David Hagberg - Mutiny - The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

He and Gindin share a glance, and each knows for a fact what the other is thinking at that moment. If the guards are no longer guarding this hatch, what will happen if the ship is attacked and sinks? No one will be down here to open the door.

They would all drown in these two tiny compartments.

Kosov arrives at his office in a rush, not bothering to wait for his driver to open the car door for him, or return the salute from the guard at the front entrance.

Everything Kosov has done to this point has been by telephone from his house and the mobile radio in his car. He has not bothered encrypting any of his orders; there is no time for that. Party General Secretary Brezhnev has ordered the Storozhevoy found and destroyed immediately.

The first part has been accomplished, and now will come the most difficult assignment of Kosov’s long and illustrious career. In effect, his head has been placed on the chopping block. If he succeeds with this business, if the fleet actually catches up with the mutineers before they reach Sweden and if his forces actually stop or destroy the Storozhevoy, he might get a medal and a promotion. But if he fails…

He lets that thought trail off as he hurries down the fourth-floor corridor to the operations center, where most of the staff has already arrived. The fleet commander is away on holiday, which leaves Kosov the senior officer. He might wonder if it’s by chance or by design that he has been placed in such a delicate, difficult situation.

Chief of Operations Captain Third Rank Viktor Badim looks up from the plotting table as Kosov walks in. “Admiral on deck!” Badim shouts.

The eight staffers on duty stiffen to attention.

“As you were,” Kosov grumbles. He glances at the large table on which is a detailed chart of the Baltic, including all of its islands, inlets, rivers, and bases, as well as those of Sweden and other bordering nations.

Every warship that the Soviet navy is tracking is represented as a tiny wooden model on the table, and talkers, connected by headsets with the electronics sensors section, move the pieces around the table as if they were chessmen in a deadly, real game.

Kosov takes his position at the command console that looks down on the table, and one of the ratings brings him a glass of sweet tea, with one small piece of lemon, just as he likes it.

Badim comes up. “The fleet at Riga is underway,” he reports to the admiral. “But there are a lot of questions.”

“Are they clear on their orders?” Kosov demands. He’s not in a very good mood. But then that’s to be expected. No one can be cheerful when he knows that his career is on the line. God help Potulniy if he survives.

“Yes, sir,” Badim says. “They’re to catch up with the Storozhevoy and stop him by any means possible.”

“The orders have changed, Viktor. We’re to hunt down the Storozhevoy and kill him.”

Badim visibly reacts as if he’s been slapped in the face.

“I spoke with Gorshkov. The order comes from Brezhnev himself. Under no circumstances will the Storozhevoy be allowed to reach Swedish waters.”

“But, sir, according to the encrypted transmission, they aren’t defecting. They mean to lay off Leningrad and make more broadcasts. They’re fools, but they’re not defecting.”

Kosov leans forward. “Is there anything unclear about my orders, Captain? Or should I repeat them?”

Badim backs down. “No, sir.”

“Very well. Order as many units of our air wing as you think necessary to help with the hunt.” Kosov has started to spread his responsibility. The more officers under him he can commit to making decisions on their own, the more he will be insulated from retribution in the end.

Badim undersands this game as well, but there’s no countermove he can make. “Yes, sir,” he says, resigned.

“Make it happen now,” Kosov orders.

Badim goes off to order the air wing into action, as Kosov sits back with his tea and watches as the talkers push the fleet that was at anchor in Riga down the river toward the Baltic. The Storozhevoy has at least a five-hour head start, and it’s not likely that the fleet will catch up with him before the air wing does.

Sablin and his mutineers will never come within sight of Sweden before they are sent to the bottom, probably in the next few hours.

It’s too bad, Kosov thinks. The Storozhevoy was a good-looking ship.

The flight of ten Badger recon/bomber aircraft from Skirotava Naval Airfield outside of Riga rose up through the fog and burst into the star-studded sky well after 0600. Flight Leader Colonel Gennadi Kabatov keyed his throat mike.

“Ground control, this is Zero-one Flight Leader at flight level five. Our ETA for formation is zero-six-twenty. Do you have an update on Bogey-One’s position, course, and speed?”

“Roger Zero-one Flight Leader. We have a visual. Target bears three-zero-five degrees, range two-one-seven kilometers, and opening at three-zero knots. Targets estimated course is now three-two-zero degrees.”

“Acknowledged,” Kabatov radioed. “Zero-one Flight Leader out.”

The big twin-engine jet bomber was more suited to long-range nuclear bombing missions or, closer to Soviet waters, could be used effectively as a strike platform for anti-aircraft carrier operations or attacks against ships much larger than the Storozhevoy.

When the alert klaxon sounded, bringing Kabatov out of a sound sleep, he’d not had any deep thoughts. He’d been trained to react first and think later. But in the pilots’ briefing room when he’d been told the target and given his flight’s orders he did a lot of wondering. The best he could figure was that someone in Moscow was shitting in his trousers to order such a massive strike force against a lone, unarmed ASW ship.

With a length of just under forty meters, the Tu-16 was more than one-third as long as the warship he was hunting. Powered by a pair of massive Mikulin AM-3 turbojets, the bomber had a maximum speed in excess of 1,000 kilometers per hour, a range of 7,200 kilometers, and a service ceiling of nearly 13,000 meters. He was capable of carrying conventional and nuclear bombs weighing as much as nine thousand kilograms and was armed with a half-dozen 23mm cannons.

Instead of carrying bombs this early morning, each aircraft had been loaded with either one AS-2 Kipper antiship missile or one AS-6 Kingfish missile.

This was more firepower than was needed to take out an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

To Kabatov’s way of thinking, this was overkill taken to a ridiculously dangerous level. American warships sometimes operated in the Baltic and, along with Swedish radar installations that had undoubtedly detected the flight as soon as it took off, would have to wonder what the hell was going on.

Wars had begun just like this, he thought. Or at least battles had.

He switched to his command frequency, not bothering to use an encrypted channel. He wanted anyone listening in to know that this wasn’t the beginning of an attack on NATO. “Flight One, this is Flight One Lead. Report, over.”

One by one the commanders of the other nine Badgers reported their positions and altitudes, inbound on Kabatov’s aircraft.

“All operators keep a sharp eye for threat radars. I want to know what’s aimed at us out there.”

“My scope is clear,” Kabatov’s own Yen-D search radar operator reported.

“Roger,” Kabatov acknowledged. He glanced over at his copilot, Lieutenant Demin, who shared the same feelings about this morning’s mission and raised an eyebrow.