“Even my senior enlisted man approves of your command, Vladmiri,” Bocharkov added softly.
“Aye, sir!” Yakovitch replied, his booming voice not one octave lower.
Bocharkov smiled, the right side of his lip turning upward. “XO, I haven’t heard a report from Boyevaya Chast’ 4 in a few minutes. Hit them and see if our communicators still have underwater communications with the K-56.”
Ignatova nodded and stepped to the sound-powered phone talker. “Give Communications a check and tell the communications officer to give me a call.”
Almost immediately the internal communications box squawked. Ignatova looked down at the buttons and pushed in BCh-4. Across the small control room compartment, Bocharkov listened as the XO chewed the communications officer’s butt about not keeping the control room informed on the communications ongoing between the K-122 and K-56 Echo submarines. Here they were surfacing simultaneously with another submarine — neither quite sure where the other was — and Bocharkov needed to know exactly what was happening around them. Oceans were so big that seldom did submarines collide with other ships and subs, but every so often, it did happen.
One of the sound-powered phone talkers pressed his headset to his ear, acknowledged the unseen talker on the other end, and then lifted the right side off his ear.
“Lieutenant Yakovitch, Bch-3 reports they believe they have faint noise of an American warship.”
BCh-3 was the communications channel for Sonar and the torpedo rooms.
Bocharkov straightened off the bulkhead and walked toward the far end of the control room, where Sonar was located.
“Sir! K-56 is surfacing. The K-56 has us located off their starboard side.”
“Starboard side?” Uvarova said briskly. “What does that mean? Starboard side — how far starboard side?”
Bocharkov had been going to ask the same thing, but his senior enlisted sailor had beat him to it. Ignatova looked at him. Bocharkov nodded. It was the right question, but one the chief ship starshina should have known the answer to.
“If they can hear us, then we have to be a couple hundred yards minimum, Chief Ship Starshina Uvarova,” Ignatova answered. “How else would his sonar array be able to pick up a directional noise?”
Bocharkov reached up and grabbed a handhold as the K-122 continued upward toward the surface.
“Sorry, XO!”
“An American destroyer, Captain,” Yakovitch said as he walked uphill toward Bocharkov. “Sonar is sure now. They have an American destroyer making high speeds, sir.”
“I’m heading to Sonar now. What direction? Range?”
“Bearing is zero-four-zero, sir. Range unknown.”
“It’s coming from the direction of the American carrier battle group. Means the Americans have not given up on us,” Ignatova added.
“Also means we need to know how far away they are. If we are picking them up now, then they cannot be too far from us,” Bocharkov said, stroking his chin. “Have we set the anti- surface warfare team, XO?”
“With your permission, sir?”
Bocharkov grunted without answering. He continued toward Sonar. Behind him, Ignatova gave the orders bringing the submarine to general quarters. Neither officer expected the Americans to attack them, but if they had to make emergency maneuvers, they would need the crew prepared to react immediately. Bocharkov did not want to surface if they were detecting enemy presence, but his orders were explicit and they would not be on the surface long.
“XO, make sure the K-56 knows about the contact.”
“If he didn’t grunt, we wouldn’t know he was listening,” one of the sailors on the plane whispered to the other.
A slap hit him upside the head. Uvarova leaned down. “Shut up, comrade, and keep your eyes on your job. He is the captain. He can grunt. He can fart if he wants to. You on the other hand are barely a starshina and had better not fart or grunt when I tell you to do something.”
The sailor rubbed his head. “Yes, Chief Ship Starshina Uvarova.”
MacDonald watched the merchant pass harmlessly down their port side, quickly exposing its stern as it maneuvered farther to port, opening even more distance between the two ships.
“Now, Mr. Goldstein, tell me about the other contact you had.”
“It’s opening, sir. It has changed to a more southerly direction.”
“Let’s bring her back down to eight knots so the ASW team can clear up their picture and bring her back onto base course two-two-zero.”
“Captain!” the boatswain mate of the watch shouted from next to the 1MC speaker mounted near the captain’s chair.
“What is it, Lowe?”
“Combat requests your presence, sir.”
MacDonald looked at Goldstein. “Good job, Mr. Goldstein.” He walked past the OOD, hearing the quartermaster announce, “Captain off the bridge,” as he passed through the hatch leading to the combat information center.
“Captain in Combat” came the mirror-image announcement as he walked into the darkened space. The combat information center watch officer met him near the doorway.
“What you got, Lieutenant Burnham?”
“Sir, Sonar is getting some unusual noise on our contact and I thought you should know.”
MacDonald was a step behind Burnham as the two officers hurried aft to the sonar portion of Combat.
Burnham jerked the curtain apart. “Captain’s here,” the combat watch officer said, making MacDonald think of it as more a warning than an announcement.
“Skipper, we have an anomaly here, sir,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Burkeet said.
“An anomaly? I like anomalies, Mr. Burkeet.”
“Yes, sir,” Burkeet answered warily. The ASW officer touched Oliver. “You tell him.”
Petty Officer Oliver pulled the left side of the headset away from his ear. “Sir, for the last seven to ten minutes I’ve been listening to the contact noise as it cycled up and down from faint to loud.” The sonar technician glanced up at MacDonald. “Made me think of what you said about convergence and direct zones. But if it was direct, then we should be within several miles of them.” He paused.
“Go ahead, Oliver,” MacDonald encouraged.
“Well, sir, I think we have two submarines out there. I don’t think we’ve been tracking one submarine, but two.”
“Do you have two different lines of bearing?”
“No, sir, but what if the two submarines are traveling together? One nearer to us, which would explain the louder sounds, and one farther away, which would explain the fainter one.”
“I think it makes sense, Skipper,” Burkeet said.
MacDonald’s lower lip pushed upward for a few seconds as he thought about it. They had had the same line of bearings on a contact since they first detected it several hours ago. The VQ-1 reconnaissance aircraft had visually sighted only one. The airdales had even identified the class as an Echo I before scooting back to Guam for their cold beer. His forehead wrinkled, his eyes narrowed. “Okay, Mr. Burkeet, why does it make sense?”
The ASW officer smiled. “It would explain why we are not getting any direct passive noise in the water, Skipper. We are listening to two convergence zone noises. Both submarines are over the horizon out of direct noise contact, but the noises of both are bouncing off the thermocline layer below and the surface of the water. They are both traveling at slightly different speeds, but the contacts are so close that their noises merge, making them seem like one contact.”
When MacDonald nodded, Burkeet continued, confidence growing in his voice. “That explains why we sometimes hear the faint noise mixed with the stronger one.”
“One of the submarines is closer,” Burnham offered.
“How close?”