Echo Class (13 page)

“Sir?” Burnham asked from in front of him, where he was gathering the data for the message.

“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.” Around him the instincts of a well-trained warship took over. He felt the ship shift course slightly, knowing few others would have detected the movement, but over ten years at sea had given him nautical insight most would never realize and no one could ever explain except to other sailors.

 

 

THE
K-122 broke surface. The bow shot upward a few feet before splashing down on the ocean, sending sprays of water upward ten meters or more. The rest of the light gray boat moved quickly forward.

The conning tower hatch clanged on the metal deck of the boat, with a starshina scrambling through the narrow opening onto the bridge, the young sailor never pausing as he hurried up the ladder to his watch station. The second man through the hatch was Bocharkov. His thin frame made his life within the strict confines of the K-122 better than most.

Bocharkov looked at the K-56 off his starboard side about three hundred meters. He lifted the cover of the sound tube. “Control room, this is the skipper. Right ten-degree rudder, speed two knots.”

The speed quickly fell off as the engineering room responded to the command. Since the skipper of the K-56 was senior to Bocharkov, the Echo II submarine would maintain course and speed as the Echo I K-122 maneuvered closer.

The whistle of the tube drew Bocharkov's attention. “Captain here,” he answered.

“Sir, Sonar reports the American warship slowed his speed then increased it again.”

That could mean many things, he thought. “Line of bearing?”

“Zero-three-five, Captain.”

“Signal strength?”

“Remaining about the same right now, sir.”

He flipped the tube shut. The American warship was looking for him. He'd do the same if the roles were reversed.

“Sir, K-56 signals for one of us to turn off his surface search radar. They are interfering with each other.”

“Turn ours off.”

On the deck of the K-56, three sailors had inflated a small yellow rubber raft and were easing over the side of the submarine. Watching the sailors was an officer dressed in the darker uniform of a Spetsnaz.

Bocharkov lifted the tube covering. “Rudders amidships!”

From the control room came the answering acknowledgment. Bocharkov glanced aft and watched for several seconds, until he saw the change in the direction of the wake. Then he looked at the K-56. They were about one hundred meters apart. The wind against the sail of the K-56 and the wave action would push the other boat toward them, closing the gap, but he estimated they had nearly half an hour before he would have to maneuver to open distance again. In a half hour, he expected to be gone, back beneath the waves of the ocean where the world of the submariner operated.

“Control room, Skipper. Keep just enough revolutions on the shaft to keep us steady. I want to be under way without making way.”

“Aye, sir,” came the acknowledgment from below.

“And get our embarkation party topside. The K-56 nearly has its boat in the water and we don't have our sailors topside!”

As if responding to Bocharkov's command, sailors poured up through the aft escape hatch. He lifted his binoculars again and focused on the Spetsnaz. Maybe all submarines had the Special Forces on them now. Maybe they had special orders to protect against a defection or, worse, a Soviet commander who decided the time to fight the Americans was on his mission. Many, such as him, knew it was only a matter of time before the growing strength of the Soviet Navy rivaled, then passed the world giant. Giants did not appreciate being surpassed.

“Captain Bocharkov!” a bullhorn called from across the gap.

He dropped the binoculars, squinted as he raised his hands to shield his eyes, and looked at the conning tower of the other boat. He smiled when he recognized his comrade from Grechko Naval Academy and now neighbor in Kamchatka.

Captain Second Rank Fedor Gerasimovich stood on the bridge of the K-56. Gerasimovich raised his hand and waved when he saw Bocharkov looking in his direction.

Bocharkov waved before leaning down to the tube. “Have someone bring me the bullhorn.” He looked over at Gerasimovich and raised his hand with his index finger extended.

“I understand, comrade. While you wait for your bullhorn, let me introduce Lieutenant Dolinski—Uri Dolinski.”

The Spetsnaz officer on the main deck dropped his hands, came to attention, and saluted Bocharkov. Bocharkov returned the salute.

“He is transferring from me to you, my friend. He is the technical expert assigned for this strange mission no one will tell me about.” The bullhorn squeaked like fingers down a chalkboard, causing everyone to wince. A couple of the sailors covered their ears.

From the hatch came Ignatova, a bullhorn tucked under his arm.

Bocharkov took it from him. “Any more news on the contact?”

Ignatova shook his head as he stood. “Same strength as passed along earlier, Captain. EW reports no radar of electronic intelligence contacts.”

Electronic intelligence was the new buzzword of the fleet. Taken from the American publication
Proceedings
, it had quickly spread throughout the Soviet Navy. As much as they knew the Americans were the enemy, there was also a slight tinge of envy over their navy.

Envy of their strength, and their ability to sail anywhere in the world on a moment's notice, to have such allies who offered port facilities anywhere in the world.

“What's that?” Ignatova asked, nodding at the K-56.

From the bridge on the conning tower of the K-56, metal waterproof boxes were being handed down the narrow ladder from sailor to sailor. When the first one reached the deck, the sailors there set it at the feet of the Spetsnaz, who pulled a small notebook from his back pocket and checked something in it against the writing on the box.

“The Spetsnaz is Lieutenant Uri Dolinski. He is transferring from the K-56—”

“I am also transferring equipment you will need for your mission, Comrade Captain!” The bullhorn voice from the K-56 interrupted. “Only about seven thousand tons of it,” Gerasimovich said, jokingly. “No, no, not that much, just five boxes. Should not be enough to change the trim of the K-122.”

Bocharkov lifted the bullhorn. “Fedor, it is good to see you, comrade. I trust you have had a good voyage, and when you return to Kamchatka, please tell my wife and the wives of the other crew members of the K-122 that we are all well and are looking forward to our return.”

“I will do that.” Gerasimovich dropped the bullhorn, leaned over the bridge, and said something to Dolinski. The Spetsnaz officer saluted the captain second rank and then said something to the sailors. Soon the working party were moving the five boxes toward the deployed inflatable raft.

“I think the American is coming this way,” Bocharkov said softly to Ignatova.

Ignatova glanced at him. “Sonar seems to think he is searching the area where we were sighted by the American reconnaissance aircraft, Captain.”

Bocharkov nodded. “If the American captain is a novice, then that is what he is doing. If not, then he is headed this way.”

“We will detect his radar before he detects us.”

The Spetsnaz officer slid into the raft, where four sailors had already taken position. The boxes were carefully transferred from the main deck to the raft.

Bocharkov grunted. He glanced down at the bullhorn to make sure it was off. “How long have we had the American warship on sonar?”

“Nearly an hour.”

“And has the bearing shifted significantly? One moment it is zero-four-zero, then the next a few degrees more, and now we have it bearing zero-three-five.”

“But we detected it when it was moving at such a speed it could not possibly have detected our noise.”

Bocharkov turned and studied Ignatova's face for moment, hoping his XO was joking, which would have been out of context for the serious officer. He believed those without humor lacked the intellectual flexibility to examine different perspectives of a complex situation. But then, of course, he was the captain and he could believe anything he wanted while on board the K-122, because whatever the captain believed became gospel for the crew. He sighed. With the exception of the
zampolit
. Party-political officers always believed everyone but themselves was bordering on a traitorous act.

The rubber raft pushed away from K-56; the
put-put
sound of the small engine rode the wind toward the K-122. The wave action was picking up a little, Bocharkov realized. Yesterday, when they were conducting the missile firing exercise, the waves barely lapped the sides. Now not even the faint wake behind the raft was discernible.

“It could have detected us before it increased speed, XO. It could have been following us without us knowing it, then for some reason increased speed, giving us an opportunity to know it was there.”

“You are probably right, Captain,” Ignatova responded, as he should to Bocharkov's statement.

“But you do not believe that idea, do you?” Before Ignatova could answer, Bocharkov set the bullhorn down on the deck and raised his binoculars to focus on the small raft headed his way. “There are many reasons ships at sea have to increase speed. Everything from avoiding other ships in the area to zooming after a contact so it can have better signal strength.”

“Aye, Captain, you are probably right, but if I may offer a counterargument.”

“You may.”

“Maybe we picked up the warship as it was speeding to our last known location and slowing down when it reached it.”

“Then we would have a spectacular sonar, XO. We would have picked up the warship over a hundred kilometers from here.”

He dropped his binoculars and leaned over the aft portion of the bridge where the raft was making its approach.

“XO, after we are submerged, I want to meet with our Spetsnaz officers. I think there is more here than they are telling us.”

“They are Spetsnaz, sir. There is always more to whatever they are doing than they tell those who do not wear the black. Fact is, I don't think they like telling each other what they are doing. One-way trips are their fantasy.”

Bocharkov shook his head. “Hope you are wrong, Vladmiri. If it is a one-way trip, inside Subic Bay is not where they would want it to end.”

Chief Starshina Trush, his face hidden by the heavy Cossack beard and hair, was shouting at the sailors on the stern, giving orders about casting lines. Before one of the sailors could toss a line to the raft, the chief had jerked it away and tossed it underhanded to one of the sailors on the raft. A few seconds later the raft was tight against the hull and the sailors were awkwardly moving the heavy boxes on board, to the profanity of Chief Starshina Trush.

Bocharkov grunted. “Get the lieutenant and his boxes aboard and down below. I want to get off the surface as soon as possible, XO. I dislike intensely being on the surface in daylight.”

 

 

“CONTACT
bearing three three five relative,” cried the sound-powered phone talker on the bridge. On board ships there were two types of bearings. One was the normal compass bearing based on true north; the other was the relative bearing, which considered the bow as always pointing zero-zero-zero.

MacDonald stepped quickly into the bridge even as he looked toward the bow. “Who, where?” he shouted.

“Topside signal bridge watch reports two low contacts in the water off our port bow, Skipper.”

MacDonald grabbed his binoculars. “Make sure Combat knows,” he ordered, jerking his finger at Goldstein as he stepped back onto the port bridge wing.

“They know.”

Dale
had them
, he told himself. Dead ahead practically. Two Soviet submarines. Had to be them. Nothing else in this direction.
Oliver, I could kiss you, you ugly sonarman son of a bitch. Just let them be our Echos.
Of course, they could be fishing vessels out of the Philippines.

“They know, sir,” Goldstein repeated quietly to the hatchway.

“Very well, Sam. Tell them to keep piping up the contact information.”

MacDonald lifted the glasses, focusing them as he scanned the horizon. There was nothing there. Where were the low-riders? He could not see anything, but then the signal bridge was another twenty to twenty-five feet higher. They had a higher height-of-eye. It also meant the
Dale
had to be about fifteen nautical miles from the contacts.
Let them be our Soviet submarines.
Only on the ocean could one truly tell the earth was round, and no matter where you sailed, the horizon was always fifteen nautical miles away.

He let out a deep breath. Decisions, decisions, decisions. What he decided now would determine how
Dale
would chase these submarines once they spotted him and submerged. Submerging was a given. Submarines fought submerged, and once spotted, both would blow their ballasts—Sonar would hear them doing that—and they would drop like rocks into the abyss below. If warriors of the sea could earn points for “gotchas,” then
Dale
would earn a bunch. . . .

What the hell are you doing?
he asked himself.
You're acting like some junior officer about to lose his virginity after a long night of heavy dancing. Stop it, Danny,
he told himself.
This is just one more antisubmarine warfare operation and regardless of whether the contacts are fishing vessels or Soviet Echo submarines,
Dale
will follow protocol. Lord, just let them be those Soviet sons of bitches.

The XO, Joe Tucker, stepped onto the bridge wing. MacDonald lowered his glasses for a second.