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.
Behind him the submarine waited at periscope depth. Ahead, less than a hundred meters, was the shore and the thrill of doing a mission. Gromeko had no doubt they would do this without ever being detected. After all, who would believe a Soviet Spetsnaz team was skipping and jumping around the U.S. Naval Base at Subic Bay?
A long, dark shadow swam past between them and the submarine, its Jurassic-age body rippling smoothly through the nighttime waters.
“Up periscope,” Bocharkov said. He squatted and flipped the handles down as the hydraulics lifted the scope. He pressed his head against the rubber fitting as he rode the scope to the surface. The shipboard lights seemed so close as he studied the ships. On one of the destroyers he could make out a sailor standing watch on top of the bridge.
Oliver heard the hydraulic noise and wondered what was making it. It wasn’t ballast pumps because they were different. This sound was smooth and it disappeared after only a few seconds.
The telephone on the bulkhead rang.
He slipped off his headset. “Sonar,” he said in greeting.
“Oliver, this is Lowe. What the fuck are you doing?”
“Boats, I need Mr. Burkeet up in Sonar.”
“It’s after one in the morning, Oliver. You want me to wake the young lieutenant and tell him you want his ass up in Sonar?”
“Yes. It’s important, Boats.”
“So is sleep and passing a watch without a lot of officers running around loose,” Manny Lowe replied. Then he whispered, “I got Marshall up here. Ain’t that enough for a sailor to have to put up with?”
“Look, Manny, I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t important.”
“Then why don’t you go wake him up?”
“Because I have my equipment up and operating. I can’t leave it on.”
“Then turn it off.”
“That’s the problem.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I can’t turn it off.”
“If you can’t turn it off, then it’s the chief you want, not Lieutenant Burkeet. Burkeet can barely turn on and off his stateroom light, much less—”
“Look! Are you going to wake the lieutenant or what?”
Oliver heard Marshall ask Lowe who he was talking to. For a good minute, Oliver had to wait while Lowe told the lieutenant junior grade engineering officer about their conversation.
Finally Lowe said, “You got a pencil?”
Oliver scrambled around a moment and came up with one of the Skilcraft black ballpoint pens the navy had in abundance. “I got a pen.”
“Here’s his extension; you call him. Mr. Marshall said if you call bothering the quarterdeck again he’s going to have you up to see the XO.”
Oliver wrote down the number, hung up without saying good-bye, and dialed the extension. It rang for a long time without anyone answering. He should have known the lieutenant would be ashore or at the officers club with everyone else. Finally he hung up the telephone, turned back to the sonar console, and put the headset on. Probably best thing to do was not tell anyone. They’d laugh over his concern about hearing Soviet submarine noises while tied up pierside. After a few minutes he lifted the PMS card and started doing the preventive maintenance schedule even as periodically a new noise would pass over his headset. Each time, Oliver glanced at the console. It took about ten minutes for him to realize that whatever noise he was hearing, was always on the same bearing — two seven two. The clock showed ten minutes after one.
Gromeko’s fingertips brushed the bottom before he saw it. He blinked a red light behind him twice, then glanced upward. Lights from the poles along the road bled into the waters. He swam upward a few meters until his head broke the surface. Behind him he heard the others surface. They were less than twenty meters from the rocky barrier that made up this portion of Olongapo Harbor.
A hand touched his shoulder. It was Dolinski. Zosimoff treaded water to the other side of the man. “There,” the GRU officer said, pointing to his left.
The dark circular shadow outlining the huge drainage pipe was about fifty meters in that direction. Gromeko nodded, looked around, and pointed in that direction for Fedulova and Malenkov, who were behind the other three. He dove, knowing the others would follow. Along the shallow waters near the shore the five Spetsnaz members moved quietly, their flippers barely stirring the surface as they inched their way to the opening ahead of them.
Less than ten minutes later, the five men were inside the pipe. A trickle of water ran through the center of the ten-foot-wide drain. Without talking, they quickly removed their tanks, flippers, and gear. Malenkov reached into the bag and pulled out the chief’s uniform. He was slipping on the black leather shoes by the time Gromeko was buttoning up his dungaree shirt.
Gromeko stepped to the edge of the pipe and flashed three dots three times with his red flashlight. Then he put it away. His watch showed ten minutes after one. He snapped his fingers, drawing everyone’s attention, and pointed at his watch. Everyone looked at his own and understood. They were five minutes behind schedule.
Zosimoff was the last to finish. He tucked the 9mm pistol inside the top of his pants and pulled the dungaree shirt over it. The others did the same. “Do not pull the pistols unless we have no choice. Does everyone understand?”
They nodded and said, “Da,” in unison. The voices echoed inside the drain, causing everyone to go silent. Gromeko wondered for a moment if the team was up to this challenge.
Dolinski walked alongside each of them, checking their uniforms, making sure the line of the shirt, the belt buckle, and the zipper of the dungaree trousers were aligned. He slipped his fingers inside the top of Gromeko’s trousers. “Nice tight fit, comrade,” he whispered.
Malenkov went first, slipping around the side of the pipe and working his way slowly up the steep, dangerous side of the rocky barrier. Gromeko realized that any of them could slip and break an ankle right here. Better here than up there, he thought.
Gromeko followed. At the top, Malenkov reached over the railing of the wooden fence paralleling the road and helped him over. Dolinski followed with his bag, then Fedulova and Zosimoff were right behind him.
“We are ashore,” Dolinski said.
“Sir, no Russian, please,” Malenkov said in near accent-free English.
Gromeko nodded in agreement, putting his finger to his mouth.
“That way,” Dolinski said in Russian.
They crossed the street. A line of warehouses stretched along the road. Closed gray doors large enough for trucks to drive through graced the ends of each warehouse.