The President of the United States meets with the Soviet ambassador, Alexei Arbatov; he tells him the US knows the Soviet Navy sent a large number of submarines into the Atlantic, and he wants to know why. Arbatov says he must talk to his superiors before he confirms anything. He returns later that day and admits that a Soviet submarine is missing. The president offers the U.S. Navy’s help in the search.

While running his program to analyze the caterpillar drive on a Cray-2 supercomputer at the Pentagon, Skip runs into an old friend. During this visit, he learns about the movement of the Soviet Navy. Putting two and two together, he confronts Greer while delivering the results of his analysis. He believes Ramius is trying to defect, and he knows how they can remove the crew from the submarine and make the Soviets believe Red October was destroyed.

The USS Pogy is an American submarine surveilling three Soviet submarines. One of these, E. S. Politovskiy, has a reactor accident and attempts to surface, but the core melts a hole in the hull, and the submarine sinks. Unbeknownst to the Pogy crew, one man survives.