Tom Clancy: The Hunt for Red October

All the characters in this book, with the exception of Sergey Gorshkov, Yuri Padorin, Oleg Penkovskiy, Valery Sablin, Hans Tofte, and Greville Wynne, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The names, incidents, dialogue and opinions expressed are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Nothing is intended or should be interpreted as expressing or representing the views of the US Navy or any other department or agency of any government body.

HarperCollins Publishers

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1985

First published in the USA by Naval Institute Press 1984

Copyright © Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd 1984

Tom Clancy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover illustration © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2018 ISBN: 9780007375059

SOURCE ISBN: 9780008279530

Version 2018-11-15

‘He constantly taps the current world situation for its imminent dangers and spins them into an engrossing tale’

New York Times

‘Heart-stopping action … entertaining and eminently topical’

Washington Post

‘Exhilarating. No other novelist is giving so full a picture of modern conflict’

Sunday Times

‘A brilliantly constructed thriller that packs a punch like Semtex’

Daily Mail

‘A virtuoso display of page-turning talent’

Sunday Express

For Ralph Chatham,

a sub driver who spoke the truth,

and for all the men who wear dolphins

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

The First Day: Friday, 3 December

The Second Day: Saturday, 4 December

The Third Day: Sunday, 5 December

The Fourth Day: Monday, 6 December

The Fifth Day: Tuesday, 7 December

The Sixth Day: Wednesday, 8 December

The Seventh Day: Thursday, 9 December

The Eighth Day: Friday, 10 December

The Ninth Day: Saturday, 11 December

The Tenth Day: Sunday, 12 December

The Eleventh Day: Monday, 13 December

The Twelfth Day: Tuesday, 14 December

The Thirteenth Day: Wednesday, 15 December

The Fourteenth Day: Thursday, 16 December

The Fifteenth Day: Friday, 17 December

The Sixteenth Day: Saturday, 18 December

The Seventeenth Day: Sunday, 19 December

The Eighteenth Day: Monday, 20 December

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Tom Clancy

About the Publisher

THE RED OCTOBER

Captain First Rank Marko Ramius of the Soviet Navy was dressed for the Arctic conditions normal to the Northern Fleet submarine base at Polyarnyy. Five layers of wool and oilskin enclosed him. A dirty harbour tug pushed his submarine’s bow around to the north, facing down the channel. The dock that had held his Red October for two interminable months was now a water-filled concrete box, one of the many specially built to shelter strategic missile submarines from the harsh elements. On its edge a collection of sailors and dockyard workers watched his ship sail in stolid Russian fashion, without a wave or a cheer.

‘Engines ahead slow, Kamarov,’ he ordered. The tug slid out of the way, and Ramius glanced aft to see the water stirring from the force of the twin bronze propellers. The tug’s commander waved. Ramius returned the gesture. The tug had done a simple job, but done it quickly and well. The Red October, a Typhoon- class sub, moved under her own power towards the main ship channel of the Kola Fjord.

‘There’s Purga, Captain.’ Gregoriy Kamarov pointed to the icebreaker that would escort them to sea. Ramius nodded. The two hours required to transit the channel would tax not his seamanship but his endurance. There was a cold north wind blowing, the only sort of north wind in this part of the world. Late autumn had been surprisingly mild, and scarcely any snow had fallen in an area that measures it in metres; then a week before a major winter storm had savaged the Murmansk coast, breaking pieces off the Arctic icepack. The icebreaker was no formality. The Purga would butt aside any ice that might have drifted overnight into the channel. It would not do at all for the Soviet Navy’s newest missile submarine to be damaged by an errant chunk of frozen water.

The water in the fjord was choppy, driven by the brisk wind. It began to lap over the October ’s spherical bow, rolling back down the flat missile deck which lay before the towering black sail. The water was coated with the bilge oil of numberless ships, filth that would not evaporate in the low temperatures and that left a black ring on the rocky walls of the fjord as though from the bath of a slovenly giant. An altogether apt simile, Ramius thought. The Soviet giant cared little for the dirt it left on the face of the earth, he grumbled to himself. He had learned his seamanship as a boy on inshore fishing boats, and knew what it was to be in harmony with nature.

‘Increase speed to one-third,’ he said. Kamarov repeated his captain’s order over the bridge telephone. The water stirred more as the October moved astern of the Purga. Captain Lieutenant Kamarov was the ship’s navigator, his last duty station having been harbour pilot for the large combatant vessels based on both sides of the wide inlet. The two officers kept a weather eye on the armed icebreaker three hundred metres ahead. The Purga ’s after deck had a handful of crewmen stomping about in the cold, one wearing the white apron of a ship’s cook. They wanted to witness the Red October’ s first operational cruise, and besides, sailors will do almost anything to break the monotony of their duties.

Ordinarily it would have irritated Ramius to have his ship escorted out – the channel here was wide and deep – but not today. The ice was something to worry about. And so, for Ramius, was a great deal else.

‘So, my Captain, again we go to sea to serve and protect the Rodina !’ Captain Second Rank Ivan Yurievich Putin poked his head through the hatch – without permission, as usual – and clambered up the ladder with the awkwardness of a landsman. The tiny control station was already crowded enough with the captain, the navigator, and a mute lookout. Putin was the ship’s zampolit (political officer). Everything he did was to serve the Rodina (Motherland), a word that had mystical connotations to a Russian and, along with V. I. Lenin, was the Communist Party’s substitute for a godhead.