Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October (38 page)

“What happens when the bombers arrive and start attacking us?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“But what if it does?”

“Then we’ll deal with that problem,” Sablin says lamely. But he is counting on his belief that no Russian naval officer will fire on another Russian ship.

Captain Yuri Zhernov is squadron leader for the flight of twenty Yak-28s based at Mamonovo. He and most of the other pilots were at first surprised and then deeply troubled at their mission briefing. They were to fly north into the open Baltic under guidance from their air-based controller aboard an Il-38 circling at flight level eighteen, find the ASW frigate
Storozhevoy,
and open fire.

“You are ordered to sink that ship as quickly as possible,” the boss of the Baltic Fleet Air Wing, Colonel Sergei Guliayev, told them.

Zhernov got to his feet. “Sir, shouldn’t we first order them to heave to and surrender before we open fire?”

“They’ve already been given that order, Captain, and they have ignored it. They are mutineers and traitors who are trying to defect to the West, where they will turn over their ship and his classified equipment to NATO. Do you want such a thing to happen?”

“No, sir,” Zhernov said. But he’d not been sure of anything then. And now, approaching the
Storozhevoy
at more than 1,000 kilometers per hour, he is even less sure.

“I have the target in sight,” his weapons officer flying second seat reports over the aircraft’s intercom system.

Zhernov hesitates.

“You are in position, Captain Zhernov,” the voice of the air wing commander suddenly comes over the tactical frequency. “Prepare to destroy the target.”

“Roger,” Zhernov replies automatically.

Still he hesitates.

The Yak-28 squadron is directly overhead, coming in at a low altitude, but still no shots are being fired.

Sablin has turned down the volume on the VHF radio; there are so many voices screaming at them to stop, to heave to, to surrender, that it’s become impossible to think over the racket.

From the open bridge door to the corridor below he can hear the sounds of the morning crew coming on watch. They sound excited. Exercises were canceled for the morning, no officer showed up to conduct them, but Sablin can smell the odors of breakfast.

Sablin grabs a bullhorn from a locker and steps out onto the port bridge wing. The
Smirnov
is still there, and the fog is beginning to lift even more.

Overhead, the Yak-28s have passed and are making a long, sweeping turn to come back for a second run.

Sablin raises the bullhorn toward the KGB patrol boat and presses the talk switch.
“Smirnov,
we do not mean to fire any shots. We are not
defecting. We are en route to Leningrad, where we will address the Soviet people. Do you understand?”

Several armed crewmen with grappling lines are standing by on the patrol boat’s deck.

The KGB officer raises his bullhorn.
“Storozhevoy,
heave to at once and prepare to be boarded.”

Sablin goes back inside, puts the bullhorn down, and calls the gunnery division. One of the midshipmen whose name he cannot recall at that instant answers. The boy was one of Vinogrodovs crew.

“This is Captain Sablin on the bridge. I want our cannons turned towad the small patrol craft that’s just off our port quarter.”

“But, sir, we have no shells.”

“I don’t care!” Sablin shouts. “Do it now!”

Zhernov is lined up for his run on the
Storozhevoy,
and his squadron is fanned out behind him. They will make their attack in five waves of four aircraft each.

“Control, we are commencing our attack,” Zhernov radios. “Have they surrendered yet?”

“Does it look like it?” Guliayev shouts. “Follow your orders!”

“On my lead,” Zhernov radios his squadron, and he pushes the stick forward.

His aircraft is an older model, designated Yak-281, equipped with the Initiativa radar bombing system, and it still has its 30mm cannons, which have been pulled out of some of the newer Yaks. Powered by a pair of Tumansky R-11 afterburning turbojets the aircraft carries conventional bombs large enough to take out the
Storozhevoy.

“I have the target,” his weapons officer reports.

“Roger,” Zhernov responds. “Report weapons lock.”

“Roger,” the weaps reports. A moment later he is back. “I have a primary weapons lock. Do I have permission to fire?”

Zhernov makes his decision at the last possible moment. He wants to frighten the stupid fools into surrendering, not kill them all.
“Nyet, nyet!”
he shouts. “I’m firing with our cannon on the first run. On the deck, forward of the bridge, and then aft along the weather deck.”

His controller above in the Ilyushin is shouting in his headphones, as are at least two others, one of them probably Guliayev, but Zhernov ignores them.

Two of his wingmen drop their bombs, but they have aimed wide of the mark. Purposely? Zhernov wonders.

The
Storozhevoy
looms large outside his canopy, and he can even imagine that he is picking out individual faces through the bridge windows when he fires his cannon, the shells tearing up the foredeck and then along the hull as he screams past, leaving the ship in his wake.

Off to port Zhernov spots a flash and sudden plume of smoke and he turns his head toward it. One of the bombs dropped by his wing-men has found a target. But the wrong ship!

It’s the fog. It’s the lousy orders.

“Break off! Break off!” he orders his squadron.

When the first shots hit the deck forward of the bridge they sound like the distant blows of a jackhammer.

Gindin and the other officers locked in the compartment look up in alarm.

“They’re shooting at us,” Kuzmin says.

Almost immediately cannon shots rake the side of the ship, and this time the noise is deafening. Up close and personal. Deadly. For the first time every man in the room understands that they could die down here in a matter of a few more minutes.

Kuzmin starts pounding on the door again, and Gindin joins him.

Gorshkov has switched the telephone to speaker mode so that Grechko can also hear the communications relayed from Baltic Fleet Headquarters. Both men are having trouble believing what they are listening to.

“Am I correct in understanding that your pilots refuse to drop their bombs?” Gorshkov demands.

“Three have been dropped so far,” Kosov replies. He sounds shaky.

“Has the
Storozhevoy
been destroyed?”

“No, sir. Two of the bombs missed their target, but the third struck the wrong ship.”

“What ship?” Grechko demands.

“One of ours,” Kosov responds. “Another Krivak class, just like the
Storozhevoy.”

“Casualties?” Gorshkov wants to know.

“I have no reports yet. The situation is very confusing at the—”

“But the
Storozhevoy
has not been stopped. He is still sailing to the west?” Gorshkov asks.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid so,” Kosov admits. “But not for long.”

Grechko suddenly switches to another line. A moment later it is answered by an aide.

“What is the nearest air force base to the
Storozhevoy?”
Grechko demands.

“Tukums, in the Pribaltiysk Military Region.”

“Didn’t we just send them a couple squadrons of Sukhoi attack bombers?”

“Yes, sir,” the aide replies.

“Order them into the air immediately!” Grechko shouts. “Tell them to sink that ship!”

“Yes, sir,” the aide replies as calmly as if he had been ordered to bring the minister’s limousine around to the front door.

Grechko breaks the connection. “The navy doesn’t want to shoot at one of its own ships, so now we’ll see what the air force can do,” he says to no one.

Sukhoi-24 Squadron Leader Captain Ivan Makarov arrives at the pilots’ briefing room shortly after breakfast. The runner who summoned him said that something very big was in the wind, and he was ordered to “move your ass.”

Two dozen crewmen have already assembled, and even before Makarov can take his seat Air Regiment Commander Colonel Nikolai Teplov walks in and charges to the podium at the head of the room.

Everyone jumps to attention, but Teplov, who normally is a stickler for military courtesy and etiquette, waves them down.

“Your aircraft have been fueled, and ordnance is being loaded at this moment. In addition to ammunition for your cannons you will be carrying laser-guided bombs. You are to take off as soon as you can get to your aircraft. Captain Makarov will be in overall command once you’re in the air.” Teplov gives them a hard stare. “Dismissed.”

Makarov jumps to his feet as Teplov steps away from the podium and strides toward the door. “Colonel, where are we going?”

“The Baltic!” Teplov shouts. “Once you’re in the air and assembled you’ll be given the coordinates of your target.”

“Yes, sir. What target?”

“A ship, which your squadron will stop,” Teplov says. He raises a hand to silence Makarov’s next question. All the pilots are looking at Teplov, some of them with their mouths half-open in astonishment. “This is not war, I assure you. Your mission is to prevent a war, and the orders come from Minister of Defense Grechko himself. Do I make myself clear?”

Makarov nods. “Yes, sir,” he says, though Teplov’s order is anything but clear.

“Sir, it looks as if all the ships that were following us have fallen back,” Maksimenko says.

“Thank God,” Sablin says softly. Like everyone else aboard, he is deeply shaken. He had convinced himself that no Russian would fire on them. Yet the foredeck and starboard side are chewed up by cannon fire from one of the Yaks. And it looks as if one of the ships trailing them was hit by a bomb.

It’s insanity. What could those pilots be thinking?

“What about the aircraft that fired on us?” he demands, and he can hear the unsteadiness in his voice.

“They’re circling overhead,” Maksimenko responds. His voice is shaky, too. “They actually shot at us.”

“It was just a warning,” Sablin assures Maksimenko and Soloviev and Shein. “If they had meant to stop us or even destroy us they could have done it easily. But they didn’t.”

“I think we should stop now and surrender,” Soloviev says.

“Are any of the airplanes or ships making an attack run toward us at this moment?”

Maksimenko shakes his head. “No, sir. But I agree; I think that we should surrender before something worse happens.”

Sablin has been trying not to listen to the garble of radio traffic they’re picking up on the VHF set. But it’s impossible to ignore. Someone who identified himself as Minister of Defense Grechko has repeatedly warned the
Storozhevoy
not to sail beyond the twentieth meridian or they will be attacked.

But they’re still nearly one hundred kilometers away from that position. In any event, Sablin plans to make his turn to the north and then the northeast by then, to shape his course up into the Gulf of Finland and, from there, Leningrad.

If they can survive that long. Just a couple more hours.

He walks to the port wing and steps outside. The KGB patrol vessels are somewhere behind, lost in the fog that has persisted even though the sun is up. It’s very cold, and he thinks that he can smell the odors of exploded ordnance and hot jagged steel plating where the shells hit.

No major damage has been done, but looking toward the chewed-up foredeck he knows that Potulniy will go ballistic when he sees what has been done to his ship.

One reasonably clear voice comes over the VHF radio. It is a ship, and it must be close.
“Storozhevoy, Storozhevoy,
this is Patrol Vessel…” The name of the ship is garbled. “… now or you will be destroyed.”

Sablin and the others look up at the VHF radio as if it were a bomb on the verge of exploding.

“This is Captain Neipert from Liepaje; stop now, or we will fire on you.”

Sablin had never heard of this captain, but Liepaje was a Soviet naval base in Latvia. Sablin takes the microphone off its bracket and keys the push-to-talk switch. For just an instant he doesn’t know what to say. But then it comes to him.

“Listen to me, my friend. We are Russians together. We are not traitors to our Rodina. We will be changing course very soon, to the north and then the northeast. We are not heading to Sweden. We are heading to Leningrad.”

“Stop now.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Then change course now.”

“I will as soon as we reach the shipping channel,” Sablin radioed.

“Bridge, CIC,” the intercom blares.

Sablin grabs the hand set. “What?”

“I’m painting at least twenty aircraft approaching at a high rate of speed. I think they might be the new Sukhoi-24s.”

Sablin replaces the microphone, ending his conversation with captain Neipert, his heart in his throat. “I don’t know this airplane.”

“I don’t, either, but I heard one of the officers talking, maybe it was Lieutenant Firsov, saying that the navy might get the new jet.” Maksimenko looks up. “They’re ship killers.”

A shiver runs up Sablin’s spine. He turns to Soloviev. “What is our present course?”

“Two-nine-zero, sir.”

That’s almost directly toward Stockholm. But it’s still too soon to make the turn to the north. He has to make a decision, and make it fast, before those jets reach them.

Russians might shoot up their foredeck or even fire a few cannon shells into their side. But no Russian will destroy a Russian ship and kill fellow Russians.

It is an article of faith that will soon be put to the test.

“Steady on that course,” Sablin orders.

Captain Makarov glances over at Lieutenant Aleksandr Ryzhkov, his copilot/weapons officer flying right seat. This mission is totally impossible, and Makarov can see that Ryzhkov feels the same way.