The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy [184]
The cook bustled aft with an armload of groceries. "I'll have coffee in a few minutes, sir," he said to Borodin on his way to the galley.
"I would like something to eat. None of us has eaten in a day," Borodin said.
"Food!" Mancuso called aft.
"Aye, Skipper. Let me figure this galley out."
Mannion checked his watch. "Twenty minutes, sir."
"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.
The White House
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