Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October by Boris Gindin, David Hagberg

working, keep trusting in Moscow, everything will work out fine.
    “Hey, Boris, what the hell is going on?” Senior Lieutenant Oleg Sadkov wants to know. He’s the medical doctor and he’s just come up from the dispensary. He’s not much older than Gindin, maybe twenty-six, and is married with one daughter. Sadkov has never had a bad word to say about anyone—officers or enlisted—and everyone likes him because he’s easygoing, open, and honest. Besides that, he’s as skinny as a rail, and with his dark hair and thick mustache he looks like a teenager. No threat to anyone.
    Before Gindin can answer, Senior Lieutenant Dimitry Smirnov comes out of his cabin with a deck of cards in his hand and a big grin on his face. He’s the chief navigator and commander of BCH-1 andnormally keeps to himself, but this evening he’s just as puzzled as the other officers. Sablin’s called the meeting, Smirnov is sure of it, and he’s not going to give the prick the satisfaction of ruining everyone’s holiday.
    Smirnov holds up the deck of cards. “Maybe we’ll have a game and the meeting will turn out okay after all.”
    Eighteen officers, plus the captain, and eleven midshipmen are assigned to the
Storozhevoy,
but including the ones who were on duty at 1900, plus those few on leave, only the captain, eight officers, and four midshipmen are available for the meeting. None of them are happy.
    “That’s okay with me,” Boris says. “But in two weeks I’m going to be home with my family. If that means sitting through a boring political meeting with our
zampolit
and earnestly enjoying what he has to say, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
    Of course nobody can disobey a direct order. Someone could call in sick, but Soviet naval officers do not operate that way. There’s the same sort of discipline in just about every navy. But there’s also the same sort of griping, including the Soviet navy.
    “There’s no reason for this,” Captain Lieutenant Victor Vinokurov mutters half under his breath.
    Gindin is near enough in the now-crowded corridor to hear this remark. “It’s Sablin.”
    “Maybe so, but the captain has to give his approval for all meetings,” says Vinkurov, who is the commander of BCH-2 in charge of artillery. He’s a tall, blond guy, very strict with his officers. He wants to be captain of his own ship one day. “This is a holiday. There’s no urgency. Nothing has happened to cause such a meeting. It makes no sense, I tell you.”
    It makes no sense to Boris, either, but an order is an order, and along with the other officers he heads forward to the midshipmen’s dining hall. It’s one of the largest compartments where the officers can gather on the entire ship. It’s on the port side, toward the bow, and right under the upper deck, on the opposite side of the ship from the
Sekretka,
the Secret Library where officers have to go to check out the classified documents, blueprints, and manuals for the weapons and equipment under their responsibility.
    Once again Gindin is struck by how unnaturally quiet the ship seems. No engine noises, of course, because they are at a mooring, but there are no crewmen running around, making jokes, talking loudly, arguing perhaps. No officers are in their cabins now, the doors open, drinking
spirt
and telling stories or laughing or debating about something or playing chess, which sometimes can be loud.
    Captain Lieutenant Nikolay Proshutinsky, who is in charge of the entire BCH-3 acoustic systems division, storms up the corridor from his cabin. He’s Kuzmin’s boss, and he slaps Sergey on the back.
    “Eb tvoiu mat,”
Proshutinsky says. It’s a uniquely Russian expression, which literally means “fuck your mother,” but it’s never used in that context. Instead, the phrase means that something is screwed up. Almost like the American GI expression
FUBAR
—Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
Eb tvoiu mat,
what the fuck is going on now?
    “I don’t know,