Echo Class (31 page)

“I have multiple small boats leaving the north side of the harbor,” he said.

“Sir, I have lots of noise spikes of small motors coming from the same direction,” Chief Diemchuk announced.

Bocharkov focused the lens with his fingers, concentrating on the boat in the middle. “Looks like a landing craft,” he said slowly, as he shifted the lens onto another boat to the right of the first one. “Second contact bearing zero-two-four appears to be a patrol boat. The hull is too dark to identify, but the fluorescents riding its bow wake show greater speed than the other one.” He leaned back from the periscope and looked at the clock on the bulkhead. It was twenty minutes after two.

“Do you think they have detected us?” Orlov asked.

Bocharkov bit his lip. He nodded. “That is always a possibility, but the destroyers are still tied up ashore and have yet to move.”

 

 

“THERE
it is again, sir!” Oliver shouted.

“We heard it on the speaker,” Stalzer said, patting the petty officer on the shoulder.

Both sonar technicians looked at the captain.

“What do you think?” he asked Burkeet.

Every head turned to the ASW officer.

“I agree with the chief and Petty Officer Oliver, sir. It sounds like a periscope.”

“Could be outside,” Burnham said.

Stalzer shook his head. “It would be the first time I've heard a periscope rise from this distance. It would be near impossible for us to hear a periscope rise if it was even at the edge of Subic Bay.”

“The bearing goes through Subic Bay and out to sea,” Burnham argued.

“This one isn't out in Subic Bay. It's in the harbor.”

Everyone looked at Stalzer.

“I know, I know,” Stalzer said. “I don't believe I said it either. It's impossible. A Soviet submarine is inside an American-controlled harbor? It is as dumb as an American submarine . . .”

Everyone stopped.

MacDonald stepped outside Sonar and hurried to the nearest telephone.

“Where's he going?” Burnham asked.

“Probably to call the admiral,” Joe Tucker said as he pushed past Burnham to follow MacDonald. At the curtain, he turned. “Lieutenant Burkeet, keep recording the noises. We'll need them later.”

“Aye, sir.”

MacDonald was at his chair in Combat. Nearby, hanging on makeshift hooks along the edge of an electronics bay, were several metal-covered logbooks. He grabbed one labeled “Olongapo,” flipped over the metal cover, and started rifling through the messages.

“What you looking for, sir?” Joe Tucker asked as he stepped up.

“The telephone number of the
Coghlan.
”

“The
Coghlan
?”

“I would estimate he's nearly a half mile from us.” His finger traced the numbers downward until he found what he wanted. “Ah! Here it is.” He quickly dialed the number. “If we have a Soviet submarine inside the harbor area, then a half-mile separation will be sufficient for us to get a location on it.”

As the phone rang, he turned to Joe Tucker. “If this Ron Kennedy can get his sonar team up and tracking this noise, then we'll know real fast if it is an anomaly or if we have an intruder in the harbor.”

A sleepy voice answered the other end. It was not sleepy when MacDonald explained to his fellow skipper what he wanted. When he hung up, he turned to Joe Tucker. “Now I'll call the admiral.” He sighed.

“You know Green will be over here in minutes,” Joe Tucker warned.

MacDonald nodded, his finger misdialing the second number. He hit the disconnect and redialed. He knew he was doing the right thing, but even doing the right thing could make you the butt of jokes for decades to come.

 

 

GROMEKO
knew he was falling farther behind the three men ahead. He no longer could make them out, so now as he pulled the weight of Zosimoff along, he glanced at the wrist compass every few seconds to stay on course. The submarine should be at periscope depth and as low as he was swimming; he would run right into it—unless it had left.

Something bumped him on the left side, knocking him to the right and causing him to lose his grip on Zosimoff. Without thinking, he quickly reached back, luckily grabbed the sleeve of the dungaree shirt, and pulled the body back to him. What in the hell was that?

He looked right and left, treading water for a few moments, then attributed it to more flotsam in the heavily polluted waters of the harbor. He started swimming again, kicking harder, trying to make up for time he was losing. If he arrived at the K-122 after—

He was hit again. This time his hand trailed along the side of the thing that hit him. It took several seconds for it to pass. Shark! He had been a diver long enough to know. The blood from Malenkov and from Zosimoff had led it, or them, to him. He kept swimming.

Sharks circled their prey before dashing forward. They glided up, rubbing their skins, which were one continuous work of taste sensors, against their prey to determine if it was edible. Then they attacked, ripping and tearing their prey to threads with teeth honed by evolution since the age of dinosaurs. Gromeko had just been rubbed.

He stopped. The water was murky and he would hardly see the shark if it attacked. He pulled the knife from his ankle scabbard. And he waited. He allowed Zosimoff to drift downward slightly to give him room for the attack. The sound of his speeding heart filled his ears. To die as shark bait this far from home doing a mission in enemy waters—where was the irony of that?

Suddenly Zosimoff was jerked from his grip. The last he saw of the body was the waving hair as it disappeared downward. Without waiting, he turned and continued swimming toward the submarine. He picked up speed without carrying the body, but somewhere behind him was a big shark, and he did not know if Zosimoff would sate its appetite.

 

 

“SOMETHING
is happening,” Bocharkov said.

Ignatova stepped into the control room. “It's nearly two thirty,” he said. “Thirty minutes before they are due back.”

Bocharkov nodded. “Prepare for an emergency exit, Lieutenant Commander Orlov.” He turned to Ignatova. “Return to the forward torpedo room, XO. As soon as they are on board we are going to head out. Too much activity topside for me.”

“Do you think they know we are here?”

Bocharkov bit his lower lip. “Don't know. All I can do is watch the destroyers now. With only small boats surfing across the harbor, the worst they can do is accidentally run into the periscope.”

“Maybe the Spetsnaz team has been discovered,” Tverdokhleb said, seated at the navigation table, one leg over the arm of the chair and his left hand drumming a cigarette on the table.

Bocharkov and Ignatova looked at the taciturn navigator.

Tverdokhleb shrugged. “If they have run into resistance and managed to escape, maybe the Americans saw them jump into the harbor. Maybe that is why we are seeing hundreds of boats scattering across the water.” He shrugged again. “Just thinking out loud.”

“Hundreds of boats?” Orlov asked.

Bocharkov shook his head. “Tens of boats is more accurate, but our esteemed navigator may have a point.” He turned back to the periscope. “Run up the radio antenna and get the communications officer up here immediately.”

 

 

THE
telephone rang. MacDonald picked it up. While they waited for the
Coghlan
's sonar team to man their position, he had moved the telephone outside of the
Dale
sonar compartment.

“
Dale
speaking,” he answered. He acknowledged the voice on the other end and then hung up. “Admiral Green is on his way over.”

“I hate it when I'm right,” Joe Tucker mumbled.

The telephone rang again. This time it was the lead sonar technician on the
Coghlan
. MacDonald handed the telephone to Stalzer. What would happen now would be that the
Coghlan
and
Dale
operators would focus on the same noise, each take a line of bearing on the signal, and then draw the lines outward until they crossed. Where they crossed would reveal the location of this mysterious signal that everyone seemed hell-bent on identifying as a Soviet Echo class submarine.

The officers stepped out of the sonar compartment to give Stalzer and Oliver room to work.

“I can't believe the Soviets would be this dumb,” Burnham said, his voice trailing off as everyone looked toward him.

“I think he is outside the harbor. Inside, he is too close for his cruise missiles,” Joe Tucker said.

“Probably related to the expected attacks later today,” MacDonald offered.

“What attacks?” Burnham asked sharply. “In Vietnam?”

MacDonald shook his head. “Not now, Ops. Later.” Only one thing made sense to MacDonald. If this submarine was inside the harbor, it was spying. It was reconnoitering the Americans, gaining intelligence for when the two largest fleets in the world would fight for dominance of the seas. From some of his own intelligence-gathering missions just outside the twelve-mile national water limits, he knew exactly what this submarine was doing if they were “dumb” enough to be inside the harbor. Neither navy doubted that someday they would have that showdown. What if this was it?

“Most likely a sound propagation anomaly,” Joe Tucker said, his eyebrows furrowed.

Stalzer leaned into Combat, straddling the doorway. He held his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. “
Coghlan
is turning up its gear, sir,” he said to Burkeet. “It'll be another five minutes before they're ready.”

MacDonald looked at the clock on the aft bulkhead of Combat. It was two thirty in the morning. It was going to be a long day for him. He tried to recall when he'd last had eight hours' sleep in a row.

“Why would they be out there, Captain?” Burkeet asked MacDonald.

MacDonald pinched his nose. It had been a long time, probably before they departed Pearl Harbor on the first leg of their deployment from San Diego.

“They've been trailing the
Kitty Hawk
battle group since we left Japanese waters,” Joe Tucker answered. “They're waiting for us to come out. I hate to think what it would mean if we have one sitting a few thousand yards from us.”

“Could be,” MacDonald added. “You never know with Mad Ivan what he is up to, but I doubt seriously he'd attack us inside the harbor.”

“Why, sir?”

“Well, Lieutenant Burkeet, remember Pearl Harbor?”

The ASW officer nodded.

“We are still looking at photographs and movies of the event. Even today we recoil from what happened on December 7. Have you ever read about the Battle of the Aleutians or the Battle of the Solomons?”

“I studied them at the Academy,” Burkeet answered.

“Those two battles were at sea. Sea battles are more palatable to the world than those that rage ashore like Pearl Harbor. At sea, when the battle is over, the ocean covers the battlefield, and peace reigns from horizon to horizon.” He paused. “That's why I don't think this is a hostile act in terms of blood, guts, and gunpowder.”

MacDonald glanced up as Boatswain Mate Second Class Manny Lowe stepped through the opened watertight hatch.

“Sir, the officer of the deck sends his respects and sent me to find you.”

“You found me, Petty Officer Lowe. What is it?”

“Sir, Subic Operations Center has issued a report of intruders near the warehouses. Apparently there has been gunfire and some marines are either dead or wounded or both. They think the intruders escaped into the harbor . . .”

A shiver went up MacDonald's spine. He didn't need the
Coghlan
's line of bearing, for he knew in his gut the Echo was sitting in the harbor out there. What in the hell were the Soviets trying to prove? A surge of anger welled up inside of him.

“. . . and they are asking all ships to be alert for swimmers.”

No one spoke for a moment, then Joe Tucker asked, “Any more information than that?”

Lowe shook his head. “No, sir. But I remember when I was here last year, the Filipinos had been slipping inside the fence and breaking into things, stealing stuff. Could be they're just getting more brazen, sir. Maybe this time they brought guns with them.”

“Dumb if they did,” Burnham said. “The Filipino police will have them dead and buried by morning if they catch them.”

“Ops,” MacDonald said. “Bring the ship to general quarters.”

“GQ?” Joe Tucker asked.

General quarters was the naval term for bringing a ship from peacetime sailing to battle status, ready to fight and defend itself. It was not something done in port—except too late in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

 

 

GROMEKO
swam, fighting the fear in his mind. Sharks were the scourge of sailors and others whose profession took them into the ocean. In the dark waters of Subic Bay, imagination fed fear, and fear was more a killer of men than sharks. This he knew.

Most times sharks and sailors kept a watchful and respectful eye on each other, but not this time. He could barely see his hands in front of him because of the murkiness of Subic Bay. Fear could eat up the oxygen in a diver's tank in seconds instead of minutes. He counted his breathing rhythm, forcing his mind to concentrate elsewhere. Gromeko told himself there was little he could do if the shark returned. But he kept the knife in his hand as he swam.

With Zosimoff gone, the trail of blood was gone also. Maybe the shark was full now. Maybe the shark had lost him, but he knew if it wanted him it would return. The eyesight of a shark isn't what takes it to its prey. It is the smell riding the currents, or the out-of-synch vibration created by a human in the water, or a combination of both.