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

The admiral is on a moment later. “Storozhevoy, this is Vice Admiral Kosov speaking. Let me talk to Captain Potulniy.”

“I’m sorry, Admiral, but Captain Potulniy is no longer in command,” Sablin responds. He looks over his shoulder as Seaman Shein comes through the hatch.

“They’re making a lot of noise,” Shein reports. “They want to get out.”

“You haven’t let them out, have you?” Sablin demands. It’s like an electric prod between his shoulder blades.

“No, sir.”

“What are you talking about?” Vice Admiral Kosov shouts. “Put the captain on, immediately! That’s an order!”

“I’m sorry, sir; I cannot do that.”

“Who is this?” Kosov demands.

“Captain Third Rank Valery Sablin, sir. I am temporarily in command of the Storozhevoy.”

“Mutiny?”

“Sir, I have to announce that the Storozhevoy is no longer a part of the Baltic Fleet. This ship is now a free and independent territory, no longer under the authority of the Soviet Union.”

Soloviev, Maksimenko, and Shein are staring at Sablin.

“Now listen to me, mister!” the admiral shouts. “You will stop immediately and drop your anchor. This is a direct order. Do you understand me?”

Sablin hesitates again before he keys the microphone. Until last night and this morning he’s never disobeyed a direct order. He’s preached the Party line his entire career. He has been a good Communist. “Sir, I’m sorry, but I cannot comply with that order.”

“Report your situation, Sablin.”

“Respectfully, sir, I cannot do that, either.”

“You will do as you’re told—”

Sablin keys his mike, stepping over the vice admiral’s transmission. “Sir, since this ship is no longer apart of the Baltic Fleet, I am no longer under your command. I am no longer accountable to you. I have sent my message to the Soviet people, and now it is up to them to respond.”

“Sablin!” Vice Admiral Kosov shouts.

“Storozhevoy, out,” Sablin radios. He replaces the microphone on its bracket and turns off the VHF radio. There will be no further communications.

Soloviev disagrees. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to switch off the radio, sir,” he says.

Sablin looks at him.

“We don’t have to answer. But if someone who wants to help tries to reach us, we should be ready to acknowledge.”

Soloviev is right, of course, and Sablin reaches up and switches the radio on, but he turns down the volume.

47. CHAIN OF COMMAND

Gorshkov is seated at a desk in a small office adjacent to Brezhnev’s conference room, connected by telephone to Vice Admiral Kosov. The transmissions to and from the Storozhevoy have been patched to the telephone circuit. The Fleet Admiral has heard everything.

“It’s definitely mutiny,” Kosov says. “The man must be insane.”

“Da,” Gorshkov replies dourly. This is not like the old days, when his officers obeyed their commands without hesitation. He’s heard that the Soviet navy is trying to learn a lesson from the Americans and British. The Soviet navy is supposed to become the “thinking man’s” navy, whatever that means. It’s a mystery to him, where the time has gone, and he has to wonder if the incident now unfolding aboard the Storozhevoy is a portent of the end of the Soviet regime, just as the mutiny aboard the Potemkin signaled the beginning of the end for the tsars.

“What are your orders, sir?” Kosov wants to know.

Gorshkov thinks that this will be a big responsibility for a mere chief of staff. But in this incident at this moment in time the responsibility will be given to any officer willing to take it. “The order is to hunt for the Storozhevoy and sink him before he reaches Sweden.”

“What about the officers and crew? Surely not all of them have gone along with this insanity. Captain Potulniy is apparently under arrest. And there are others.”

“The mutineers have given up their right to our consideration, and Captain Potulniy should never have allowed his ship to be taken from him. Find the Storozhevoy, Admiral, and kill him. That order comes directly from Secretary Brezhnev.”

Kosov is momentarily taken aback. “He knows?”

“Yes, and in the next few hours half of Moscow will probably know,” Gorshkov says. “Carry out your orders, Admiral. Quickly.”

“Yes, sir,” Kosov replies, and the connection is broken.

Gorshkov puts the phone down. Now that the order has been given he could drive back out to the dacha, return to his apartment on Arbat Street, or go to his office. But if there is to be an assault on the Kremlin, he wants to be here.

For the first time he’d seen genuine fear in the eyes of the Party General Secretary, and it was disquieting. It was like this during what the Americans called the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the fear was in Khrushchev’s eyes. And the reasons were the same: Both men were afraid of making the one mistake that not only would cost them their jobs but also could cost the Soviet system its very existence.