EIGHT
Sunday, June 4, 19 67
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.
Gromeko looked at Dolinski and for a moment their eyes locked. It was if the GRU officer recognized that Gromeko knew his limitations. Dolinski looked away first, grabbing one of the loose cords and wrapping it between his thumb and small finger to form a figure eight. “Wish you had not undone everything,” Dolinski muttered as he wrapped.
Gromeko looked at his watch. It was one o’clock. Lunch would still be being served for another hour. Ten hours until they would do this.
“Lieutenant Dolinski, would you go over your expectations again? Chief Fedulova and Starshina Zosimoff, we will need to add times onto the mission: How long will it take us to reach shore? How long will it take us to change out of our suits, tanks?” He nodded at Dolinski. “Your map is faint. Do you know how far from the beach the telephone building is?” He put his finger on the map. “What is the length of each of the buildings between which we are going to traverse?
Dolinski squinted his eyes for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I figure they are about one hundred meters in length. They are nothing but warehouses. All warehouses are built the same—rectangular.” Dolinski spun the map around to face Gromeko. “These two buildings near the beach are warehouses. We have to walk between the warehouses. Then there is an open space until we reach the next two buildings. At the end of those two buildings is the telephone switching building.”
“Does anyone know how long these warehouses are?”
Fedulova, Zosimoff, and Malenkov shook their heads.
“Let’s figure each warehouse is one hundred meters long by fifty meters wide.” Gromeko was guessing, but a guess was better than a complete surprise.
“These are big warehouses from the photographs I saw,” Dolinski said.
Gromeko nodded. “That may be, but we are trying to build a timetable now. Something that should have been done where there was more intelligence on which to build.” It was a remark aimed at Dolinski. Gromeko waited a second for the man to explode, and was surprised when the GRU officer instead started working on his second loose cord.
“We will have to know how long you will need to do your work, Lieutenant,” Gromeko added.
“I will need no more than thirty minutes.”
“Wow!” Fedulova said. “That is a long time.”
“It is. Lieutenant Dolinski, can you do it in a shorter period?”
“Lieutenant Gromeko, I will hurry, but not at the expense of the mission. It will do us no good for me to hurry through the installation only to discover when we reach the beach that it was flawed. For then we will have to return to the building.”
There was a moment of silence before Gromeko said, “That is reasonable. Chief, figure thirty minutes into the timetable.”
Dolinski finished the second cord, then set them both alongside the box. He put the small electronic boxes he would need later into the box first, and then laid the cords on top. Then his eyes started searching around the compartment. “Did you see a tool box—a leather carrying case with small screwdrivers, pliers, and wire strippers?”
Everyone started looking. “I do not recall seeing it,” Gromeko said.
“It was in the box,” Dolinski protested. “It has to be here. Those are the tools needed for the installation.” He lifted two waterproof bags from the bottom of the box. “We will use these to carry the equipment with us.”
OLIVER pulled aside the curtains to the sonar compartment. The vacant space with the silent console lay in front of him. His head still pounded from the night ashore. He had returned with several Dale shipmates and a few new ones they had picked up downtown, singing pornographic ditties dedicated to the tittie bars of Olongapo. He was not sure how he’d climbed into his rack. How could so much fun hurt so much the day after?
“About time someone from Sonar showed up.”
Oliver turned. It was Lieutenant Burnham. He let out a deep sigh. “Sorry, Lieutenant, I was unaware we were to have anyone down here on watch.”
Burnham guffawed. “You don’t. I’m the command duty officer and doing my rounds. Are you going to be in Combat?”
“Yes, sir. I have my PMS to do.”
“Preventive maintenance service—PMS. Leave it to the navy to find some way to associate unpleasant things for the ship with unpleasant things for women.”
“Sir?” Oliver asked, confused. “Don’t you mean preventive maintenance schedule?” He should have taken an aspirin.
“Petty Officer Oliver, never correct an officer. Sometimes we are right.”
Petty Officer Banks walked up. Burnham’s attention diverted, Oliver stepped inside.
“Want to have a cigarette on the fantail?” Banks asked Burnham.
“Sure, why not? After the horrid mass-produced food we had for dinner, anything is better. Including a coffin nail.”
Oliver listened to the footsteps moving away. His stomach growled. He should have gone to dinner, but Sunday meant sleeping in, doing just about anything he wanted. He reached below the small ledge that ran along the front of the sonar console and flipped the power switch. Then he leaned back in the seat, aware of an incredible thirst. While he waited for the equipment to warm, Oliver stepped out into the silent combat information center and walked to the scuttlebutt.
“Scuttlebutt” was an old nautical term identifying the water kegs on sailing ships. Since a lot of gossip and chatter occurred around the water fountain, the term “scuttlebutt” over the years had come to mean water fountain, gossip, and useless chatter.
The hatch leading to the bridge was open. Oliver stuck his head into the bridge area. It was vacant also and the lights were out. The gray haze of dusk was settling over the harbor. He stepped completely onto the bridge and out onto to the port bridge wing, taking in the complement of ships anchored and moored around the gigantic harbor. A welling of pride filled his hungover body. Where else could someone from a small cotton mill village like Whitesburg, Georgia, find himself in the Philippines looking at what had to be the mightiest navy the world had ever seen? And he was part of it.
He was never going to leave the navy. He was going to enjoy the world. Enjoy the liberty ports. Even if it was a lie that sailors had a girl in every port. He could barely afford a girl in Olongapo, much less every port.
Oliver turned, heading back to Sonar. On the back shelf, near where the boatswain mate of the watch stood alongside the microphone to the 1MC, was a stack of paper cups. He took several of them and went back to Sonar. Along the way, he filled one of the cups with water. At Sonar, he stashed the other cups in one of the file cabinet drawers.
The hum of the equipment filled the small space now. He flipped on the screen and waited the few minutes it took for the green display to warm. Then he hit the diagnostic switch, letting the cursor roll along the screen, checking out the display. He downed the water, stood, and returned to the scuttlebutt. When he came back and sat, the cursor blinked near the top left-hand side of the screen.
He shut his eyes.
“OLIVER! You asleep!”
His eyes opened wide and he jumped. “No, Chief!” he shouted back.
A hand slapped him upside the back of his head. “Don’t lie to me, shithead,” Chief Stalzer said with a laugh. “I heard about you last night, coming back shit-faced.” He laughed more. “Did you hear about the sailors on the Coghlan?”
Oliver shook his head.
“They tried to sneak a bar girl on board the tin can. Guess a couple of sailors distracted the quarterdeck watch while a couple more handed the girl over the lower aft portion of the destroyer. Had her nearly to their berthing area when the duty master-at-arms caught them.” He laughed. “Talk about bad luck.”
“What did they do to them?”
Stalzer shrugged and tittered into the door facing. “Whoa there, Stalzer,” he said to himself. He looked back at Oliver. “What did you ask?”
“I asked, what did they do to them?”
Stalzer shrugged. “Who knows? I would have given them a medal if they had succeeded. They would have made a fortune out to sea. What are you doing?”
Oliver reached over to the file cabinet and opened the bottom drawer. “I am doing what you told me to do, Chief. I’m doing the PMS.”
“Damn fine thing you are, too,” Stalzer said, leaning forward.
The smell of stale cigarette smoke on the chief’s civilian shirt whiffed across Oliver’s hangover-sensitive nostrils. His stomach growled.
“You have to eat when you have a hangover,” Stalzer said. “Eating and drinking water and chucking down aspirins are the prescriptions for surviving a great time on the town.”
Oliver grunted as he pulled out the white PMS cards covered with small lines of instruction, numbered sequentially.
Stalzer reached up and pulled the clock from the wall, holding it behind his back. “Without looking at your watch, what time is it?”
The smell of beer joined the odor of stale cigarettes. He was going to be sick. “I don’t know, Chief.”
Stalzer brought the large navy clock around front of him. “Let’s see. For the Marine Corps, Mickey’s little hand is on eleven and his big hand is on eight. For the air force, it is nap time, so they have never seen this time of night. For the navy, it’s twenty-three forty. Twenty minutes to midnight and you expect me to believe you only got here to do the PMS?”
Oliver let out a deep sigh. “Damn, Chief. You just get back from downtown and decide to come up here and give me shit?” he said softly.
“Petty Officer Oliver—beloved of the captain and the division officer—I came up here to just see for myself if you would be here.” He turned and after several tries hung the clock back up. “Did not come up here to give you a hard time. Fact is, you are one good sonar technician and you are going to make one hell of a great master chief petty officer.”
Oliver looked up at the chief. “You’re drunk, Chief.”
“Duh! We are in Olongapo, aren’t we?” Stalzer replied.
Oliver nodded.
“Then of course I’m drunk. And you’re ugly. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to be sober, but you’re still going to be ugly.”
Oliver gave a slight smile. “Churchill.”
“Churchill?”
“Yes, Chief. Churchill said that to some lady who told him the same thing.”
“Did he really?” Stalzer asked, curiously.
“That’s what I heard.”
“Damn. All this time, I thought I said it.” Stalzer turned and stepped into the combat information center. “Tomorrow is a Monday, Oliver. Don’t stay up so long that you miss quarters tomorrow morning. Zero seven thirty sharp.”
“You sleep well, yourself, Chief,” Oliver said. For a moment he thought well of his division chief. Maybe the alcohol loosened the mind to where you did speak the truth, or your basic emotions of love, honor, and obey—Wait a minute! That was what his girlfriend wanted when he left Whitesburg.
“I’m going to bed.” Stalzer started away, and then stopped. “By the way,” he said from around the corner, his footsteps coming back. “Here’s a couple of letters for you that came earlier today.” Stalzer tossed them over Oliver’s back, one landing on the small shelf and the other one faceup on the deck. “Sorry,” Stalzer mumbled before he turned, nearly falling before righting himself and disappearing aft toward the chief’s quarters.
Oliver reached down to pick up the letter on the deck, recognizing the writing as his brother’s. His brother was in Vietnam supporting the navy on a riverine craft, plying the dangerous waters of the rivers. He’d wanted to join the army so they could be stationed together, but the army recruiter said no way, with both of them being the only sons of the family. Some worry-wart reason about a family losing both of them in combat at the same time.
He laid this letter on top of the letter on the shelf. When he did, he realized he had three letters, not two. One of the remaining letters was from his mom. She wrote him nearly daily. The other was from the “girl he left behind.” After three years in the navy, Oliver had come to believe that every sailor had a “girl he left behind.” He lifted her letter and smelled the Woolworth’s perfume she wore and imagined her running her finger along the edges of the letter. This was one letter he was looking forward to reading, and he fought the urge to do so, but he had to finish the PMS. He looked at the clock. It was ten minutes to midnight. By the time he finished, it was going to be one in the morning. Good thing he had dozed off. He felt much better. Then his stomach growled. “Ummm.” Mid-rats were being served in the mess.
He laid the PMS papers on the shelf. Then he looked again at the clock. The chow hall was only two decks away and half the destroyer’s length. He could go grab a sandwich and be back here in twenty minutes. He pulled together the curtains as he stepped into the darkened combat information center.
Behind him, the slight rise of an underwater noise spoke detected by the starboard-side hydrophones went unnoticed. When the clock showed midnight, Oliver was nearly at the chow hall.
“RISE slowly,” Bocharkov said quietly.
The command went from his lips to the officer of the deck, who relayed it quietly to the chief of the boat, Uvarova, who stood over the planesman and near the helmsman.
“Ten-degree angle, heading three-three-zero,” Uvarova reported to the command.
This was the critical moment. If the Americans were going to detect the K-122, this would be it. Changing the ballast load created noise in the water. Through his feet Bocharkov could feel the pumps belowdecks. Someday maybe a Soviet scientist would come up with some way to muffle all underwater sound. At least for the Soviet Navy. Would not want the American submarines to be any quieter.
He nodded when Ignatova stuck his head into the control room. “I am heading to the forward torpedo room, Comrade Captain.”
Bocharkov nodded again as the head disappeared. Ignatova would call him once he arrived.
“Passing fifty meters.”
He was bringing a Soviet nuclear submarine to periscope depth in the middle of an American fleet anchored and moored in an American-controlled harbor in Philippine territory. For a fleeting moment, he imagined how easily he could sink many of them with his torpedoes. A spread of eight, three for each of the carriers—the Kitty Hawk and the Tripoli —then one each for two of the smaller ships. His rear spread of six would also be useful. Then he would sprint to the opening of the harbor while his crew loaded another round. By then, fire and damnation would be erupting over Olongapo Harbor. With fire and explosions comes confusion. He could probably launch another spread from his rear tubes . . .
“Captain, we are passing thirty meters.”
He nodded. It would rival Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese sunk the American Fleet. It would also cause America to overreact, as they were prone to do. Within the K-122 he would be one famous Soviet captain until they surfaced near Kamchatka. By then, hundreds of missiles from both sides would have passed one another in the dark of space to explode across half of the globe, destroying the motherland of both nations. He swallowed. It is good we keep these fantasies in our minds.
A vision came to him of his wife, his two sons, and the newest member of the family, his daughter. Without doubt, the same fantasies crossed through the minds of the Americans, along with realizing the fate of their families if they ever lived them out.
“Passing twenty-five meters.”
“Make your depth fifteen meters, Lieutenant Commander Orlov,” Bocharkov said. For tonight he had ordered his most senior officers to the important positions. His operations officer, Orlov, was the officer of the deck. The XO was to be with the Spetsnaz mission team until they had departed the boat. Then the forward torpedo tube team would man their position. He had given strict orders there was to be no preventive maintenance or anything that required opening the outer doors of the torpedo tubes. While he might imagine and bask in the fantasy of sinking the American fleet, he would only use the torpedoes to cover his escape. He glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to midnight. Sinking one or two American warships would not cause World War III.
The internal intercom buzzed. Starshina Chief Trush grabbed the handset. A second passed. “Captain, the XO is in the forward torpedo room awaiting instructions.”
“Very well,” Bocharkov replied. No one was going anywhere until he was assured everything topside was clear. Meanwhile, everyone was in place awaiting his orders. “Up periscope.”
Bocharkov swept the lens around the harbor. Every ship was lighted from bow to stern. On the farther side of the harbor, the American aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was moored pierside behind the smaller amphibious carrier Tripoli. There were few ports with the depth of Olongapo Harbor, in which either of those two ships could tie up alongside the pier.
As he turned the periscope, movement caught his eye and he quickly turned the scope back to the left. A small landing craft was passing about one hundred meters dead astern. He focused the lens, then pressed the button. “Distance?”
Orlov replied, “Ninety meters.”
“Ninety meters,” Bocharkov repeated.
“Target?”
“Small boat,” Bocharkov replied, then leaned away from the lens. “What we call a landing craft. I believe they call them liberty launches—carrying the sailors and marines from the ships anchored in the harbor to the shore and back.” He continued his sweep. Less than three hundred meters in the direction of the stern and nearer than the carriers were several “small boys.” He counted at least one cruiser and three destroyers. The auxiliary ships—oilers, ammunition ships, repair ship—were anchored off to his starboard side. It must be from those huge ships that the liberty launches were plying their trade.
The intercom beeped again. Orlov grabbed the handset. “Control room.” Several seconds passed. “Captain, XO reports the team is ready when you are.”
Bocharkov nodded. He had a bad feeling about this, but emotions were something navy officers ignored when orders were involved. He mentally crossed his fingers. “Tell them about the liberty launches. I presume there will be more.” He turned the periscope aft so it pointed east to the area where the Spetsnaz team would land. At least the site for the mission was not near the main base. This was far enough way from the piers so the team could have some shadows. Rocks and concrete tridents filled the uphill beachhead between the slight waves of the near-calm harbor and the narrow road above it. He focused the periscope. There was the dark circular opening that must be the main flood drain Gromeko had described. The team would use it to store their flippers, tanks, and gear until their return. He turned the scope upward, glad to see stars. Maybe it would not rain, but then this was the Philippine tropics.