Bocharkov climbed into the compartment. Though he had never been in an American submarine, he knew the configuration was similar in both navies. Neither navy had figured out what to do with the conning tower.
The starshina never stopped. He scurried up the ladder, spun the hatch, and threw it back. A breath of fresh, warm Pacific air filled the small compartment. Bocharkov took a deep breath. You never realized how stale submarine air could grow until you surfaced and the outside air washed across your body.
Bocharkov followed the sailor up the ladder. Behind him came his executive officer, Captain Second Rank Vladmiri Ignatova. Captain second rank was the equivalent to an American or British commander.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Ignatova replied.
Bocharkov grabbed the sides of the ladder and scrambled up it, his eyes blinking as he adjusted to the glare of the summer Pacific sun. A slight breeze blew from the northeast. He nodded toward the east. “Somewhere in that direction is the Philippines.”
Without waiting for an acknowledgment, Bocharkov raised his binoculars and scanned the horizon in the direction of the American battle group.
“Last position we had on the Americans put them northeast of our position,” Ignatova said as he flipped open the sound-powered tube. “Simulate opening missile hatches!”
Bocharkov put a hand into his pocket and pressed the button on the side of the stopwatch.
A reply echoed up from the tube. “Simulating opening missile doors!”
A spot of motion caught Bocharkov’s attention. He shifted the binoculars to the left, scanning the horizon. There it was again. Not quite clear, but something caught his eye. Something several degrees above the horizon. On a clear day at sea, the horizon was always twenty-four kilometers from your vessel. Fifteen miles, the Americans would say in their ancient system of measurements. What stubborn people the Americans could be. The rest of the world says, “Okay, we’ll all switch to metrics.” Not the Americans. “Too much trouble, we’ll stay with our English measurements.”
“Captain,” Ignatova said.
Even the British were changing to the European metric system.
“Captain,” Ignatova said again.
Bocharkov lowered the binoculars. “What is it, XO?”
“The missile doors are simulated open.”
Bocharkov glanced forward where the near-circular outline of the missile doors covered the cruise missiles. Real-time, it would take nearly five minutes to prepare for launch and another couple of minutes to actually launch the missiles. Seven minutes was a lot of time to be on the surface of the ocean in the daylight. He had only launched twice in his career. Both launches were off Kamchatka during a live fire exercise.
He pulled the stopwatch from his pocket. Two minutes had passed.
“Let’s give it five more minutes, XO. Two minutes is a little too much to expect, don’t you think?”
The P-5 cruise missile was a magnificent missile, specifically designed to take out American aircraft carriers. It had a range of over three hundred fifty kilometers. Someday the Soviet Navy would be able to confront the Americans ship-to-ship, but in the meantime cruise missiles and the Soviet Naval Air Force would level the playing field. A massive number of cruise missiles arriving nearly simulateously from over the horizon — coordinated through command, control, and communications with everyone to create an ocean Armageddon of missiles fired by submarines, surface ships, and aircraft operating at staggered distances. Everything designed for the missiles to arrive at an American battle group simultaneously.
Bocharkov took a deep breath of patriotic pride over Admiral Gorshkov’s strategic plan for winning the war at sea. Overwhelming might could be defeated by overwhelming fast and deadly weapons. And it was submarines that would make the difference. The Americans learned it during the Great Patriotic War. The Germans tried it in World War I and the Great Patriotic War. The Great Patriotic War forced the Soviet Union to start growing a submarine force.
Once launched, the wings of a P-5 cruise missile would unfold and it would zoom off toward the horizon at subsonic speed, leaving a spiraling contrail behind it as it sped toward its target. Bocharkov had six to fire and each had to be released separately. Once the first was fired, the others could be launched quickly, one after the other. Still, throughout the launching and the flight of the P-5 missiles, the submarine would remain on the surface — vulnerable to attack.
“Sir, I have an aircraft bearing three-three-zero relative off the bow!” shouted the starboard starshina, his finger pointing toward the horizon.
He was pointing to where Bocharkov had thought he detected motion a few moments earlier. Borcharkov glanced up at the periscope to see if the radar was active. It was open and turning, but he felt none of the static electricity associated with what the NATO countries called the Snoop Tray radar. He had not given permission to activate it. Electronic warfare being what it was in this age of electronics, they would have been detected almost immediately.
Definitely, he never had intention of activating the Front Door missile tracking radar during the exercise, for the same reason he had mandated the six missile doors be kept shut: an American misinterpretation. Americans were a dangerous lot. They were cowboys. They would fire first and with massive retaliation, then look at the damage, blow the smoke away from their barrels, and talk about what a fine fellow the victim used to be.
Bocharkov raised his binoculars, scanning in the direction of the starshina’s finger. A flash of sunlight caught his attention. He pulled the glasses back toward it and a dark object filled the lens. He twisted the focus knob and quickly the vision of a four-engine propeller-driven plane with a bulbous bubble beneath its fuselage filled his eyesight. The three upright fins on the rear of the aircraft identified it as…
“It is an American reconnaissance plane,” Ignatova said.
Bocharkov moved the glasses slightly, keeping them pointing at the aircraft, while he glanced to his side. His XO had his own glasses focused on the bogie. “It is an American Super Constellation,” Bocharkov added. “An EC-121, they call them.”
“Fleet Air Reconnassiance?”
“One. Fleet Air Reconnassiance One. Either flying out of the Philippines or out of Guam,” Bocharkov added, dropping his binoculars.
“I think they are heading toward us.”
Bocharkov grunted. “I think you are correct, XO.” He put a hand over the binoculars to keep them from swaying as he turned. “Cancel the exercise, clear the bridge, and take the boat down,” he said, his voice calm. Things like this happen at sea.
“Sir, I have bogies bearing zero-nine-zero relative!” the topside watch on the starboard side shouted.
Bocharkov looked to the right. Several aircraft were visible. Long white contrails marked their path like arrows pointed at the K-122. “Phantoms! They’re fighter-bomber aircraft!” He looked at the sailors, all staring at the subsonic fighters heading toward them. “Clear the bridge!” he shouted, motioning with his hand. “Get below.” Reconnaissance aircraft had no firepower, but those F-4 fighter-bombers could sink the boat, and you never knew what the Americans were going to do. They were mercurial in their tactics.
Bocharkov flipped open the brass cover of the sound-powered internal communications device. “Dive, dive! Take the boat down!”
As he shouted his command, the four topside watches scurried through the hatch and dropped onto the deck of the conning tower compartment below.
“XO, get below!”
Ignatova scrambled down the ladder.
Bocharkov took a last look around, ensuring no one was topside and making a visual inspection of the openings. Water rushed over the bow of the Echo. The angle of the bridge tilted forward as the boat sought solace beneath the surface. Once again his anticarrier warfare exercise had been disrupted by the Americans. What were they doing that allowed the Americans to find him so easily?