Echo Class (23 page)

Vyshinsky saw Bocharkov and Ignatova. He walked quickly toward them.

“More directions from Moscow most likely,” Ignatova said softly.

Steps before he reached them, Vyshinsky, stuttering slightly with the first word, said, “Captain, I have a top secret message from Moscow.”

Ignatova raised two fingers and dipped them. “Two points.”

Vyshinsky held the metal message board out with his left hand while saluting awkwardly with his right. “Here it is, Comrade Captain.”

“Comrade,” Ignatova said, shaking his head. He looked at Vyshinsky as Bocharkov took the message board. “Captain is sufficient, Alex, or comrade, but both together is a waste of air aboard a submarine.”

Bocharkov motioned downward. Last thing needed was an interview with the
zampolit
while this Lieutenant Dolinski was filling the political officer's narrow mind with bullshit and ideology.

Ignatova nodded. Vyshinsky stood silently, his glances bouncing from Bocharkov to Ignatova while Bocharkov read the message. Halfway through the message, Bocharkov said, “Damn,” and kept reading. Wordlessly, he finished and passed it to Ignatova.

Ignatova quickly scanned the message before looking up at Bocharkov. “Damn!” His eyes went back down and this time he read each word. Ignatova pulled the metal top of the message board down, holding the board away from the communicator when Vyshinsky reached for it. “One moment, Lieutenant.”

Ignatova looked at Bocharkov. “We have to finish this mission tonight and get the hell out of Subic Bay.”

Bocharkov nodded. “You are right.” The clock showed ten twenty five. “By this time tomorrow I want to be at least a hundred kilometers away from Subic Bay. Make sure the department heads are aware of this.”

“Sir,” Vyshinsky stuttered. “It is a top secret message.”

Bocharkov grunted. “Won't matter if the Americans catch us here and know the same thing Moscow does, now will it?”

“No, sir,” the communicator answered, his Adam's apple rising and falling.

“XO, I want the K-122 in deep water by this time tomorrow.”

“They do pick their times, don't they?” Ignatova said sharply. He handed the message board to Vyshinsky, who quickly left the control room.

“Too bad we don't have allies with any sense of patience,” Ignatova said. “Maybe we can send Dolinski and Golovastov to them.”

DOLINSKI
slammed the hatch behind him as he stomped into the forward torpedo room. Starshina Cheslav Zosimoff, squatting near the hatch, stood. Shaking his head, he spun the wheel securing the watertight hatch behind Dolinski.

Squatting on the deck around the opened containers were Lieutenant Motka Gromeko, Chief Ship Starshina Burian Fedulova, and Dimitry Malenkov, the only petty officer who spoke accent-free American. The boat's Spetsnaz team had been hard at work preparing for tonight's mission.

Gromeko stood, brushing his hands together. “We've been waiting for you.”

Dolinski crossed his arms. “Looks as if you did not wait long. Have you found what you were looking for?”

Gromeko shook his head. “Not sure what we are supposed to be looking for, Uri.” He started around the small compartment, pointing at each box as he turned. “Here we have the electronics, which are unfamiliar to all of us, but I know this coil of wire will turn into the antenna. That is why—”

“Why I am here, comrade? You don't know what you are looking for because I am the technician.” Dolinksi looked around the crowded room. “Without me, there is no mission, and if you start screwing around with this stuff and break anything, lose something, or cause it to malfunction, then, the mission is kaput.”

“This box has uniforms in it,” Gromeko continued, ignoring the outburst. “I presume they are American Navy uniforms, but we are not sure how to wear them or when. . . .”

“That is my job to show you.”

“And this box has weapons. We have weapons on board the K-122, but these weapons . . .”

“. . . are designed to work underwater, if we need them,” Dolinski finished. He uncrossed his arms. “If you had waited until I returned, we could have done this more orderly.”

“Since we did not know where you had gone or what you were doing, I decided—as the senior lieutenant on the team—to start preparations.”

Dolinski's eyes widened. “So we do not have any problems ashore, comrade, while on board the K-122 you are the senior officer. Seniority among lieutenants is like virtue in a whorehouse. It matters little.” He pointed to the escape trunk above them. “Once we enter the escape trunk, I become the senior officer for this mission. I was not sent here as an advisor.”

The silence in the torpedo room seemed to last forever before Gromeko cleared his throat. “You are the technician. I will value your advice, comrade. Seniority may be like virtue in a whorehouse, but in this whorehouse I am the madam,” he said as he stood. Then he added, “But we will discuss the operation with the captain before we depart, to get his advice. He is ultimately responsible.”

Dolinski opened his mouth to argue, but seemed to think better of it and shut it.

“Shall we go over your plan?” Gromeko asked, squatting again. He was nervous about this. Surely Dolinski and the GRU had some sort of plan for what they were going to do once ashore. They had not rehearsed the operation, not even to go over it in detail. Just words about sailing into the harbor, sitting on the bottom—which the captain quickly dismissed—and then frogmanning it ashore. What then?

“You worry too much, Motka,” Dolinski said as he unbuttoned his shirt pocket. From the pocket he pulled a black pouch and tossed it on the makeshift table created by the tops of the crates. “Here is the chart of the American base.”

Gromeko picked up the black pouch and unzipped it. Unfolding thin sheets of paper, he laid them on the crate tops and smoothed out the creases. The map was barely readable, but was sufficient to guide them to the target, if it was accurate. Small boxes represented buildings and block Cyrillic lettering identified what each building was.

Dolinski squatted down beside them. He shifted the papers slightly so the diagram faced him. “Right here,” he said, tapping a small building on it. “Right here is where we are going to go. It is their telephone point of presence—a PoP as the Americans call it. Right here, every telephone on the base and every temporary telephone hooked up to every ship in the harbor transect each other. It is the heart and soul of the telephones supporting the American's Subic Naval Base. Right here is their vulnerability and our opportunity.”

Starshina Zosimoff now stood looking over Dolinski's shoulder at the map.

Gromeko and the blond-haired Chief Ship Starshina Fedulova exchanged questionable glances. Dolinski chuckled. “It's not complicated, comrades.” His finger walked the path between lines of warehouses, from the telephone switching building back to the harbor. “We will come out somewhere along here—the south side of the harbor.” His finger moved to the right. “See this mark here?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“That is a huge drainage pipe. It is here we will leave our tanks and suits, and put on the American dungaree uniform.”

“Dungarees? Like blue jeans?” Zosimoff asked. “Can we keep them afterward?”

Dolinski looked up, and then back at the paper. “Not the same thing. They call their working uniforms ‘dungarees.' ”

“Are we sure they will fit us?” Fedulova asked, lifting up one of the shirts. There are exactly five here and there are five of us.”

Dolinski shrugged. “Mine fits. We have your uniform measurements at headquarters, Chief Ship Starshina Fedulova. Unless you have put on great weight, yours should fit you well.”

Fedulova rubbed his fingers on the fabric. “Which is which?”

Dolinski flinched.

“We will try them on later, Chief, and mark them accordingly,” Gromeko said.

Fedulova dropped the shirt back onto the pile and nodded. “They are not much to look at it.”

“We need to try them on now, Comrade Lieutenant,” Starshina Malenkov said quietly.

“Why?” Dolinski demanded.

Malenkov stood to attention. “Because, Comrade Lieutenant Dolinski and Comrade Lieutenant Gromeko, if we have to make alterations to them, we will have time. The Americans are very attentive to things in uniform. They will recognize something out of place, and if it is one of their starshina chief petty officers who see us, he will surely stop and comment on what he sees.”

“It will be dark,” Fedulova offered.

Malenkov shrugged. “It is only my opinion. I may be wrong.”

“He could be wrong,” Gromeko said, raising his hand. “And if he is wrong, so be it, but it will not hurt us to try on the uniforms and make sure they fit, make sure they are accurate.” He looked at Malenkov. “Do you know how an American uniform should look on the person wearing it?”

Malenkov paused, then shook his head. “I only saw the American military in what they called their dress uniform . . .”

Dolinski reached down and pulled up a light blue dungaree shirt. He tossed it to Malenkov before glancing around at the others. “Let's do it. The starshina is right.”

Thirty minutes later, with Malenkov and Zosimoff having to trade dungaree trousers because of the length, Gromeko was satisfied the uniforms were sufficient for their mission. Even Dolinski agreed.

Then their attention focused on the map in front of them. Gromeko nodded at Dolinski.

Dolinski put his finger on the map, and as the others listened, he started to talk. As he explained the operation for tonight, he made it seem so simple that Gromeko unknowingly relaxed slightly. Knowing what was expected and seeing some prior planning improved his confidence that they would be able to do this. He knew that once American sailors hit Olongapo, the lures of the city captured their capitalistic fever. As Dolinski wound down, the GRU officer asked if anyone had questions. When none were forthcoming, he stood.

“These,” he said, pointing at the electronics, “are the most important thing for the success of our mission. I will need thirty minutes inside the telephone switching building once we get there. Your job is to see that I am not disturbed.”

“If we kill anyone, they will know—”

“Know nothing, Lieutenant Gromeko,” Dolinski finished. “People die all the time in Olongapo. What is one more death to a nation dealing death to our allies on a daily basis?”

Gromeko looked up, but said nothing.

“Nothing is the answer.” Dolinski paused. “The Americans will launch an investigation, find some guilty sailor, and send the pleading man off to prison for something he did not commit.” He shrugged, and then looked around at each of them. “But you are right in that if we kill someone or do something that draws attention to our presence, eventually someone may figure out what has happened.”

“How about your electronics?” Starshina Dimitry Malenkov asked. “Even the Americans check their systems on a schedule. They will eventually detect the additional gear you are installing.”

Dolinski sighed. “You may be right, Malenkov, but by the time they discover the equipment and dismantle it, we will have the information we want.”

“What information is that?” Fedulova asked.

Dolinski glared at the chief for a moment, and then sighed, “Not everything we will do tonight will be known to you. Some things are best unknown.”

“What does that mean?” Gromeko asked, curious.

“It means the chief—and the rest of you—do not have the need to know. Your job is to get me to the telephone switches and provide guard while I am in there.” He squatted beside the box with the electronic gear, rooting through the loose wires. “We are going to have to rewrap these wires.” He lifted a small box in his hand. “See this?” he asked, holding it up.

They nodded. Gromeko said, “Yes.” He was growing weary of this lieutenant. The sooner Dolinski was off the boat the better.

“When I finish, the lights here along the front must shine green. That will tell us the system is operational and able to transmit. So when I finish the installation, we will have to conduct the test when we return to our wet suits.”

“Why don't you test it immediately after you install the system, comrade?” Chief Fedulova asked.

“We cannot test at the building. It has to be done from a distance. The lights will glow green near the installation, but we have to ensure a signal is transmitting when we leave. The antenna will have been wound around the wires leading from the building to the telephone pole outside. One hundred meters from the system should be sufficient to know it works.” He set the black electronic system down and wiped his hands on his dungaree pants.

“Enough,” Gromeko said. “Lieutenant Dolinski is here for his technical and engineering know-how. Our job is to get him to the building, protect him long enough for him to do his job, and then get all of us back safely to the K-122.”

It was at that moment that it dawned on Gromeko that Dolinski had never done a mission. This was the GRU lieutenant's first. Dolinski was one of these desk-jockey intelligence analysts who for some reason get chosen to do something like this. A slight chill went up Gromeko's back. They were going into enemy territory, where nothing would give the Americans more pleasure than to capture or kill them.

“Let's get out of these American uniforms and get them stored in the watertight bags we are going to be carrying,” Dolinski said.

Gromeko looked around the torpedo room at the other Spetsnaz. He and his team had done a few special missions—in Vietnam. Of his team he was confident, but here they were escorting a GRU specialist onto foreign soil. Someone who was vastly overconfident and underexperienced.