Jack Ryan 4 - The Hunt for Red October (23 page)

“Skip? Skip Tyler!”

The former submariner turned awkwardly to see a naval officer running towards him.

“Johnnie Coleman! How the hell are you!”

It was Captain Coleman now,
Tyler
noted. They had served together twice, a year on the Tecumseh, another on the Shark. Coleman, a weapons expert, had commanded a pair of nuclear subs.

“How's the family, Skip?”

“Jean's fine. Five kids now, and another on the way.”

“Damn!” they shook hands with enthusiasm. “You always were a randy bugger. I hear you're teaching at
Annapolis
.”

“Yeah, and a little engineering stuff on the side.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm running a program on the air force computer. Checking a new ship configuration for Sea Systems Command.” It was an accurate enough cover story. “What do they have you doing?”

“OP-02's office. I'm chief of staff for Admiral Dodge.”

“Indeed?”
Tyler
was impressed. Vice Admiral Sam Dodge was the current OP-02. The office of the deputy chief of naval operations for submarine warfare had administrative control of all aspects of submarine operations. “Keeping you busy?”

“You know it! The crap's really hit the fan.”

“What do you mean?”
Tyler
hadn't seen the news or read a paper since Monday.

“You kidding?”

“I've been working on this computer program twenty hours a day since Monday, and I don't get ops dispatches anymore.”
Tyler
frowned. He had heard something the other day at the Academy but not paid any attention to it. He was the sort who could focus his whole mind on a single problem.

Coleman looked up and down the corridor. It was late on a Friday evening, and they had it entirely to themselves. “Guess I can tell you. Our Russian friends have some sort of major exercise laid on. Their whole Northern Fleet's at sea, or damned near. They have subs all over the place.”

“Doing what?”

“We're not sure. Looks like they might have a major search and rescue operation. The question is, after what? They have four Alfas doing a max speed run for our coast right now, with a gaggle of Victors and Charlies charging in behind them. At first we were worried that they wanted to block the trade routes, but they blitzed right past those. They're definitely heading for our coast, and whatever they're up to, we're getting tons of information.”

“What do they have moving?”
Tyler
asked.

“Fifty-eight nuclear subs, and thirty or so surface ships.”

“Gawd! CINCLANT must be going ape!”

“You know it, Skip. The fleet's at sea, all of it. Every nuke we have is scrambling for a redeployment. Every P-3 Lockheed ever made is either over the
Atlantic
or heading that way.” Coleman paused. “You're still cleared, right?”

“Sure, for the work I do for the
Crystal
City
gang. I had a piece of the evaluation of the new
Kirov
.”

“I thought that sounded like your work. You always were a pretty good engineer. You know, the old man still talks about that job you did for him on the old Tecumseh. Maybe I can get you in to see what's happening. Yeah, I'll ask him.”

Tyler
's first cruise after graduating from nuc school in
Idaho
had been with Dodge. He'd done a tricky repair job on some ancillary reactor equipment two weeks earlier than estimated with a little creative effort and some back-channel procurement of spare parts. This had earned him and Dodge a flowery letter of commendation.

“I bet the old man would love to see you. When will you be finished down here?”

“Maybe half an hour.”

“You know where to find me?”

“Have they moved OP-02?”

“Same place. Call me when you're finished. My extension is 78730. Okay? I gotta get back.”

“Right.”
Tyler
watched his old friend disappear down the corridor, then proceeded on his way to the men's room, wondering what the Russians were up to. Whatever it was, it was enough to keep a three-star admiral and his four-striped captain working on a Friday night in Christmas season.

“Eleven minutes, 53.18 seconds, sir,” the sergeant reported, pocketing both bills.

The computer printout was over two hundred pages of data. The cover sheet plotted a rough-looking bell curve of speed solutions, and below it was the noise prediction curve. The case-by-case solutions were printed individually on the remaining sheets. The curves were predictably messy. The speed curve showed the majority of solutions in the ten- to twelve-knot range, the total range going from seven to eighteen knots. The noise curve was surprisingly low.

“Sergeant, that's one hell of a machine you have here.”

“Believe it, sir. And reliable. We haven't had an electronic fault all month.”

“Can I use a phone?”

“Sure, take your pick, sir.”

“Okay, Sarge.”
Tyler
picked up the nearest phone. “Oh, and dump the program.”

“Okay.” He typed in some instructions. “M
ORAY
is . . .  gone. Hope you kept a copy, sir.”

Tyler
nodded and dialed the phone.

“OP-02A, Captain Coleman.”

“Johnnie, this is Skip.”

“Great! Hey, the old man wants to see you. Come right up.”

Tyler
placed the printout in his briefcase and locked it. He thanked the sergeant one more time before hobbling out the door, giving the Cray-2 one last look. He'd have to get in here again.

He could not find an operating elevator and had to struggle up a gently sloped ramp. Five minutes later he found a marine guarding the corridor.

“You Commander Tyler, sir?” the guard asked. “Can I see some ID, please?”

Tyler
showed the corporal his Pentagon pass, wondering how many one-legged former submarine officers there might be.

“Thank you, Commander. Please go down the corridor. You know the room, sir?”

“Sure. Thanks, Corporal.”

Vice Admiral Dodge was sitting on the corner of a desk reading over some message flimsies. Dodge was a small, combative man who'd made his mark commanding three separate boats, then pushing the Los Angeles-class attack submarines through their lengthy development program. Now he was “Grand Dolphin,” the senior admiral who fought all the battles with Congress.

“Skip Tyler! You're looking good, laddy.” Dodge gave
Tyler
's leg a furtive glance as he came over to take his hand. “I hear you're doing a great job at the Academy.”

“It's all right, sir. They even let me scout the occasional ballgame.”

“Hmph, shame they didn't let you scout Army.”

Tyler
hung his head theatrically. “I did scout Army, sir. They were just too tough this year. You heard about their middle linebacker, didn't you?”

“No, what about him?” Dodge asked.

“He picked armor as his duty assignment, and they gave him an early trip to
Fort
Knox
—not to learn about tanks. To be a tank.”

“Ha!” Dodge laughed. “Johnnie says you have a bunch of new kids.”

“Number six is due the end of February,”
Tyler
said proudly.

“Six? You're not a Catholic or a Mormon, are you? What's with all this bird hatching?”

Tyler
gave his former boss a wry look. He'd never understood that prejudice in the nuclear navy. It came from Rickover, who had invented the disparaging term bird hatching for fathering more than one child. What the hell was wrong with having kids?

“Admiral, since I'm not a nuc anymore, I have to do something on nights and weekends.”
Tyler
arched his eyebrows lecherously. “I hear the Russkies are playing games.”

Dodge was instantly serious. “They sure are. Fifty-eight attack boats—every nuclear boat in the Northern Fleet—heading this way with a big surface group, and most of their service forces tagging along.”

“Doing what?”

“Maybe you can tell me. Come on back to my inner sanctum.” Dodge led
Tyler
into a room where he saw another new gadget, a projection screen that displayed the
North Atlantic
from the Tropic of Cancer to the polar ice pack. Hundreds of ships were represented. The merchantmen were white, with flags to identify their nationality; the Soviet ships were red, and their shapes depicted their ship type; the American and allied ships were blue. The ocean was getting crowded.

“Christ.”

“You got that one right, lad,”
Tyler
nodded grimly. “How are you cleared?”

“Top secret and some special things, sir. I see everything we have on their hardware, and I do a lot of work with Sea Systems on the side.”

“Johnnie said you did the evaluation of the new
Kirov
they just sent out to the Pacific—not bad, by the way.”

“These two Alfas heading for
Norfolk
?”

“Looks like it. And they're burning a lot of neutrons doing it.” Dodge pointed. “That one's heading to Long Island Sound as though to block the entrance to
New London
and that one's heading to
Boston
, I think. These Victors are not far behind. They already have most of the British ports staked out. By Monday they'll have two or more subs off every major port we have.”

“I don't like the looks of this, sir.”

“Neither do I. As you see, we're nearly a hundred percent at sea ourselves. The interesting thing, though—what they're doing just doesn't figure. I—” Captain Coleman came in.

“I see you let the prodigal son in, sir,” Coleman said.

“Be nice to him, Johnnie. I seem to remember when he was a right fair sub driver. Anyway, at first it looked like they were going to block the SLOCs, but they went right past. What with these Alfas, they might be trying to blockade our coast.”

“What about out west?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all, just routine activity.”

“That doesn't make any sense,”
Tyler
objected. “You don't ignore half the fleet. Of course, if you're going to war you don't announce it by kicking every boat to max power either.”

“The Russians are a funny bunch, Skip,” Coleman pointed out.

“Admiral, if we start shooting at them—”

“We hurt ”em,“ Dodge said. ”With all the noise they're making we have good locations on near all of 'em. They have to know that, too. That's the one thing that makes me believe they're not up to anything really bad. They're smart enough not to be that obvious—unless that's what they want us to think."

“Have they said anything?”
Tyler
asked.

“Their ambassador says they've lost a boat, and since it has a bunch of big shots' kids aboard, they laid on an all-hands rescue mission. For what that's worth.”

Tyler
set his briefcase down and walked closer to the screen. “I can see the pattern for a search and rescue, but why blockade our ports?” He paused, thinking rapidly as his eyes scanned the top of the display. “Sir, I don't see any boomers up here.”

“They're in port—all of 'em, on both oceans. The last Delta tied up a few hours ago. That's funny, too,” Dodge said, looking at the screen again.

“All of them, sir?”
Tyler
asked as offhandedly as he could. Something had just occurred to him. The display screen showed the
Bremerton
in the
Barents Sea
but not her supposed quarry. He waited a few seconds for an answer. Getting none, he turned to see the two officers observing him closely.

“Why do you ask, son?” Dodge said quietly. In Sam Dodge, gentleness could be a real warning flag.

Tyler
thought this one over for a few seconds. He'd given Ryan his word. Could he phrase his answer without compromising it and still find out what he wanted? Yes, he decided. There was an investigative side to Skip Tyler's character, and once he was onto something, his psyche compelled him to run it down.

“Admiral, do they have a missile sub at sea, a brand new one?”

Dodge stood very straight. Even so he still had to look up at the younger man. When he spoke, his voice was glacial. “Exactly where did you get that information, Commander?”

Tyler
shook his head. “Admiral, I'm sorry, but I can't say. It's compartmented, sir. I think this is something you ought to know, and I'll try to get it to you.”

Dodge backed off to try a different tack. “You used to work for me, Skip.” The admiral was unhappy. He'd bent a rule to show something to his former subordinate because he knew him well and was sorry that he had not received the command he had worked so hard for.
Tyler
was technically a civilian, even though his suits were still navy blue. What made it really bad was mat he knew something himself. Dodge had given him some information, and
Tyler
wasn't giving any back.

“Sir, I gave my word,” Skip apologized. “I will try to get this to you. That's a promise, sir. May I use a phone?”

“Outer office,” Dodge said flatly. There were four telephones within sight.

Tyler
went out and sat at a secretary's desk. He took his notebook from a coat pocket and dialed the number on the card Ryan had left him.

“Acres,” a female voice answered.

“Could I speak to Dr. Ryan, please?”

“Dr. Ryan is not here at the moment.”

“Then . . .  give me Admiral Greer, please.”

“One moment, please.”

“James Greer?” Dodge was behind him. “Is that who you're working for?”

“This is Greer. Your name Skip Tyler?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have that information for me?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Where are you?”

“In the Pentagon, sir.”

“Okay, I want you to drive right up here. You know how to find the place? The guards at the main gate will be waiting for you. Get moving, son.” Greer hung up.

“You're working for the CIA?” Dodge asked.

“Sir—I can't say. If you will excuse me, sir, I have some information to deliver.”

“Mine?” the admiral demanded.

“No, sir. I already had it when I came in here. That's the truth, Admiral. And I will try to get this back to you.”

“Call me,” Dodge ordered. “We'll be here all night.”

CIA Headquarters

The drive up the
George Washington Parkway
was easier than he expected. The decrepit old highway was crowded with shoppers but moved along at a steady crawl. He got off at the right exit and presently found himself at the guard post for the main highway entrance to the CIA. The barrier was down.

“Your name Tyler, Oliver W.?” the guard asked. “ID please.”
Tyler
handed him his Pentagon pass.