“I don’t think they know the Israelis have already attacked.”
Green stroked his chin. “I don’t know, but I hope they do.”
“Sir?” MacDonald exclaimed. “Why would we want them to know?”
“If the captain of that Echo class knows what we know, then he’s as aware as we are of how a shooting confrontation might escalate our eyeball-to-eyeball wariness to a higher plane.”
MacDonald thought of MADD — the Mutual Assured Destruction Doctrine. The doctrine said that in an exchange of nuclear warheads, there were no winners — only losers. So for lovers of life, MADD had become the overarching umbrella for a shaky peaceful coexistence. MADD would never work if either party worshipped death over life. Religious fanatics would laugh at MADD as they rushed into the arms of Allah.
“Admiral, Petty Officer Oliver picked up the submarine about the time the Israelis attacked.”
Bocharkov leaned away from the periscope, put thumb and forefinger on each side of his nose, and rubbed his eyes.
“Steady on course two-zero-two.”
“Time to next turn?”
When Tverdokhleb did not quickly answer, Bocharkov shouted out the question in his direction. “Time to next turn, Lieutenant? Didn’t you hear me?”
Tverdokhleb put both hands on the table. “Sir, we can turn anytime, but we will have to turn within thirty minutes because we will be leaving the shoal waters.”
“Okay, Navigator, which direction?”
“West?”
“West what? Quit making me ask the questions.”
Tverdokhleb quickly took a ruler and ran a pencil line with it. “Next turn is in twenty minutes, sir. Base course is two-seven-zero. I would recommend ten to twelve knots.”
“Won’t that make us easily detected by the Americans?” Orlov asked.
“I think they have already detected us, Lieutenant Commander Orlov,” Ignatova answered. He was nearing the navigation table.
“Make it so,” Bocharkov said with a grunt. Once he increased speed above ten knots, then he would lose his own passive picture of the Americans. He would not know if they were sprinting ahead of him or if more had joined the pursuit. At least in this modern age of 1967, he did not have to worry about depth charges. No, now they drop torpedoes onto you from the sky.
Over at the navigator’s plotting table, Ignatova was in deep, animated discussion with Tverdokhleb, both peering closely at the chart, their fingers tracing patterns on it.
Bocharkov went back to the periscope. He focused it aft. The bow light of the warship was easily discernible. It did not appear to him that the ship was trying to close or pull over the top of them. If that happened, both ships would collide because he had no depth in which to disappear. He pulled the scope to the left, peering off his starboard side. The running lights of the warship in that direction were pulling left. That warship was racing to get ahead of them but not at such speed its sonar would be affected.
“The running lights of the contact to starboard show it is an American destroyer.”
“Aye, sir,” Orlov acknowledged.
“Sir,” Ignatova said from beside him.
Bocharkov leaned away from the periscope. “What is it, XO?”
“I have gone over the plan with our navigator. Eventually we are going to have to run for it.”
“I prefer to say we are going to ‘evade’ to ‘we are going to have to run.’ ”
“Yes, sir. I do, too. The way to the open ocean is due west. Ten minutes on any westward course shows at least one hundred meters of water beneath us.”
“So we have to avoid the Americans for about ten minutes before we can head for the dark Pacific beneath us?”
Ignatova nodded. “The question is, when do we do it?”
Bocharkov looked at the clock. “It is three thirty five now.” He looked over at Orlov. “Officer of the Deck, come here, please.”
When Orlov arrived, Bocharkov started speaking. “The Americans are going to want to use their active sonar. No one attacks only on passive sonar — too much room for error.”
“You think they are going to attack us?” Orlov asked.
Bocharkov shook his head. “No, they know as we do that neither of us can afford a confrontation except on the high seas. But they will want to embarrass us, force us to the surface, or hold us down. To do that, they are going to have to use their active sonar.”
Ignatova nodded. “Active sonar will turn this submarine into a brass drum.”
“Precisely,” Bocharkov agreed. “With us inside it. So we have to get out of here before they can make that happen.”
“Maybe they are unable to go active sonar right now. Maybe they don’t want the Philippine government to know that a Soviet Navy submarine penetrated within striking distance to their fleet,” Ignatova suggested.
“Make no mistake about it, Vladmiri,” Bocharkov said. “They are going to go active on their sonar.”
“Why haven’t they yet?”
Bocharkov grunted. “Who knows how the Americans think. One moment they are as sane as us, the next moment they are off on a wild tangent to save the world in their image.” He shrugged. “Regardless of what the American government may want to do, I know the captains of the destroyers trailing us want to go active sonar. Right now, they are pleading with someone for permission…”
“… or they are waiting until they have their forces properly deployed,” Ignatova finished.
Bocharkov nodded. “When the destroyer to our starboard reaches a position between us and the Pacific, I expect the destroyer behind us to become more aggressive. It will be the one to go active.”
“Then what, Captain?”
“When they go active with their sonar, the shoals and rocks to our port side should disrupt the return signals. That should cloud their displays, creating an inaccurate picture. It will take less than a minute for them to shift back to passive.”
“Afterward, they will stay on passive,” Orlov said.
Bocharkov nodded. “For a while. But during those few seconds we have an opportunity.”
“What if they are not going active because they know what will happen with us this close to a rocky shore and in shallow water?” Ignatova added.
Bocharkov sighed — a deep sigh — before taking a deep breath. “Then it will be rough inside the K-122 while they are active.” He turned to Orlov and in a near whisper said, “When they go active, Officer of the Deck, I want to come to course two-two-zero.”
He pointed at Ignatova. “XO, you go check the recommended course and see if our navigator’s comment about the ocean depth anywhere to our west applies to that course.”
Bocharkov lightly poked Orlov in the chest, leaned forward, and in a soft voice said, “I will give the order. You will execute it and you will bring the speed up to sixteen knots during the turn, reducing it to ten knots when we steady up.”
“A knuckle,” Ignatova said with a smile.
“Knuckle” was the nautical term for when a ship made a quick turn at high speed, churning the water behind it and creating an artificial barrier that reflected active, and confused passive, sonar. Bocharkov knew it would present an opportunity for a less competent sonar operator to mistake the knuckle for the submarine.
“Once on course two-two-zero, we will have ten minutes. Ten critical minutes in which we cannot head deep; we will be cavitating — putting noise in the water.” He paused, looking at each of them before continuing. “And we will be vulnerable. If the Americans are going to attack, this would be most advantageous for them.