Echo Class

by David E. Meadows

  Zosimoff opened his left hand and let the pistol fall onto the ground.

  “Sarge, he’s got a gun!”

  Familiar clicks like a quick cacophony of crickets told Gromeko and the others that there were more than two or three hidden behind the bright lights. Though Gromeko could not see them, he knew weapons were aimed at Zosimoff. He touched Dolinski and the two officers hurried forward.

  “Raise your hands!”

  Zosimoff stood, his head turned toward the unseen men hidden by the end of the right warehouse.

  Malenkov reached the end of the warehouse, his back pressed against it. “Raise your hands!” he said in Russian.

  Zosimoff raised his hands.

  “Put them on top of your head!”

  The sound of running boots on the graveled road drew their attention. Gromeko and Dolinski reached the area near Malenkov.

  “Get him, men! Knock his ass on the ground! Hemmings, you get that piece!” Three marines in full utility uniforms, carrying M-14 carbines, came into sight. Running full-tilt at Zosimoff. The first one drew his weapon back as if intending to smack Zosimoff in the face. The other two kept the barrels aimed at what they thought was a wayward sailor available for some Marine Corps attention.

  Zosimoff moved fast as the first marine reached him, shoving his right palm into the man’s nose and grabbing the carbine as the man yelled in pain on his way down to his knees. Before Gromeko could shout “No,” Zosimoff had fired an automatic burst, taking out the other two men. Gunfire erupted as bullets ripped into Zosimoff.

  Malenkov leaned around the end of the building, took aim, and fired four quick shots in unison.

  Behind them, the sound of another siren grew. Gromeko glanced back. Headlights were coming down the alley behind them.

  The gunfire tapered off. Gromeko dashed forward, grabbed Zosimoff, and pulled him into the shadows. He glanced to the right, counted two other marines. One of them was pulling the other to the other side of the warehouse.

  “Now!” Gromeko shouted. He lifted Zosimoff over his shoulder. “Into the water!”

  The car behind them rocketed up on its rear wheels as it left the alleyway of the rear set of warehouses. It slammed down on the gravel before plummeting into the alley where the Spetsnaz team was stalled. Two bullet shots rang out. The tires on the left side of the car exploded, causing the driver to lose control. The car drove into the warehouse with a loud crash as it hit. Cursing from inside told Gromeko whoever was in there was still alive.

  “I’m going to kill them!” someone shouted from the open window of the car.

  Malenkov dashed across the road and took position on the other side. A pepper of gunfire hit the gravel, sending bits over his head. He fired a couple of shots at the marines.

  Gromeko walked as fast as he could across the road, the weight of Zosimoff holding him down. Dolinski walked alongside, firing his pistol calmly, without aiming, at the end of the warehouse where the last two marines were. “That will keep their heads down.”

  “That was Russian, Sarge!” one of the marines shouted.

  Gromeko was unable to make out the reply. His English was not as good as Malenkov’s. He reached the other side. Malenkov stood to help ease Zosimoff down. A bullet caught Malenkov in the chest, knocking him backward into the water. Malenkov turned and pulled himself toward the rocks, holding onto it.

  “How badly are you hurt?”

  “I am fine,” Malenkov said, running his hand over his chest.

  “Just a little blood is all.” He held up his left hand covered in blood. “And I seem to have lost my pistol.”

  Gromeko and Dolinski lay down on the rough rocks leading to the water. “Where is the chief?” Dolinski asked. He leaned up and fired another shot at the marines.

  “Stay there, Starshina Malenkov,” Gromeko said. “We’re coming.”

  One of the marines dashed to the truck, reached in the driver’s side door and pulled his walkie-talkie out. The sound of urgent words could be heard by the Soviets. There was little doubt that this place was going to be flooded with reinforcements at any time.

  Fedulova ran from his position at the warehouse toward the truck. The marine on the walkie-talkie didn’t see him until too late. Fedulova pistol-whipped him across the face, and then put the barrel against the man’s face. He looked at the other marine at the end of the warehouse and in Russian told him to drop it.

  Gromeko doubted the American understood the words, but the intent was obvious. Instead of dropping his weapon, the marine fell back into the shadows.

  “Leave him, Chief!” Gromeko shouted. He looked at Dolinski. “Help me,” he said, nodding down at Zosimoff.

  Fedulova whipped the pistol against the captive’s head, knocking him out, then stood and sprinted toward the officers.

  By the time the two men were at the edge of the water, the chief had come over to the side of the road. “Sir, let me help.”

  “Get Malenkov,” Gromeko said. “We got Zosimoff.”

  Within a minute, the five men were in the water, treading it softly as they eased out into the harbor away from the lights. Then they turned left, working their way toward the drainpipe. Behind them, the sound of voices and shouts filled the night for the first few minutes, before sirens joined the group. Gromeko wondered for a moment how American prisons were.

  “OKAY, Oliver,” Chief Stalzer snapped, running his handkerchief over his face, wiping away the water from his quick splashes at the sink when they woke him. “What in the hell do you have?” he asked, the words trailing off when he caught sight of Burkeet sitting on the other chair.

  “Oliver thinks he has the Soviet Echo on sonar, Chief.”

  “Inside Subic? Could be, but they’d be so far out; it would be an anomaly, sir. I doubt we are picking up a Soviet submarine tied up pierside here, sir. We got too much self-generated noise from this many ships parked about the place.”

  “The skipper is on his way down, Chief. I would like you to see what Oliver has. I would like to be able to tell the captain exactly what we have.”

  Oliver wanted to shout. He wanted to stand up and tell them both to go to hell. He wanted to cry, too. This was the Echo. He knew it. And he had doubts the chief would agree with him, because the chief was just like that. Deriding him all the time and even more so since he had been the main man tracking the submarine.

  “Give me the headset,” Stalzer said, snapping his fingers as he held his hand out.

  Oliver handed it to him.

  Then both he and Burkeet watched as Stalzer listened to the noise. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “UP periscope,” Bocharkov said, his eyes riding the eyepiece on the way up. Belowdecks, the sump pump kicked in.

  “I thought I told everyone to secure everything!” he said sharply, leaning away from the eyepiece. “Secure those pumps! Now!”

  Orlov grabbed the microphone and relayed the order to Engineering.

  OLIVER put the headset on. Almost immediately the sound of hydraulics filled his ears. “I hear something.”

  “Lieutenant, I’m telling you there is nothing there.”

  Oliver took the headset off. “Here, Chief. Maybe there wasn’t anything when you had them on, but there is something now.” As Stalzer took the headset, Oliver reached up and turned on the speaker.

  The sound of hydraulics was drowned out by the rise and fall of another piece of equipment.

  Stalzer pressed the headset against his ears. He reached forward and tuned the passive sonar, watching the frequency readout of the noise. He paused at fifty hertz, and then rapidly moved it to sixty hertz, paused, then back to fifty. A deep breath filled the chief’s chest. He lifted the headset. “Damn!”

  On the speaker, the rising and falling sound of the equipment stopped.

  Stalzer looked at the readout. “Shit, man, fuck, Oliver.” Then the chief looked at Burkeet. “He does have a Soviet submarine, sir.”

  “Heard that hydraulics?” Oliver asked, smilin
g. “Damn, I knew it.”

  “That was a periscope coming up, and the louder noise was one of those well-made Soviet pumps. Stupid skipper to keep those pumps working if he is just outside Subic Bay.”

  “So Oliver is right? We have a Soviet submarine inside Subic Bay?”

  “Sir, Subic Bay is a big-ass bay. He could be a hundred miles from here, his noise riding the underwater currents.”

  Oliver squirmed with pleasure in his seat. “Damn, I knew it.”

  Stalzer slapped him lightly upside the back of the head. “Don’t be so happy about it.”

  “It’s too loud to be a hundred miles out, Chief.”

  Burkeet looked at Stalzer. “You think?”

  Stalzer ran his hand across his face. “Sir, I may have exaggerated with saying a hundred miles. The sump-pump noise is something that would ride for miles, but the hydraulic noise of the periscope is not that loud. Most times you have to be in direct path to hear it.” He sighed. “I know there is going to be no living with Oliver, but the only way Oliver could be getting this,” he said, shaking his head, “is if that submarine is within ten to fifteen miles of the Dale.”

  “Could be closer.”

  Stalzer slapped him lightly upside the head again. “Yes, Oliver, it could be closer. It could a few hundred feet away, but it ain’t. What submarine would be stupid enough to come this close. . . .” His voice trailed off.

  No one spoke for a few seconds, before Burkeet chuckled. “Right, Chief. You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  Stalzer shook his head. “I can’t think of any other way a noise spike that cuts right into the harbor barriers west of us could be picked up by a destroyer tied up pierside, sir. I know water plays a lot of tricks on us with sound, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  The sound of footsteps drew their attention. The captain stuck his head inside the small sonar cavity just as the sound of hydraulics filled the space. The clock read ten minutes after two.

  “HE’S dead,” Dolinski said as they dragged Zosimoff out of the water and onto the rocks below the drainpipe.

  Gromeko nodded.

  Fedulova and Malenkov swam up. Gromeko and Dolinski helped pull Malenkov out of the water and into the pipe.

  Fedulova followed, turning over on his back, breathing heavily. “Damn, you weigh a lot, Malenkov.”

  “I don’t think it is me,” Malenkov gasped.

  “How do you feel?” Gromeko asked.

  “My chest is on fire.”

  “Help me,” Gromeko said to Dolinski. The two officers pulled Malenkov farther into the drainpipe.

  Dolinski sat down on the curved side of the pipe while Gromeko and Fedulova laid the wounded Spetsnaz warrior along the bottom of the pipe. A narrow stream of water rose up along the man’s shoulders until it flowed around Malenkov’s arms, continuing its gravity-fed journey to the exit.

  Dolinski’s hands rooted in the knapsack until he found the small receiver. He lifted it, unstrung two loose earpieces, and put them on. He turned on his flashlight, the red light illuminating the controls on the receiver as he duckwalked to the edge of the pipe.

  Gromeko opened the wounded sailor’s dungaree shirt. The bullet had penetrated the upper left part of Malenkov’s chest, near the underarm. Bubbles of blood came out every time he took a breath.

  “Looks as if it has hit your lung, Malenkov,” Gromeko said. Turning to Fedulova, he ordered, “Give me the first aid kit.”

  Fedulova grabbed one from one of the divers’ belts lying along the sides of the curved pipe.

  “Lieutenant Dolinski and Chief Fedulova, go ahead and get out of those clothes and into your gear.”

  “In a moment,” Dolinski said. “One more minute,” he mumbled softly, pressing the right earpiece against his head. He smiled. “The mission is a success. I can hear the telephone calls of the Americans.”

  “Then get changed,” Gromeko snapped.

  “I am already doing that,” Dolinski replied, wrapping the earpieces around the receiver and jamming it into the knapsack. “I am already doing that,” he repeated.

  Fedulova and Dolinski worked as quietly as possible, pulling off the American dungarees and slipping into their underwater gear.

  Gromeko worked on Malenkov. It took a couple of minutes to get gauze over the wound, run tape across it, under Malenkov’s arm, and around the neck on the other side.

  “Feels better already,” Malenkov said softly. He put his hands down and attempted to push himself up. He moaned as he collapsed back onto the bottom of the pipe.

  “Don’t move,” Gromeko said. He grabbed a nearby diver’s belt and worked it around Malenkov’s waist. “This will keep you from bobbing to the surface.”

  Malenkov chuckled. “To die on enemy soil is to die for our nation. I just never expected to do it this soon.”

  “You’re not going to die,” Gromeko said. “All you have is a bleeding chest wound.”

  “Just a bleeding chest wound?” Malenkov asked with a hint of sarcasm and a smile barely visible in the shadows. “Lieutenant, you can’t take me with you.”

  “Here, let me talk with Malenkov while you change, Lieutenant,” Fedulova said.

  “We can’t leave his equipment with him,” Dolinski said.

  “We aren’t going to leave him.”

  “We can’t take him with us. He is right. He is dying. Leave him here, if you want him to live.” Dolinski shrugged. “If he does live, then the Americans will take care of him. They take care of everything.”

  Gromeko put his face a few inches from Dolinski. “We do not leave our shipmates behind,” he said, accenting each word separately.

  “He will endanger all of us.”

  “Then we will be endangered together.”

  “The lieutenant is right, sir,” Malenkov said. “Leave me, but leave me a weapon. That way you will not have to worry about the Americans capturing me.”

  “Quiet, everyone.” No one spoke as Gromeko quickly changed.

  Chief Fedulova and Lieutenant Dolinski waited at the mouth of the drainpipe, watching for signs of the Americans. Above them, the noise of vehicles passing back and forth told them the warehouse area was flooded with U.S. marines.

  Small beams of light searched the waters where they had fled earlier. With each sweep the lights moved along the road.

  Dolinski jerked his thumb at Malenkov. “It will not be long before someone thinks of looking in this pipe. Starshina Malenkov is right. Leave him. Give him a weapon. He will die like a true Spetsnaz.”

  “Looks as if the boats we were told about are coming this way, Lieutenant,” Fedulova said.

  “Where?” both Lieutenants asked in unison.

  “There,” Fedulova answered, pointing past Dolinksi toward the piers where the destroyers were tied up.

  “Could be the liberty launches we were told about.”

  Fedulova shook his head. “Most likely they are, but most likely they have been requisitioned to search for us.”

  Motion to the far left caught their eyes as new running lights appeared around the end of one of the huge logistic ships anchored a hundred meters or so from the piers.

  “Those are moving fast,” Fedulova observed.

  Gromeko stumbled away toward his gear. The curved pipe was not made for walking. He sat down on the rippled curved body of the pipe and put on his flippers. “I am ready.” He looked at Malenkov. “This is going to be painful, but you can do it, Starshina Malenkov.”

  “It is about time we go,” Dolinski said. “If the K-122 hears the commotion, the captain may have to choose between the four of us and the one hundred thirty officers and men on board.”

  Fedulova nodded, his lower lip pressing his upper lip upward. “I could see where the captain would have a very hard decision to make.”

  “Let’s go,” Dolinski said.

  “First, we clean up our mess. Open your knapsack.” Gromeko looked at Fedulova. “Get me some rocks, heavy ones.”

  “What
for?” Dolinski asked.

  “If we have to drop these knapsacks, then we want them on the bottom of the harbor, not floating on the surface.”

  Fedulova eased over the side of the drain into the water, his head disappearing beneath the waves.

  Dolinski opened his knapsack. “What for?” he asked.

  Gromeko crammed their American uniforms into it. “We can leave these uniforms behind.”

  Dolinski held up his knapsack. “We cannot leave this behind.”

  “I know, but the uniforms we can.”

  Fedulova surfaced, placing several rocks on the edge of the pipe. “Is that enough?” He picked up a couple more rocks near the edge of the pipe. “These are bigger”

  “Let me put some rocks in your knapsack, Uri,” Gromeko said to Dolinski.

  “My knapsack is not going to be dropped,” Dolinski said.

  “We may not have a choice. If the Americans capture . . . or kill us, then we do not want the knapsacks bobbing to the surface with our bodies.”

  Dolinski looked as if he were going to argue, but instead he opened his knapsack.

  Gromeko nodded. He tossed a belt to Fedulova. “Put this on Zosimoff. Then he grabbed the knapsack and started cramming Malenkov’s and Zosimoff’s wet suits into it. He reached over and pulled the American uniforms from Dolinski’s knapsack. “Put these together in the event we have to ditch them.”

  “I thought the rocks were for that.”

  Gromeko nodded. He picked up several of the rocks and tossed them into both knapsacks. “That should take them to the bottom, if we have to let them go.” He leaned over to Malenkov. “You still with us?”

  “I have not gone anywhere, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Dolinski, help me put his flippers on.”

  With the flippers on, Gromeko leaned over the man. “I have to lift you to put your tank on.”