Echo Class (43 page)

Chief Stalzer's head appeared again. “He is steadying up on course two-nine-zero and we are starting to see intermittent gaps in the passive signature, sir!” His head disappeared back inside.

“Looks as if he is going deeper.”

“How deep can you go in three hundred feet of water?” MacDonald turned to the sound-powered phone talker. “Ask the navigator the depth ranges coming up.”

“Sir?” the young sailor asked, confused over the question.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Burnham answered from the center of Combat. “We have the charts here, sir. If the contact continues on new course, he is going to be over depths of fifteen hundred feet heading downward to two miles.”

“We'll lose him,” Green said softly.

“Tell Weps to break out the grenades and lay to the bow on the double.” MacDonald did not wait for Burnham to answer. He hurried forward, heading toward the bridge. The navy clock on the forward bulkhead of Combat struck one bell. MacDonald glanced up: zero four thirty hours. It seemed much longer.

 

 

“CAPTAIN
on the bridge,” Ensign Hatfield announced as MacDonald stepped onto the bridge.

“Bring the
Dale
right to course two-nine-zero, increase speed to eight knots.” He wanted more speed, but he needed Sonar to maintain contact on the Echo.

The rings of the annunciator near the helmsman accompanied the order for increased speed. Down in the engineering spaces, the chief engineer saw the request and started shouting out the orders to make it happen.

MacDonald plucked the Navy Red handset from its cradle. “
Coghlan
, this is
Dale
—Charlie Oscar speaking. Is your skipper there?”

Down below in Combat, everyone heard the call over Navy Red. Several heads turned to listen. Green, with coffee cup in hand, moved closer to the speaker.

A second passed before Kennedy answered. “Captain, Charlie Oscar
Coghlan
standing by.”

“Ron, Danny here. Have received a ‘flash' message from Commander Seventh Fleet ordering us to either bring the submarine to the surface or sink it.” As he said it, he felt a slight chill go up his spine. He reached behind him and pulled the sweat-matted shirt away from his body.

“Roger, sir.”

“I would like for you to ready your ASROC in the event we need it. My intentions are to pass overhead his position and drop the first of three grenades. I would prefer to have him surface than for us to have to sink him.”

“I agree, sir. A little humility and embarrassment is a lot better than feeding the sharks.”

MacDonald thought he detected something approaching joy in the man's voice. Happiness was not what he was feeling right now. He licked his dry lips. He had never fired a torpedo in anger. Even with the occasional navigational near misses with the Soviets in their navies' never-ending dog-and-cat chase games, never had he imagined he would be in a position where he had to fire on them. The U.S. Navy trained for the day when it would happen, but that day was always over the chronological horizon.

The old World War II films of massive surface and subsurface war were reminiscences of the past. Today's war at sea was fought by aircraft and missiles. Down below in that floating coffin, which men called a submarine, were husbands, fathers, sons—just as in the ships above it.

“Captain, did you copy my last?” Kennedy asked.

“Copy all, Ron. Once I have sailed over him and dropped the grenades, I will immediately bring the
Dale
to flank speed and head out of the area. That is going to put the contact in my baffles. I will be blind until I can come out of the turn and clear them. I will switch ASW control to you.”

“We have him tracked also, Captain. I have shifted my course to give me a left-bearing drift on the target. This gives me some added space away from his bows. But it also brings the contact between us.”

“In two miles, Ron, the contact is going to have fifteen hundred feet of depth to play with. We need to stop him before he reaches it.”

“Aye, sir.
Coghlan
is ready to execute any orders given—immediately. I have a constant firing solution being worked on the target.”

For a moment, MacDonald questioned if that was a good thing to know. “I don't want you to fire unless he does something hostile.”

“He may fire on you, sir.”

“I don't think he will, Ron. I think he may speed up and go deeper.”

Several seconds passed before Kennedy replied. “Copy all.”

Motion outside the windows on the bridge caught MacDonald's attention. It was the weapons officer Lieutenant Kelly. Trying to keep up with the young weps's brisk walk was the gunner's mate chief Benson. The chief's belly bounced over the belt line of pants about two inches too small.

“Roger, sir. If he goes deep, we can always go to constant pulse on the sonar.”

MacDonald's eyebrows furrowed. “Let's don't do that, Ron, unless we are prepared to fire, and I suspect we would have to do it ASAP, because if I was him, I'd fire first.” What was this Kennedy thinking?

“Aye, sir.”

“Roger, out.” MacDonald jammed the handset back into its cradle. “He might blow us out of the water along with the submarine,” he mumbled.

“Sir?” Goldstein asked.

“Nothing,” MacDonald answered as he walked by the officer of the deck and headed toward the port bridge wing. He grabbed the megaphone from its storage locker near the hatch. Goldstein stopped at the hatchway when MacDonald stepped onto the bridge wing.

He raised the megaphone, pulled the trigger to speak, and the chill-rending screech of electronics filled the outside air for a second before he could. At the bow, Weps and the gunner's mate chief looked toward the noise. MacDonald slapped the megaphone once and the screech disappeared.

MacDonald explained the sequence of events. As he talked, he noticed Chief Benson reach over and take the grenades from Kelly. In another time he would have smiled.

 

 

“KEEP
taking her down,” Bocharkov said.

“Aye, sir. Passing one hundred meters.”

Bocharkov looked over at Tverdokhleb. “What is the depth beneath me, Navigator?”

“At least one hundred meter—”

“We just passed one hundred meters! So it has to be more.”

Tverdokhleb put the unlit cigarette in his mouth and bent over his chart. The man looked up and smiled. “We have to be over the three-hundred-meter line, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

Tverdokhleb slapped his palm on the table. “I know where we are, sir. I am positive. I am one hundred percent positive.” Then, in a soft mumble, Bocharkov heard the man say, “Otherwise we would have already hit the bottom.”

Bocharkov looked at Orlov. “Officer of the Deck, take us down to two hundred meters, increase plane angle.”

“Making my depth two hundred meters, increase angle to twenty degrees.”

The K-122 tilted sharply as the extra ten degrees were applied to the angle. Bocharkov glanced at the Fathometer as Orlov announced, “Passing one hundred twenty-five meters.” They would be in deeper water in seconds. The clock on the bulkhead showed twenty-five minutes until five. Dawn had broken above the water.

“Sir,” Ignatova said from near the firing console.

Bocharkov looked. His XO was pointing at the temperature gauge that measured the outside water temperature.

“Ten degrees of change in last fifty meters.”

Bocharkov grunted. They were passing through a layer. Finally some good news. The layer would help shield their passive noise. A grinding sound squealed through the control room.

“What the hell?” Orlov said aloud.

Chief Ship Starshina Uvarova stepped through the forward hatch. “It's the sump pump clearing the water out of the bilges!” Uvarova said in a loud voice, stepping quickly to the intercom.

“Shut it off! What is it doing on in the first place?” Bocharkov snapped.

“Engineering, Control Room,” Uvarova called, his finger pressed so hard on the Bch-5 button it was white. “Secure the main sump pump, immediately.”

Almost immediately, the squeal stopped, to be replaced by a soft winding down of the motor.

“Ease planes to five degrees,” Orlov ordered.

Bocharkov glanced at the depth reading—they were approaching two hundred meters. He looked back at the navigator, who was leaning with his left shoulder against the forward bulkhead, his body crouched forward slightly as he right hand tapped his pencil on the chart.

“Lieutenant Tverdokhleb, what is our depth?”

The man straightened in his chair. “We should be over the three-hundred-meter curve of the bottom, heading toward a deeper depth of fifteen hundred.” Tverdokhleb laid his wooden ruler on the chart, took a metal compass, and walked the distance with it. “Ten minutes until unlimited water.”

“Bring her up to ten knots!”

 

 

OLIVER
eased his headphones back on his ears. “I bet that screwed up their hearing.”

Stalzer did the same. “If there was any doubt we still had them passively, they have erased it.” He smiled.

“What was it?” Burkeet asked.

“Don't know,” Stalzer said, shaking his head. “It was one of their pumps, I think.”

“The chief is right, sir. That was a pump.” Oliver pointed at the console. “I can hear it winding down.”

“Must have had a bearing jump or something.”

Burkeet stepped out of Sonar, nearly bumping into Admiral Green. He quickly told the admiral about the noise, and then hurried toward Lieutenant Burnham so the captain could be notified.

 

 

ON
the bridge, MacDonald listened to the report. Maybe the submarine was beginning to feel its mechanical limitations. Naval Intelligence said the Soviet submarines were basically pure pieces of shit. Maybe they were right.

“Thanks, Lieutenant Burnham. It's time for the grenades. I will take control of the maneuvering up here. You plot the submarine at your end and let me know if it changes course or speed.”

“Aye, sir. We now have sound-powered comms with Weps on the bow,” Goldstein announced.

MacDonald looked out the windows. One of the forward topside watches stood beside Chief Benson, who cradled two of the grenades in his left hand with the other held in his right.

“Okay, Combat, give me some course changes to take us over the submarine.” MacDonald released the toggle switch.

Burnham started to talk, and as he proposed course changes turning the
Dale
to the left, MacDonald nodded at Goldstein, who translated the recommendations into conning commands. At the helm, Ensign Hatfield continued his watch over the shoulder of the helmsman. The duty quartermaster penciled in the orders being given in the green logbook. With every entry, the second-class petty officer looked at the clock on the bulkhead behind the helmsman. MacDonald glanced at it, also. It was twenty minutes until five.

“Captain,” Burnham called. “Radio has asked permission to switch from the night frequencies to day. I have told them not to, sir. I'm concerned about the time it will take them to change the cryptographic keying material plus synch up on new frequencies.”

“Very well,” MacDonald answered. He looked out the opened port hatch. The sun was creeping up from behind the mountains to the east. Radio frequencies that were good for the night were barely useful during the day because of the sun. He looked at the clock. They should be all right on the night frequencies for a little bit.

He picked up his binoculars, slung them around his neck, and moved to the port bridge wing as the ship came smartly left, centering on a course that if the submarine surfaced would cause the two warships to collide due to emergent maneuvering. Over the mountains to the east, the sun's rays were breaking, and morning began to descend down the slopes heading toward Olongapo City, the harbor, and Subic Bay.

“Two minutes to over contact,” Goldstein announced, looking at MacDonald.

MacDonald nodded in acknowledgment.

“Sir! Combat reports the submarine has increased speed!” Goldstein shouted.

“Increase speed slightly,” MacDonald said in a calm voice.

Burnham recommended a slight course change to starboard.

The
Dale
picked up speed, and the bow came to the right a few degrees as the destroyer edged closer to crossing over the center of the contact. He wondered if the submarine knew what they were doing. He wondered if their sonar team was as good as his.

 

 

“CONTACT
One has increased speed and his course has changed to a constant bearing,” the sonar technician announced.

“Looks as if they are closing?” Ignatova asked.

“They could be,” Orlov added softly.

Bocharkov grunted, drawing everyone's attention. “They are about to either cross over us to show they know we are here or . . .” He let his sentence hang. He was going to say, “or they are preparing to attack.” But he didn't, and he did not say those words because, like him, if the captain of the American warship had wanted to attack them, he would have done so long ago. But then orders do change.

“It was the pump,” Orlov said. “It gave away our position and now the American warship is closing.”

There was silence for a moment, before one of the starshinas in a shaking voice asked, “Why?”

“They must be losing us,” Bocharkov said, not believing his words. “We are going deeper. Everyone is to concentrate on his job. Do your job well and we will be having our congratulatory drinks before lunch.”