We are to confine our operations to grid square 54–90 and the immediately surrounding squares. That ought to make Viktor’s task a bit easier.’
‘But you will not let him find us?’
‘Certainly not,’ Ramius snorted. ‘Let? Viktor was once my pupil. You give nothing to an enemy, Ivan, even in a drill. The imperialists certainly won’t! In trying to find us, he also practises finding their missile submarines. He will have a fair chance of locating us, I think. The exercise is confined to nine squares, forty thousand square kilometres. We shall see what he has learned since he served with us – oh, that’s right, you weren’t with me then. That’s when I had the Suslov.’
‘Do I see disappointment?’
‘No, not really. The four-day drill with Konovalov will be an interesting diversion.’ Bastard, he said to himself, you knew beforehand exactly what our orders were – and you do know Viktor Tupolev, liar. It was time.
Putin finished his cigarette and his tea before standing. ‘So, again I am permitted to watch the master captain at work – befuddling a poor boy.’ He turned towards the door. ‘I think –’
Ramius kicked Putin’s feet out from under him just as he was stepping away from the table. Putin fell backwards while Ramius sprang to his feet and grasped the political officer’s head in his strong fisherman’s hands. The captain drove his neck downward to the sharp, metal-edged corner of the wardroom table. It struck the point. In the same instant Ramius pushed down on the man’s chest. An unnecessary gesture – with the sickening crackle of bones Ivan Putin’s neck broke, his spine severed at the level of the second cervical vertebra, a perfect hangman’s fracture.
The political officer had no time to react. The nerves to his body below the neck were instantly cut off from the organs and muscles they controlled. Putin tried to shout, to say something, but his mouth flapped open and shut without a sound except for the exhalation of his last lungful of air. He tried to gulp air down like a landed fish, and this did not work. Then his eyes went up to Ramius, wide in shock – there was no pain, and no emotion but surprise. The captain laid him gently on the tile deck.
Ramius saw the face flash with recognition, then darken. He reached down to take Putin’s pulse. It was nearly two minutes before the heart stopped completely. When Ramius was sure that his political officer was dead, he took the teapot from the table and poured two cups’ worth on the deck, careful to drip some on the man’s shoes. Next he lifted the body to the wardroom table and threw open the door.
‘Dr Petrov to the wardoom at once!’
The ship’s medical office was only a few steps aft. Petrov was there in seconds, along with Vasily Borodin, who had hurried aft from the control room.
‘He slipped on the deck where I spilled my tea,’ Ramius gasped, performing closed heart massage on Putin’s chest. ‘I tried to keep him from falling, but he hit his head on the table.’
Petrov shoved the captain aside, moved the body around, and leapt on the table to kneel astride it. He tore the shirt open, then checked Putin’s eyes. Both pupils were wide and fixed. The doctor felt around the man’s head, his hands working downward to the neck. They stopped there, probing. The doctor shook his head slowly.
‘Comrade Putin is dead. His neck is broken.’ The doctor’s hands came loose and he closed the zampolit’s eyes.
‘No!’ Ramius shouted. ‘He was alive only a minute ago.’ The commanding officer was sobbing. ‘It’s my fault. I tried to catch him, but I failed. My fault!’ He collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands. ‘My fault,’ he cried, shaking his head in rage, struggling visibly to regain his composure. An altogether excellent performance.
Petrov placed his hand on the captain’s shoulder. ‘It was an accident, Comrade Captain. These things happen, even to experienced men. It was not your fault. Truly, Comrade.’
Ramius swore under his breath, regaining control of himself. ‘There is nothing you can do?’
Petrov shook his head. ‘Even in the finest clinic in the Soviet Union nothing could be done. Once the spinal cord is severed, there is no hope. Death is virtually instantaneous – but also it is quite painless,’ the doctor added consolingly.
Ramius drew himself up as he took a long breath, his face set. ‘Comrade Putin was a good shipmate, a loyal Party member, and a fine officer.’ Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Borodin’s mouth twitch. ‘Comrades, we will continue our mission! Dr Petrov, you will carry our comrade’s body to the freezer. This is – gruesome, I know, but he deserves and will get an honourable military funeral, with his shipmates in attendance, as it should be, when we return to port.’
‘Will this be reported to fleet headquarters?’ Petrov asked.
‘We cannot. Our orders are to maintain strict radio silence.’ Ramius handed the doctor a set of operations orders from his pocket. Not those taken from the safe. ‘Page three, Comrade Doctor.’
Petrov’s eyes went wide reading the operational directive.
‘I would prefer to report this, but our orders are explicit: Once we dive, no transmissions of any kind, for any reason.’
Petrov handed the papers back. ‘Too bad, our comrade would have looked forward to this. But orders are orders.’
‘And we shall carry them out.’
‘Putin would have it no other way,’ Petrov agreed.
‘Borodin, observe: I take the comrade political officer’s missile control key from his neck, as per regulations,’ Ramius said, pocketing the key and chain.
‘I note this, and will so enter it in the log,’ the executive officer said gravely.
Petrov brought in his medical orderly. Together they took the body aft to the medical office, where it was zippered into a body bag. The orderly and a pair of sailors then took it forward, through the control room, into the missile compartment. The entrance to the freezer was on the lower missile deck, and the men carried the body through the door. While two cooks removed food to make room for it, the body was set reverently down in the corner. Aft, the doctor and the executive officer made the necessary inventory of personal effects, one copy for the ship’s medical file, another for the ship’s log, and a third for a box that was sealed and locked up in the medical office.
Forward, Ramius took the conn in a subdued control room. He ordered the submarine to a course of two-nine-zero degrees, west-northwest. Grid square 54–90 was to the east.
THE RED OCTOBER
It was the custom in the Soviet Navy for the commanding officer to announce his ship’s operational orders and to exhort the crew to carry them out in true Soviet fashion. The orders were then posted for all to see – and be inspired by – outside the ship’s Lenin Room. In large surface ships this was a classroom where political awareness classes were held. In Red October it was a closet-sized library near the wardroom where Party books and other ideological material were kept for the men to read. Ramius disclosed their orders the day after sailing to give his men the chance to settle into the ship’s routine. At the same time he gave a pep talk. Ramius always gave a good one. He’d had a lot of practice. At 0800 hours, when the forenoon watch was set, he entered the control room and took some file cards from an inside jacket pocket.
‘Comrades!’ he began, talking into the microphone, ‘this is the captain speaking. You all know that our beloved friend and comrade, Captain Ivan Yurievich Putin, died yesterday in a tragic accident. Our orders do not permit us to inform fleet headquarters of this. Comrades, we will dedicate our efforts and our work to the memory of our comrade, Ivan