by Tom Clancy
It took five minutes to get halfway down the compartment, between the sixth and seventh tubes. The noise from the forward end of the compartment was more pronounced now. The light was definitely moving. Not by much, but the shadow of the number one tube was jittering ever so slightly. It had to be a work light plugged into a wall socket or whatever they called that on a ship. What was he doing? Working on a missile? Was there more than one man? Why didn’t Ramius do a head count getting his crew into the DSRV?
Why didn’t I? Ryan swore to himself. Six more to go.
As he went around the next tube he indicated to Ramius that there was probably one man all the way at the far end. Ramius nodded curtly, having already reached that conclusion. For the first time he noticed that Ryan’s shoes were off, and, thinking that was a good idea, he lifted his left foot to take off a shoe. His fingers, which felt awkward and stiff, fumbled with the shoe. It fell on a loose piece of grating with a clatter. Ryan was caught in the open. He froze. The light at the far end shifted, then went dead still. Ryan darted to his left and peered around the edge of the tube. Five more to go. He saw part of a face—and a flash.
He heard the shot and cringed as the bullet hit the after bulkhead with a clang. Then he drew back for cover.
“I will cross to the other side,” Ramius whispered.
“Wait till I say.” Ryan grabbed Ramius’ upper arm and went back to the starboard side of the tube, pistol in front. He saw the face and this time he fired first, knowing he’d miss. At the same moment he pushed Ramius left. The captain raced to the other side and crouched behind a missile tube.
“We have you,” Ryan said aloud.
“You have nothing.” It was a young voice, young and very scared.
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.
“What do you think, Yankee?” This time the taunt was more effective.
Probably figuring a way to set off a warhead, Ryan decided. A happy thought.
“Then you will die too,” Ryan said. Didn’t the police try to reason with barricaded suspects? Didn’t a New York cop say on TV once, “We try to bore them to death?” But those were criminals. What was Ryan dealing with? A sailor who stayed behind? One of Ramius’ own officers who’d had second thoughts? A KGB agent? A GRU agent covered as a crewman?
“Then I will die,” the voice agreed. The light moved. Whatever he was doing, he was trying to get back to it.
Ryan fired twice as he went around the tube. Four to go. His bullets clanged uselessly as they hit the forward bulkhead. There was a remote chance that a carom shot—no…He looked left and saw that Ramius was still with him, shading to the port side of the tubes. He had no gun. Why hadn’t he gotten himself one?
Ryan took a deep breath and leaped around the next tube. The guy was waiting for this. Ryan dove to the deck, and the bullet missed him.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked, raising himself on his knees and leaning against the tube to catch his breath.
“A Soviet patriot! You are the enemy of my country, and you shall not have this ship!”
He was talking too much, Ryan thought. Good. Probably. “You have a name?”
“My name is of no account.”
“How about a family?” Ryan asked.
“My parents will be proud of me.”
A GRU agent. Ryan was certain. Not the political officer. His English was too good. Probably some kind of backup for the political officer. He was up against a trained field officer. Wonderful. A trained agent, and just like he said, a patriot. Not a fanatic, a man trying to do his duty. He was scared, but he’d do it.
And blow this whole fucking ship up, with me on it.
Still, Ryan knew he had an edge. The other guy had something he had to do. Ryan only had to stop him or delay him long enough. He went to the starboard side of the tube and looked around the edge with just his right eye. There was no light at his end of the compartment—another edge. Ryan could see him more easily than he could see Ryan.
“You don’t have to die, my friend. If you just set the gun down…” And what? End up in a federal prison? More likely just disappear. Moscow could not learn that the Americans had their sub.
“And CIA will not kill me, eh?” the voice sneered, quavering. “I am no fool. If I am to die, it will be to my purpose, my friend!”
Then the light clicked off. Ryan had wondered how long that would take. Did it mean that he was finished whatever the hell he was doing? If so, in an instant they’d be all gone. Or maybe the guy just realized how vulnerable the light made him. Trained field officer or not, he was a kid, a frightened kid, and probably had as much to lose as Ryan had. Like hell, Ryan thought, I have a wife and two kids, and if I don’t get to him fast, I’ll sure as hell lose them.
Merry Christmas, kids, your daddy just got blown up. Sorry there’s no body to bury, but you see…It occurred to Ryan to pray briefly—but for what? For help in killing another man? It’s like this, Lord…
“Still with me, Captain?” he called out.
“Da.”
That would give the GRU agent something to worry about. Ryan hoped the captain’s presence would force the man to shade more to the port side of his tube. Ryan ducked and rushed around the port side of his. Three to go. Ramius followed suit on his side. He drew a shot, but Ryan heard it miss.
He had to stop, to rest. He was hyperventilating. It was the wrong time for that. He had been a marine lieutenant—for three whole months before the chopper crashed—and he was supposed to know what to do! He had led men. But it was a whole lot easier to lead forty men with rifles than it was to fight all by himself.
Think!
“Maybe we can make a deal,” Ryan suggested.
“Ah, yes, we can decide which ear the shot comes in.”
“Maybe you’d like being an American.”
“And my parents, Yankee, what of them?”
“Maybe we can get them out,” Ryan said from the starboard side of his tube, moving left as he waited for a reply. He jumped again. Now there were two missile tubes separating him from his friend in the GRU, who was probably trying to crosswire the warheads and make half a cubic mile of ocean turn to plasma.
“Come, Yankee, we will die together. Now only one puskatel separates us.”
Ryan thought quickly. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d fired, but the pistol held thirteen rounds. He’d have enough. The extra clip was useless. He could toss it one way and move the other, creating a diversion. Would it work? Shit! It worked in the movies. It was for damned sure that doing nothing wasn’t going to work.
Ryan took the gun in his left hand and fished in his coat pocket for the spare clip with his right. He put the clip in his mouth while he switched the gun back. A poor highwayman’s shift…He took the clip in his left hand. Okay. He had to toss the clip right and move left. Would it work? Right or wrong, he didn’t have a hell of a lot of time.
At Quantico he was taught to read maps, evaluate terrain, call in air and artillery strikes, maneuver his squads and fire teams with skill—and here he was, stuck in a goddamned steel pipe three hundred feet under water, shooting it out with pistols in a room with two hundred hydrogen bombs!
It was time to do something. He knew what that had to be—but Ramius moved first. Out the corner of his eye he caught the shape of the captain running toward the forward bulkhead. Ramius leaped at the bulkhead and flicked a light switch on as the enemy fired at him. Ryan tossed the clip to the right and ran forward. The agent turned to his left to see what the noise was, sure that a cooperative move had been planned.
As Ryan covered the distance between the last two missile tubes he saw Ramius go down. Ryan dove past the number one missile tube. He landed on his left side, ignoring the pain that set his arm on fire as he rolled to line up his target. The man was turning as Ryan jerked off six shots. Ryan didn’t hear himself screaming. Two rounds connected. The agent was lifted off the deck and twisted halfway around from the impact. His pistol dropped from his hand as
he fell limp to the deck.
Ryan was shaking too badly to get up at once. The pistol, still tight in his hand, was aimed at his victim’s chest. He was breathing hard and his heart was racing. Ryan closed his mouth and tried to swallow a few times; his mouth was as dry as cotton. He got slowly to his knees. The agent was still alive, lying on his back, eyes open and still breathing. Ryan had to use his hand to stand up.
He’d been hit twice, Ryan saw, once in the upper left chest and once lower down, about where the liver and spleen are. The lower wound was a wet red circle which the man’s hands clutched. He was in his early twenties, if that, and his clear blue eyes were staring at the overhead while he tried to say something. His face was rigid with pain as he mouthed words, but all that came out was an unintelligible gurgle.
“Captain,” Ryan called, “you okay?”
“I am wounded, but I think I shall live, Ryan. Who is it?”
“How the hell should I know?”
The blue eyes fixed on Jack’s face. Whoever he was, he knew death was coming to him. The pain on the face was replaced by something else. Sadness, an infinite sadness…He was still trying to speak. A pink froth gathered at the corners of his mouth. Lung shot. Ryan moved closer, kicking the gun clear and kneeling down beside him.
“We could have made a deal,” he said quietly.
The agent tried to say something, but Ryan couldn’t understand it. A curse, a call for his mother, something heroic? Jack would never know. The eyes went wide with pain one last time. The last breath hissed out through the bubbles and the hands on the belly went limp. Ryan checked for a pulse at the neck. There was none.
“I’m sorry.” Ryan reached down to close his victim’s eyes. He was sorry—why? Tiny beads of sweat broke out all over his forehead, and the strength he had drawn up in the shootout deserted him. A sudden wave of nausea overpowered him. “Oh, Jesus, I’m—” He dropped to all fours and threw up violently, his vomit spilling through the grates onto the lower deck ten feet below. For a whole minute his stomach heaved, well past the time he was dry. He had to spit several times to get the worst of the taste from his mouth before standing.
Dizzy from the stress and the quart of adrenalin that had been pumped into his system, he shook his head a few times, still looking at the dead man at his feet. It was time to come back to reality.
Ramius had been hit in the upper leg. It was bleeding. Both his hands, covered with blood, were placed on the wound, but it didn’t look that bad. If the femoral artery had been cut, the captain would already have been dead.
Lieutenant Williams had been hit in the head and chest. He was still breathing but unconscious. The head wound was only a crease. The chest wound, close to the heart, made a sucking noise. Kamarov was not so lucky. A single shot had gone straight through the top of his nose, and the back of his head was a bloody wreckage.
“Jesus, why didn’t somebody come and help us!” Ryan said when the thought hit him.
“The bulkhead doors are closed, Ryan. There is the—how do you say it?”
Ryan looked where the captain pointed. It was the intercom system. “Which button?” The captain held up two fingers. “Control room, this is Ryan. I need help here, your captain has been shot.”
The reply came in excited Russian, and Ramius responded loudly to make himself heard. Ryan looked at the missile tube. The agent had been using a work light, just like an American one, a lightbulb in a metal holder with wire across the front. A door into the missile tube was open. Beyond it a smaller hatch, evidently leading into the missile itself, was also open.
“What was he doing, trying to explode the warheads?”
“Impossible,” Ramius said, in obvious pain. “The rocket warheads—we call this special safe. The warheads cannot—not fire.”
“So what was he doing?” Ryan went over to the missile tube. A sort of rubber bladder was lying on the deck. “What’s this?” He hefted the gadget in his hand. It was made of rubber or rubberized fabric with a metal or plastic frame inside, a metal nipple on one corner, and a mouthpiece.
“He was doing something to the missile, but he had an escape device to get off the sub,” Ryan said. “Oh, Christ! A timing device.” He bent down to pick up the work light and switched it on, then stood back and peered into the missile compartment. “Captain, what’s in here?”
“That is—the guidance compartment. It has a computer that tells the rocket how to fly. The door—,” Ramius’ breaths were coming hard, “—is a hatch for the officer.”
Ryan peered into the hatch. He found a mass of multicolored wires and circuit boards connected in a way he’d never seen before. He poked through the wires half expecting to find a ticking alarm clock wired to some dynamite sticks. He didn’t.
Now what should he do? The agent had been up to something—but what? Did he finish? How could Ryan tell? He couldn’t. One part of his brain screamed at him to do something, the other part said that he’d be crazy to try.
Ryan put the rubber-coated handle to the light between his teeth and reached into the compartment with both hands. He grabbed a double handful of wires and yanked back. Only a few broke loose. He released one bunch and concentrated on the other. A clump of plastic and copper spaghetti came loose. He did it again for the other bunch. “Aaah!” he gasped, receiving an electric shock. An eternal moment followed while he waited to be blown up. It passed. There were more wires to pull. In under a minute he’d ripped out every wire he could see along with a half-dozen small breadboards. Next he smashed the light against everything he thought might break until the compartment looked like his son’s toybox—full of useless fragments.
He heard people running into the compartment. Borodin was in front. Ramius motioned him over to Ryan and the dead agent.
“Sudets?” Borodin said. “Sudets?” He looked at Ryan. “This is cook.”
Ryan took the pistol from the deck. “Here’s his recipe file. I think he was a GRU agent. He was trying to blow us up. Captain Ramius, how about we launch this missile—just jettison the goddamned thing, okay?”
“A good idea, I think.” Ramius’ voice had become a hoarse whisper. “First close the inspection hatch, then we—can fire from the control room.”
Ryan used his hand to sweep the fragments away from the missile hatch, and the door slid neatly back into place. The tube hatch was different. It was a pressure-bearing one and much heavier, held in place by two spring-loaded latches. Ryan slammed it three times. Twice it rebounded, but the third time it stuck.
Borodin and another officer were already carrying Williams aft. Someone had set a belt on Ramius’ leg wound. Ryan got him to his feet and helped him walk. Ramius grunted in pain every time he had to move his left leg.
“You took a foolish chance, Captain,” Ryan observed.
“This is my ship—and I do not like the dark. It was my fault! We should have made a careful counting as the crew left.”
They arrived at the watertight door. “Okay, I’ll go through first.” Ryan stepped through and helped Ramius through backward. The belt had loosened, and the wound was bleeding again.
“Close the hatch and lock it,” Ramius ordered.
It closed easily. Ryan turned the wheel three times, then got under the captain’s arm again. Another twenty feet and they were in the control room. The lieutenant at the wheel was ashen.
Ryan sat the captain in a chair on the port side. “You have a knife, sir?”
Ramius reached in his pocket and came out with a folding knife and something else. “Here, take this. It’s the key for the rocket warheads. They cannot fire unless this is used. You keep it.” He tried to laugh. It had been Putin’s, after all.
Ryan flipped it around his neck, opened the knife, and cut the captain’s pants all the way up. The bullet had gone clean through the meaty part of the thigh. He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and held it against the entrance wound. Ramius handed him another handkerchief. Ryan placed this against the half-inch exit wound.
Next he set the belt across both, drawing it as tight as he could.
“My wife might not approve, but that will have to do.”
“Your wife?” Ramius asked.
“She’s a doc, an eye surgeon to be exact. The day I got shot she did this for me.” Ramius’ lower leg was growing pale. The belt was too tight, but Ryan didn’t want to loosen it just yet. “Now, what about the missile?”
Ramius gave an order to the lieutenant at the wheel, who relayed it through the intercom. Two minutes later three officers entered the control room. Speed was cut to five knots, which took several minutes. Ryan worried about the missile and whether or not he had destroyed whatever boobytrap the agent had installed. Each of the three newly arrived officers took a key from around his neck. Ramius did the same, giving his second key to Ryan. He pointed to the starboard side of the compartment.
“Rocket control.”
Ryan should have guessed as much. Arrayed throughout the control room were five panels, each with three rows of twenty-six lights and a key slot under each set.
“Put your key in number one, Ryan.” Jack did, and the others inserted their keys. The red light came on and a buzzer sounded.
The missile officer’s panel was the most elaborate. He turned a switch to flood the missile tube and open the number one hatch. The red panel lights began to blink.
“Turn your key, Ryan,” Ramius said.
“Does this fire the missile?” Christ, what if that happens? Ryan wondered.
“No no. The rocket must be armed by the rocket officer. This key explodes the gas charge.”
Could Ryan believe him? Sure he was a good guy and all that, but how could Ryan know he was telling the truth?
“Now!” Ramius ordered. Ryan turned his key at the same instant as the others. The amber light over the red light blinked on. The one under the green cover stayed off.
The Red October shuddered as the number one SS-N-20 was ejected upward by the gas charge. The sound was like a truck’s air brake. The three officers withdrew their keys. Immediately the missile officer shut the tube hatch.
