“I think I can make out a mast clearing the horizon. It is American Navy dark gray.”
Bocharkov lifted his glasses. Across the narrow strip of water separating the two powerful Soviet submarines Gerasimovich was doing the same thing. Motion was what usually identified a contact, so Bocharkov waited and a few seconds passed before a slight motion drew his attention. “Looks like the main mast.”
“Looks like a main mast with an antenna that is turning.”
Bocharkov lifted the voice tube covering. “Control room, Captain. Does the electronic warfare operator have anything in the direction of zero-four-zero true?”
Immediately, the voice of Lieutenant Commander Orlov, the operations officer, answered with a negative.
“It’s turning but they have it turned off. Wait a minute, Skipper! Belay my last. Electronic warfare has a surface search radar in that direction. It is an American warship — probably destroyer!” Orlov shouted.
“Fast speed, radar on. What are they thinking?” Ignatova asked.
“He knows when we see him we will submerge. He wants to get as close to us as possible. He wants to see us. Photograph us. He knows we know he is coming.”
“I would think he would try to sneak up on us.”
Bocharkov grunted. “Most likely his EW detected the K-56’s surface search radar. And, as we have with theirs, he would have know that our sonar operators had probably detected him.” He laughed softly. “Smart captain. I would have done the same. Full speed ahead and see how close I can get before the submarines submerge. Being closer means being able to reestablish contact sooner.”
The voice tube whistled again. “Skipper,” Orlov said. “Sonar confirms the radar contact is the same as the sonar contact. It is the American destroyer cresting the horizon.”
Bocharkov acknowledged Orlov’s report. He lifted his bullhorn and quickly agreed to Gerasimovich’s idea. Amidships of the K-122, the raft was released. The sailors cranked the small engine, and the raft started its slow transit toward the K-56. The two starshinas leaned forward as if urging the raft ahead.
Bocharkov looked down at the main deck. Trush was clearing the sailors off topside, urging them down the aft escape hatch into the aft torpedo room. What was so damn important that Soviet Pacific Fleet headquarters had risked two submarines by having them surface in the daylight? He’d know soon enough. And why in the hell did he have to have another Spetsnaz aboard his boat?
“Clear the decks, XO,” Bocharkov said. He lifted the voice tube and told the control room to prepare to dive, but not to dive until he gave the order. He lifted his bullhorn, pointing it toward the K-56. “Fedor! I owe you a drink in Kamchatka.”
“No, I owe you one, comrade. I have not had an opportunity to pit my wits against the Americans. You have had all the fun. If you get home before me, tell the wives I am not far behind.”
Bocharkov handed the bullhorn to one of the topside watches. He turned to them. “You sailors, get belowdecks.” Then he hit the dive button. The ooga noise common to both the Soviet and the American navies echoed across the open ocean. Bucharkov looked across the narrowing distance between the two submarines. The raft had bumped against the K-56 hull, and sailors were quickly pulling the two men out of it. The cap on the last sailor flew off, landing in the water near the raft.
Another sailor topside, a security expert, raised the AK-47 cradled in his arm, pointed it at the raft, and fired. The quick burst of the automatic weapon sent dozens of bullets into the inflated rim. Gerasimovich saluted Bocharkov, who returned the gesture. He did a quick look fore and aft, satisfying himself that both escape hatches were secured and no one other than him was above deck. Then he quickly scurried down the ladder, securing the hatch after him. In seconds he was in the control room.
“Orders?” Ignatova asked loudly.
“Take the boat to two hundred meters.”
“Two hundred meters!” Ignatova relayed.
Across the control room the order was repeated by Lieutenant Commander Burian Orlov. Chief Ship Starshina Uvarova, chief of the boat, pulled the hydraulic levers back, his eyes locked on the meters above them as the ballasts filled.
“Passing fifty meters,” Orlov said from his position halfway between the helmsman and the planesman. “Angle on the bow twenty degrees. Recommend speed eight knots.”
Bocharkov said nothing. After a few seconds, Ignatova asked softly, “Sir, should we increase speed to eight knots?”
Bocharkov shook his head. “No, keep the speed to barely making way. Keep taking us down.”
The sound of the ballasts filling on the K-56 as it submerged vibrated through the boat. Every person in the control room with the exception of Bocharkov glanced upward. There would be thoughts of the K-56 submerging faster than their submarine. Collisions at sea were terrible things, but none more terrible than two submarines colliding out of sight beneath the waves.
They had no way of knowing that the K-56 would remain on the surface until they were sure the Americans had seen them. Then like the wounded grouse on the plains drawing a predator away from its nest, Gerasimovich would lure the Americans northwest, away from the K-122.
“Passing seventy-five meters,” Orlov said, his voice slightly louder than the last report.
“Continue to two hundred meters,” Bocharkov said. “Maintain two knots speed.”
More noise from the K-56 reached their ears as Bocharkov’s comrade Gerasimovich engaged both propellers on the other submarine. The noise was the shafts increasing in rotation, the slight vibration of the props boring through the water overhead as the other submarine changed its direction away from the K-122.
If he were Fedor Gerasimovich, Bocharkcov thought, he would take the K-56 up to twenty knots. Twenty knots was not a tactically good move, but the noise would draw the American to him and mask any noise K-122 was generating into the water.
“Passing one hundred meters.”
“Very well,” Ignatova answered.
“Angle on the bow twenty degrees. Speed remains two knots.”
Two knots was just enough forward motion to keep the K-122 pointed in the same direction. When a submarine dropped through varying depths of temperature and currents, without some speed the ocean could gain control, twisting and turning the boat on its way downward. And if you hit a river current, you could find yourself ripped along with it until you put on a burst of speed to break through. Bocharkov let out a deep breath. With the K-56 whipping up knuckles in the water above them, he had little doubt the Americans would not hear the K-122. All he had to do was wait comfortably beneath the layer until the Americans and the K-56 disappeared northward.
“Captain, signal bridge lookout reports one of the submarines is submerging. The other one has a small boat tied up alongside.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant Goldstein.” MacDonald lifted his glasses. He wished he were up on the signal bridge instead of the XO, but his job was here or in Combat.
A sailor burst through the hatch, the ship’s camera in his hand. When he saw the skipper, he stopped abruptly, snapped a salute. “Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be.” He pointed upward. “Get up there and get us some photographs.”
He sighed. The sailor’s boondockers clanged on the metal rungs as the young man ran up the ladder. He hoped the photographer was able to get a shot of both submarines together. It would be a nice memento to hang up in the wardroom. But if one was submerging, the sailor would have to act fast.
He lifted the binoculars again, training them off the port side of the bow. The submarines were in view down. He smiled. He had his two submarines, and as he watched, water washed over the bow and stern of the one on the left. MacDonald hummed. “Gotcha,” he whispered. “More than dos puntos in any man’s book.”