minor was a word suffering from overuse, that nuclear submarines did not run on diesel and ventilate with surface air for the hell of it.

Finished with his terse announcement, Ramius ordered the submarine to approach the surface.

The
Dallas

“Beats me, Skipper.” Jones shook his head. “Reactor noises have stopped, pumps are cut way back, but he's running at the same speed, just like before. On battery, I guess.”

“Must be a hell of a battery system to drive something that big this fast,” Mancuso observed.

“I did some computations on that a few hours ago.” Jones held up his pad. “This is based on the Typhoon hull, with a nice slick hull coefficient, so it's probably conservative.”

“Where did you learn to do this, Jonesy?”

“Mr. Thompson looked up the hydrodynamic stuff for me. The electrical end is fairly simple. He might have something exotic—fuel cells, maybe. If not, if he's running ordinary batteries, he has enough raw electrical power to crank every car in L.A.”

Mancuso shook his head. “Can't last forever.”

Jones held up his hand. “Hull creaking . . .  Sounds like he's going up some.”

The
Red October

“Raise snorkle,” Ramius said. Looking through the periscope he verified that the snorkle was up. “Well, no other ships in view. That is good news. I think we have lost our imperialist hunters. Raise the ESM antenna. Let's be sure no enemy aircraft are lurking about with their radars.”

“Clear, Comrade Captain.” Bugayev was manning the ESM board. “Nothing at all, not even airline sets.”

“So, we have indeed lost our rat pack.” Ramius lifted the phone again. “Melekhin, you may open the main induction and vent the engine spaces, then start the diesel.” A minute later everyone aboard felt the vibration as the October's massive diesel engine cranked on battery power. This sucked up all the air from the reactor spaces, replacing it with air drawn through the snorkle and ejecting the “contaminated” air into the sea.

The engine continued to crank two minutes, and throughout the hull men waited for the rumble that would mean the engine had caught and could generate power to run the electric motors. It didn't catch. After another thirty seconds the cranking stopped. The control room phone buzzed. Ramius lifted it.

“What is wrong with the diesel, Comrade Chief Engineer?” the captain asked sharply. “I see. I'll send men back—oh. Stand by.” Ramius looked around, his mouth a thin, bloodless smile. The junior engineering officer, Svyadov, was standing at the back of the compartment. “I need a man who knows diesel engines to help Comrade Melekhin.”

“I grew up on a State farm,” Bugayev said. “I started playing with tractor engines as a boy.”

“There is an additional problem . . . ”

Bugayev
nodded knowingly. “So I gather, Comrade Captain, but we need the diesel, do we not?”

“I will not forget this, Comrade,” Ramius said quietly.

“Then you can buy me some rum in Cuba, Comrade.” Bugayev smiled courageously. “I wish to meet a Cuban comrade, preferably one with long hair.”

“May I accompany you, Comrade?” Svyadov asked anxiously. He had just been going on watch, approaching the reactor room hatch, when he'd been knocked aside by escaping crewmen.

“Let us assess the nature of the problem first,” Bugayev said, looking at Ramius for confirmation.

“Yes, there is plenty of time. Bugayev, report to me yourself in ten minutes.”

“Aye aye, Comrade Captain.”

“Svyadov, take charge of the lieutenant's station.” Ramius pointed to the ESM board. “Use the opportunity to learn some new skills.”

The lieutenant did as he was ordered. The captain seemed very preoccupied. Svyadov had never seen him like this before.

THURSDAY, 16 DECEMBER

A Super Stallion

They were traveling at one hundred fifty knots, two thousand feet over the darkened sea. The Super Stallion helicopter was old. Built towards the end of the Vietnam War, she had first seen service clearing mines off Haiphong harbor. That had been her primary duty, pulling a sea sled and acting as a flying minesweeper. Now, the big Sikorski was used for other purposes, mainly long-range heavy-lift missions. The three turbine engines perched atop the fuselage packed a considerable amount of power and could carry a platoon of armed combat troops a great distance.

Tonight, in addition to her normal flight crew of three, she was carrying four passengers and a heavy load of fuel in the outrigger tanks. The passengers were clustered in the aft corner of the cargo area, chatting among themselves or trying to over the racket of the engines. Their conversation was animated. The intelligence officers had dismissed the danger implicit in their mission—no sense dwelling on that—and were speculating on what they might find aboard an honest-to-God Russian submarine. Each man considered the stories that would result, and decided it was a shame that they would never be able to tell them. None voiced this thought, however. At most a handful of people would ever know the entire story; the others would only see disjointed fragments that later might be thought parts of any number of other operations. Any Soviet agent trying to determine what this mission had been would find himself in a maze with dozens of blank walls.

The mission profile was a tight one. The helicopter was flying on a specific track to HMS Invincible, from which they would fly to the USS Pigeon aboard a Royal Navy Sea King. The Stallion's disappearance from Oceana Naval Air Station for only a few hours would be viewed merely as a matter of routine.

The helicopter's turboshaft engines, running at maximum cruising power, were gulping down fuel. The aircraft was now four hundred miles off the U.S. coast and had another eighty miles to go. Their flight to the Invincible was not direct; it was a dogleg course intended to fool whoever might have noticed their departure on radar. The pilots were tired. Four hours is a long time to sit in a cramped cockpit, and military aircraft are not known for their creature comforts. The flight instruments glowed a dull red. Both men were especially careful to watch their artificial horizon; a solid overcast denied them a fixed reference point aloft, and flying over water at night was mesmerizing. It was by no means an unusual mission, however. The pilots had done this many times, and their concern was not unlike that of an experienced driver on a slick road. The dangers were real, but routine.

“Juliet 6, your target is bearing zero-eight-zero, range seventy-five miles,” the Sentry called in.

“Thinks we're lost?” Commander John Marcks wondered over the intercom.

“Air force,” his copilot replied. “They don't know much about flying over water. They think you get lost without roads to follow.”

“Uh-huh,” Marcks chuckled. “Who do you like in the Eagles game tonight?”

“Oilers by three and a half.”

“Six and a half. Philly's fullback is still hurt.”

“Five.”

“Okay, five bucks. I'll go easy on you.” Marcks grinned. He loved to gamble. The day after Argentina had attacked the Falklands, he'd asked if anyone in the squadron wanted to take Argentina and seven points.

A few feet above their heads and a few feet aft, the engines were racing at thousands of RPM, turning gears to drive the seven-bladed main rotor. They had no way of knowing that a fracture was developing in the transmission casing, near the fluid test port.

“Juliet 6, your target has just launched a fighter to escort you in. Will rendezvous in eight minutes. Approaching you at
eleven o'clock
, angels three.”

“Nice of them,” Marcks said.

Harrier 2-0

Lieutenant Parker was flying the Harrier that would escort the Super Stallion. A sublieutenant sat in the back seat of the Royal Navy aircraft. Its purpose was not actually to escort the chopper to the Invincible; it was to make a last check for any Soviet submarines that might notice the Super Stallion in flight and wonder what it was doing.

“Any activity on the water?” Parker asked.

“Not a glimmer.” The sublieutenant was working the FLIR package, which was sweeping left and right over their course track. Neither man knew what was going on, though both had speculated at length, incorrectly, on what it was that was chasing their carrier all over the bloody ocean.

“Try looking for the helicopter,” Parker said.

“One moment . . .  There. Just south of our track.” The sublieutenant pressed a button and the display came up on the pilot's screen. The thermal image was mainly of the engines clustered atop the aircraft inside the fainter, dull-green glow of the hot rotor tips.

“Harrier 2-0, this is Sentry Echo. Your target is at your one o'clock, distance twenty miles, over.”

“Roger, we have him on our IR box. Thank you, out,”

Parker said. “Bloody useful things, those Sentries.”

“The Sikorski's running for all she's worth. Look at that engine signature.”

The Super Stallion

At this moment the transmission casing fractured. Instantly the gallons of lubricating oil became a greasy cloud behind the rotor hub, and the delicate gears began to tear at one another. An alarm light flashed on the control panels. Marcks and the copilot instantly reached down to cut power to all three engines. There was not enough time. The transmission tried to freeze, but the power of the three engines tore it apart. What happened was the next thing to an explosion. Jagged pieces burst through the safety housing and ripped the forward part of the aircraft. The rotor's momentum twisted the Stallion savagely around, and it dropped rapidly. Two of the men in the back, who had loosened their seatbelts, jerked out of their seats and rolled forward.

“MAYDAY MAYDAY
MAYDAY, this is Juliet 6,” the copilot called. Commander Marcks' body slumped over the controls, a dark stain at the back of his neck. “We're goin' in, we're goin' in. MAYDAY MAYDAY
MAYDAY.”

The copilot was trying to do something. The main rotor was windmilling slowly—too slowly. The automatic decoupler that was supposed to allow it to autorotate and give him a vestige of control had failed. His controls were nearly useless, and he was riding the point of a blunt lance towards a black ocean. It was twenty seconds before they hit. He fought with his airfoil controls and tail rotor in order to jerk the aircraft around. He succeeded, but it was too late.

Harrier 2-0

It was not the first time Parker had seen men die. He had taken a life himself after sending a Sidewinder missile up the tailpipe of an Argentine Dagger fighter. That had not been pleasant. This was worse. As he watched, the Super Stallion's humpbacked engine cluster blew apart in a shower of sparks. There was no fire as such, for what good it did them. He watched and tried to will the nose to come up—and it did, but not enough. The Stallion hit the water hard. The fuselage snapped apart in the middle. The front end sank in an instant, but the after part wallowed for a few seconds like a bathtub before beginning to fill with water. According to the picture supplied by the FLIR package, no one got clear before it sank.

“Sentry, Sentry, did you see that, over?”

“Roger that, Harrier. We're calling a SAR mission right now. Can you orbit?”

“Roger, we can loiter here.” Parker checked his fuel. “Nine-zero minutes. I—stand by.” Parker nosed his fighter down and flicked on his landing lights. This lit up the low-light TV system. “Did you see that, Ian?” he asked his backseater.

“I think it moved.”

“Sentry, Sentry, we have a possible survivor in the water. Tell Invincible to get a Sea King down here straightaway. I'm going down to investigate. Will advise.”

“Roger that, Harrier 2-0. Your captain reports a helo spooling up right now. Out.”

The Royal Navy Sea King was there in twenty-five minutes. A rubber-suited paramedic jumped in the water to get a collar on the one survivor. There were no others, and no wreckage, only a slick of jet fuel evaporating slowly into the cold air. A second helicopter continued the search as the first raced back to the carrier.

The Invincible

Ryan watched from the bridge as the medics carried the stretcher into the island. Another crewman appeared a moment later with a briefcase.

“He had this, sir. He's a lieutenant commander, name of Dwyer, one leg and several ribs broken. He's in a bad way, Admiral.”

“Thank you.” White took the case. “Any possibility of other survivors?”

The sailor shook his head. “Not a good one, sir. The Sikorski must have sunk like a stone.” He looked at Ryan. “Sorry, sir.”

Ryan nodded. “Thanks.”

“Norfolk on the radio, Admiral,” a communications officer said.

“Let's go, Jack.” Admiral White handed him the briefcase and led him to the communications room.

“The chopper went in. We have one survivor being worked on right now,” Ryan said over the radio. It was silent for a moment.

“Who is it?”

“Name's Dwyer. They took him right to sick bay, Admiral. He's out of action. Tell Washington. Whatever this operation is supposed to be, we have to rethink it.”

“Roger. Out,” Admiral Blackburn said.

“Whatever we decide to do,” Admiral White observed, “it will have to be fast. We must get our helo off to the Pigeon in two hours to have her back before dawn.”

Ryan knew exactly what that would mean. There were only four men at sea who both knew what was going on and were close enough to do anything. He was the only American among them. The Kennedy was too far away. The Nimitz was close enough, but using her would mean getting the data to her by radio, and
Washington
was not enthusiastic about that. The only other alternative was to assemble and dispatch another intelligence team. There just wasn't enough time.

“Let's get this case open, Admiral. I need to see what this plan is.” They picked up a machinist's mate on the way to White's cabin. He proved to be an excellent locksmith.

“Dear God!” Ryan breathed, reading the contents of the case. “You better see this.”

“Well,” White said a few minutes later, “that is clever.”

“It's cute, all right,” Ryan said. “I wonder what genius thought it up. I know I'm going to be stuck with this. I'll ask Washington for permission to take a few officers along with me.”

Ten minutes later they were back in communications. White had the compartment cleared. Then Jack spoke over the encrypted voice channel. Both hoped the scrambling device worked.

“I hear you fine, Mr. President. You know what happened to the helicopter.”

“Yes, Jack, most unfortunate. I need you to pinch-hit for us.”

“Yes, sir, I anticipated that.”

“I can't order you, but you know what the stakes are. Will you do it?”

Ryan closed his eyes. “Affirmative.”

“I appreciate it, Jack.”

Sure you do. “Sir, I need your authorization to take some help with me, a few British officers.”

“One,” the president said.

“Sir, I need more than that.”

“One.”

“Understood, sir. We'll be moving in an hour.”

“You know what's supposed to happen?”

“Yes, sir. The survivor had the ops orders with him. I've already read them over.”

“Good luck, Jack.”

“Thank you, sir. Out.” Ryan flipped off the satellite channel and turned to Admiral White. “Volunteer once, just one time, and see what happens.”

“Frightened?” White did not appear amused.

“Damned right I am. Can I borrow an officer? A guy who speaks Russian if possible. You know what this may involve.”

“We'll see. Come on.”

Five minutes later they were back in White's cabin awaiting the arrival of four officers. All turned out to be lieutenants, all under thirty.

“Gentlemen,” the admiral began, “this is Commander Ryan. He needs an officer to accompany him on a voluntary basis for a mission of some importance. Its nature is secret and most unusual, and there may be some danger involved. You four have been asked here because of your knowledge of Russian. That is all I can say.”

“Going to talk to a Sov submarine?” the oldest of them chirped up. “I'm your man. I have a degree in the language, and my first posting was aboard HMS Dreadnought.”

Ryan weighed the ethics of accepting the man before telling him what was involved. He nodded, and White dismissed the others.

“I'm Jack Ryan.” He extended his hand.

“Owen Williams. So, what are we up to?”

“The submarine is named Red October—”

“Krazny
Oktyabr.” Williams smiled.

“And she's attempting to defect to the United States.”

“Indeed? So that's what we've been mucking about for. Jolly decent of her CO. Just how certain are we of this?”

Ryan took several minutes to detail the intelligence information. “We blinkered instructions to him, and he seems to have played along. But we won't know for sure until we get aboard. Defectors have been known to change their minds, it happens a lot more often than you might imagine. Still want to come along?”

“Miss a chance like this? Exactly how do we get aboard, Commander?”

“The name's Jack. I'm CIA, not navy.” He went on to explain the plan.

“Excellent. Do I have time to pack some things?”

“Be back here in ten minutes,” White said.

“Aye aye, sir.” Williams drew to attention and left.

White was on the phone. “Send Lieutenant Sinclair to see me.” The admiral explained that he was the commander of the Invincible's marine detachment. “Perhaps you might need another friend along.”

The other friend was an FN nine-millimeter automatic pistol with a spare clip and a shoulder holster that disappeared nicely under his jacket. The mission orders were shredded and burned before they left.

Admiral White accompanied Ryan and Williams to the flight deck. They stood at the hatch, looking at the Sea King as its engines screeched into life.