The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy [168]
The Red October
It opened at once. "Gentlemen, I am Commander Ryan, United States Navy. Can we be of assistance?"
The man he spoke to was shorter and heavier than himself. He wore three stars on his shoulder boards, an extensive set of ribbons on his breast, and a broad gold stripe on his sleeve. So, this was Marko Ramius . . .
"Do you speak Russian?"
"No sir, I do not. What is the nature of your emergency, sir?"
"We have a major leak in our reactor system. The ship is contaminated aft of the control room. We must evacuate."
At the words leak and reactor Ryan felt his skin crawl. He remembered how positive he had been that his scenario was correct. On land, nine hundred miles away, in a nice, warm office, surrounded by friends—well, not enemies. The looks he was getting from the twenty men in this compartment were lethal.
"Dear God! Okay, let's get moving then. We can take off twenty-five men at a time, sir."
"Not so fast, Commander Ryan. What will become of my men?" Ramius asked loudly.
"They will be treated as our guests, of course. If they need medical attention, they will get it. They will be returned to the Soviet Union as quickly as we can arrange it. Did you think we'd put them in prison?"
Ramius grunted and turned to speak with the others in Russian. On the flight from the Invincible Ryan and Williams had decided to keep the latter's knowledge of Russian secret for a while, and Williams was now dressed in an American uniform. Neither thought a Russian would notice the different accent.
"Dr. Petrov," Ramius said, "you will take the first group of twenty-five. Keep control of the men, Comrade Doctor! Do not let the Americans speak to them as individuals, and let no man wander off alone. You will behave correctly, no more, no less."
"Understood, Comrade Captain."
Ryan watched Petrov count the men off as they passed through the hatch and up the ladder. When they were finished, Williams secured first the Mystic's hatch and then the one on the October's escape trunk. Ramius had a michman check it. They heard the DSRV disengage and motor off.
The silence that ensued was as long as it was awkward. Ryan and Williams stood in one corner of the compartment, Ramius and his men opposite them. It made Ryan think back to high school dances where boys and girls gathered in separate groups and there was a no-man's-land in the middle. When an officer fished out a cigarette, he tried breaking the ice.
"May I have a cigarette, sir?"
Borodin jerked the pack, and a cigarette came part way out. Ryan took it, and Borodin lit it with a paper match.
"Thanks. I gave it up, but underwater in a sub with a bad reactor, I don't think it's too dangerous, do you?" Ryan's first experience with a Russian cigarette was not a happy one. The black coarse tobacco made him dizzy, and it added an acrid smell to the air around them, which was already thick with the odor of sweat, machine oil, and cabbage.
"How did you come to be here?" Ramius asked.
"We were heading towards the coast of Virginia, Captain. A Soviet submarine sank there last week."
"Oh?" Ramius admired the cover story. "A Soviet submarine?"
"Yes, Captain. The boat was what we call an Alfa. That's all I know for sure. They picked up a survivor, and he's in the Norfolk naval hospital. May I ask your name, sir?"
"Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius."
"Jack Ryan."
"Owen Williams." They shook hands all around.
"You have a family, Commander Ryan?" Ramius asked.
"Yes, sir. A wife, a son, and a daughter. You, sir?"
"No, no family." He turned and addressed a junior officer in Russian. "Take the next group. You heard my instructions to the doctor?"
"Yes, Comrade Captain!" the young man said.
They heard the Mystic's electric motors overhead. A moment later came the metallic clang of the mating collar gripping the escape trunk. It had taken forty minutes, but it had seemed like a week. God, what if the reactor really was bad? Ryan thought.
The Scamp
Two miles away, the Scamp had halted a few hundred yards from the