Chapter Twelve

Brief Summary-  The USS Dallas has been tracking the Red October for twenty-four hours with no counter detection.  The Dallas is following the mysterious Russian in its blind spot, the immediate back of the submarine which cannot use sonar to detect anything in this area.  About every two hours the Red October undergoes a Russian maneuver known as the Crazy Ivan,  when a submarine undergoes a complete turn to check for any submarines in its blind spot.   To counter it the USS Dallas must cut all power and drift without steering at the Russian sub, and risk collision, which has happened before.

After a successful counter maneuver, the USS Dallas sends a message to the COMSUBLANT Operations informing them of the Dallas's success thus far.  COMSUBLANT Operations them radios to the US Invincible of the Red Octobers position, and Ryan and the sub begging moving toward her location.

Journal-  I'm really getting exited about when Ryan catches up to the Red October.  I don't know how they're going to communicate without the crew finding out, or how they're going to get the crew off the submarine without them finding out that the officers are defecting.  I think the sinking of the E. S. Politovskiy would give Ryan the idea to tell the officers on board the Red October to fake a reactor problem.  After that the United States could 'save' the crew.  However, I'm not sure what they're going to do about the submarine after that, except blow up the USS Ethan Allan, pretending it is the Red October.