“That’s quite a fire you have going there, sir.”
“I shouldn’t bother. Looking at a fire makes me go to sleep. Of course, I could use a little sleep right now. So, what do you have for me?”
“May I ask where Jack is?”
“You may ask. He’s away.”
“Oh.” Tyler unlocked his briefcase and removed the printout. “Sir, I ran the performance model for this Russian sub. May I ask her name?”
Greer chuckled. “Okay, you’ve earned that much. Her name is Red October. You’ll have to excuse me, son. I’ve had a busy couple of days, and being tired makes me forget my manners. Jack says you’re pretty sharp. So does your personnel file. Now, you tell me. What’ll she do?”
“Well, Admiral, we have a wide choice of data here, and—”
“The short version, Commander. I don’t play with computers. I have people who do that for me.”
“From seven to eighteen knots, the best bet is ten to twelve. With that speed range, you can figure a radiated noise level about the same as that of a Yankee doing six knots, but you’d have to factor reactor plant noise into that also. Moreover, the character of the noise will be different from what we’re used to. These multiple impeller models don’t put out normal propulsion noises. They seem to generate an irregular harmonic rumble. Did Jack tell you about this? It results from a back-pressure wave in the tunnels. This fights the water flow, and that makes the rumble. Evidently there’s no way around it. Our guys spent two years trying to find one. What they got was a new principle of hydrodynamics. The water almost acts like air in a jet engine at idle or low speed, except that water doesn’t compress like air does. So, our guys will be able to detect something, but it will be different. They’re going to have to get used to a wholly new acoustical signature. Add to that the lower signal intensity, and you have a boat that will be harder to detect than anything they have at this time.”
“So that’s what all this says.” Greer riffled through the pages.
“Yes, sir. You’ll want to have your own people look through it. The model — the program, that is — could stand a little improvement. I didn’t have much time. Jack said you wanted this in a hurry. May I ask a question, sir?”
“You can try.” Greer leaned back, rubbing his eyes.
“Is, ah, Red October at sea? That’s it, isn’t it? They’re trying to locate her right now?” Tyler asked innocently.
“Uh huh, something like that. We couldn’t figure what these doors meant. Ryan said you might be able to, and I suppose he was right. You’ve earned your money, Commander. This data might just enable us to find her.”
“Admiral, I think Red October is up to something, maybe even trying to defect to the United States.”
Greer’s head came around. “Whatever makes you think that?”
“The Russkies have a major fleet operation in progress. They have subs all over the Atlantic, and it looks like they’re trying to blockade our coast. The story is a rescue job for a lost boat. Okay, but Jack shows up Monday with pictures of a new missile boat — and today I hear that all of their other missile boats have been recalled to port.” Tyler smiled. “That’s kind of an odd set of coincidences, sir.”
Greer turned and stared at the fire. He had just joined the DIA when the army and air force had pulled off the daring raid on the Song Tay prison camp twenty miles west of Hanoi. The raid had been a failure because the North Vietnamese had removed all of the captured pilots a few weeks before, something that aerial photographs could not determine. But everything else had gone perfectly. After penetrating hundreds of miles into hostile territory, the raiding force appeared entirely by surprise and caught many of the camp guards literally with their pants down. The Green Berets did a letter-perfect job of getting in and out. In the process they killed several hundred enemy troops, themselves sustaining a single casualty, a broken ankle. The most impressive part of the mission, however, was its secrecy. Operation KINGPIN had been rehearsed for months, and despite this its nature and objective had not been guessed by friend or enemy — until the day of the raid itself. On that day a young air force captain of intelligence went into his general’s office to ask if a deep-penetration raid into North Vietnam had been laid on for the Song Tay prisoner-of-war camp. His astonished commander proceeded to grill the captain at length, only to learn that the bright young officer had seen enough disjointed bits and pieces to construct a clear picture of what was about to happen. Events like this gave security officers peptic ulcers.
“Red October’s going to defect, isn’t she?” Tyler persisted.
If the admiral had had more sleep he might have bluffed it out. As it was, his response was a mistake. “Did Ryan tell you this?”
“Sir, I haven’t spoken with Jack since Monday. That’s the truth, sir.”
“Then where did you get this other information?” Greer snapped.
“Admiral, I used to wear the blue suit. Most of my friends still do. I hear things,” Tyler evaded. “The whole picture dropped into place an hour ago. The Russkies have never recalled all of their boomers at once. I know, I used to hunt them.”
Greer sighed. “Jack thinks the same as you. He’s out with the fleet right now. Commander, if you tell that to anyone, I’ll have your other leg mounted overtop that fireplace. Do you understand me?”
“Aye aye, sir. What are we going to do with her?” Tyler smiled to himself, thinking that as a senior consultant to Sea Systems Command, he’d sure as hell get a chance to look at a for-real Russian submarine.
“Give her back. After we’ve had a chance to look her over, of course. But there’s a lot of things that could happen to prevent our ever seeing her.”
It took Skip a moment to grasp what he’d just been told. “Give her back! Why, for Christ’s sake?”
“Commander, just how likely do you think this scenario is? Do you think the whole crew of a submarine has decided to come over to us all at once?” Greer shook his head. “Smart money is that it’s only the officers, maybe not all of them, and that they’re trying to get over here without the crew’s knowing what they’re up to.”
“Oh.” Tyler considered that. “I suppose that does make sense — but why give her back? This isn’t Japan. If somebody landed a MiG-25 here we wouldn’t give it back.”
“This is not like holding onto a stray fighter plane. The boat is worth a billion dollars, more if you throw in the missiles and warheads. And legally, the president says, it’s their property. So if they find out we have her, they’ll ask for her back, and we’ll have to give her back. Okay, how will they know we have her? Those crew members who don’t want to defect will ask to go home. Whoever asks, we send.”
“You know, sir, that whoever does want to go back will be in a whole shitload of trouble — excuse me, sir.”
“A shitload and a half.” Tyler hadn’t known that Greer was a mustang and could swear like a real sailor. “Some will want to stay, but most won’t. They have families. Next you’ll ask me if we might arrange for the crew to disappear.”
“The thought has occurred to me,” Tyler said.
“It’s occurred to us, too. But we won’t. Murder a hundred men? Even if we wanted to, there’s no way we could conceal it in this day and age. Hell, I doubt even the Soviets could. Besides that, this simply is not the sort of thing you do in peacetime. That’s one difference between us and them. You can take those reasons in any order you want.”