Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt for Red October

The other two are hurriedly powering up the electronic equipment, including the vital navigation radar they’ll need to get under way.

“Downriver, out to the gulf.”

“Yes, sir,” the young crewman replies. “But first we’ll need someone on the bow to take in our mooring line and untie it.”

Sablin figures that will take too much time. Someone from one of the other ships is bound to notice something funny going on, and the alarm will be sounded. He makes another decision and turns to the guards.

“Find an ax, get out to the bow, and cut our mooring line. Be sharp about it.”

“Yes, sir,” the two men chorus, and they disappear again down the stairs.

34. BETRAYAL

The first thought that comes to Gindin’s mind when he feels the vibration in the deck, which means the engines have started, is disbelief. This cannot be happening. The engines were never supposed to be started without a gas turbine officer physically present. Those were standing orders that everyone understood. Besides, a thousand things could go wrong that ordinary enlisted men wouldn’t know how to deal with.

The second thought that comes to Gindin’s mind is betrayal. He’s given his men the best of everything within his power as a Soviet navy senior lieutenant. He’s covered for them with the captain. He’s given them extra privileges. He’s seen to it that they could take their leaves ahead of just about everyone else aboard ship. Sometimes he’s been tough on them but never unfair. Never that.

Now they have betrayed him, by taking up arms with the zampolit and starting the engines.

Everyone else in the sonar compartment has felt and heard that the engines have started, and they all shoot Gindin dirty looks, as if he is to blame for this latest development.

He wants to tell them that he was just doing his duty, teaching his men their jobs. But he holds his tongue, sick to death at what this means. Sablin will try to get out of here tonight. Something has gone wrong, and very likely they all are facing a death sentence.

Captain Lieutenant Proshutinsky gives Gindin a baleful look. “Boris, perhaps you have trained your men too well.”

PART 5 THE SWORD AND SHIELD

THE KGB

Our society is infected. The Party apparatus of the government and the highest most successful levels of the intelligentsia are profoundly indifferent to violations of human rights, the interest of progress, the security and future of mankind.

ANDHEY SAKHAHOV’S LETTER TO PREMIER BREZHNEV

It is very important to defend those who suffer because of their nonviolent struggle for an open society, for justice for other people whose rights are violated. It is our duty and yours to fight for them. I think that a lot depends on this struggle—trust between the peoples, confidence in lofty promises, and, in the final analysis, international security.

ANDREY SAKHAROV’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER

It is necessary to defend the victims of political repression, within a country and internationally, using diplomatic meansand energetic public pressure, including boycotts. It is also necessary to support the demand for amnesty for all prisoners of conscience, all those who have spoken out for openness and justice without using violence. The abolition of the death penalty and the unconditional banning of torture and the use of psychiatry for political purposes are also necessary.

ANDHEY SAKHAHOV