Echo Class

by David E. Meadows

  “Very well,” Bocharkov replied. No one was going anywhere until he was assured everything topside was clear. Meanwhile, everyone was in place awaiting his orders. “Up periscope.”

  Bocharkov swept the lens around the harbor. Every ship was lighted from bow to stern. On the farther side of the harbor, the American aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was moored pierside behind the smaller amphibious carrier Tripoli. There were few ports with the depth of Olongapo Harbor, in which either of those two ships could tie up alongside the pier.

  As he turned the periscope, movement caught his eye and he quickly turned the scope back to the left. A small landing craft was passing about one hundred meters dead astern. He focused the lens, then pressed the button. “Distance?”

  Orlov replied, “Ninety meters.”

  “Ninety meters,” Bocharkov repeated.

  “Target?”

  “Small boat,” Bocharkov replied, then leaned away from the lens. “What we call a landing craft. I believe they call them liberty launches—carrying the sailors and marines from the ships anchored in the harbor to the shore and back.” He continued his sweep. Less than three hundred meters in the direction of the stern and nearer than the carriers were several “small boys.” He counted at least one cruiser and three destroyers. The auxiliary ships—oilers, ammunition ships, repair ship—were anchored off to his starboard side. It must be from those huge ships that the liberty launches were plying their trade.

  The intercom beeped again. Orlov grabbed the handset. “Control room.” Several seconds passed. “Captain, XO reports the team is ready when you are.”

  Bocharkov nodded. He had a bad feeling about this, but emotions were something navy officers ignored when orders were involved. He mentally crossed his fingers. “Tell them about the liberty launches. I presume there will be more.” He turned the periscope aft so it pointed east to the area where the Spetsnaz team would land. At least the site for the mission was not near the main base. This was far enough way from the piers so the team could have some shadows. Rocks and concrete tridents filled the uphill beachhead between the slight waves of the near-calm harbor and the narrow road above it. He focused the periscope. There was the dark circular opening that must be the main flood drain Gromeko had described. The team would use it to store their flippers, tanks, and gear until their return. He turned the scope upward, glad to see stars. Maybe it would not rain, but then this was the Philippine tropics.

  NINE

  Monday, June 5, 19 67

  FINALLY, Bocharkov stepped away from the periscope. “Down periscope. Lieutenant Commander Orlov, ensure Sonar is alert to any passive noise in the area. I want those small boats tracked as well as any new sources.” He looked at the clock. It was fifteen minutes after midnight—Monday morning. The sun would rise around zero five thirty.

  “We are doing that, Comrade Captain.”

  “Why do the Americans call them liberty launches?”

  “ ‘Liberty’ is the time the Americans are ashore corrupting the natives. The small boats take them back and forth in teams to continue the imperialist indoctrination of the natives with the American dollar.”

  “Lieutenant Commander Orlov, you are filled with lots of information trivia.”

  “I think I should say thank you, Captain.”

  Bocharkov grunted and then turned to the navigator, who sat hunched over his charts at the forward end of the compartment. “Lieutenant Tverdokhleb, when is sunrise or false dawn? When is my periscope going to be easily seen from the decks of the nearby Americans?”

  The officer leaned back, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Tverdokhleb reached up and pushed his black-rimmed glasses back off his nose and against his eyes.

  If the man ever looked at the sun, he would burn his eyes out, thought Bocharkov.

  “Sir?”

  “I asked, when is sunrise?”

  Several seconds had passed with Bocharkov glancing at the clock when Tverdokhleb announced, “Zero four seventeen hours, Comrade Captain.”

  Bocharkov nodded. That meant false dawn would be about thirty minutes before that, but the mountain range behind Olongapo should block that out. From his review of the charts earlier in the day, he knew that false dawn was just that in Subic Bay: false. Dawn broke suddenly when the edge of the sun came over the top of the mountains. By four seventeen, he needed to be in deep water or near it. After sunrise, any speed he might put on to make their escape ran the risk of creating a wake on the surface. A wake that would be invisible to the K-122, but easily discernible to an American lookout.

  He cleared his throat. “Tell Captain Second Rank Ignatova that he may release the team to their mission.”

  “Aye, sir,” Orlov replied.

  Was that a smile he saw on the operations officer’s face? Could it be that this “thing” they were doing was having a positive effect on the crew? The officers, chiefs, and sailors standing the watch seemed quieter, seemed more alert—but then they should be, in the heart of the American fleet. He smiled. Damn. It did feel good doing something to the Americans instead of diving, running, and evading them. Maybe what the K-122 was doing was a turning point for the Soviet Navy.

  “And after the team has departed the boat, Operations Officer, start making preparations for us to leave. I want out of this enemy harbor before zero six hundred.”

  Ignatova put the handset back in the cradle. “The captain says it is time. There are landing craft shuttling American sailors back and forth between their ships and the shore. You will have to be careful of them.”

  “Aye, Comrade Captain,” Dolinksi answered.

  Gromeko hoisted his tank onto his shoulder. “The escape hatch is too narrow for the tanks,” he said to the team. “You will have to carry them like so.” He held his single tank to his chest. “Once outside the escape trunk, put your tank on. I will be waiting.”

  “I will go last,” Dolinski said.

  “How about the gear you will need?” Ignatova said, looking at the two waterproof bags sitting between the two officers.

  “I will take one with me,” Malenkov replied. He reached down and slid the bag between his feet. “Like this, sir, inside the escape trunk.”

  “Then he and Chief Fedulova will carry it between them to shore,” Gromeko added.

  “I and this starshina”—Dolinski pointed at Zosimoff—“will carry the other bag the same way. Ashore, we will only have one of them to carry.”

  Ignatova nodded, then stepped forward and shook hands with each of them. “Go with speed and safety.” He glanced at his watch as he moved near the hatch to be out of the way of the departing team. “You have two hours twenty minutes. Time?”

  “Gromeko looked at his deep-sea wristwatch, then at the clock on the bulkhead of the forward torpedo room. “Time is zero zero twenty-two.”

  “We will work the two hours twenty minutes from zero zero thirty,” Ignatova said, looking at the analog clock with its small hand on twelve and the large hand on twenty-two. He doubled-checked his wristwatch against the bulkhead clock.

  “Let’s go,” Gromeko said, moving under the hatch. He pulled down the narrow ladder and climbed. A spin of the hatch wheel and in a few seconds he was inside. Fedulova climbed halfway up the ladder and handed Gromeko his tank before securing the watertight door.

  Gromeko’s shoulders touched the sides of the escape trunk. He clasped the single tank against his chest, pressing his back against the curvature of the trunk. In the darkness of the trunk, he could not tell how the tank was resting against the other side. The mouthpiece fit securely in his mouth, his teeth clenched on the rubber tubing, making sure the rush of water did not dislodge it. His right hand was above his right shoulder so he could reach the wheel once the hatch filled. The sound of hydraulics announced the flow of water.

  Water began to fill the darkened escape tube designed for abandoning the boat rather than what they were doing. Gromeko’s breathing was shallow in the tight confines. It seemed minutes until the s
eawater filled the trunk. Then, effortlessly, Gromeko spun the wheel above him and pushed upward against it using his feet for leverage. The hatch opened, and he was halfway out of the trunk when he was able to take his first deep breath of tank air. He was relieved to be out of the man-made tomb.

  He let himself settle on the forward deck of the K-122 before reaching forward to push the hatch down. He spun the small wheel, securing the hatch for the next man. Then he slipped his tank onto his back. Down below in the forward torpedo room, the lights would have told those waiting when he had opened the outer hatch and when he had closed it. They would pump the water out and the next Spetsnaz would soon follow him.

  By the time Malenkov emerged, Gromeko was fully outfitted, with his tank on his back and his flippers off his belt and on his feet. Malenkov handed his tank to Gromeko, did an about-flip in the water, and dove headfirst back into the escape trunk. A second later he emerged tugging the bag with him. Gromeko secured the hatch for the third member.

  OLIVER pulled the curtains back, careful not to spill the paper cup of “bug juice.” They frowned on having the sugary fruit-flavored drink everyone called “bug juice” drunk anywhere except topside and in the chow hall. But he was alone and he still had an hour of work—if he didn’t find anything wrong—to finish.

  He looked at the clock on the bulkhead. Midnight plus twenty-five. He was going to be one tired puppy in the morning, whether he caught any shut-eye or not. Why did the chief have to be such a prick? Maybe being a prick was part of the personnel qualification standards for getting to wear the khaki uniform with the anchor on the collar?

  He set the cup on the narrow shelf, watching it closely as he leaned down to pick up the preventive maintenance schedule from the plastic sleeves taped to the side of the small file cabinet. He opened the two-page card and scanned it.

  He took a sip of his drink and laid the PMS card in front of him. All you had to do with PMS was go down the card, step by step, doing each item as it asked. Thankfully, this card did not require any tubes. He just had to check each hydrophone individually for attenuation and sensitivity. What the hell did they think he had been doing for the past two days with that Soviet submarine? Sipping tea and telling shitty sea stories? For a moment, Oliver thought about gundecking the checks—mark them as being done and slip the card back in its plastic cover—but just because others might have gundecked their preventive maintenance did not mean he would.

  Oliver flipped off the sonar connection to all the hydrophones and waited a few seconds for the electronics to wind down. Then he flipped on the starboard-side hydrophones.

  He lifted the cup and took a deep swig of the drink, his cheeks wrinkling at the sugar surge going across his tongue. What was the difference between a sea tale and a fairy tale? A sea tale starts with “This ain’t no bullshit” instead of “Once upon a time.” He choked at his own joke, spraying slight droplets of bug juice on the scope.

  “Damn.” He grabbed a nearby rag and started wiping away the stuff before it dried to a crusty spot, which the chief would spot in a minute and keep him away from Olongapo for two nights instead of one.

  As he wiped, he noticed a slight noise spoke on the number four hydrophone. He pressed the headset tighter against his ear because the noise was in the same frequency range as the Echo submarine he had tracked for two days. Oliver wondered what noise from one of the navy’s ships in port could be almost—no, absolutely—identical to a Soviet submarine electrical generator. Could he also just barely detect a sound behind this fifty-hertz noise?

  He shut his eyes. His stomach growled. Fifty hertz! Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations’ electrical sources put out fifty hertz to American sixty hertz.

  Why would he be hearing “his” submarine inside the harbor—No! He lifted the headset off his ears. Must be some sort of convergence zone peculiarity causing the submarine noise to bounce into the harbor. Oliver looked around. He licked his lips, aware of the dryness, and took a deep breath. What he should do is get the chief up here, but the chief would never get out of his rack. Lieutenant Burnham was the command duty officer, but by now he was in his stateroom.

  He slid out of the seat and stood. The spike coming from the hydrophone showed the noise originating off the starboard side of the Dale. What was anchored behind them? He dashed out of the sonar space, through the dark confines of Combat, toward the hatch that separated the war-fighting heart of the ship from the bridge. Quickly he undogged the hatch and stepped onto the bridge for a brief moment before running out onto the starboard bridge wing, where he leaned against the railing.

  Nothing! As far as he could see there was nothing between the Dale and the starlit natural barrier that curved back toward the entrance. He checked to see that the logistic ships anchored off the stern were nowhere near the noise spike, even though he knew it was a Soviet submarine he was hearing. To the left, the huge lighted silhouettes of the Kitty Hawk and Tripoli blocked his view of the guarded pier.

  Oliver shut his eyes, swallowed. He looked at the waters, his eyes scanning back and forth along the line of bearing where the noise spoke originated. A minute later his eyes crossed the natural barrier. Somehow, if that noise was coming through the entrance, it had to be bouncing off something in the harbor to change its direction.

  “What you doing, Matt?”

  Oliver turned and looked up. It was Seaman Cleary. Oliver looked back at the water, then up again.

  “You ain’t about to jump, are ya?” Cleary laughed. “ ’Cause if you do, I ain’t jumping in to save you. Not with ole hammerhead patrolling the harbor.”

  Oliver shook his head. “Naw. I’m not about to jump, Tim. What are you doing on board?” he asked casually, turning his attention back to the dark waters of Subic. His mind roared over the possibilities of how he could be detecting a Soviet submarine while tied up pierside.

  “Damn good thing you’re not jumping, because I got the watch.”

  He should tell someone. Doctrine called for any contact that an operator was unsure of to be reported. But Oliver would be a laughing stock because no way he should be picking up a Soviet submarine.

  He looked up. “Where’s your sound-powered phone?”

  Cleary lifted an arm from the railing and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Can’t wear those things in this heat. Makes your ears sweat and I break out in a prickly heat. Besides, you can’t hear the command duty officer when he’s trying to sneak up on you. Ruins a good nap on watch,” Cleary joked.

  The noise of a liberty launch drew their attention. Laughter from sailors returning from a night on the wild side of Olongapo City reached their ears. A group were shouting, “Shit Man Fuck!” at the top of their lungs like rowdy cheer-leaders celebrating an unexpected win. Raunchy laughter from the chorus followed each rendition.

  “Lucky bastards,” Cleary said. “If I had not had a physical discussion with some fucking chief off the . . .” He stopped, then added, “Damn. I forget, but it was one of the ships in the harbor. But I showed him. I took my face and beat the shit out of his fist.”

  Oliver looked up again. “Don’t move! I’ll be right back.” He dashed through the hatchway.

  Behind him, Cleary’s voice carried. “Why? Why can’t I move?”

  Oliver dashed through the bridge, ducked as he ran through the hatch, and used his hands as he dodged around the equipment in Combat to get to Sonar. Breathing heavily, he pulled the curtains apart and stared at the display. The noise spike was still there.

  He was back on the bridge wing in seconds, looking up at the signal bridge. Cleary was gone. He started up the ladder.

  “Hey, man! Why can’t I move?”

  Oliver stepped off the rung back onto the deck of the bridge wing. He cupped his hands and looked up at Cleary. “Tim! I need you to call Mr. Burkeet and tell him to come to Sonar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need him, Tim. I don’t have time to explain.”

  Cleary snorted. “Shit, man, we’re
in Olongapo and stuck on board while every sailor in the fleet is out there enjoying the beer, flesh, and tossing quarters into Shit River.”

  “Tim, if you don’t—”

  Cleary raised his hand. “I can’t call the lieutenant. I only have comms with the quarterdeck and Mr. Marshall is the in-port officer of the deck. You know what a dickhead he can be. You come up and call him.”

  “Who is the junior officer of the deck?”

  Cleary’s lips pursed as he concentrated. “I’m not sure,” he said after a few seconds. “I think it is Boats Lowe.”

  “Tell Manny to come to Sonar.”

  Cleary smiled and threw a thumbs-up at Oliver. “That I can do.”

  Oliver disappeared off the bridge wing.

  Moments later he was back in Sonar, his headset on his ears, when a sound like a quick flood of water rode across his ears then stopped. He concentrated. Only thing that could make an underwater noise such as this was an outer door opening, like the outer tube on a torpedo. He shivered. This was getting weird. His instructors had told him the oceans played havoc with noise sometimes, sending it hundreds of miles before someone heard it. Other times, you could be on top of a submarine with it making all kinds of noise—their sailors could be banging steel wrenches against the hull—and you wouldn’t hear a peep.

  GROMEKO waited outside the escape trunk, slowly moving his flippers to remain stationary. The hatch opened and the last member of the team, Lieutenant Dolinski, emerged, turned, and dove back into the escape trunk to pull the remaining bag free.

  When he pulled it out, Gromeko leaned forward and secured the hatch. He made the thumbs-up sign to the other four, received same, and then looked at his fluorescent compass. He pointed in the direction they needed to go.

  Chief Fedulova and Starshina Malenkov grabbed a handle each on their bag and started in the direction Gromeko pointed. Gromeko hovered. He looked in Dolinski’s direction as the officer and Zosimoff grabbed the handles of the other bag. Then he turned and swam quickly to get ahead of Fedulova and Malenkov.