Chapter Ten

Brief Summary-  Both United States and Soviet ships and aircraft have orders to not engage the other unless fired upon first.  Both take to openly provoking one another with fighter planes flying past the carriers and surface ships of the other.  The Americans drop flares around a Soviet ship a night to inform them that if they had wanted to, they could have sank the Soviet ship.  The Soviets send a fighter plane on a mission through a group of American ships to prove that they can effectively navigate through the lines of the other without being detected.  The Americans do detect this plane and send aircraft of their own out to escort it back to its ship.  This encounter leaves the Russians feeling resentful of the Americans.  A Russian Kingfish fighter and several American Tomcats run into each other and begin to fly around one another with missiles locked on.  This ends with no loss of life.

          One survivor has been found from the E. S. Politovskiy, he is in critical condition and has pneumonia, which could seriously effect his chances of survival.  He is rushed to the Norfolk Naval Medical Center, and put under the care of the best doctors at the hospital.  The President is determined that this man live, if he does it could improve relations between the united States and the Soviet Union.

           At the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the USS Ethan Allen is being prepared for its final mission, and is brought out understaffed.

Journal-  I thought that the United States was going to pretend that the E. S. Politovskiy was the Red October in order to gain her without the Soviets being suspicious.  However, it is starting to seem like the USS Ethan Allan is going to self destruct after evacuating the crew.  For an old submarine to be going out on its last mission, understaffed, after Tyler told Greer that his plan required an old submarine that the United States could do without, they're probably planning to destroy her when the Red October is in the hands of the United States.