by Tom Clancy
“May I ask a question, sir?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the flap?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, sir, that they turned my ship around. Then I get orders to ferry a VIP from Kennedy to Invincible.”
“Oh, okay. Can’t say, Parker. I’m delivering some messages to your boss. I’m just the mailman,” Ryan lied. Roll that one three times.
“Excuse me, Commander, but you see, my wife is expecting a child, our first, soon after Christmas. I hope to be there, sir.”
“Where do you live?”
“Chatham, that’s—”
“I know. I live in England myself at the moment. Our place is in Marlow, upriver from London. My second kid got started over there.”
“Born there?”
“Started there. My wife says it’s those strange hotel beds, do it to her every time. If I were a betting man, I’d give you good odds, Parker. First babies are always late anyway.”
“You say you live in Marlow?”
“That’s right, we built a house there earlier this year.”
“Jack Ryan — John Ryan? The same chap who—”
“Correct. You don’t have to tell anybody that, Lieutenant.”
“Understood, sir. I didn’t know you were a naval officer.”
“That’s why you don’t have to tell anyone.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry for the stunt earlier.”
“That’s all right. Admirals must have their little laughs. I understand you guys just ran an exercise with our guys.”
“Indeed we did, Commander. I sank one of your submarines, the Tullibee. My systems operator and I, that is. We caught her near the surface at night with our FLIR and dropped noisemakers all round her. You see, we didn’t let anyone know about our new equipment. All’s fair, as you know. I understand her commander was bloody furious. I’d hoped to meet him in Norfolk, but he didn’t arrive until the day we sailed.”
“You guys have a good time in Norfolk?”
“Yes, Commander. We were able to get in a day’s shooting on your Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore, I believe you call it.”
“Oh yeah? I used to hunt there. How was it?”
“Not bad. I got my three geese in half an hour. Bag limit was three — stupid.”
“You called in and blasted three geese in a half hour this late in the season?”
“That is how I earn my modest living, Commander, shooting,” Parker commented.
“I was up for a grouse shoot with your admiral last September. They made me use a double. If you show up with my kind of gun — I use a Remington automatic — they look at you like you’re some kind of terrorist. I got stuck with a pair of Purdeys that didn’t fit. Got fifteen birds. Seemed an awful lazy way to hunt, though, with one guy loading my gun for me, and another platoon of ghillies driving the game. We just about annihilated the bird population, too.”
“We have more game per acre than you do.”
“That’s what the admiral said. How far to Invincible?”
“Forty minutes.”
Ryan looked at the fuel gauges. They were half empty already. In a car he’d be thinking about a fill-up. All that fuel gone in half an hour. Well, Parker didn’t seem excited.
The landing on HMS Invincible was different from the COD’s arrival on the Kennedy. The ride became rocky as Parker descended through the clouds, and it occurred to Ryan that they were on the leading edge of the same storm he’d endured the night before. The canopy was coated with rain, and he heard the impact of thousands of raindrops on the airframe — or was it hail? Watching the instruments, he saw that Parker leveled out at a thousand feet, while they were still in clouds, then descended more slowly, breaking into the clear at a hundred feet. The Invincible was scarcely a half the Kennedy’s size. He watched her bobbing actively on the fifteen-foot seas. Parker used the same technique as before. He hovered briefly on the carrier’s port side, then slid to the right, dropping the fighter twenty feet onto a painted circle. The landing was hard, but Ryan was able to see it coming. The canopy came up at once.
“You can get out here,” Parker said. “I have to taxi to the elevator.”
A ladder was already in place. He unbuckled and got out. A crewman had already retrieved his bag. Ryan followed him to the island and was met by an ensign — a sublieutenant, the British call the rank.
“Welcome aboard, sir.” The youngster couldn’t be more than twenty, Ryan thought. “Let me help you out of the flight suit.”
The sublieutenant stood by as Ryan unzipped and took off his helmet, Mae West, and coverall. He retrieved his cap from the bag. In the process he bounced off the bulkhead a few times. The Invincible seemed to be corkscrewing in a following sea. A bow wind and a following sea? In the North Atlantic in winter, nothing was too crazy. The officer took his bag, and Ryan held onto the briefing material.
“Lead on, leftenant,” Ryan gestured. The youngster shot up a series of three ladders, leaving Jack panting behind, thinking about the jogging he wasn’t getting in. The combination of the ship’s motion and an inner ear badly scrambled from the day’s flying made him dizzy, and he found himself bumping into things. How did professional pilots do it?
“Here’s the flag bridge, sir.” The sublieutenant held the door open.
“Hello, Jack!” boomed the voice of Vice Admiral John White, eighth earl of Weston. He was a tall, well-built man of fifty with a florid complexion set off by a white scarf at his neck. Jack had first met him earlier in the year, and since then his wife Cathy and the countess, Antonia, had become close friends, members of the same circle of amateur musicians. Cathy Ryan played classical piano. Toni White, an attractive woman of forty-four, owned a Guarnieri del Jesu violin. Her husband was a man whose peerage was treated as the convenient afterthought. His career in the Royal Navy had been built entirely on merit. Jack walked over to take his hand.
“Good day, Admiral.”
“How was your flight?”
“Different. I’ve never been in a fighter before, much less one with ambitions to mate with a hummingbird,” Ryan smiled. The bridge was overheated, and it felt good.
“Jolly good. Let’s go aft to my sea cabin.” White dismissed the sublieutenant, who handed Jack his bag before withdrawing. The admiral led him aft through a short passageway and left into a small compartment.
It was surprisingly austere, considering that the English liked their comforts and that White was a peer. There were two curtained portholes, a desk, and a couple of chairs. The only human touch was a color photograph of his wife. The entire port wall was covered with a chart of the North Atlantic.
“You look tired, Jack.” White waved him to the upholstered chair.
“I am tired. I’ve been on the go since — hell, since 6:00 A.M. yesterday. I don’t know about time changes, I think my watch is still on European time.”
“I have a message for you.” White pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it over.
“Greer to Ryan. WILLOW confirmed,” Ryan read. “Basil sends regards. Ends.” Somebody had confirmed WILLOW. Who? Maybe Sir Basil, maybe Ritter. Ryan would not quote odds on that one.
Jack tucked it in his pocket. “This is good news, sir.”
“Why the uniform?”
“Not my idea, Admiral. You know who I work for, right? They figured I’d be less conspicuous this way.”
“At least it fits.” The admiral lifted a phone and ordered refreshments sent to them. “How’s the family, Jack?”
“Fine, thank you, sir. The day before I came over Cathy and Toni were playing over at Nigel Ford’s place. I missed it. You know, if they get much better, we ought to have a record cut. There aren’t too many violin players better than your wife.”
A steward arrived with a plateful of sandwiches. Jack had never figured out the British taste for cucumbers on bread.
“So, what’s the flap?”
“Admiral, the significance of the message you
just gave me is that I can tell this to you and three other officers. This is very hot stuff, sir. You’ll want to make your choices accordingly.”
“Hot enough to turn my little fleet around.” White thought it over before lifting the phone and ordering three of his officers to the cabin. He hung up. “Captain Carstairs, Captain Hunter, and Commander Barclay — they are, respectively, Invincible’s commanding officer, my fleet operations officer, and my fleet intelligence officer.”
“No chief of staff?”
“Flew home, death in the family. Something for your coffee?” White extracted what looked like a brandy bottle from a desk drawer.
“Thank you, Admiral.” He was grateful for the brandy. The coffee needed the help. He watched the admiral pour a generous amount, perhaps with the ulterior motive of making him speak more freely. White had been a British sailor longer than he’d been Ryan’s friend.
The three officers arrived together, two carrying folding metal chairs.
“Admiral,” Ryan began, “you might want to leave that bottle out. After you hear this story, we might all need a drink.” He passed out his two remaining briefing folders and talked from memory. His delivery took fifteen minutes.
“Gentlemen,” he concluded, “I must insist that this information be kept strictly confidential. For the moment no one outside this room may learn it.”
“That is too bad,” Carstairs said. “This makes for a bloody good sea story.”
“And our mission?” White was holding the photographs. He poured Ryan another shot of brandy, gave the bottle a brief look, then stowed it back in the desk.
“Thank you, Admiral. For the moment our mission is to locate Red October. After that we’re not sure. I imagine just locating her will be hard enough.”
“An astute observation, Commander Ryan,” Hunter said.
“The good news is that Admiral Painter has requested that CINCLANT assign you control of several U.S. Navy vessels, probably three 1052-class frigates, and a pair of FFG Perrys. They all carry a chopper or two.”
“Well, Geoffrey?” White asked.
“It’s a start,” Hunter agreed.
“They’ll be arriving in a day or two. Admiral Painter asked me to express his confidence in your group and its personnel.”
“A whole fucking Russian missile submarine…” Barclay said almost to himself. Ryan laughed.
“Like the idea, Commander?” At least he had one convert.
“What if the sub is heading for the U.K.? Does it then become a British operation?” Barclay asked pointedly.
“I suppose it would, but from the way I read the map, if Ramius was heading for England, he’d already be there. I saw a copy of the president’s letter to the prime minister. In return for your assistance, the Royal Navy gets the same access to the data we develop as our guys get. We’re on the same side, gentlemen. The question is, can we do it?”
“Hunter?” the admiral asked.
“If this intelligence is correct…I’d say we have a good chance, perhaps as good as fifty percent. On one hand, we have a missile submarine attempting to evade detection. On the other, we have a great deal of ASW arrayed to locate her, and she will be heading towards one of only a few discrete locations. Norfolk, of course, Newport, Groton, King’s Bay, Port Everglades, Charleston. A civilian port such as New York is less likely, I think. The problem is, what with Ivan sending all his Alfas racing to your coast, they will get there ahead of October. They may have a specific port target in mind. We’ll know that in another day. So, I’d say they have an equal chance. They’ll be able to operate far enough off your coast that your government will have no viable legal reason to object to whatever they do. If anything, I’d say the Soviets have the advantage. They have both a clearer idea of the submarine’s capabilities and a simpler overall mission. That more than balances their less capable sensors.”
“Why isn’t Ramius coming on faster?” Ryan asked. “That’s the one thing I can’t figure. Once he clears the SOSUS lines off Iceland, he’s clear into the deep basin — so why not crack his throttles wide open and race for our coast?”
“At least two reasons,” Barclay answered. “How much operational intelligence data do you see?”
“I handle individual assignments. That means I hop around a lot from one thing to another. I know a good deal about their boomers, for example, but not as much about their attack boats.” Ryan didn’t have to explain he was CIA.
“Well, you know how compartmentalized the Sovs are. Ramius probably doesn’t know where their attack submarines are, not all of them. So, if he were to race about, he’d run the off chance of blundering into a stray Victor and being sunk without ever knowing what was happening. Second, what if the Soviets did enlist American assistance, saying perhaps that a missile sub had been taken over by a mutinous crew of Maoist counterrevolutionaries — and then your navy detects a missile submarine racing down the North Atlantic towards the American coast. What would your president do?”
“Yeah,” Ryan nodded. “We’d blow it the hell out of the water.”
“There you have it. Ramius is in the trade of stealth, and he’ll likely stick to what he knows,” Barclay concluded. “Fortunately or unfortunately, he’s jolly good at it.”
“How soon will we have performance data on this quiet drive system?” Carstairs wanted to know.
“Next couple of days, we hope.”
“Where does Admiral Painter want us?” White asked.
“The plan he submitted to Norfolk puts you on the right flank. He wants Kennedy inshore to handle the threat from their surface force. He wants your force farther out. You see, Painter thinks there’s the chance that Ramius will come straight south from the G-I-U.K. gap into the Atlantic basin and just sit for a while. The odds favor his not being detected there, and if the Soviets send the fleet after him, he’s got the time and supplies to sit out there longer than they can maintain a force off our coast — both for technical and political reasons. Additionally, he wants your striking power out here to threaten their flank. It has to be approved by the commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and a lot of details, remain to be worked out. For example, Painter requested some E-3 Sentries to support you out here.”
“A month in the middle of the North Atlantic in winter?” Carstairs winced. He had been the Invincible’s executive officer during the war around the Falklands and had ridden in the violent South Atlantic for endless weeks.
“Be happy for the E-3s.” The admiral smiled. “Hunter, I want to see plans for using all these ships the Yanks are giving us, and how we can cover a maximum area. Barclay, I want to see your evaluation of what our friend Ramius will do. Assume he’s still the clever bastard we’ve come to know and love.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Barclay stood with the others.
“Jack, how long will you be with us?”
“I don’t know, Admiral. Until they recall me to the Kennedy, I guess. From where I sit, this operation was laid on too fast. Nobody really knows what the hell we’re supposed to do.”
“Well, why don’t you let us see to this for a while? You look exhausted. Get some sleep.”
“True enough, Admiral.” Ryan was beginning to feel the brandy.
“There’s a cot in the locker over there. I’ll have someone set it up for you, and you can sleep in here for the time being. If anything comes in for you, we’ll get you up.”
“That’s kind of you, sir.” Admiral White was a good guy, Jack thought, and his wife was something very special. In ten minutes, Ryan was on the cot and asleep.
The Red October
Every two days the starpom collected the radiation badges. This was part of a semiformal inspection. After seeing to it that every crewman’s shoes were spit-shined, every bunk was properly made, and every footlocker was arranged according to the book, the executive officer would take the two-day-old badges and hand the sailors new ones, usually along with some terse advice to square themselves away as New Soviet Men ought. Bo
rodin had this procedure down to a science. Today, as always, the trip from one compartment to another took two hours. When he was finished, the bag on his left hip was full of old badges, and the one on his right depleted of new ones. He took the badges to the ship’s medical officer.
“Comrade Petrov, I have a gift for you.” Borodin set the leather bag on the physician’s desk.
“Good.” The doctor smiled up at the executive officer. “With all the healthy young men I have little to do but read my journals.”
Borodin left Petrov to his task. First the doctor set the badges out in order. Each bore a three-digit number. The first digit identified the badge series, so that if any radiation were detected there would be a time reference. The second digit showed where the sailor worked, the third where he slept. This system was easier to work with than the old one, which had used individual numbers for each man.
The developing process was cookbook-simple. Petrov could do it without a thought. First he switched off the white overhead light and replaced it with a red one. Then he locked his office door. Next he took the development rack from its holder on the bulkhead, broke open the plastic holders, and transferred the film strips to spring clips on the rack.
Petrov took the rack into the adjacent laboratory and hung it on the handle of the single filing cabinet. He filled three large square basins with chemicals. Though a qualified physician, he had forgotten most of his inorganic chemistry and didn’t remember exactly what the developing chemicals were. Basin number one was filled from bottle number one. Basin two was filled from bottle two, and basin three, he remembered, was filled with water. Petrov was in no hurry. The midday meal was not for two more hours, and his duties were truly boring. The last two days he had been reading his medical texts on tropical diseases. The doctor was looking forward to visiting Cuba as much as anyone aboard. With luck a crewman would come down with some obscure malady, and he’d have something interesting to work on for once.
Petrov set the lab timer for seventy-five seconds and submerged the film strips in the first basin as he pressed the start button. He watched the timer under the red light, wondering if the Cubans still made rum. He had been there, too, years before, and acquired a taste for the exotic liquor. Like any good Soviet citizen, he loved his vodka but had the occasional hankering for something different.