Wonder what the commie-pinko’s doing this close to Subic Bay? Probably watching. He pushed the headset tighter against his ears, closing his eyes. Watching Subic Bay was not near as much fun as being in Olongapo. If the Soviets knew what fun waited in Olongapo, they’d surrender now. The signal began to fade.
“What the fuck?” Stalzer cursed. He shifted the sensitivity around the hydrophones, trying to regain contact. “Where in the hell did you go, my asshole commie buddies?”
THE helmsman shouted, “Passing zero-eight-zero!”
MacDonald nodded in acknowledgment, turning in his chair to watch the helmsman. Sailors were professionals, and regardless of how many times he walked by the ones on board, they truly amazed him with their knowledge and professional tenacity. The helmsman was no different.
The third-class boatswain mate carefully spun the helm a quarter turn to the right. The sailor’s tongue protruded slightly as he bit on it, while his eyes concentrated on the compass mounted above the wooden helm. Below the ocean surface, two huge rudders responded to the directions of the helm and began to straighten.
The boatswain mate of the watch leaned over to watch. The helmsman and the trainee were his responsibility. It was a badge of professionalism for a boatswain mate to meet course changes dead-on—slide into them gently. One degree past the ordered heading was easily masked, but two were a dead giveaway, and three degrees earned you a slap upside the side of the head by the BMOW.
The compass mounted above the wooden helm slowed as the Dale crept the last few degrees to zero-seven-zero. Zero-seven-eight, zero-seven-seven . . .
The helmsman slowly brought the helm back a quarter turn, allowing for the slight delay the change in rudders would impose on their course. The compass seemed to stop at zero-seven-four. The helmsman grimaced, his tongue withdrawing into his mouth as his teeth clenched. It was not lost on him that he had the BMOW and a newbie watching over his shoulder. Zero-seven-three—then, almost as if by magic the ship steadied on zero-seven-zero.
“Steady on zero-seven-zero!” the helmsman shouted, letting out a deep breath and grinning from ear to ear.
“Very well!” Goldstein replied.
The quartermaster of the watch notated the new course in the log.
“About fucking time,” the boatswain mate of the watch whispered to the helmsman.
“It was perfect,” the third-class replied with a smile. “Like always.”
With a grin, the BMOW winked. “Don’t let it go to your head, Stewart.”
THE signal disappeared as the curtain parted and Oliver stepped inside the cramped space. “Sorry, Chief. Must be something I ate. I hurried back as soon as I could.”
Stalzer tossed the headset onto the narrow shelf. “About time, Oliver. Next time, call one of your friends out of their rack and make him relieve you.”
Stalzer stood and shifted to one side as Oliver took the headset and sat down. Stalzer looked up and saw that the hydrophones were still pointed in the direction of the lost signal. Oh, well, he thought. Either Oliver will find it or he won’t.
“You get anything, Chief?”
Stalzer guffawed. “If I had gotten anything, you think I would have jumped up as soon as you walked in?”
Oliver shook his head. “I’ll start a search pattern. Any orders?”
“Yeah, keep Warrant Officer Smith up-to-date even if you don’t have anything—otherwise he’ll be pestering you throughout the watch.”
“Aye, Chief.”
“I’m going down to the goat locker. Gotta get ready for the sea-and-anchor detail.”
“Chief, do you have the liberty watch schedule yet?”
“Yeah, I do,” Stalzer replied, tapping his head. “It’s right up here and you got the first duty night in port.”
“Chief, I had it last time, in Guam.”
“Duty aboard ship in Guam is a boon. Ain’t nothing to do ashore on that island except avoid the snakes.”
“Can I exchange duty with someone?”
Stalzer nearly said no, but then said, “If you can find another sonarman who’ll take your place, then I guess it’s okay.”
Oliver smiled. “Thanks, Chief.”
“Don’t thank me. You still got to run a chit through me and the lieutenant. And I’ll want to see both of your signatures on it. Yours and whoever is going to stay on board to do the 3M maintenance checks.”
Oliver’s smile faded. “Chief, I’m the only one who knows how to do the preventive maintenance checks. Can’t I do them tomorrow?”
Stalzer shook his head and laughed. “What if we have to get under way tomorrow, Oliver? You want to be the one to tell the skipper why we’re behind in our PMS?”
Oliver slipped the headset down over his ears. “No, Chief, I wouldn’t want to be the one.”
Neither would I. Stalzer scratched his chin. “On second thought, Oliver, you can have liberty tonight once we are tied up and they release the liberty parties, but tomorrow night, I want you on board doing the preventive maintenance.”
Oliver smiled. “Gee, thanks, Chief.”
“Don’t thank me. We’re getting in late. Won’t be much time for Olongapo anyway. You know where I’ll be.” Stalzer stepped through the curtains, the circulating air ruffling them slightly as they settled back into place.
“Yeah, you’ll be in your rack reading your crotch novel,” Oliver whispered to himself.
He looked at the sonar console in front of him and began to systematically rotate the hydrophones at a very slow rate, listening for anything that might be the Soviet Echo he had tracked for nearly twenty-four hours. If he could find it, then Stalzer would stay out to sea another day. He leaned forward, one hand moving the hydrophones and the other pressing the headset against his ear. Just a spike, he told himself. Just a spike and he could be tracking the pinko-commie again.
“THEY have slowed down, sir,” Starshina Zilkin said, glancing up at Bocharkov. His hand held the headphone tight against his left ear.
“Did they detect us?” Kalugin asked.
Zilkin looked at the weapons officer. “I do not know, Lieutenant. They were slow when we picked them up. That is why I called you, Captain,” Zilkin said.
“Any indications the Americans have changed course?”
“No, sir, but the American destroyer is not too far from us,” Zilkin offered. “It has a right-bearing drift. The noise from its shafts, I believe, is decreasing, which means it may be heading slowly away from us. We may be in its baffles.”
“Do we have a course on it?” Bocharkov asked.
Zilkin shook his head. “I am doing a passive plot on the bearings. Estimated speed is around eight to ten knots, Captain.”
Ignatova walked up behind Bocharkov. Bocharkov turned. “What do you think, XO?”
“I think it is heading to the U.S. naval base at Subic.”
Bocharkov grunted. “I think you are right.”
The three officers stood silently as Zilkin continued to track the American destroyer. The sonar operator continued to pencil in lines of bearing from the K-122.
“It is on a base course,” Zilkin said.
“And that is?” Ignatova asked.
“I think the course is between zero-six-zero true and zero-seven-five true. I make its speed between seven and ten knots.”
Bocharkov grunted again. “This may be our chance, XO.”
“It may be, Captain.”
Bocharkov nodded, but after several seconds of his failing to elaborate, Ignatova asked, “And what is our chance with this, Comrade Captain?”
“Maybe we can ride into Olongapo in its baffles? It will mask our noise.”
Ignatova nodded. “Wanted to be sure it wasn’t something dangerous.”
Bocharkov smiled. “It is definitely not something dangerous I want to do. But it will make our Spetsnaz happy.” He glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. It showed five in the afternoon. The Pacific sun would be bright above the waves.
“XO, let’s
get back to the control room. I want you to take the conn and ease the boat into the baffles of the warship.”
A few seconds later the two officers stood in the center of the control room.
Bocharkov touched the XO on the shoulder. “Have Tverdokhleb give us a course to deep waters in the event we have to run for it. If the Americans detect us, then we will need a quick escape route.”
Ignatova nodded and stepped away to confer with the officer of the deck, Lieutenant Yakovitch.
The forward hatch opened. Lieutenant Vyshinsky spotted Bocharkov and walked to him. The communicator had a message board tucked under his arm.
“Ah, Lieutenant, you have decided to come out of your dark spaces,” Bocharkov said, reaching for the afternoon message board.
Vyshinsky blushed. “Yes, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I am to relieve Lieutenant Yakovitch as the officer of the deck.”
Bocharkov nodded as he flipped through the messages quickly. Twice a day the K-122 came to periscope depth and deployed a long communications antenna that stretched for a hundred meters behind the submarine. The antenna would float quickly to within a couple of meters of the surface, where the continuous submarine broadcast could be recorded. Then, twice a day, the communications officer would search down Bocharkov and Ignatova so one of them could read the mostly routine messages. Much like the American and British navies, the Soviet submarine force was the silent service. It seldom broadcast or acknowledged any messages unless required to do so. The lessons of World War II with the German and Japanese navy codes had not been lost on the generations of submarine sailors who followed.
Bocharkov stopped flipping. Usually he glanced at the messages, ignoring the supply messages and casually ignoring the “love-the-Party” sermon messages. But some did require his attention or were of oblique importance, such as the one he read now. He let out a deep sigh and folded the attached message on the board. “Make sure the XO reads this one, Lieutenant.”
He watched as Vyshinsky walked toward Ignatova. If what the message said happened, the Americans would be even angrier to know why a Soviet submarine was in their harbor. They would believe it had to do with the event Moscow believed was going to happen sometime in the next few days. The K-122 had to be inside the harbor, do the mission, and get out within the next forty-eight hours.
SEVEN
Sunday, June 4, 1967
“GENTLEMEN, take your seats. The admiral has arrived and will be here shortly.”
MacDonald leaned back in his chair until it rested against the wall of the conference room. On the blackboard at the front of the room someone had printed the words “Beacon Torch” in the center. He looked at his watch. The meeting was supposed to start at ten hundred. He looked at the large hand clock above the chalkboard. It was already ten fifteen. Not like Green to be late.
The senior captains—the four-stripers who really ran the navy—sat around the shined mahogany table. “Four-stripers” referred to the four quarter-inch stripes that encircled the end of the sleeves on the navy dress blue uniforms. The tropics were too hot for dress blues. Everyone wore khakis, except the senior officers at official functions.
The skipper of the Kitty Hawk sat in the first seat to the left of the head of the table. While MacDonald was not completely sure, he was fairly confident that the Marine Corps brigadier general seated across from the Kitty Hawk skipper was the commander of the landing forces embarked on the amphibious carrier. Beside the general was the four-striper who was the skipper of the amphibious carrier, the USS Tripoli.
Everyone had a job. And everyone had a specific place to sit based on rank. MacDonald sat along the outside wall of the conference room. Two more years and he would be at that table.
One of the captains turned in his chair to lean toward MacDonald.
“Skipper, Joe Smith,” he said extending his hand.
MacDonald came forward, the front legs of the chair hitting the wood floor with a short bang. “Captain.”
“You’re Danny MacDonald, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, wondering who Joe Smith was.
“I’m on the admiral’s staff. Reporting from the navy staff at the Pentagon. Heard a lot of about you and your tin can. Wonderful job on those submarines. I know the admiral was happy.”
MacDonald smiled. “When Admiral Green is happy means he’s less grumpy.”
Smith laughed. “Let’s just say he was tense but overall very satisfied. I thought it was a wonderful ASW effort on your part, and you did it without the help of our fine navy aviators. Well done.” Smith turned back to the table.
MacDonald nodded to himself. If the admiral was satisfied, then that was something he could pass along to the crew who gave up a couple of days of fine navy liberty in the Pacific port that offered anything a sailor of the sixties could want.
A heavy-set four-striper from one of the auxiliary ships burst through the doorway of the conference room. Sweat stains inched down both sides of the khaki shirt. The captain mopped his face with his handkerchief and in a heavy Southern accent mumbled something about humidity and heat and why he never returned to the great state of Georgia during the summer months. Accompanied by slight laughter, the late arrival looked toward the front of the room. “Whew,” he mumbled loudly before hurriedly taking his chair at the table.
Another late arrival rushed through the door, worked his way along the narrow lane between the knees of those against the wall and the backs of those at the table. He was a thin man—seemed nervous to MacDonald, but if you were late to one of Green’s meetings, you had reason to be nervous—and the man’s red hair could use a trim.
The daylight twinkled off the silver oak leaves on his khaki collar. Awful young to be a commander, MacDonald thought. The collar devices looked almost new. Different year group—not a competitor for the captain selection board next fall.
MacDonald would be looked at early for selection. Everyone received an early look, and sometimes the magic wand of the kingdom would reach down and touch the head of a perceived hot runner. Seldom happened, and he had great doubts, with only this tour as a commanding officer, of it happening to him. But his record was good. He knew it. His bosses definitely knew it. And many of his peers whom he considered competitors had either screwed up or shipped out. So maybe he had a chance.
The redheaded commander tripped over the feet of one of the men, who reached out and steadied him before he could fall on anyone.
“Thanks.”
A bit clumsy, MacDonald thought. He watched the officer as the man continued his progress—accompanied with “excuse me’s”—toward one of the few empty chairs in the room; the one beside him.
“Anyone sitting here?” the commander asked.
MacDonald shook his head. “Nope. It’s free.”
The man dropped his notebook on the chair and smiled, revealing a bright set of straight teeth—he must have spent a lot of time in a dental chair.
Before sitting down, the man stretched his hand out to MacDonald. “Hi, I’m Ron Kennedy, skipper of the Coghlan.”
A fellow destroyer skipper. Might not be a bad sort after all. MacDonald smiled and introduced himself as they shook hands. “Skipper of the Dale.”
Kennedy sat down. “Looks as if we’ve got two of the destroyers with the group.”
MacDonald pointed out the two other destroyer skippers with the group.
“Four of us.” Kennedy’s eyes widened as he leaned too close to MacDonald. “That’s a lot of destroyers for a battle group, don’t you think?”
MacDonald shook his head. “No. It’s probably not enough.”
“You could be right.” He chuckled. “I heard one of our destroyers lost track of an Echo II submarine yesterday. I forget which one. I wonder if the admiral is pissed over them losing it?”
MacDonald’s lips tightened. How could the admiral be angry with the Dale? He caught Smith turning slightly in his chair to look at Kennedy. Finally he replied, “I doubt the admira
l is upset.”
The Dale had done things no other destroyer had done with the Soviets. And, as Captain Smith pointed out, there were no airborne ASW assets out there helping him.
“I mean, if you have contact, it has to be something monumental to cause you to lose them.”
“I suppose you have to have been there to appreciate it.”
Kennedy nodded. “The Coghlan has the best damn ASW team in the fleet.” He jabbed his thumb into his chest. “My crew won the battle excellence award for ASW before we left San Diego.”
“Gentlemen, the admiral,” a lieutenant commander positioned near the front door announced.
MacDonald recognized him as Wayne Powers, the admiral’s executive aide.
Everyone stood to attention. The sound of chairs scraping on the tile floor and the rustle of pant legs rubbing against each other replaced the low ebb of conversation that had filled the room.
“At ease,” Admiral Green announced as he entered the room.
No one moved, waiting for him to sit.
“I said at ease, you bunch of seadogs. I’m going to be standing, so sit down so everyone can see what a real sailor looks like.”
Light laughter filled the room, along with the noise of sliding chairs. An unfamiliar captain stood near the lieutenant commander at the door. He must have arrived with Admiral Green. As MacDonald watched, the captain, who remained standing in the open doorway, began to fill a pipe with tobacco. Around the table, most of the captains lit up cigarettes.
Green held a pointer in his slim hands as his eyes roamed the room. When he spotted MacDonald, he stopped. “Gentlemen, I want to introduce you to Commander MacDonald for those who don’t know him. Stand up, Danny.”
His face was still glowing red from Kennedy’s stinging remark.
“Danny, are you blushing? Now, don’t be modest. Gentlemen, Commander MacDonald and the crew of the Dale have spent the last forty-eight hours chasing two Soviet Echo submarines that had been trailing the Kitty Hawk battle group. One, if not both, of those submarines was caught flat-footed by VQ-1’s reconnaissance aircraft as it was surfaced simulating the launch of cruise missiles against us.”
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