Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

  Bill’s brain was tumbling as he made his way aft to the locker. Lars had a point.

  Should Bill have stood up for him? But then the captain had listened to Lars’s point, had considered it, and made his decision. And the crew had to follow the captain’s orders without question.

  Even when nuclear missiles were about be launched. Especially when nuclear missiles were about to be launched.

  Three missiles, each with ten warheads, thirty thermonuclear explosions. Millions dead in Moscow, Leningrad and Berlin.

  A Russian response was inevitable. Soon thousands of warheads would be criss-crossing the globe. Minutes later, Washington would be obliterated. New York. Chicago. The small town on the banks of the Susquehanna where Bill had grown up. His house. His childhood bedroom. His mom and dad.

  Donna.

  The whole damned human race.

  You could train for this, you could study for it, you could utter the commands and responses as many times as you liked, but nothing could prepare you for thermonuclear war.

  A dark wave of dread broke over Bill, but he kept moving, doing what he had been ordered to do.

  The captain had successfully established his authority. Lars had backed down. Bill wasn’t sure it was a smart idea on the captain’s part to arm himself. He needed to carry the ship’s crew by his personality, by his authority, not by the barrel of a pistol. If the crew thought the captain believed he needed a gun to make his orders stand, wouldn’t that suggest weakness rather than strength?

  But the captain had given the order, and Bill would obey it.

  The locker contained an arsenal of weapons: automatic rifles, shotguns and pistols, usually issued to the watch on deck to protect the ship in dock, although since the Hamilton spent most of its surface life tied up to a tender in the middle of a Scottish loch, they were seldom used. Very occasionally they were broken out during exercises simulating crews or even the captain going crazy.

  Never for forcing an officer to obey an order.

  Bill selected a Colt 1911 pistol and a holster and made his way back to the control room, receiving curious, anxious glances from sailors he passed. Bill proceeded at a rapid walk. He would be needed down in the missile centre where the three missiles were being ‘spun up’. The fire control computer was feeding launch and targeting instructions to the missiles, a process that would take about fifteen minutes, at which point they would be ready to be fired, one by one.

  He reached the control room, where he pushed past a petty officer examining a clipboard. Everyone had clipboards and checklists.

  ‘XO, take the conn,’ said the captain. ‘I’m going to my stateroom to fetch my CIP key and the launch keys. The XO has the conn.’

  The Captain’s Indicator Panel key had to be inserted into the missile control panel in the control room to activate the weapon system. That, and the sixteen launch keys, one for each missile, were kept secured in a safe in the captain’s stateroom, a safe to which only he knew the combination.

  The captain stepped down from the raised platform next to the two periscopes and moved toward Bill.

  He had only taken one step when a figure launched itself towards him. An arm was raised, holding something metal, and in an instant it descended towards the back of the captain’s skull.

  ‘Sir!’ Bill shouted.

  Driscoll ducked and twisted, and let out a cry as the wrench, for that’s what it was, hit his shoulder with a crack.

  Lars, legs apart to keep his balance, drew back his arm for another blow, but it was caught by a chief petty officer grabbing his wrist.

  Driscoll’s face was contorted with pain as he ducked and tried to get out of the way of his attacker.

  ‘Guth!’ he cried.

  Bill grabbed the Colt from the holster and pointed it at Lars.

  ‘Freeze!’ he shouted. ‘Put the wrench down or I’ll shoot.’

  Lars froze, as did the chief holding him.

  ‘Shoot him, Bill,’ Lars said, his eyes desperate, pleading. ‘Shoot the captain. Now. Before he gets the keys.’

  Bill knew what Lars was thinking. If Bill killed the captain, the combination to the safe in his stateroom would die with him: no one would be able to open it. And if they couldn’t open the safe, they couldn’t get access to the launch keys. And if they didn’t have the launch keys, they couldn’t launch the missiles.

  ‘Shoot him,’ Lars urged. ‘You can stop a nuclear war if you shoot him. In the head.’

  In the head. So he died before he could utter the combination to his safe.

  Oh, Christ.

  Everyone stood still. The captain was wincing in pain, grasping his shoulder, but he straightened and looked directly at Bill, his blue eyes commanding. ‘Don’t do it, son. Do what you have been ordered to do. You owe it to your country.’

  Owe it to your country? What country? A nuclear wasteland?

  Bill shifted the barrel of the pistol from Lars to the captain.

  Oh, Christ.

  Bill Guth made his decision.

  One

  Thursday 28 November 2019, Thanksgiving, Heathrow Airport

  Toby Rosser grabbed the two large corrugated paper cups of coffee and returned to the scrum around the arrivals exit. He needed the caffeine. He was still recovering from the ridiculously early rise that morning. He and Alice had had to drive from their flat near King’s Cross to Heathrow to meet an 0620 flight, and there was a two-and-a-half hour drive ahead of them, for which he had to be alert.

  ‘Here you go.’ He handed one cup to his wife. Toby knew he looked like he felt – crap – but Alice looked amazing. Even though she had gone to bed an hour after him because she had some work to finish, even though she was not working that day having taken the whole long weekend off, she looked amazing. Blonde hair cut down to her slim neck, blue sweater and jeans, both casual, both bought for a large sum the week before, cool grey eyes and the bright smile with which she bestowed her thanks. All amazing.

  ‘Ten after seven,’ said Alice. ‘She should be through by now.’

  ‘Maybe she checked a bag?’

  ‘She’s only coming for the weekend. And, believe me, Megan won’t have much stuff.’

  A bleary-eyed woman with a thin face, long pointed nose, curly dark hair and glasses emerged through the security doors shepherding two large roller suitcases on either side of her. Although Toby hadn’t met Megan, he had seen pictures. But he wasn’t sure this was her, especially given the suitcases. But then Toby noticed her chin; the Guth chin, a long, thin jaw that came to a square end with a little notch in it. All four Guth sisters sported it.

  He glanced at his wife who was absorbed with her phone.

  ‘Alice?’ He nodded to the woman.

  ‘Megan!’

  The woman spotted her, the suitcases trundled up to full speed, and then the two sisters gave each other a tight hug.

  ‘Megan, this is Toby.’

  Megan looked up at Toby, blinked, and then launched herself at him. ‘Hi, Toby.’

  ‘Careful, Megan,’ said Alice. ‘Toby’s English. You might confuse him.’

  ‘Confused or not, I’m always happy to have American women throwing themselves at me,’ said Toby. ‘Especially before breakfast.’

  ‘He’s cute,’ said Megan, examining Toby.

  ‘No he’s not,’ said Alice. ‘He looks disgusting. He hasn’t even combed his hair, let alone taken a shower.’ But she glanced at Toby with a suppressed smile of sisterly triumph.

  Megan twitched her long nose. ‘Hmm.’ It was a friendly twitch.

  Toby led the two women towards the car park.

  ‘What’s with the suitcases?’ said Alice. ‘That’s a lot for one Thanksgiving weekend.’

  ‘These are all my possessions,’ said Megan. ‘I’m quitting Tor Pharma and leaving Dallas.’

  ‘And moving to Norfolk?’

  ‘Temporarily. Suzy, my friend from college, has a place in New York, but her roommate is moving out in the new year. So I just nee
d somewhere to stay until January.’

  ‘Does Dad know about this?’

  ‘No. It will be a nice surprise for him.’

  ‘Do you have a job? In New York?’

  Alice was known in her family for being pleasingly direct.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Suzy says I can work with her.’

  ‘That’s good. What does she do?’

  ‘She’s an actor. But the job is waiting tables. The Belgian Beer Café is the name of it. Suzy told her boss I spent two years living in Brussels, so the job’s mine.’

  ‘You were twelve!’

  ‘Hey. I speak French. And I can even do the Belgian accent if they want me to.’

  ‘But what about that master’s in mathematics? You’re wasting yourself, Megan.’

  ‘So I can count the waffles. In French. The job’s mine.’

  The two enormous suitcases barely fitted into the back of Toby and Alice’s new Golf, but eventually they were crawling along the M25 in everyone else’s rush hour.

  Megan stared out of the window from the back seat. ‘Guess they don’t have Thanksgiving in this country, huh?’

  Megan knew they didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Britain. Alice’s family had lived all over the world. Although Alice had been born in Virginia, she had attended various American schools in Surrey, Brussels, Mannheim and Saudi Arabia, from what Toby could work out, before their father had settled down in London. The three eldest sisters – Alice, Brooke and Megan – had American accents, although the youngest, Maya, sounded English: her formative years had been spent at a private girls’ school near Regent’s Park. Their father still lived in a flat in Kensington, but he and his wife had bought a house on the North Norfolk coast, and it was there that the Guth family celebrated en masse.

  ‘You been to a Thanksgiving celebration before, Toby?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Yeah. Last year, with your dad in Kensington. I like it. Lots of food. Lots of wine. Family.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t make that,’ said Megan.

  ‘You’re here now,’ said Alice.

  ‘Yeah. And sorry I didn’t make your wedding either. I got this flu bug at the last minute. Who knew they got the flu in Texas? You’d think with all that sunshine . . .’

  ‘You’d think,’ said Alice, clearly unimpressed with Megan’s excuse. Toby remembered her fury well. ‘I’m afraid I gave your bridesmaid’s dress to Oxfam.’

  ‘That’s a good cause.’

  ‘Brooke called. She and Justin flew in from Chicago yesterday,’ Alice said. ‘They stayed in London last night and they’re driving up to Norfolk in a rental car today. Maya’s flight doesn’t get in till midday, but she swears she’ll still make it. So that’s everyone.’

  ‘Not quite everyone,’ said Megan.

  ‘No,’ said Alice.

  In the silence that followed, Toby knew they were both thinking about their mother. She would be in the minds of the sisters and their father as they sat around the dinner table.

  ‘Did Dad bring randoms last year?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Dad brought randoms,’ said Alice. Indeed he had invited a couple of American strays in London – a neighbour and some guy he had worked with twenty years before, and Alice had brought one of her own from work. That was something else Toby liked about Thanksgiving. And his father-in-law’s generosity.

  ‘Any randoms this year?’

  ‘Just Uncle Lars,’ said Alice.

  ‘Uncle Lars! Isn’t he in jail in Trinidad?’

  ‘They must have let him out and I think it’s Guadeloupe.’

  ‘What!’ said Toby.

  ‘I’ve told you about him,’ said Alice. ‘He’s a loser. But Dad likes him. They served in the Navy together.’

  ‘Didn’t Alice mention he was a drug-runner?’ said Megan.

  ‘No,’ said Toby. ‘Sounds like an unlikely friend for your dad.’

  ‘Dad’s loyal, you know that,’ said Alice. ‘And Uncle Lars was a long way down the food chain. He owned a sailboat in the Caribbean. Took tourists out on cruises. Or at least that’s what he said he did. Then one day Dad gets a call and Lars says he needs a good lawyer in Guadeloupe. Dad found him one somehow. Lars said he was framed, but Dad didn’t believe him. Neither did the judge.’

  ‘I suppose that explains why you haven’t seen him for a while?’ said Toby.

  ‘Not even a Christmas card.’

  Megan hadn’t slept on the plane, and they had no sooner hit the M25 than she was slumped on the back seat with her eyes closed. Alice pulled out her iPad to read a document. She was a lawyer at an American firm in the City and they made her work hard. Very hard.

  It rained steadily on the journey, thick dark clouds pressing down, so low that they scraped the tower of Ely Cathedral, squatting on its little island in the fens.

  The phone in Toby’s pocket emitted a subdued double chirp. A text message.

  Alice looked up. ‘Shall I check it for you?’

  ‘It’ll only be Piet.’

  ‘It might be important?’

  ‘It won’t be,’ said Toby. Piet was Toby’s partner at Beachwallet, a lanky Dutchman with whom Toby had worked for a couple of years at a consultancy. They had come up with the idea for Beachwallet together, in the Red Lion in Hoxton Street one evening. Piet was enthusiastic but headstrong, and sometimes just a little impatient. ‘It’s Thanksgiving. He can wait.’

  ‘I wish you could tell my client that,’ said Alice, nodding towards her iPad.

  ‘It’s good to get out of London.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Alice.

  He took his eyes off the road ahead for an instant to see that she was giving him one of those smiles that he loved so much. Alice had a brisk professional smile, she had a friendly social smile, she had a warm smile for her friends, and then she had that smile. Just for him.

  ‘Thank you for letting me into your family,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you for joining us.’

  He wrenched his gaze back to the road.

  They skirted King’s Lynn, rotating around the sequence of giant roundabouts that protected the town, and crossed low ridges of ploughed fields and lonely farms, heading towards a wide band of blue sky nudging up against the grey blanket of cloud. They topped a hill and the North Sea stretched out in front of them, glittering in unlikely sunshine. Far out in the distance a copse of wind turbines fluttered in the strong breeze.

  Toby felt his heart lift after the crowded grey streets of London and the heavy grey moisture above the fens. The sky, beyond the curtain of cloud, seemed to stretch for ever ahead, above and to either side.

  They drove down to the coast road, and then along it for a few miles until they came to the village of Barnholt: a flint church with a stubby round tower, a pub, a farm shop, an ancient cross in a tiny green and a ribbon of houses running along the coast road and off a couple of lanes reaching towards the sea. Above the village, a windmill perched proudly on the low coastal ridge, its arms stretching wide in the November sun.

  The house, Pear Tree Cottage, was at the end of one of the back lanes, which ran parallel to the coast road, with a view of a marsh and then a double rank of sand dunes. The building was long and low, constructed of chips of flint, its doors and windows framed in worn red brick. Originally two cottages, they had been knocked together to create a decent-sized house. Local legend had it that in the early part of the nineteenth century one of the cottages had been the operational base of a particularly successful local smuggler of Dutch gin and French brandy. A low flint wall sheltered the garden from the north wind and the pear tree, recently relieved of most of its leaves, shivered in the damp. In summer the house opened out in a riot of roses and hollyhocks. In November, it looked inwards, curled up in its flint shell, a ribbon of sweet-smelling wood smoke from its chimney promising warmth and cosiness inside.

  They unfolded themselves from the car and stretched. The air cut into Toby’s face, cold and bracing after the fug of the car, tinged with salt, a faint smell of
marsh and the smoke from the fire inside. He opened the boot.

  ‘Do you mind if we leave my bags in the trunk for now?’ said Megan. ‘Until I’ve had a chance to talk with Dad.’

  Bill Guth met them as they approached the front door with a broad grin. He hugged his two daughters and then Toby. Although in his sixties, he was still trim, a little over six feet, with thick grey hair and kind, shrewd brown eyes.

  A high-speed yelping bundle hurled itself past his legs and leaped up at Alice first, then Toby.

  ‘Hi, Rickover!’ said Alice, grabbing the fox terrier’s ears. ‘How are you, Ricky boy?’

  Toby reached down too, and Rickover greeted him eagerly, licking his fingers. Toby and Rickover had a deal, but the dog would have to wait for a more private moment.

  ‘Sorry you had to come up so early,’ Alice’s father said. ‘I’ve gotten the turkey out of the refrigerator, Alice, but the rest is up to you.’ He had a deep, pleasant voice, with a rich American accent he had preserved during his decades away.

  ‘Did you have trouble finding one?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Some. You’d think it would be easy, this county is crawling with them, but it’s the old story, they’re all being grown for Christmas. I called the butcher in Burnham Market two weeks ago and he promised me one.’

  ‘OK,’ said Alice. ‘I’ll get to work.’ Bill was actually a pretty good cook, but a major Thanksgiving dinner was beyond him, and Alice was happy to do it. ‘You can help me, Dad. Do you mind if Toby takes a shower? He kinda needs one.’

  Bill raised his eyebrows in mild disapproval – Toby thought more of his daughter than his son-in-law.

  ‘Or a bath?’ said Toby hopefully. Their flat in London only had a shower, and he remembered from previous visits a lovely big cast-iron bathtub in the main bathroom upstairs.

  ‘Sure,’ said Bill. ‘You know the way. Have you got any more bags in the car? I can go get them.’

  Alice turned to her sister and raised her eyebrows.