“Yes, sir — I mean no, sir.”
Bocharkov slid off the stool and out the hatch. While the Spetsnaz “enjoyed” this mission, Bocharkov intended to have his own backup plan for escaping. For the safety of the boat, he’d leave the Spetsnaz in the middle of the harbor and in the arms of the Americans before he would surrender his submarine and crew. Death was better than dishonor.
SIX
“Make our speed five knots,” Bocharkov said. “Bearing?”
“Bearing two-zero-zero, increasing noise.”
Bocharkov looked at Ignatova. “Seems this American never gives up.”
“With due respect, Captain, I do not think at this speed the American sonar can pick us up.”
Bocharkov grunted. “Maybe they put something on the hull of the boat other than those clappers. Something only they can pick up and track, something we do not know about.”
“Depth one hundred meters, course zero-four-zero, speed five knots,” Lieutenant Commander Orlov echoed from across the control room.
Ignatova leaned closer, nearly whispering. “While we have them at high speed now, this high speed disappears about every thirty minutes.”
“Is it every thirty minutes at a certain time, or every thirty minutes the noise of his high-speed revolutions in the water are putting out?”
Ignatova took a few seconds to answer. “I would say the loss of contact with the high-speed noise the destroyer’s screws are putting into the water seems to be timed.”
“Then, they may well be tracking us, then leapfrogging ahead to try to catch up with us.”
“If the Americans are tracking us, Captain, then to continue onward with this mission will be a one-way trip; it will be suicide,” Ignatova cautioned in a low voice.
Bocharkov said nothing. Ignatova had only voiced what he was thinking. The question was, how was the American destroyer tracking them? It never occurred to Bocharkov, as it would never occur to MacDonald on the Dale, that serendipitous events centered on an Asian port would lead both captains to different interpretations.
MacDonald ambled onto the bridge, passing through the hatch from the combat information center. He patted his pocket. He’d read the unclassified message again from his chair.
“Captain on the bridge!” the boatswain mate of the watch shouted.
The quartermaster of the watch grabbed his pencil and notated the time the skipper had arrived. So it had been done since the U.S. Navy was formally established in 1789 by an act of Congress.
“Carry on,” MacDonald acknowledged as he crossed to the plotting table. “What time to Olongapo?” he asked.
“Sir, we are a few miles from Philippine national waters, then another hour to Subic Bay.”
“That’s good, Petty Officer Pratt. What time?”
“I have been doing dead reasoning based on radar fixes with the shore, sir, and I estimate we will be at the harbor entrance at this speed in less than an hour.”
MacDonald grinned. “Pretty specific?”
Platt blushed and glanced at the black-rimmed navy clock mounted on the rear bulkhead. “Should be there by nineteen forty-five hours, sir.”
MacDonald did not say anything. At twenty knots they should have been inside and tied up pierside by this time, but Lieutenant Junior Grade Burkeet had argued successfully for the Dale to slow to ten knots every thirty or so minutes. The young whippersnapper was determined to regain contact on the submarine, which, by now, was probably halfway to Kamchatka to explain why it had been caught on the surface. This leapfrogging speed had added time to their trip.
The hatch from Combat opened and Joe Tucker walked onto the bridge, carrying a metal message board in one hand. Unlike when MacDonald entered, no one announced his arrival.
“XO, we have an answer from Subic Operations Center yet?”
“Sent the logistic request when we turned off station, sir. We have not received an answer yet, but I’m confident they will have a pilot and tug ready for our arrival. I have Combat trying to raise Subic to confirm.”
MacDonald nodded. Little was more frustrating to a sailor than to be able to see a liberty port and be unable to reach it because the logistics needed to tie up pierside were either late or nonexistent.
“We could take the Dale all the way pierside, Skipper. We’ve been in Olongapo before; isn’t as if we’re nicky new kids on the block.”
“We’ll see,” he answered.
The boatswain mate walked up with MacDonald’s cup filled with coffee. MacDonald’s stomach rolled, but he took it with a thanks. He had been drinking coffee since five this morning.
“Have Burkeet and Oliver had any joy with their periodic searches?”
“Not yet, sir, but that does not keep them from searching.”
“And Chief Stalzer?”
“He’s down there with them.”
MacDonald nodded.
“Officer of the Deck, let’s bring the speed down to twelve knots when we cross into the territorial waters.”
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Goldstein replied.
“What do we have ahead of us?”
Goldstein shifted from near the hatch to the port-side bridge wing to the navigation table. “Bunch of fishing boats still out at sea, sir. Suspect most will start heading back soon, if they are not already. I show a couple of larger vessels northwest of the harbor entrance. The off-going watch reported them a few minutes before I relieved Lieutenant Kelly. Their course and speed indicate they are heading into Subic also.”
“Probably merchants,” Joe Tucker added. “OPSO has the harbor activity list and it shows a steady stream of Maritime Sealift ships coming into and out of the harbor for the remainder of the week.”
MacDonald nodded. “What do you think the Tripoli Amphibious Task Group and our Carrier Battle Group are up to?”
“Whatever it is, sir, we both know it has to do with Vietnam.”
MacDonald wanted to voice his misgivings about the war, but to express anything less than a positive result would almost seem traitorous. If the politicians would take the hand-cuffs off the military and let them fight, this war could be over within months. North Vietnam would be a U.S. territory or a parking lot.
“Skipper?”
“Uh?”
“Sorry, sir. I was saying that right now we do not have a set-sail date from Subic.”
MacDonald pulled the message from his pocket and handed it to the XO. “Here. I’ll trade you,” he said, taking the message board from Joe Tucker’s hand. “I’m sure we’ll find out more once we arrive and get our telephone lines up. Anything else going on?”
Joe Tucker nodded at the metal message board as he unfolded the message in his hand. “Nasser continues to saber-rattle about pushing Israel off the face of the earth — push them into the Mediterranean.”
MacDonald flipped open the metal cover. “Let’s hope we stay out of this fight between the Jews and Arabs. Let them settle it among themselves.”
The red stamp of “TOP SECRET” stared back at MacDonald. He scanned the message; it was a two-pager. When would intelligence weenies ever learn that no one reads more than the first paragraph in a message? He sighed before he started reading. He hated intelligence messages that were punctuated with “probables” and “possibles” as if they were covering their asses.
When he reached the final paragraph, he pulled the first page back and read it fully. It was an encapsulation of the events up to yesterday: Egypt had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping in May; the same month Gamal Abdel Nasser had ordered the United Nations peacekeepers out of the Sinai. In the last few weeks, the Egyptian Army had massed its armor along the Sinai border with Israel. This week the Syrian and Jordanian armies followed suit. He took a deep breath. As much as he disliked the idea of anything having to do with the Middle East, maybe this time the Arabs meant it. Maybe this time they truly would overrun a country with their combined military strength, which outnumbered the Israelis better than two to one.