49 pages • 1 hour read
Tom ClancyThe Hunt for Red October
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary, “The 11th Day – Monday, 13 December”
An A-10 Thunderbolt, or Warthog, piloted by a member of the Maryland Air National Guard is flying toward the Kirov to issue a warning. The pilot flies low over the Kirov and locks on with his weapon system. The political officer on the Kirov is angry and wants the commander to respond to the American’s actions, but the commander refuses. About the same time, the Dallas locates the submarine with the silent drive system and follows it.
The chief engineer on Red October discovers the source of the reactor leak: a minuscule hole in a water test valve. He repairs it while stressing to Svyadov the brilliance of the saboteur and his hope that the saboteur doesn’t come up with another strategy.
Chapter 12 Summary, “The 12th Day – Tuesday, 14 December”
The Dallas comes to a complete stop as the Soviet submarine in front of it pulls a maneuver called a “Crazy Ivan” (387) and makes a complete turn to check for vessels behind them. The maneuver ends, and the Dallas does not see any indication that the Soviet submarine knows they are there. The Dallas surfaces to send a message to the Commander of the Submarine Force in the Atlantic (COMSUBLANT) that they are still following a Soviet submarine with an unusual propulsion system. This information is sent to the Joint Chiefs, who decide to send both Invincible and Pogy to back up Dallas.
At the same time, members of the Joint Chiefs discuss the reason why the Russians sent both Kiev and Kirov to search for the missing submarine. They deduce that the purpose of these large ships is to distract the American ships until the Soviet submarines can position themselves close to American ports that Red October might be heading for, positioning themselves to destroy the submarine when it reveals itself. They realize they need to find a way to contact Red October to warn her and decide to send Invincible to intercept her course. On Invincible, Ryan, White, and White’s officers discuss a plan to contact Ramius.
Chapter 13 Summary, “The 13th Day – Wednesday, 15 December”
The Soviet submarine in front of Dallas begins to perform another Crazy Ivan, and Mancuso orders a turn that allows the submarine to hear them. Moments later, Jones hears the arrival of a surface ship. It is the Invincible, and its helicopters are dropping sonars attached to cables into the water. With the sonars, the Invincible can hear Red October rising to periscope depth as Dallas also tracks her. The Invincible uses a signal light to send a message to Red October, assuming only Ramius is looking through the periscope. The message warns Ramius that his country’s naval fleet is chasing him and blocked his path with attack submarines. It also tells him to go to specific coordinates. He is asked to send a single ping if he agrees, and he does.
The CIA meets with Senator Donaldson, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and gives him a false story about the missing Soviet submarine, suggesting the real story is that Polish intelligence agents made it appear as though Ramius were attempting to defect in order to spark a war between the Soviet Union and the US. When Donaldson leaves his office, he tells the story to his chief aide, Peter Henderson. Later that night, Henderson is arrested for espionage.
The Red October experiences another reactor leak, so Ramius orders the crew to shut down the reactor and rise to snorkel depth to vent the engine room and continue by relying on the diesel engines. However, the diesel engines are not working either, and the batteries are running low, meaning they will soon be without power and unable to vent the radiation.
Chapter 14 Summary, “The 14th Day – Thursday, 16 December”
Four intelligence officers who are assigned to meet up with the Invincible and contact Red October experience engine trouble on their helicopter and crash just beyond the Invincible’s deck. A rescue attempt pulls just one man from the water, but this man has the orders for their mission. Ryan reads them and contacts Washington, letting his supervisors know what happened and that he will take on the mission himself. Mancuso, on the Dallas, finally learns the truth about Red October and is given details on the plan. At the same time, Red October arrives at the arranged location and receives another message from the submarine rescue ship Pigeon.
Ramius announces that the crew must abandon Red October because it was sabotaged. The Pigeon is carrying a deep-sea rescue vehicle (DSRV), the Mystic, that it uses to transport Ryan and Owen Williams from Invincible to the Red October and begin taking the men off the submarine. Ramius sends the doctor with the first group and Svyadov with the second group. In the meantime, he tells Ryan in English that he and the majority of his officers wish to defect to the US and offer Red October as a gift. The USS Ethan Allen is sitting nearby and is scuttled as a decoy for the destruction of Red October.
As Ramius and Ryan prepare to pilot Red October to Ocracoke Inlet, Ryan hears gunshots. In the missile compartment, he and Ramius find two men who were shot. They manage to find and kill the shooter, but not before Ramius is also shot. Ryan realizes the man was sabotaging a missile, so he demands it be fired out of the submarine.
When Director Jacobs confronts Donaldson for revealing confidential information to Henderson, he agrees to retire from the Senate. The CIA will use Henderson to continue passing false information to the Soviets. The White House expresses hope that the Soviets will buy the fake story.
Chapters 11-14 Analysis
The Americans evaluate the movements of the Soviet Naval Fleet and finally realize that they are attempting to distract the U.S. Navy by placing several large ships in the middle of the Atlantic while sending attack submarines to guard each of the major military ports on the American coast. It is clear now that the Soviets want to destroy Red October rather than allowing it to fall into American hands. For this reason, the Joint Chiefs realize they have to contact Ramius to establish his intentions and to protect him. The US government has proceeded as though Ramius wants to defect, but they don’t know that for sure. If they are wrong and allow Ramius to get too close, they could find themselves under attack. However, if they are right, they must warn Ramius that his own submarines are waiting to destroy him and Red October. The situation is complicated because they cannot simply contact Ramius directly due to the possibility of the other Soviet ships overhearing. They also don’t know who else might be planning to defect, so they can’t reveal the plan to anyone but him. Finally, there’s a language barrier because they do not know if Ramius speaks anything but his native Russian. All of these issues create a difficult situation that must be remedied as quickly as possible.
The Dallas continues to follow behind Red October despite the Soviet submarines’ multiple attempts to find out if someone is behind them. However, no one in authority realizes that Dallas is behind Red October until COMSUBLANT finally alerts the Joint Chiefs to the quiet drive on the submarine Dallas is following. At that moment, a plan is finally decided on and put into motion.
Clancy heightens the tension in Chapter 13 by moving quickly from location to location, allotting barely a paragraph to each location in some cases, in order to show how quickly the action is taking place. It is in this chapter that Ryan first sends a message to Ramius. For the first time, Ramius receives confirmation that his country knows his intentions, and the Soviets are out searching for him. At the same time, Ramius receives a positive reception from the Americans in Ryan’s warning. For almost two weeks, Ramius has steadily headed for the American coast with no certainty of what to expect once he arrives. When he receives Ryan’s warning against his own navy, in addition to instructions to meet up at specific coordinates, Ramius finally knows that the Americans are aware of what he is doing and are willing to help.
After contacting Ramius and learning that his analysis was correct, Ryan is ready to go home and allow the professionals to take over. However, the Joint Chiefs’ plan goes off the rails when the helicopter carrying the four intelligence agents crashes just off the deck of Invincible. Fate seems to be working to force Ryan into a meeting with Ramius, as he was the first to realize Ramius was defecting and is the one who happens to be in the right position to reach out to him through the plan the Joint Chiefs and Tyler designed. Ryan must show his courage despite being a CIA analyst and not a field agent.
Ramius’s ploy to fake a reactor failure comes in handy when he arrives at the coordinates Ryan sent him and finds the Pigeon waiting for them. All his enlisted men and the few officers who were not in on his plan leave the Red October as Ryan and Williams board. Tension increases as the GRU agent who was planted on Red October as a cook attempts to set off a missile in the missile room. Although he is only an analyst, Ryan proves he never forgot his military training by taking out the cook and saving Red October from sabotage. This is Ryan’s heroic moment, one of many he will perform in the many novels in which he appears.
While Ryan is fighting a GRU agent on the Red October, the CIA is planting lies through a traitor who works for a US Senator. The lies in this case plant an idea that Ramius wasn’t behind his own defection but was set up by Polish spies. These lies will aid in the American plan to trick the Soviets into believing Red October was destroyed.
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By Tom Clancy
