“Do you think they have detected us?” Orlov asked.
Bocharkov bit his lip. He nodded. “That is always a possibility, but the destroyers are still tied up ashore and have yet to move.”
“There it is again, sir!” Oliver shouted.
“We heard it on the speaker,” Stalzer said, patting the petty officer on the shoulder.
Both sonar technicians looked at the captain.
“What do you think?” he asked Burkeet.
Every head turned to the ASW officer.
“I agree with the chief and Petty Officer Oliver, sir. It sounds like a periscope.”
“Could be outside,” Burnham said.
Stalzer shook his head. “It would be the first time I’ve heard a periscope rise from this distance. It would be near impossible for us to hear a periscope rise if it was even at the edge of Subic Bay.”
“The bearing goes through Subic Bay and out to sea,” Burnham argued.
“This one isn’t out in Subic Bay. It’s in the harbor.”
Everyone looked at Stalzer.
“I know, I know,” Stalzer said. “I don’t believe I said it either. It’s impossible. A Soviet submarine is inside an American-controlled harbor? It is as dumb as an American submarine…”
Everyone stopped.
MacDonald stepped outside Sonar and hurried to the nearest telephone.
“Where’s he going?” Burnham asked.
“Probably to call the admiral,” Joe Tucker said as he pushed past Burnham to follow MacDonald. At the curtain, he turned. “Lieutenant Burkeet, keep recording the noises. We’ll need them later.”
“Aye, sir.”
MacDonald was at his chair in Combat. Nearby, hanging on makeshift hooks along the edge of an electronics bay, were several metal-covered logbooks. He grabbed one labeled “Olongapo,” flipped over the metal cover, and started rifling through the messages.
“What you looking for, sir?” Joe Tucker asked as he stepped up.
“The telephone number of the Coghlan.”
“The Coghlan?”
“I would estimate he’s nearly a half mile from us.” His finger traced the numbers downward until he found what he wanted. “Ah! Here it is.” He quickly dialed the number. “If we have a Soviet submarine inside the harbor area, then a half-mile separation will be sufficient for us to get a location on it.”
As the phone rang, he turned to Joe Tucker. “If this Ron Kennedy can get his sonar team up and tracking this noise, then we’ll know real fast if it is an anomaly or if we have an intruder in the harbor.”
A sleepy voice answered the other end. It was not sleepy when MacDonald explained to his fellow skipper what he wanted. When he hung up, he turned to Joe Tucker. “Now I’ll call the admiral.” He sighed.
“You know Green will be over here in minutes,” Joe Tucker warned.
MacDonald nodded, his finger misdialing the second number. He hit the disconnect and redialed. He knew he was doing the right thing, but even doing the right thing could make you the butt of jokes for decades to come.
Gromeko knew he was falling farther behind the three men ahead. He no longer could make them out, so now as he pulled the weight of Zosimoff along, he glanced at the wrist compass every few seconds to stay on course. The submarine should be at periscope depth and as low as he was swimming; he would run right into it — unless it had left.
Something bumped him on the left side, knocking him to the right and causing him to lose his grip on Zosimoff. Without thinking, he quickly reached back, luckily grabbed the sleeve of the dungaree shirt, and pulled the body back to him. What in the hell was that?
He looked right and left, treading water for a few moments, then attributed it to more flotsam in the heavily polluted waters of the harbor. He started swimming again, kicking harder, trying to make up for time he was losing. If he arrived at the K-122 after—
He was hit again. This time his hand trailed along the side of the thing that hit him. It took several seconds for it to pass. Shark! He had been a diver long enough to know. The blood from Malenkov and from Zosimoff had led it, or them, to him. He kept swimming.
Sharks circled their prey before dashing forward. They glided up, rubbing their skins, which were one continuous work of taste sensors, against their prey to determine if it was edible. Then they attacked, ripping and tearing their prey to threads with teeth honed by evolution since the age of dinosaurs. Gromeko had just been rubbed.
He stopped. The water was murky and he would hardly see the shark if it attacked. He pulled the knife from his ankle scabbard. And he waited. He allowed Zosimoff to drift downward slightly to give him room for the attack. The sound of his speeding heart filled his ears. To die as shark bait this far from home doing a mission in enemy waters — where was the irony of that?
Suddenly Zosimoff was jerked from his grip. The last he saw of the body was the waving hair as it disappeared downward. Without waiting, he turned and continued swimming toward the submarine. He picked up speed without carrying the body, but somewhere behind him was a big shark, and he did not know if Zosimoff would sate its appetite.
“Something is happening,” Bocharkov said.
Ignatova stepped into the control room. “It’s nearly two thirty,” he said. “Thirty minutes before they are due back.”
Bocharkov nodded. “Prepare for an emergency exit, Lieutenant Commander Orlov.” He turned to Ignatova. “Return to the forward torpedo room, XO. As soon as they are on board we are going to head out. Too much activity topside for me.”
“Do you think they know we are here?”
Bocharkov bit his lower lip. “Don’t know. All I can do is watch the destroyers now. With only small boats surfing across the harbor, the worst they can do is accidentally run into the periscope.”
“Maybe the Spetsnaz team has been discovered,” Tverdokhleb said, seated at the navigation table, one leg over the arm of the chair and his left hand drumming a cigarette on the table.
Bocharkov and Ignatova looked at the taciturn navigator.
Tverdokhleb shrugged. “If they have run into resistance and managed to escape, maybe the Americans saw them jump into the harbor. Maybe that is why we are seeing hundreds of boats scattering across the water.” He shrugged again. “Just thinking out loud.”
“Hundreds of boats?” Orlov asked.
Bocharkov shook his head. “Tens of boats is more accurate, but our esteemed navigator may have a point.” He turned back to the periscope. “Run up the radio antenna and get the communications officer up here immediately.”
The telephone rang. MacDonald picked it up. While they waited for the Coghlan’s sonar team to man their position, he had moved the telephone outside of the Dale sonar compartment.
“Dale speaking,” he answered. He acknowledged the voice on the other end and then hung up. “Admiral Green is on his way over.”
“I hate it when I’m right,” Joe Tucker mumbled.
The telephone rang again. This time it was the lead sonar technician on the Coghlan. MacDonald handed the telephone to Stalzer. What would happen now would be that the Coghlan and Dale operators would focus on the same noise, each take a line of bearing on the signal, and then draw the lines outward until they crossed. Where they crossed would reveal the location of this mysterious signal that everyone seemed hell-bent on identifying as a Soviet Echo class submarine.