Chapter Two

Brief Summary-  Ramius announces to the crew that their mission is to navigate down the Atlantic and evade the Imperialists.  He tells them that because of spies, the west will know of them, but they will be unable to pick up the Red October on sonar.  The crew will then stop at Cuba for one week, then make the return trip home.  After Ramius delivered these false orders he engaged the 'catipiller' drive system, and the submarine went quiet.  Meanwhile, the USS Bremerton was waiting for the Red October provided that she sailed as scheduled.  They picked up the sub, but lost it moments later.  Believing that it slowed to a drift they reduced speed to creep up on it.  Back in the USSR, Ramius's letter got to the mail station.  The mail sorter, not having to meet his quota of sorted letter until the end of the month, went about his work slowly.  When he finally got to Ramius's letter he missed the sorting bin for Moscow, and it wouldn't be sent for another day.  On the V. K. Konovalov, the sub that was scheduled to be tracking the Red October in its mission, OCTOBER FROST, was awaiting her arrival.  Ramius's former pupil was the captain of this vessel, and he, Captain Second Rank Alexievich Tupolev, was determined to embarrass his old master, as no one else was able to.  However, the Red October was late to arrive, believing this was just to make Tupolev nervous or to enter the exercise area from an unexpected angle, Tupolev was all the more determined to win.

Journal-  I'm quiet curious to see what Tupolev does when he realizes that Ramius isn't going to show up for the drill.  I wonder how long it will take to figure it out, it seems as though that the Red October is supposed to be undetectable could make them think that it was that was there when it really isn't.  Furthermore, the fact that Ramius's letter has been delayed, the Red October has an extra day to get away.  A sub that is supposed to be difficult to track and giving it an extra day's head start could practically guarantee that it is not found.

Chapter One

Brief Summary-  Captain First Rank Marko Ramius of the Soviet Navy takes the Red October out of the submarine base at Polyarnyy for a two week exercise to test its abilities.  The Red October is a new type of submarine that the Soviets are hoping will show the Imperialist west the power of the Soviet Union.  However, Ramius seems to have other plans; he stated that one way or another he would not be returning, and that he had "left a letter in the last mailbag taken off before sailing... there was no going back after that".  Ramius doesn't make his plans clear yet.  Later, when it was time for Ramius and Captain Second Rank Ivan Yurievich Putin to open their mission  orders, Ramius killed Putin.  After staging the scene to make it appear that the death was an accident, Ramius took Putin's orders, and took out a fake set.  These instructions called for strict radio silence, so they could not report Putin's death, and after relaying these new orders to the crew the Red October set off west northwest, away from where the exercise was supposed to be conducted. 

Journal-  I am defiantly enjoying this much more than I would have thought.  It seems to me to very believable, like Tom Clancy know a bit about submarines and the Soviet Union.  Also, it seems to be getting right to the action, while still including some good character development.  So far it seems very similar to the, aside from the fact that no one questioned that the Capitan took Putins key, (which is not supposed to happen, two keys exist so that no one man has ultimate control over what goes on in the submarine without check).