Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October (39 page)

Ten minutes ago they received their final orders. They were given vectors to the
Storozhevoy
heading toward Sweden. When they reached the ship they were to bomb him and send him to the bottom with all hands.

Even if the crew had mutinied and was trying to defect to the West, it would only be a matter of a few hours before the Swedes would send the ship home. If the
Storozhevoy
could somehow reach the United States it might be a different story. But Sweden would never go head-to-head with the Soviet Union.

“They have ship-to-air missiles,” Ryzhkov said on the way out. “What happens if we’re targeted and they shoot at us?”

“It won’t happen,” Makarov had replied gruffly.

“Da,
Ivan, but what happens if they do?”

“In that case, we would have to drop our bombs. We wouldn’t have a choice.”

“Do we have a choice now?” Ryzhkov asks.

Although Sablin can see the blue sky straight overhead, the dense fog near the surface of the water persists. It must make it difficult for the aircraft pilots circling above them. Mistakes have already been made, and more are likely.

He’s gone back out on the port wing, and he can see the thick column of smoke rising up into the sky from well back. It was the ship hit by mistake. He sincerely hopes that there were no casualties, although he doesn’t know how that is possible.

It astounds him that Russians could fire on fellow Russians. It has seriously shaken his belief that they have a chance of pulling this off, and for the first time since this morning he is seriously considering stopping and surrendering.

He has been considering what sorts of arguments he can use so that he will be the only one punished. But he has come to the sad conclusion that everyone will be blamed for the mutiny, even Potulniy for losing his ship.

It’s the Soviet way.

“Captain!” Maksimensko calls from the inside. He sounds even more shaken up than he has all morning.

Sablin goes back onto the bridge. “What is it now?”

Soloviev nods toward the VHF radio. “Listen, sir.”

For several seconds Sablin has a hard time separating individual voices from the garble. But then it starts to become clear that he is hearing transmissions between the Su-24s and their controller back at Tukums Air Force Base, and between the squadron leader in the air and the pilots of the other aircraft.

“… leaving one thousand meters. We have to get lower; from up here we can’t tell one ship from the other.”

“You are cleared for low-altitude flight operations at your discretion,” another voice comes clear.

“Able Section, we go first, acknowledge.”

Several aircraft respond in rapid order.

“Control, Squadron Leader, request permission to release weapons.”

“Squadron Leader, Control, you have permission to release your weapons.”

“Able Section, arm your weapons. We have permission to release.”

Maksimenko’s eyes are as wide as saucers. “They’re going to attack us for sure this time.”

Sablin is at a loss as to what to do.

“Captain, what are your orders?” Soloviev asks. He, too, is frightened.

“Listen to this,” Ryzhkov says excitedly. He’s momentarily switched to Baltic Fleet’s tactical channel.

Makarov is about to push his stick forward to commence the attack run when he hears someone identifying himself as Minister of Defense Grechko.

“Storozhevoy,
you will stop immediately. Do you understand?”

The squadron is approaching the point where Makarov must either start his attack run or do a fly-by and come around.

The
Storozhevoy
does not answer.

“Storozhevoy,
this is Minister of Defense Grechko. You will stop immediately. Acknowledge.”

There is no answer from the ship.

“Captain Makarov, can you hear me?”

Makarov keys his helmet microphone. “Yes, sir.”

“You have my authorization to begin your attack run. Do it now!”

“Acknowledged,” Makarov says, and he slams his stick forward and to the right, sending his aircraft into a steep turning dive.

“They’re attacking us!” Maksimenko shouts, stepping away from the radar set.

Sablin has heard the radio messages, as well as the warning and orders from the minister of defense, with his own ears, yet he still cannot accept what is about to happen. Russians attacking Russians goes against everything he has ever believed.

Attacking traitors or officers guilty of treason is something completely different from what is happening here. The
Storozhevoy
is unarmed. He has no ammunition and no missiles with which to defend himself. The crew is helpless.

All Sablin wants is to send his message to the Soviet people and let them decide their future. Is that too much to ask the Kremlin? One voice among millions. Nothing more than that.

Something hits the starboard side of the ship with a tremendous bang that nearly knocks Sablin and the others off their feet.

Almost immediately more sledgehammer blows hit the ship, this time on both port and starboard sides.

Sablin looks up in time to see at least six jet aircraft bracketing either side of the
Storozhevoy,
bright pinpoints of lights coming from beneath the aircraft as they fire their cannons. The shells slam into the ship now so fast that it becomes impossible to think, let alone issue an order.

As the jets roar past just a few meters above the level of the bridge the banshee scream of the jet engines all but blots out even the noise of the incoming shells impacting against the ship’s hull.

“They’re attacking!” Soloviev shouts, needlessly.

Sablin wants to get on the radio to tell the pilots that they are making a dreadful mistake. But he cannot move.

The jets were so low and close that he was certain he could see the faces of the crew. Two men in each cockpit.

But the jets are gone now, and the shooting has ceased.

“Is it over—,” Makismenko starts to ask when a tremendous explosion slams into the ship somewhere aft.

This time the blow is so massive that Sablin is actually knocked off his feet.

“It was a bomb!” Maksimenko cries. “Captain, they’re bombing us!”

More jets appear out of the fog, shooting their cannons into the
Storozhevoy’s
hull, the ship actually shuddering with each hit as if he were a mortally wounded animal.

The ship suddenly begins to turn to the left. Soloviev is fighting the wheel, but it’s having no effect.

Sablin scrambles to his feet. “Come back on course!” he shouts.

“I can’t,” Soloviev says. “I think the rudder has jammed.”

“Captain, we need to stop and surrender before it is too late!” Maksimenko shouts. “We’re going to die here!”

“Nobody’s going to die!” Sablin shouts back, and he reaches for the radio as a second laser-guided 250-kilogram bomb hits the stern, shoving the ship twenty meters off his track.

Gindin and the others locked in the sonar compartment can smell smoke coming through the ventilators. Besides cannon fire, the ship has taken at least two indirect hits by bombs somewhere toward the stern.

They suddenly made a turn to port but have not straightened out. The rudder has probably been hit and put out of commission. They are like sitting ducks now.

None of them has any doubt that word has gotten to the Kremlin and the order is to find the
Storozhevoy
and send him to the bottom with all hands.

“We have to get out of here!” Proshutinsky shouts over the din of the bombs and cannon shells slamming into the ship.

Gindin and Kuzmin have found a couple of screwdrivers and wrenches, and they are desperately trying to dismantle the hinges on the hatch to the corridor. But it’s no use. The job is impossible. What they need is an acetylene torch.

“Can you get the hatch open?” Proshutinsky demands.

Gindin turns to him and is about to shake his head when they hear someone out in the corridor. It sounds like someone shouting something, but Gindin can’t make out what he’s saying over the noise of the attack.

Gindin pounds on the hatch. “Let us out!”

Kuzmin also slams an open palm against the hatch.

Something heavy, maybe a pry bar, falls away and clatters on the deck out in the corridor. The dogging wheel begins to turn.

“Watch out; they probably have guns,” Proshutinsky warns.

At this point Gindin doesn’t care. If the attack continues, the
Storozhevoy
will sooner or later be struck a mortal blow and sink to the bottom. He’d rather face a few men with pistols than remain locked up down here to drown.

He and Kuzmin step back and prepare to launch a charge the moment the hatch is opened.

“Good luck,” Kuzmin says.

“Da,”
Gindin replies as the hatch swings open.

There are three men there, Petty Officer 2nd Class Kopilov and two seamen. Gindin launches himself out into the corridor, slamming into the petty officer and knocking the man backward against the bulkhead.

Kuzmin is right behind Gindin at the same moment another tremendous explosion comes from somewhere aft. The ship is violently shoved sideways.

Kopilov is just a kid and obviously frightened out of his skull. “You have to help us, before he kills us all,” he shouts. “They’re attacking us. We’ll all be killed.”

The other officers and midshipmen are scrambling out of the sonar compartment. “First we need to release the captain,” Proshutinksy orders.

Kopilov leads the way forward to the other sonar compartment. The hatch has been braced shut with a large piece of dunnage, a heavy wooden beam fifteen or twenty centimeters on a side and two or three
meters long. It takes Gindin and the sailors to prise the beam away from the hatch and pass it back to the others.

“Captain, it’s Boris; we’re opening the hatch for you!” Gindin shouts. He undogs the hatch and yanks it open.

Potulniy is right there, his face screwed up into a mask of rage. Gindin doesn’t think he’s ever seen a man so angry.

“I’ll kill the bastard!” the captain shouts. He looks at the others, mentally cataloging the faces of everyone with him. “Do we have any weapons?”

Kopilov pulls a Makarov pistol from his belt under his tunic and hands it to Potulniy.

“I’m going to the bridge to put an end to this,” the captain tells them. “The rest of you get to one of the the armories and see if you can find some other weapons. I want half of you to cover the ship from somewhere aft and the other half to go forward. But be careful; I don’t want you getting shot up.”

“I’ll take the stern,” Proshutinsky volunteers.

“Good,” Potulniy says. He turns to Gindin. “Get down to the engine room, and see what you can do to talk some sense into your men. We’re probably going to have company real soon, unless they mean to sink us.”

“Captain, I don’t think Captain Sablin is a traitor,” Gindin says. “I think he somehow got his head up his ass. He’s naive, not a criminal.”

“Naive or not, the bastard’s going to get us all killed.”

Another bomb hits somewhere aft, and the ship shudders from stem to stern.

“Go!” Potulniy orders, and he turns on his heel and heads for the bridge as fast as he can move.

Heading down to the engineering spaces, Gindin has to think, God help anyone who tries to get in the captain’s way now. And God help Sablin.

On the way up from deep within the ship, Potulniy encounters a half-dozen sailors but no officers and no one with any guns. The kids are all clearly frightened and have no idea what they’re supposed to do.

The murderous rage continues to build inside him. He wants very badly to lash out at someone, something, for what is being done to his ship. But not these kids.

“Return to your duty stations,” he orders.

The attacks seem to have stopped, at least for the moment, when Potulniy reaches the bridge deck. He pulls up short just around the corner from the open hatch. From where he’s standing he can see one of the seamen by the radar set and can hear Sablin talking frantically on the radio, but it’s difficult to make out who the
zampolit
is talking to or what he’s saying. But he sounds just as frightened as the rest of the crew.

As well as the bastard should be, Potulniy thinks. Naive, my ass.

His own naval career is finished. He will never be able to explain to
a court-martial board how he came to lose command of his ship. Or why he wasn’t able to stop the destruction of his vessel.

But Sablin has another reason to be afraid. Potulniy means to kill him. Right now.

The captain thumbs the pistol’s safety catch to the off position and steps around the corner and onto the bridge.

The seamen at the radar set and the two standing at the now useless helm all look up, first in alarm and then in relief.

“Captain,” Soloviev says.

Sablin begins to turn as Potulniy raises the pistol, his finger tightening on the trigger. But then the man holding the microphone is just Valery, married to Nina, with a son, Misha. Sablin is a fellow officer, misguided, foolish, and,
da,
naive, but not a criminal.

“Captain—,” Sablin blurts.

Potulniy lowers his aim and fires one shot, catching the
zampolit
in the left leg, just above the knee.

Sablin cries out in pain and falls to the deck. He reaches for the pistol in his belt holster, but Potulniy gets to him and takes the gun away.

For a long moment the two men stare at each other across a chasm of more than just a meter or so. What Sablin has done is treason. It goes against every fiber of Potulniy’s being.

He wants to ask why, but he knows that if Sablin tries to convince him that the mutiny was the right thing to do, he might fire again and this time kill the
zampolit.

“Eb tvoiu mat,”
Potulniy swears softly. “Take this bastard to his cabin and see that he remains there,” he tells the seamen. “If he tries anything, kill him.”