Chapter Seventeen

Brief Summary-  On the Red October's journey to the United States it accidentally passes to close to a Russian submarine hanging around, unnoticed to report on any new developments.  The sonar man aboard the V. K. Konovalov picks up a noise.  When he reports the noise to the captain, Ramius's former pupil Tupolev, he orders that the ship run on a fraction of its power to let the United States ships drift up to them.  When the subs get closer Tupolev orders the engineers to increase power, this is picked up by the USS Pogy who was traveling ahead to check that every thing was all clear.  Pogy sends a danger signal back to the USS Dallas and the Red October.  However, the V. K. Konovalov is now close enough to the Red October to pick up her Russian characteristics and determines that the Red October is not on the bottom of the ocean.  Tupolev is advised by the political officer to surface and send word to Moscow, but Tupolev doesn't want to let Ramius get away, so he launches two missiles at the Red October.  The officers have time to react, and they turn the ship so that it is facing the missiles and thus presents a smaller target.  The first missile misses low, but the second hits just forward of the control room, and explodes.  After the impact the Red October was hidden in a mask of bubbles, but it was not dead.  The V. K. Konovalov expected her to move north under the Pogy's diversionary pinging, but Ramius was staying put to allow the Konovalov to rift past so the Red October could follow in her blind spot.  Once Tupolev figured out what Ramius was up to he swung around and launched a torpedo at the Red October.  Jones reported the distance of the 'fish' to the Red October, but Ramius insisted on hearing only the distance to the Konovalov.  He ordered a full speed ahead, directly at the Soviet submarine.  On missile submarines the torpedoes can not arm themselves until they are five hundred to a thousand yards away from the boat that launched them to prevent them from blowing up their own sub.  Ramius was counting on this; the Red October closed the distance to the V. K. Konovalov and the torpedo struck the submarine harmlessly and fell to the ocean floor.  The Red October then collided with the V. K. Konovalov, the Red October scrapped against the Soviet submarine, rupturing the Konovalov's pressure hull and sending her crumpling to the ocean floor.

Journal- I didn't know how they were going to get out of that; they couldn't fire on a Russian submarine without starting a war, but all of the American vessels involved still have all of their torpedoes and the Konovalov was unable to send a signal of its destruction.