Forgiving Ararat

by Gita Nazareth

  “Okay. Thanks, Brek. I’ve got to go. Bye.”

  I hung up the phone.

  Bo was fully awake and sitting up now. “They’re charging an Air Force chaplain with treason?” he said. “We did some research into treason cases for an espionage story we were doing a few years ago; there have been fewer than like fifty treason prosecutions in the entire history of the United States. This is going to be front page national news.”

  “I know,” I said bleakly. “But you know you can’t be the one to break the story, right? Karen called me as her lawyer; my conversation with her was a confidential attorney-client communication.”

  “But—”

  “Promise me, Bo,” I said. “This is serious. I know you want to be the first on a story like this, but there’s no way you can report it or tip anybody else about it. I can’t be Karen’s lawyer if I have to worry that everything I say in my own home might wind up on the wires the next day.”

  “Ok,” he said glumly, “but get ready: you’re going to be facing a lot of other reporters—guys who won’t be as nice as me. You’ll be on television every day—maybe even more than me.”

  “Great, I’ll replace the weather girl.”

  “Let’s not get carried away.”

  “Can you take care of Sarah while I’m gone?”

  “We’ll manage. I’ll call in a few favors.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to need your help to get through this.”

  “You’ve got it, whatever you need.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Go kick some prosecutor’s butt and make me proud.”

  I hugged him and headed for the shower.

  14

  * * *

  The next morning, I flew to Kansas City, rented a car, and drove to Leavenworth. Two female guards escorted Karen, wearing handcuffs and dressed in orange prison coveralls, into the small room with a table and two chairs reserved for attorney visits. Karen looked terrible—pale and gaunt with dark circles under her puffy, red eyes as though she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. She took the chair across from me and flashed me a weak smile. The guards left the room and closed and locked the door behind them so our conversation would be confidential, but they continued monitoring us through a window.

  “Oh, sweetie,” I said, reaching out to touch her hand. One of the guards rapped on the window and gestured toward a sign in the room saying, “No Physical Contact Permitted.” Karen scowled at the guard, but I obeyed, putting my hand in my lap. We looked at each other silently.

  “I’m really sorry I dragged you all the way here,” she said. “How was your flight?”

  “Fine,” I said, “no problems. How are you holding up? Are they treating you okay?”

  She looked down and tugged on her coveralls. “They took my clerical collar.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “we’ll get it back. I’m meeting with the U.S. Attorney later this afternoon to see if I can get this cleared up, or at least negotiate a low bail; you’re a priest with no criminal history and you’re not much of a flight risk.” I glanced at my watch. “We only have forty-five minutes. Tell me what happened.”

  Karen yawned and rubbed her eyes. “They’ve been questioning me for two days. I haven’t gotten any sleep.”

  “Questioning you for two days?” I said, alarmed. “Didn’t they tell you that you had the right to a lawyer?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but I told them I didn’t think I needed one.”

  “What?” I said, indignantly, more than a little cranky myself from having been awoken in the middle of the night to travel from Pennsylvania to Kansas. “They’re charging you with treason and you didn’t think you needed a lawyer? Why did you bother calling me then?”

  “Please don’t yell at me,” Karen said.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that it makes it so much harder to defend you if you’ve been talking to them for two days already. Did you confess to anything?”

  “Of course not...at least not that I’m aware of.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” I said. “Two days with no sleep, who knows what they had you saying. No more talking, okay?”

  “Okay, no more talking.”

  “Good, now tell me what happened.”

  She looked at me and then, fidgeting with her fingers, looked away. She was broken and ashamed. I had never seen her this way before.

  “I can’t help you unless you talk to me, Karen.”

  “I know.”

  I sat quietly, waiting, but she wouldn’t speak. “Okay,” I said, finally, “I’ll tell you what. Let me tell you something I’ve never told anybody before, something I did wrong.”

  “You’ve never done anything wrong,” Karen said.

  “Yes, I have,” I said. I tugged on the empty right sleeve of my suit—the same black silk suit I was wearing when I arrived in Shemaya; I wore it that day because I knew I would need all the confidence I could get to meet the U.S. Attorney. “Do you see this?” I said, showing her the empty sleeve; then I proceeded to tell her everything about how I had lost my arm, including my perjured testimony during the trial. When I finished, she smiled gratefully and compassionately—like a priest.

  “You were only a child,” she said, softly. “And you’ve already been forgiven. Do you know that?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I know. And you’ve already been forgiven for whatever you’ve done too. Do you know that?”

  She smiled again and wiped her eyes. “Yes, I guess I do.”

  “Then tell me what happened.”

  “Okay,” she said. She summoned her strength. “Well, since you’re my lawyer, I guess I can tell you...I’m a chaplain to the missileers.”

  “The who?”

  “The missileers—the airmen who man the nuclear missile silos; you know, the ones who will launch the ICBMs to end the world when given the command?”

  “Wow,” I said, impressed, “I guess I thought you were just an ordinary base chaplain somewhere ministering to fighter pilots and their families or something.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to tell anybody what I really do,” she said. “I actually requested this duty after I passed Officer Training School. They stationed me at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, one of the few remaining bases that still has Minuteman nuclear missiles on alert.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Okay, so what happened?”

  “I told them launching nuclear missiles was wrong and they should refuse to do it if they’re ever ordered to.”

  “You mean ‘wrong’ as in wrong unless we’re attacked first?” I asked.

  “No,” Karen said, “even in retaliation.”

  I was surprised. “So if the Russians or some rouge nation fires nuclear missiles at the United States, we’re not supposed to respond?”

  “We’re supposed to forgive. We’re not supposed to resist violence with violence.”

  “But that’s what the military does, Karen,” I said. “They resist violence with violence; that’s their line of work, it’s their entire reason for being. Why did you become a military chaplain if you don’t agree with what they do?”

  Karen looked annoyed. “Would you ask why somebody became a doctor if they didn’t agree with human sickness and disease? We go where we’re needed most and can do the most good. Doctors work in hospitals because that’s where the sick people are. Nobody needs to learn about non-violence and forgiveness more than the military—and nobody in the military needs to learn about it more than the people who launch weapons that can destroy the world.”

  I was stunned—it was the crayfish trials all over again. “That’s all very nice,” I said, “but the best way of deterring a nuclear attack is to make sure our enemies understand they’ll suffer the same fate if they ever try it.”

  “But if we’re attacked,” Karen argued, “then, by definition, nuclear deterrence will have failed, so why bother to retaliate?”

  “I don’t think I follow you,” I said.

  “Let’s
say we’re attacked by nuclear weapons this afternoon,” Karen said. “If that happens, it would be despite our threat of retaliation and mutually assured destruction. In other words, our threat of retaliation didn’t work—it didn’t deter the attack.”

  “I guess so....”

  “So if it didn’t deter the attack, then retaliating would be risking the destruction of the world to carry out an already failed strategy. It would be both illogical and immoral.”

  “Look,” I said, now annoyed myself, “you’ve obviously given this more thought than I have. I’m not here to debate nuclear strategy; I’m here to defend you against a charge of treason. There’s a right to free speech in this country, a right we protect, by the way, with nuclear missiles—and it says you can say anything you want regardless of whether others agree, so I still don’t understand what you did wrong and why you’re here. Telling missileers not to launch their missiles might be a breach of your duties as an Air Force officer, but it’s not treason. You’re not in the chain of command as a chaplain; the most they can do about it is give you a dishonorable discharge.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Karen said. “I went down into one of the missile silos.”

  “Did you break in?”

  “No, one of the guys I’m friends with, Sam—I mean Captain Huggler, one of the missileers—let me go with him and Brian, Captain Kurtz, during their shift in the MAF.”

  “What does that mean, MAF?”

  “Missile Alert Facility, that’s what they call the underground launch control capsules inside the missile silos. Each MAF controls ten Minuteman missiles.”

  “Was he allowed to bring you along?”

  “He got special permission. They’re normally two person crews and they stay underground for twenty-four hours, but they’d been studying whether three person crews spelling each other over longer shifts would work better, so having me along wasn’t that unusual. I have the necessary clearance because I talk to them. They’re under a lot of stress, you know, sitting for days on end with their fingers on the button; they’ve got questions and they need somebody to talk to.”

  “I can imagine,” I said, “but that’s not treason either.”

  Karen held her eyes on me. “They went on alert while we were down there. A satellite picked up what appeared to be two North Korean ICBMs. Sam and Brian said it was probably just a false alarm due to a sunspot or something, but it might be the real thing and they had to be ready to launch their missiles within five minutes.”

  “Did they ask you to leave?”

  “Not right away. Since I was an officer with clearance and it was probably just a false alarm, they said I could stay.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “It was totally surreal. The MAF capsules are suspended on huge shock absorbers in case of a nuclear blast, like an egg yolk inside an egg; the entire thing started rumbling and shaking. Sam and Brian explained that this was normal and caused by the huge steel blast doors over the missiles sliding open. We could see it on the closed circuit monitors. Within seconds, the tips of the missiles were pointing toward the sky.”

  “That’s pretty scary.”

  “Yes, it is. So, Sam and Brian begin their preparations and their countdown. One minute, they’re just two perfectly nice, normal guys with families, you know, but suddenly they have the power to destroy ten cities at once by pushing a few buttons and turning a few keys. When the alarms go off, their humanity is switched off and they’re turned into machines. They’re actually trained not to think about what they’re doing or the consequences of it, to just obey their orders and launch their birds. Ironic isn’t it...? They call them, birds. If the right set of numbers and letters blip up on a screen, they take a key, open a box, get another key, put it in a console, lift a panel, press a button, and in a few minutes fifty million people are erased from the planet. They’re gods. The Air Force missileers are gods.”

  I glanced again at my watch. “This is all fascinating,” I said, “but we’re running out of time. What happened that caused you to be arrested and taken to Leavenworth?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Okay, so the countdown winds down to two minutes before launch. The fuel and oxygen lines disconnect from the missiles; there’s lots of hissing and white vapor clouds rise out of the silo on the video monitors. Sam and Brian pull out their top secret launch codebooks, strap themselves into their seats, and take their first set of keys and open their launch panels. I’m in disbelief at this point. It looks like they’re really going through with it; two minutes until the end of the world. It’s crazy. How could I just stand there and let them murder fifty million people?”

  “Because it’s not your decision to make,” I said. “It’s the president’s decision.” Karen looked annoyed again. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s obviously a huge deal and it must have been very difficult. Nobody wants to murder fifty million people. Go on.”

  “So I tried to reason with them and get them to stand down.”

  “What did you say?”

  Karen ran her fingers through her hair and laughed. “You’d think at a time like this,” she said, “—the two most important minutes of my life—maybe the two most important minutes in the history of the world—that I’d have something eloquent and convincing to say to save humanity, but the only words that came out of my mouth were: ‘Hey, come on, guys, you’re not really going to do this, are you?’—like I was trying to stop them from having a squirt gun battle or something. Unbelievable. They didn’t respond, of course. They were automatons by this point, reading off their checklists; the only thing they were worried about was whether they completed everything in the correct order, as if any of that would matter in two minutes.

  “Well, apparently somebody on the surface didn’t like that I was down there during an alert because suddenly two armed SPs—Air Force Security Police—burst into the capsule to escort me out. I’m convinced now that this isn’t a drill and they’re going to launch. It’s like a nightmare: I’m standing there seconds before the nuclear exchange that ends the world and I can do something to stop it. ‘For God’s sake!’ I say to Sam and Brian, ‘don’t do this. What if it’s a mistake? You’ll kill millions of people—women, children, mothers, fathers, maybe all life on the planet. For what? For an order? For an eye for an eye? For justice?’

  “They glance at each other but say nothing and continue with their checklists, launch codes, and buttons. The two SPs order me out, but I stall a little longer and keep pleading with Brian and Sam. At this point, a new alarm starts sounding and an ominous computer voice comes on through the speakers. I’ll never forget it, it’s burned into my brain: ‘Warning! Warheads armed! Launch in sixty seconds! Warning! Warheads armed! Launch in fifty-nine seconds.’ We’re one minute from destroying the world. One minute. There’s this big red digital clock in the MAF and it’s counting down to the end of time. You have no idea what it’s like until you’re in one of these silos. They’re the scariest places on earth.”

  “This is unbelievable, Karen,” I said, riveted by the story. “It’s like a movie or something.”

  “I wish it were only a movie. One of the SPs finally walks over to me to lead me out by the arm.... That’s when I saw my chance.”

  “You’re chance for what?” I asked.

  Karen stared into my eyes. “I grabbed his gun from its holster and told Sam and Brian to get away from the launch consoles.”

  “Oh, my God, Karen.”

  “I know. Another warning comes over the speakers: ‘Warheads armed! Launch in forty-five seconds!’ The other SP pulls his gun and orders me to drop mine, but Sam orders him to hold his fire. I tell him I’ll drop my gun only if Sam and Brian move away from the launch consoles.

  “Another warning sounds: ‘Warheads armed! Launch in thirty seconds!’ Everybody looked scared now, but not because I had a gun; none of them had ever seen a countdown go this far. They confirmed that they had received valid launch codes, and Brian crossed hims
elf. They were going to go through with it. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let them launch the missiles, but I had no intention of shooting anybody either. I yelled again for them to get away from the launch consoles, but they refused. I’m no sure shot, but I had basic small arms training in Officer Training School. I steadied the gun with both hands, aimed it at Sam’s launch console and fired two shots to scare them and maybe disable the launch controls. The SP with the gun pleaded with Sam for permission to fire but Sam refused.”

  “You could have been killed, Karen!”

  “Yeah, I know. The bullets went through the metal of the console but didn’t disable anything or hurt anybody. And they didn’t cause Sam or Brian to move either. They stayed at their launch consoles under fire; their commanders would have been proud. At ten seconds, a new siren sounded, signaling the final phase of the countdown. We all realized now it wasn’t a false alarm or drill. They were about to launch their missiles. We were ten seconds away from Armageddon.”

  “Unbelievable,” I said. “What did you do?”

  Karen smiled. “I put my gun down.”

  “What? You put it down?”

  Karen looked past me and her face became blissful, like the face of a monk meditating. “I could see it all so clearly in that moment,” she said. “Everything became perfectly calm and still. I suddenly understood what Jesus had been trying to teach us by not resisting his executioners and forgiving them. To reunite with God, we must be like God, and we must love like God. Even God wasn’t going to come down from the sky and shoot Sam and Brian. He had already forgiven them for launching the missiles and destroying the world, just as Jesus had already forgiven his executioners. A great God loves without condition—even when we murder millions of people, even when we attempt to murder God Himself. In that instant, I was standing in the Garden of Eden, Brek, right there inside that nuclear missile silo.” Karen’s eyes glistened. “I had come home. It was the most sacred moment of my life. I got down on my knees and laid the gun on the floor as an offering. I touched the face of God.”