The officers stepped out of the sonar compartment to give Stalzer and Oliver room to work.
“I can’t believe the Soviets would be this dumb,” Burnham said, his voice trailing off as everyone looked toward him.
“I think he is outside the harbor. Inside, he is too close for his cruise missiles,” Joe Tucker said.
“Probably related to the expected attacks later today,” MacDonald offered.
“What attacks?” Burnham asked sharply. “In Vietnam?”
MacDonald shook his head. “Not now, Ops. Later.” Only one thing made sense to MacDonald. If this submarine was inside the harbor, it was spying. It was reconnoitering the Americans, gaining intelligence for when the two largest fleets in the world would fight for dominance of the seas. From some of his own intelligence-gathering missions just outside the twelve-mile national water limits, he knew exactly what this submarine was doing if they were “dumb” enough to be inside the harbor. Neither navy doubted that someday they would have that showdown. What if this was it?
“Most likely a sound propagation anomaly,” Joe Tucker said, his eyebrows furrowed.
Stalzer leaned into Combat, straddling the doorway. He held his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Coghlan is turning up its gear, sir,” he said to Burkeet. “It’ll be another five minutes before they’re ready.”
MacDonald looked at the clock on the aft bulkhead of Combat. It was two thirty in the morning. It was going to be a long day for him. He tried to recall when he’d last had eight hours’ sleep in a row.
“Why would they be out there, Captain?” Burkeet asked MacDonald.
MacDonald pinched his nose. It had been a long time, probably before they departed Pearl Harbor on the first leg of their deployment from San Diego.
“They’ve been trailing the Kitty Hawk battle group since we left Japanese waters,” Joe Tucker answered. “They’re waiting for us to come out. I hate to think what it would mean if we have one sitting a few thousand yards from us.”
“Could be,” MacDonald added. “You never know with Mad Ivan what he is up to, but I doubt seriously he’d attack us inside the harbor.”
“Why, sir?”
“Well, Lieutenant Burkeet, remember Pearl Harbor?”
The ASW officer nodded.
“We are still looking at photographs and movies of the event. Even today we recoil from what happened on December 7. Have you ever read about the Battle of the Aleutians or the Battle of the Solomons?”
“I studied them at the Academy,” Burkeet answered.
“Those two battles were at sea. Sea battles are more palatable to the world than those that rage ashore like Pearl Harbor. At sea, when the battle is over, the ocean covers the battlefield, and peace reigns from horizon to horizon.” He paused. “That’s why I don’t think this is a hostile act in terms of blood, guts, and gunpowder.”
MacDonald glanced up as Boatswain Mate Second Class Manny Lowe stepped through the opened watertight hatch.
“Sir, the officer of the deck sends his respects and sent me to find you.”
“You found me, Petty Officer Lowe. What is it?”
“Sir, Subic Operations Center has issued a report of intruders near the warehouses. Apparently there has been gunfire and some marines are either dead or wounded or both. They think the intruders escaped into the harbor…”
A shiver went up MacDonald’s spine. He didn’t need the Coghlan’s line of bearing, for he knew in his gut the Echo was sitting in the harbor out there. What in the hell were the Soviets trying to prove? A surge of anger welled up inside of him.
“… and they are asking all ships to be alert for swimmers.”
No one spoke for a moment, then Joe Tucker asked, “Any more information than that?”
Lowe shook his head. “No, sir. But I remember when I was here last year, the Filipinos had been slipping inside the fence and breaking into things, stealing stuff. Could be they’re just getting more brazen, sir. Maybe this time they brought guns with them.”
“Dumb if they did,” Burnham said. “The Filipino police will have them dead and buried by morning if they catch them.”
“Ops,” MacDonald said. “Bring the ship to general quarters.”
“GQ?” Joe Tucker asked.
General quarters was the naval term for bringing a ship from peacetime sailing to battle status, ready to fight and defend itself. It was not something done in port — except too late in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Gromeko swam, fighting the fear in his mind. Sharks were the scourge of sailors and others whose profession took them into the ocean. In the dark waters of Subic Bay, imagination fed fear, and fear was more a killer of men than sharks. This he knew.
Most times sharks and sailors kept a watchful and respectful eye on each other, but not this time. He could barely see his hands in front of him because of the murkiness of Subic Bay. Fear could eat up the oxygen in a diver’s tank in seconds instead of minutes. He counted his breathing rhythm, forcing his mind to concentrate elsewhere. Gromeko told himself there was little he could do if the shark returned. But he kept the knife in his hand as he swam.
With Zosimoff gone, the trail of blood was gone also. Maybe the shark was full now. Maybe the shark had lost him, but he knew if it wanted him it would return. The eyesight of a shark isn’t what takes it to its prey. It is the smell riding the currents, or the out-of-synch vibration created by a human in the water, or a combination of both.
He stretched his left arm out as his right came back alongside, the knife held blade-outward so he wouldn’t cut himself. He did not want to stop to put it back in the scabbard, and then, if the shark returned, he wouldn’t have time to reach it again.
His right leg came up as his left leg went down, the flippers propelling him forward. One thing the encounter had done was cause Gromeko to lose track of time. What if he had swum over the K-122 and was now working his way into the center of Subic Bay?
The blow came suddenly along the same side as before, knocking Gromeko end over end. Instinctively he tightened his hold on the knife. The rough skin of the shark rubbed along the suit, doing the “taste test.” Gromeko’s arms and legs spread out, helping him regain his balance. He treaded water a second or two, until he recalled that the shark had come from below to take Zosimoff. He turned upside down, holding the knife tightly, waiting for the attack.
It came as suddenly as the taste test, emerging a few feet from him, the faint light from above casting a pale gray shadow across the creature’s opened mouth.
“Hammerhead” flashed through Gromeko’s mind even as he rolled to the left.
His knife cut a narrow slash through the part of the shark where its right eye lay. The shark twisted back and forth as it moved to the left, away from Gromeko. The tail caught him again, knocking out his mouthpiece.
Water flooded his mouth before Gromeko could stop his inward breath. He coughed as he fought to get his mouthpiece reseated. The knife hit his temple in the effort. Blood in the water would only help the hammerhead find him again, but he had no time to think about whether he had accidentally cut himself or not.
He treaded water, upside down, waiting for the next attack. After about a minute when nothing happened, Gromeko forced himself to look at his compass and continue in the direction in which he hoped the K-122 waited. The drumming of his heartbeat filled his ears. He had fought a giant shark. Whether he had won or not would be determined by whether he was standing inside the submarine.
“Raise the communications antenna,” Bocharkov ordered, leaning back from the periscope.