Echo Class (33 page)

“Shift colors, under way!” the boatswain mate of the watch whistled through the 1MC speaker system.

“Rudder's amidships! All back one third!”

The
Dale
sped backward, clearing the cruiser. MacDonald raised his binoculars in the darkness and scanned the waters behind the destroyer. “All watches report!”

Inside the bridge he heard the contacts coming in from the topside watches.

“Tell them to search my stern, make sure we don't have anyone out there.”

The admiral stepped inside the bridge and walked over to the boatswain mate of the watch. “Okay, Boats, where do you hide the coffee here?”

 

 

“SIR,
I believe one of the ships is under way,” Tverdokhleb said.

“Which one?”

“Captain, I'm not even sure I heard it correctly.”

“It is not the
David
. It is the USS
Dale
,” Uvarova said from where he stood between the planesman and the helmsman. “It is the destroyer.”

“It is the same one that tracked us last week,” Orlov added. “Sonar has it on passive sonar.”

“Officer of the Deck, what is the status in the forward torpedo room?”

Orlov lifted the handset from its cradle and relayed the question to the XO. Ignatova's reply was easily heard by Bocharkov. “We are draining the escape hatch for the first one.”

 

 

GROMEKO
touched the deck of the submarine. The hatch was open. Dolinski and Fedulova were helping Malenkov into the narrow confines. Fedulova held the tank while Dolinski guided the wounded man into the hatch. No one looked toward Gromeko. When Malenkov's head disappeared, Dolinski pushed the tank inside with him and closed the hatch. Fedulova spun the wheel to secure it.

 

 

“HATCH
is sealed, XO!” Chief Starshina Diemchuk said.

“Commence draining.”

A full minute passed before the light changed from red to green. Diemchuk reached up and spun the wheel. The hatch opened and residual water spilled into the submarine. Malenkov fell the six feet to the deck, groaning as he rolled over.

Diemchuk bent over the sailor. “He's wounded, sir.” Diemchuk held up a hand covered in blood.

“Get the others inside!”

Diemchuk shoved the watertight hatch shut and spun the wheel. He pulled the hydraulic lever. The light quickly turned red as water began to fill the escape tunnel. Topside, the Spetsnaz had no signal to tell when they could open the hatch. They used their watches to estimate when it was time, then they would spin the wheel. If the escape tube was not full, the topside watertight hatch would not open.

Ignatova grabbed the nearby handset. “Doctor to forward torpedo room on the double,” he broadcast through the boat. He had no sooner hung up than the intercom connecting the control room to the forward torpedo room buzzed. He wasted no time in telling Bocharkov that Malenkov was wounded.

Three minutes later, Dolinski dropped to the deck. Malenkov was being helped onto a stretcher.

“What happened out there?” Ignatova asked.

Dolinski ignored the XO's question as he watched the corpsman and another medical person lift the stretcher and carry Malenkov out of the forward torpedo room. He looked at Diemchuk. “Is he still alive?”

“He is.”

“I asked, what happened out there?”

“Captain Second Rank Ignatova, may we get the others inside before we start our debriefing? We do not have much time.”

The next through the hatch was Chief Starshina Fedulova. Gromeko was the last to drop to the deck. As he did, Diemchuk closed the hatch.

“Where is Zosimoff?” Fedulova asked Gromeko.

Gromeko pulled his face mask off. “A shark got him.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Dolinski said, “I told you we should have left him back there.”

“We never leave our wounded or dead behind,” Fedulova said, staring hard at Gromeko.

“It's better than deciding halfway here to let him go,” Dolinski said.

Still breathing hard, Gromeko sprang toward the GRU Spetsnaz. “I did not let him go. A shark grabbed him away from me.”

Dolinski sneered. “It is a story that I may have used also, if I thought others would think less of me.”

The punch caught Dolinski on the left side of the chin, sending the officer forward into the torpedo tubes. The GRU Spetsnaz officer spun away and came up with his knife.

“Stop it! Stop it, immediately,” Ignatova commanded, stepping between the two officers. He pointed at Dolinski. “You! Get out of here and report to Medical.” He looked at Fedulova. “Go with the lieutenant and have him checked out by the doctor. Call me with a status report on Malenkov.”

The intercom buzzed. Diemchuk grabbed the handset, his eyes wide as they spun between the two lieutenants. “Forward torpedo room,” he answered.

Dolinski put his knife back in the scabbard. “We will meet again, Lieutenant.” Then he walked toward the hatch, his shoulder nudging Gromeko as he passed. At the hatch, he turned. “If I had said I was going to bring one of the men's bodies back, I would have. I would not have lost my nerve and—”

“I said, that's enough!” Ignatova commanded, stretching his palm out. “Go.” He looked at Fedulova. “You are to stay with Lieutenant Dolinksi.”

“I don't need a babysitter, Captain Second Rank Ignatova.”

“And I don't need someone running around my boat seeking revenge. We'll discuss this later when tempers are cooler.”

“Sir,” Diemchuk interrupted. “The captain wants to know—”

“Tell him everyone is on board. Tell him I am on my way to the control room.”

 

 

WHEN
the bridge wing of the
Dale
neared level with the bridge of the cruiser, MacDonald leaned in. “Right five-degree rudder, steady on course one-seven-zero.” He glanced at the navigator. “Lieutenant Van Ness, what's my depth on this course?”

“Sir, you have a hundred fifty fathoms as long as you stay on this course. To your left are the mud flats. Depth drops rapidly to ten fathoms.” One fathom was the equivalent of six feet or 1.83 meters.

“Coming to course one-seven-zero, speed one knot,” the helmsman replied as he spun the wheel. The compass in front of him spun slowly as the
Dale
crept away from the pier.

Unseen from the bridge, the sound-powered talker on the stern of the
Dale
walked across to the port side and watched the distance close slightly between the destroyer and the cruiser as the
Dale
moved forward. He had pushed the talk button and opened his mouth to warn the bridge, when through narrowed eyes he realized inches were growing between the
Dale
and the starboard side of the cruiser.

The sailor released the “push to talk” button. An explosive release of air escaped as he hurried over to where the port side of the
Dale
curved into the aft end.

The two ships were less than eight feet from each other as the sailor watched the separation increase. Looking up, he saw the cruiser's topside watch looking down at him. They both waved, and then the sailor on the cruiser disappeared. Looking around and seeing no one watching, the
Dale
sailor nervously shook a cigarette out and lit it.

He had let out his first puff when three blasts of the horn came from farther down the line of ships moored pierside. Another destroyer was backing away from the dock. He reported the observation to the bridge.

“Sir, aft watch reports
Coghlan
under way.”

“Very well,” MacDonald answered, stepping briskly to the 12MC and pushing the button to Combat. “Combat, this is the captain.
Coghlan
is under way. Have her take station three hundred yards on my starboard side and steady up on course one-seven-zero, speed two knots.”

“Two knots?” Lieutenant Goldstein asked.

MacDonald nodded. “Bring revolutions up to make speed two knots, Officer of the Deck.” He looked at the clock. It was five minutes past three.

“Aye, sir.”

Green walked over to MacDonald, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. “Seems to me you ought to light off your active sonar, Danny.”

“Sir, we have to get permission from Base Operations—”

“Then it seems to me you're wasting time. Give them a call. It'll take them a few minutes to alert the ships so we don't blow up anyone shifting munitions or lose the ears of a few sonar technicians who might be doing their own preventive maintenance at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.”

BOCHARKOV
spun the periscope aft, quickly focusing the lens. He could see the running lights of the destroyer. It was definitely under way—disconnected from the pier and backing away, five hundred meters away. He leaned back from the lens, his hands never leaving the handles. “Bring the boat to course two-seven-zero degrees, speed four knots.”

“Sir, another warship is under way. I hear bridge-to-bridge communications between tugboats and a ship called the . . . I think, the
Coughing
,” Tverdokhleb said.

“That would be the USS
Coghlan
,” Orlov corrected. “It has a Kennedy as the skipper.”

Bocharkov nodded as he listened to his earlier orders filter to the helmsman.

“He's the one we were briefed on before we departed Kamchatka,” Orlov added.

Bocharkov acknowledged the comment, but he also knew this Kennedy was not a Massachusetts Kennedy. Once intelligence discovered no relationship, the
Coghlan
had become just one more American warship to track—and to sink—when ordered.

“Steady on course two-seven-zero, speed four knots, sir,” Orlov reported in a calm, low voice.

“Sir, I should return to my post,” Tverdokhleb said. “There are shoal waters we must avoid.”

Bocharkov agreed. He wanted to vacate Subic Bay as soon as possible. A hundred meters of depth was enough for a submarine to evade an ASW effort in the open ocean, but it was not much when you were enclosed on three sides in a bay.

Tverdokhleb hurried across the control room and slid into the chair at his plotting table. He picked up a ruler, laid it out on the chart, and ran a pencil along it. Bocharkov knew the navigator was laying out a dead reckoning line along course two-seven-zero. Dead reckoning was where the position of a vessel was determined by the time of travel along the course being taken. It was good for short distances and navigating in channels and harbors, but out to sea, over long distances, the ocean currents skewed the position.

“Make a log entry,” Orlov said to the starshina responsible for the log, “for zero three zero five hours, showing K-122 at sixteen meters on course two-seven-zero, speed four knots.”

Bocharkov lifted his forearms off the handles of the periscope for a moment, feeling the tingle as the blood flow increased.

“Officer of the Deck, Navigator! You have two hundred seventy meters beneath the hull,” Tverdokhleb reported.

Bocharkov grunted. He could not go down now. The charts Tverdokhleb was using were out of date, and harbors were notorious for undocumented wrecks.

He lowered his forearms onto the handle again, leaning forward, his eyes on the lens. Right now it was more important to see what the Americans were doing as he maneuvered the K-122 to the open ocean. Once there, no destroyer could catch him.

The two destroyers filled his scope, but their running lights had a right-bearing drift, meaning they were still on their original course, to where the K-122 had been.

He needed no one to confirm the Americans were onto his presence in the harbor. Why hadn't they turned on their active sonar? he asked himself, but he knew the answer even as he asked it.

It was the same for the Soviet Navy. Active sonar was a powerful instrument. To use it in closed waters such as Subic Bay and Olongapo Harbor could cause ammunition to explode. It could seriously damage or destroy sensitive instruments, kill divers, and even burst the eardrums of sailors manning sonar.

He leaned away from the periscope. “Lieutenant Commander Orlov, prepare for the Americans to use active sonar.”

“Inside the harbor?”

Bocharkov let out a deep sigh. “I am sure they will not ask for permission.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Tell me, Lieutenant Commander Orlov, what can we expect the Americans to use if they do fire on us?”

“Sir, you have reported lots of small craft in the harbor. Sonar confirms at least a dozen small boats topside. The only weapon the two American destroyers have at this short distance is their over-the-side torpedoes. And if they fire them, then they run the risk of hitting one of their own small boats.”

Bocharkov mumbled his acknowledgment. “We would not see them preparing to launch unless we saw them manning the topside surface vessel torpedo tubes.”

“And it is still dark topside.” Tverdokhleb snorted with a short laugh. “But in little over an hour, the skies will begin to lighten. Then we can see them clearly if they try.”

Bocharkov started to correct the navigator, but Tverdokhleb was right. He could watch the destroyers now, but he needed more light to see what they were doing topside. And more light meant more opportunity for them to see his periscope.

“Make your speed five knots.”

“Recommend course two-nine-zero in ten minutes. Depth will remain the same, but it will parallel the shoal waters near the United States navy airfield. You may want to stay near the shoal waters, if the Americans intend to use active sonar.”