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

The KGB patrol boat Smirnov has used semaphore flags, international signal flags, and red flares from a Very pistol. Just now an officer is on the port deck, just below the bridge, shouting orders through a bullhorn, his voice so highly amplified that it is distorted beyond all understanding.

Sablin stands at the port wing hatch. The officer with the bullhorn and the skipper and helmsman on the bridge can see his face in the window, just as he can see theirs. Less than fifty meters separates the two vessels. And now that the fog has lifted momentarily he can see the two other KGB patrol boats trailing one hundred meters aft.

It must be frustrating for them, Sablin thinks. They have been given the job of stopping a ship, but nothing they have done has had the slightest effect. He wonders what they will eventually put in their reports and how they will answer the questions from their superiors.

“Why did you fail to stop the mutineers?”

“Where was your initiative?”

“You are trained officers of the KGB; why is it that you didn’t carry out your orders?”

In some small measure Sablin may feel sorry for the men on the three patrol boats. After all, they are good Russians, just like the Storozhevoy’s officers and crew. He sincerely wishes that there were some way for him to help absolve the patrol boats’ crews for their failure this morning. But nothing like that is possible.

“Bljad,” Maksimenko swears softly. He’s done a lot of that in the past hour.

Sablin turns away from the window. “What is it now, Oleg?”

The same kid calls from CIC: “We should surrender now, Captain,” he says.

“You turned the radar on again?” he shouts into the handset.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I had to make sure. I’m showing war planes heading our way. Very fast.”

“Can you tell what kind of aircraft these are?”

“Yak-28s.”

“I know this name,” Sablin says. “I think NATO calls them Brewer. Are they jet fighters?”

“They’re bombers. Meant to attack ships like ours. They’re coming out to sink us. We’re all going to die.”

“We’re not going to die,” Sablin says sharply. “I promise you that no one will die this morning.”

“If we don’t follow their orders, if we don’t heave to right now and let the KGB board us, they’ll drop bombs until we sink to the bottom and drown.”

“If someone was going to attack us, the KGB boats out there would already have put warning shots across our bows.” Sablin looks out at the KGB vessel alongside. “They could also put a few cannon rounds through our windows and destroy us and the bridge, but they haven’t done that, either.” He looks over at Shein. “I’m telling all of you that no Russian will fire on this ship.”

“I don’t know…” The CIC operator trails off.

“If the tables were reversed would we shoot at another Russian ship?” Sablin wants to know.

“If we were ordered to do it,” the midshipman says.

“Even if we were ordered to do it, Captain Potulniy would never pull the trigger.”

“He’s not here,” the boy says defiantly. “I say that we stop right now.”

“Well, I’m here,” Sablin retorts. “And we will maintain our course and speed.”

“What happens when the bombers arrive and start attacking us?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“But what if it does?”

“Then we’ll deal with that problem,” Sablin says lamely. But he is counting on his belief that no Russian naval officer will fire on another Russian ship.

Captain Yuri Zhernov is squadron leader for the flight of twenty Yak-28s based at Mamonovo. He and most of the other pilots were at first surprised and then deeply troubled at their mission briefing. They were to fly north into the open Baltic under guidance from their air-based controller aboard an Il-38 circling at flight level eighteen, find the ASW frigate Storozhevoy, and open fire.

“You are ordered to sink that ship as quickly as possible,” the boss of the Baltic Fleet Air Wing, Colonel Sergei Guliayev, told them.

Zhernov got to his feet. “Sir, shouldn’t we first order them to heave to and surrender before we open fire?”

“They’ve already been given that order, Captain, and they have ignored it. They are mutineers and traitors who are trying to defect to the West, where they will turn over their ship and his classified equipment to NATO. Do you want such a thing to happen?”

“No, sir,” Zhernov said. But he’d not been sure of anything then. And now, approaching the Storozhevoy at more than 1,000 kilometers per hour, he is even less sure.

“I have the target in sight,” his weapons officer flying second seat reports over the aircraft’s intercom system.

Zhernov hesitates.

“You are in position, Captain Zhernov,” the voice of the air wing commander suddenly comes over the tactical frequency. “Prepare to destroy the target.”

“Roger,” Zhernov replies automatically.

Still he hesitates.

The Yak-28 squadron is directly overhead, coming in at a low altitude, but still no shots are being fired.

Sablin has turned down the volume on the VHF radio; there are so many voices screaming at them to stop, to heave to, to surrender, that it’s become impossible to think over the racket.

From the open bridge door to the corridor below he can hear the sounds of the morning crew coming on watch. They sound excited. Exercises were canceled for the morning, no officer showed up to conduct them, but Sablin can smell the odors of breakfast.

Sablin grabs a bullhorn from a locker and steps out onto the port bridge wing. The Smirnov is still there, and the fog is beginning to lift even more.

Overhead, the Yak-28s have passed and are making a long, sweeping turn to come back for a second run.

Sablin raises the bullhorn toward the KGB patrol boat and presses the talk switch. “Smirnov, we do not mean to fire any shots. We are not defecting. We are en route to Leningrad, where we will address the Soviet people. Do you understand?”

Several armed crewmen with grappling lines are standing by on the patrol boat’s deck.

The KGB officer raises his bullhorn. “Storozhevoy, heave to at once and prepare to be boarded.”

Sablin goes back inside, puts the bullhorn down, and calls the gunnery division. One of the midshipmen whose name he cannot recall at that instant answers. The boy was one of Vinogrodovs crew.

“This is Captain Sablin on the bridge. I want our cannons turned towad the small patrol craft that’s just off our port quarter.”

“But, sir, we have no shells.”

“I don’t care!” Sablin shouts. “Do it now!”

Zhernov is lined up for his run on the Storozhevoy, and his squadron is fanned out behind him. They will make their attack in five waves of four aircraft each.

“Control, we are commencing our attack,” Zhernov radios. “Have they surrendered yet?”

“Does it look like it?” Guliayev shouts. “Follow your orders!”

“On my lead,” Zhernov radios his squadron, and he pushes the stick forward.

His aircraft is an older model, designated Yak-281, equipped with the Initiativa radar bombing system, and it still has its 30mm cannons, which have been pulled out of some of the newer Yaks. Powered by a pair of Tumansky R-11 afterburning turbojets the aircraft carries conventional bombs large enough to take out the Storozhevoy.

“I have the target,” his weapons officer reports.