LITMIR.BIZ

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asked to join the CIA. The fact that he had unknowingly prevented the assassination of two very prominent figures had gotten him more publicity than he’d ever wanted, but it had also brought him in contact with a lot of people in England, most of them worth the time. Those connections had made him valuable enough that the CIA asked him to be part of a joint American–British liaison group. That was how he had established a good working relationship with Sir Basil Charleston.

      ‘We have lots of friends over there, sir, and some of them were kind enough to give you these,’ Ryan said coolly.

      Davenport softened. ‘Okay, Jack, then you do me a favour. You see whoever gave us these gets something nice in his stocking. They’re worth plenty. So, exactly what do we have here?’

      To the unschooled observer, the photographs showed the standard nuclear missile submarine. The steel hull was blunt at one end, tapered at the other. The workmen standing on the floor of the dock provided scale – she was huge. There were twin bronze propellers at the stern, on either side of a flat appendage which the Russians called a beaver tail, or so the intelligence reports said. With the twin screws the stem was unremarkable except in one detail.

      ‘What are these doors for?’ Casimir asked.

      ‘Hmm. She’s a big bastard.’ Davenport evidently hadn’t heard. ‘Forty feet longer than we expected, by the look of her.’

      ‘Forty-four, roughly.’ Ryan didn’t much like Davenport, but the man did know his stuff. ‘Somers can calibrate that for us. And more beam, two metres more than the other Typhoons. She’s an obvious development of the Typhoon class, but –’

      ‘You’re right, Captain,’ Davenport interrupted. ‘What are those doors?’

      ‘That’s why I came over.’ Ryan had wondered how long this would take. He’d caught onto them in the first five seconds. ‘I don’t know, and neither do the Brits.’

      The Red October had two doors at the bow and stern, each about two metres in diameter, thought they were not quite circular. They had been closed when the photos were shot and only showed up well on the number four pair.

      ‘Torpedo tubes? No – four of them are inboard.’ Greer reached into his drawer and came out with a magnifying glass. In an age of computer-enhanced imagery it struck Ryan as charmingly anachronistic.

      ‘You’re the sub driver, James,’ Davenport observed.

      ‘Twenty years ago, Charlie.’ He’d made the switch from line officer to professional spook in the early sixties. Captain Casimir, Ryan noted, wore the wings of a naval aviator and had the good sense to remain quiet. He wasn’t a ‘nuc.’

      ‘Well, they can’t be torpedo tubes. They have the normal four of them at the bow, inboard of these openings … must be six or seven feet across. How about launch tubes for the new cruise missile they’re developing?’

      ‘That’s what the Royal Navy thinks. I had a chance to talk it over with their intelligence chaps. But I don’t buy it. Why put an anti-surface-ship weapon on a strategic platform? We don’t, and we deploy our boomers a lot further forward than they do. The doors are symmetrical through the boat’s axis. You can’t launch a missile out of the stern, sir. The openings barely clear the screws.’

      ‘Towed sonar array,’ Davenport said.

      ‘Granted they could do that, if they trail one screw. But why two of them?’ Ryan asked.

      Davenport gave him a nasty look. ‘They love redundancies.’

      ‘Two doors forward, two aft. I can buy cruise missile tubes. I can buy a towed array. But both sets of doors exactly the same size?’ Ryan shook his head. ‘Too much of a coincidence. I think it’s something new. That’s what interrupted her construction for so long. They figured something new for her and spent the last two years rebuilding the Typhoon configuration to accommodate it. Note also that they added six more missiles for good measure.’

      ‘Opinion,’ Davenport observed.

      ‘That’s what I’m paid for.’

      ‘Okay, Jack, what do you think it is?’ Greer asked.

      ‘Beats me, sir. I’m no engineer.’

      Admiral Greer looked his guests over for a few seconds. He smiled and leaned back in his chair. ‘Gentlemen, we have what? Ninety years of naval experience in this room, plus this young amateur.’ He gestured at Ryan. ‘Okay, Jack, you’ve set us up for something. Why did you bring this over personally?’

      ‘I want to show these to somebody.’

      ‘Who?’ Greer’s head cocked suspiciously to one side.

      ‘Skip Tyler. Any of you fellows know him?’

      ‘I do.’ Casimir nodded. ‘He was a year behind me at Annapolis. Didn’t he get hurt or something?’

      ‘Yeah,’ Ryan said. ‘Lost his leg in an auto accident four years ago. He was up for command of the Los Angeles and a drunk driver clipped him. Now he teaches engineering at the Academy and does a lot of consulting work with Sea Systems Command – technical analysis, looking at their ship designs. He has a doctorate in engineering from MIT, and he knows how to think unconventionally.’

      ‘How about his security clearance?’ Greer asked.

      ‘Top secret or better, sir, because of his Crystal City work.’

      ‘Objections, Charlie?’

      Davenport frowned. Tyler was not part of the intelligence community. ‘Is this the guy who did the evaluation of the new Kirov?’

      ‘Yes, sir, now that I think about it,’ Casimir said. ‘Him and Saunders over at Sea Systems.’

      ‘That was a nice piece of work. It’s okay with me.’

      ‘When do you want to see him?’ Greer asked Ryan.

      ‘Today, if it’s all right with you, sir. I have to run over to Annapolis anyway, to get something from the house, and – well, do some quick Christmas shopping.’

      ‘Oh? A few dolls?’ Davenport asked.

      Ryan turned to look the admiral in the eye. ‘Yes, sir, as a matter of fact. My little girl wants a Skiing Barbie doll and some Jordache doll outfits. Didn’t you ever play Santa, Admiral?’

      Davenport saw that Ryan wasn’t going to back off anymore. He wasn’t a subordinate to be browbeaten. Ryan could always walk away. He tried a new tack. ‘Did they tell you over there that October sailed last Friday?’

      ‘Oh?’ They hadn’t. Ryan was caught off guard. ‘I thought she wasn’t scheduled to sail until this Friday.’

      ‘So did we. Her skipper is Marko Ramius. You heard about him?’

      ‘Only secondhand stuff. The Brits say he’s pretty good.’

      ‘Better than that,’ Greer noted. ‘He’s about the best sub driver they have, a real charger. We had a considerable file on him when I was at DIA. Who’s bird-doggin’ him for you, Charlie?’

      ‘Bremerton was assigned to it. She was out of position doing some ELINT work when Ramius sailed, but she was ordered over. Her skipper’s Bud Wilson. Remember his dad?’

      Greer laughed out loud. ‘Red Wilson? Now there was one spirited submarine driver! His boy any good?’

      ‘So they say. Ramius is about the best the Soviets have, but Wilson’s got a 688 boat. By the end of the week, we’ll be able to start a new book on Red October.’ Davenport stood. ‘We gotta head back, James.’ Casimir hurried to get the coats. ‘I can keep these?’

      ‘I suppose, Charlie. Just don’t go hanging them on the wall, even to throw darts at. And I guess you want to get moving, too, Jack?’

      ‘Yes,

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