“We have everything we need aboard?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jones bypassed the pulse control on the sonar amplifier and wired in the modulator. It was even easier than he’d expected. He had taken a radio microphone from the Dallas along with everything else and now connected it to the sonar set before powering the system up. He had to wait for the set to warm up. Jones hadn’t seen this many tubes since he’d gone out on TV repair jobs with his father, and that had been a long time ago.
“Dallas, this is Jonesy, do you copy?”
“Aye.” The reply was scratchy, like a taxicab radio.
“Thanks. Out.” He switched off. “It works. That was pretty easy, wasn’t it?”
Enlisted man, hell! And not even trained on Soviet equipment! the October’s electronics officer thought. It never occurred to him that this piece of equipment was a near copy of an obsolete American FM system. “How long have you been a sonarman?”
“Three and a half years, sir. Since I dropped out of college.”
“You learn all this in three years?” the officer asked sharply.
Jones shrugged. “What’s the big deal, sir? I’ve been foolin’ with radios and stuff since I was a kid. You mind if I play some music, sir?”
Jones had decided to be especially nice. He had only one tape of a Russian composer, the Nutcracker Suite, and had brought that along with four Bachs. Jones liked to hear music while he prayed over circuit diagrams. The young sonarman was in Hog Heaven. All the Russian sets he had listened to for three years — now he had their schematics, their hardware, and the time to figure them all out. Bugayev continued to watch in amazement as Jones’ fingers did their ballet through the manual pages to the music of Tchaikovsky.
“Time to dive, sir,” Mannion said in control.
“Very well. With your permission, Captain Borodin, I will assist with the vents. All hatches and openings are…shut.” The diving board used the same light-array system as American boats, Mancuso noticed.
Mancuso took stock of the situation one last time. Butler and his four most senior petty officers were already tending to the nuclear tea kettle aft. The situation looked pretty good, considering. The only thing that could really go badly wrong would be for the October’s officers to change their minds. The Dallas would be keeping the missile sub under constant sonar observation. If she moved, the Dallas had a ten-knot speed advantage with which to block the channel.
“The way I see it, Captain, we are rigged for dive,” Mancuso said.
Borodin nodded and sounded the diving alarm. It was a buzzer, just like on American boats. Mancuso, Mannion, and the Russian officer worked the complex vent controls. The Red October began her slow descent. In five minutes she was resting on the bottom, with seventy feet of water over the top of her sail.
Pelt was on the phone to the Soviet embassy at three in the morning. “Alex, this is Jeffrey Pelt.”
“How are you, Dr. Pelt? I must offer my thanks and that of the Soviet people for your action to save our sailor. I was informed a few minutes ago that he is now conscious, and that he is expected to recover fully.”
“Yes, I just learned that myself. What’s his name, by the way?” Pelt wondered if he had awakened Arbatov. It didn’t sound like it.
“Andre Katyskin, a cook petty officer from Leningrad.”
“Good, Alex, I am informed that USS Pigeon has rescued nearly the entire crew of another Soviet submarine off the Carolinas. Her name, evidently, was Red October. That’s the good news, Alex. The bad news is that the vessel exploded and sank before we could get them all off. Most of the officers, and two of our officers, were lost.”
“When was this?”
“Very early yesterday morning. Sorry about the delay, but Pigeon had trouble with the radio, as a result of the underwater explosion, they say. You know how that sort of thing can happen.”
“Indeed.” Pelt had to admire the response, not a trace of irony. “Where are they now?”
“The Pigeon is sailing to Charleston, South Carolina. We’ll have your crewmen flown directly to Washington from there.”
“And this submarine exploded? You are sure?”
“Yeah, one of the crewmen said they had a major reactor accident. It was just good luck that Pigeon was there. She was heading to the Virginia coast to look at the other one you lost. I think your navy needs a little work, Alex,” Pelt observed.
“I will pass that along to Moscow, Doctor,” Arbatov responded dryly. “Can you tell us where this happened?”
“I can do better than that. We have a ship taking a deep-diving research sub down to look for the wreckage. If you want, you can have your navy fly a man to Norfolk, and we’ll fly him out to check it for you. Fair enough?”
“You say you lost two officers?” Arbatov played for time, surprised at the offer.
“Yes, both rescue people. We did get a hundred men off, Alex,” Pelt said defensively. “That’s something.”
“Indeed it is, Dr. Pelt. I must cable Moscow for instructions. I will be back to you. You are at your office?”
“Correct. Bye, Alex.” He hung up and looked at the president. “Do I pass, boss?”
“Work a little bit on the sincerity, Jeff.” The president was sprawled in a leather chair, a robe over his pajamas. “They’ll bite?”
“They’ll bite. They sure as hell want to confirm the destruction of the sub. Question is, can we fool ’em?”
“Foster seems to think so. It sounds plausible enough.”
“Hmph. Well, we have her, don’t we?” Pelt observed.
“Yep, I guess that story about the GRU agent was wrong, or else they kicked him off with everybody else. I want to see that Captain Ramius. Jeez! Pulling a reactor scare, no wonder he got everybody off the ship!”
Skip Tyler was in the CNO’s office trying to relax in a chair. The coast guard station on the inlet had had a low-light television, the tape from which had been flown by helicopter to Cherry Point and from there by Phantom jet fighter to Andrews. Now it was in the hands of a courier whose automobile was just pulling up at the Pentagon’s main entrance.
“I have a package to hand deliver to Admiral Foster,” an ensign announced a few minutes later. Foster’s flag secretary pointed him to the door.
“Good morning, sir! This is for you, sir.” The ensign handed Foster the wrapped cassette.
“Thank you. Dismissed.”
Foster inserted the cassette in the tape player atop his office television. The set was already on, and the picture appeared in several seconds.
Tyler was standing beside the CNO as it focused. “Yep.”
“Yep,” Foster agreed.
The picture was lousy — no other word for it. The low-light television system did not give a very sharp picture since it amplified all of the ambient light equally. This tended to wash out many details. But what they saw was enough: a very large missile submarine whose sail was much farther aft than the sails on anything a Western country made. She dwarfed the Dallas and Pogy. They watched the screen without a word for the next fifteen minutes. Except for the wobbly camera, the picture was about as lively as a test pattern.
“Well,” Foster said as the tape ended, “we got us a Russian boomer.”
“How ’bout that?” Tyler grinned.
“Skip, you were up for command of Los Angeles, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We owe you for this, Commander, we owe you a lot. I did some checking the other day. An officer injured in the line of duty does not necessarily have to retire unless he is demonstrably unfit for duty. An accident while returning from working on your boat is line of duty, I think, and we’ve had a few ship commanders who were short a leg. I’ll go to the president myself on this, son. It will mean a year’s work getting back in the groove, but if you still want your command, by God, I’ll get it for you.”