Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

  Craig knew when he was defeated. ‘I think The Magnificent Seven is an excellent choice, sir. I’ve always been a great fan of Mr Brynner.’ He managed to inject just the right amount of humour into his obedience.

  There were eight of the ship’s fourteen officers present at the table, the rest were on watch or asleep. The wardroom was the most luxurious space on the submarine. It was dominated by a rectangular table with a blue cloth, white china and the ship’s silver. Fake wood lined the bulkhead, upon which was mounted a mishmash of instruments, framed photographs, typed instructions, exhortations such as ‘transients kill’ and ‘think quiet’, and a TV screen with a VHS recorder. Behind the captain was a portrait of Alexander Hamilton himself, General Washington’s chief of staff, one of the Founding Fathers and the first secretary of the Treasury. His pointed nose and long chin had become so familiar to us over the previous year and a half, he felt like one of the crew.

  The captain sat at the head of the table, with the XO on his right. A steward served us food that was surprisingly good. It was the same fare as the crew, but the submarine service claimed they provided the best food in the Navy. We had just finished ice cream sundaes, and were waiting for coffee.

  There was no alcohol served on the vessel. Which was probably wise when things were getting tense.

  And things were getting tense. That was why the captain, who usually let his officers squabble over the choice of movie, had exercised his authority. When things got tough, he liked to watch The Magnificent Seven. He had chosen it after the reactor scram the previous January, and when we had successfully evaded two Soviet attack submarines in the Greenland Sea during our last patrol.

  Soon after I had joined the Navy in 1975, the Cold War had begun to thaw amid Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and détente. But, since Ronald Reagan had become president, all that had changed. Now the messages emanating from the White House were all about increasing, not decreasing, nuclear weapons, cruise missiles were being deployed in Europe and there were plans to develop anti-ballistic missile systems in space. And then in September the Russians had shot down the Korean airliner.

  The Alexander Hamilton had received two Emergency Action Messages that day. The first, which I had decoded with Lars, was for information only. It announced the start of a major NATO exercise known as Able Archer, which was designed to test the NATO command structure’s response to a conventional attack by the Soviet Union that went nuclear. That in itself wasn’t concerning. We had been briefed at the start of the patrol to expect the exercise.

  The second EAM of the day was much more worrying. It had raised the state of nuclear readiness to DEFCON 3, with no explanation. There were five levels of readiness, ranging from DEFCON 5, which applied nearly all the time, down to DEFCON 1 which meant launch of nuclear missiles was imminent.

  The technical definition of DEFCON 3 was not particularly alarming: ‘increase in force readiness above that required for normal readiness’. But during the whole Cold War, DEFCON 3 had only been set three times: in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – when it had eventually reached DEFCON 2, during the Yom Kippur war between Israel and the Arabs in 1974, and in 1976 after a flare-up on the Korean peninsula.

  So DEFCON 3 was a big deal.

  Of course, the crew of the Alexander Hamilton had reacted to the change in status with calm professionalism, and Commander Driscoll had briefed the officers and senior chiefs two hours earlier, as much to steady nerves as anything else. Which was why we were still watching a movie that evening.

  In theory, officers were not supposed to ‘talk shop’ in the wardroom. In practice, on the Hamilton it was allowed at the end of the meal.

  I had a question.

  ‘Sir? Do you think the DEFCON 3 status has anything to do with Able Archer?’

  Every officer in the room looked at the captain, who took a moment to puff on his cigar. He seemed to come to a decision and turned to his right. ‘XO? Can you tell these gentlemen what you told me earlier?’

  Lieutenant Commander Robinson seemed surprised by this request. He raised his eyebrows, but Driscoll nodded, confirming his instruction.

  ‘Aye, captain.’ He leaned forward and looked at the rest of us around the table. ‘What I am about to say is Classified. Secret. And some of it is speculation.’

  ‘But it is directly relevant to the situation we find ourselves in,’ said the captain. ‘I think you need to know the answer to your question, Bill.’

  ‘As most of you know, I was transferred to the Hamilton directly from the Pentagon,’ Robinson began. ‘I worked on planning the Able Archer 83 exercise for six months. We do Able Archer exercises every year, but this year it’s a bit different. This time the scenario is that the Warsaw Pact invades West Germany, reaches the Rhine and SACEUR decides to respond by nuclear signalling.’

  SACEUR stood for the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. ‘What kind of nuclear signalling?’ I asked.

  ‘Limited nuclear attacks on some Eastern European cities.’

  I nodded. But ‘nuclear signalling’ struck me as a seriously bad idea.

  ‘From there, the situation escalates further, and two days later NATO will order a full-scale nuclear attack.’

  This was roughly what had been described to us at our briefing.

  ‘Now unlike previous years, this exercise involves signals between SACEUR in Brussels, the various NATO governments and strategic commands. A new encryption system has been instituted for the exercise. These signals won’t be sent to individual SSBNs. So the DEFCON 3 instruction we received is not part of the exercise.’

  That was bad news. That meant it was for real. ‘So there is no link with Able Archer?’ I said.

  ‘I believe there might be,’ the XO said. His thick black eyebrows were furrowed over his dark eyes.

  ‘In the Pentagon, I was working closely with a CIA officer who was an expert on Soviet nuclear doctrine. His view was that the Russians fear we are about to launch a first strike.’

  ‘We are about to launch a first strike? That’s absurd,’ said Craig. ‘Surely they are the ones who are going to launch the strike if anyone is?’

  ‘That is what NATO has always believed. And that’s what they still believe. But my CIA colleague, and a number of others including agents on the ground, think otherwise. And if the Soviets think we are going to launch a first strike, they will expect us to do it under the cover of a military exercise.’

  ‘Like Able Archer?’ I said.

  ‘Like Able Archer. Especially if, unlike previous years, it involves signals traffic to air, sea and missile headquarters around Europe. And especially if this traffic uses new encryption. The Soviets will ask themselves why the new codes? And they will decide it’s because we are planning to do something we don’t want them to anticipate. Like a pre-emptive strike.’

  I glanced at Driscoll. He looked grim.

  ‘Then why did NATO go ahead with the exercise?’ I asked.

  ‘Because it was assessed that the Russians don’t really believe that we would launch a first strike.’

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ said Craig. ‘Why would we? That’s not the kind of thing the United States would do. They should know that, they’ve got their own spies.’

  ‘It’s the spies who are the most wary. Now that Andropov is in charge, the Kremlin is run by the KGB. According to the CIA, he believes that President Reagan is setting up the US to be able to launch a decapitation strike on Moscow. He thinks that’s why we are deploying Pershing missiles in Europe. They can reach Moscow in six minutes, before the Soviets have time to respond and order a counter strike.’

  ‘I still don’t see why we would do that,’ Craig said.

  ‘We know we wouldn’t do that, but the Soviets don’t. They are paranoid. Or at least some people in our intelligence community believe they are. So when they see Able Archer 83 going into action, they will put their own forces on alert.’

  The XO hesitated, glancing at his captain. Driscoll gave anothe
r discreet nod.

  ‘They may even decide to get their own strike in first.’

  ‘Is that’s what’s happening here?’ I asked.

  Robinson shrugged.

  Driscoll interrupted. ‘We don’t know, Bill,’ he said. ‘All we can know is that it might be happening. We need to be ready.’

  Ready for what? was the question we all wanted to ask, but we didn’t because we all knew the answer.

  Ready for nuclear war.

  ‘Thank you, XO,’ Driscoll said. ‘Very well, gentlemen. I’m just going up to the conn.’ He glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. ‘We start the movie at 2015.’

  The captain left, followed by the XO and the other three officers, leaving Craig, Lars and me.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Craig. ‘The Russians wouldn’t be that stupid. That’s the whole point of us, isn’t it? They launch a first strike, we finish them off. They know that.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’ I hesitated. ‘Wars sometimes start with people being stupid. Misunderstandings.’

  ‘Not nuclear wars,’ said Craig.

  ‘If there’s going to be a nuclear war, that’s how it would start. One side misunderstanding what the other side plans to do.’

  ‘But there’s not going to be a nuclear war.’

  ‘What about the First World War?’ I asked. It had always worried me, the First World War. The major powers of Europe had blundered into a war by accident and millions had died. If they had done it once they could do it again.

  ‘My point,’ said Craig. ‘It wasn’t a nuclear war. Then nobody in charge knew how bad a modern war could be. Now they all do.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I admitted.

  But I wasn’t convinced. And Craig could tell I wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Has Donna been getting to you?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘You mean she never spoke to you about this shit?’

  ‘Not much,’ I said. ‘We avoided the subject. We respected each other’s points of view.’

  ‘Remember the FBI came around to ask us about her?’ said Craig. ‘Her and some woman named Pat Greenwald. They said Donna was a serious peacenik. Maybe more than that.’

  It was true: two FBI agents had arrived at the base just before we flew out to Scotland to ask the three of us about Donna. I had told them we had broken up, and I would probably never see her again. And I had had no idea who Pat Greenwald was.

  ‘I heard her getting worked up in that bar in New York,’ said Lars.

  ‘Well, maybe we did discuss it once,’ I admitted, remembering our conversation in Mystic. ‘She asked me if I would go ahead with a nuclear launch if I was ordered to. I said I would.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Craig. ‘Because I’m the weps on this boat and you’re the assistant weps and I need for you to obey my orders.’

  ‘Hey, of course I will,’ I said, realizing I was straying on to difficult territory. ‘And I told her that. Even if I think the order is an error, I said I would obey it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Craig. He seemed comforted.

  ‘Even if you think it’s an error?’ Lars asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We have to, don’t we? We have no way of confirming.’

  ‘Won’t happen,’ said Craig. ‘There are too many checks in the system.’

  ‘But what about Three Mile Island?’ I said. ‘There were a load of checks there. They failed.’

  ‘That was a bunch of badly trained civilians making sloppy decisions and cutting corners,’ said Craig. ‘That could never happen in the Navy. Right?’

  He was glaring at me. Both as a friend and, much more importantly, as my senior officer. There was really only one answer I could give him if I wanted to stay in the Navy.

  ‘Right.’

  We watched The Magnificent Seven. Yul Brynner and his crew saved the Mexican village and saw off the bandits, and the captain was happy.

  Later, Lars and I were in our racks in the JO Jungle; Matt Curtis, our roommate, was on duty in manoeuvring. I had been trying to get to sleep for an hour, and failing. This was bad. If things got hairy it would be important to be well rested.

  ‘Bill?’

  It was Lars from the middle rack just beneath mine, a coffin six-foot six-inches long and two-foot six-inches high, in which he was wedged during his sleeping hours. Mine wasn’t any bigger; the enlisted men’s quarters were even smaller.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I think the XO is wrong. Even if they do think we might launch a first strike, it wouldn’t make sense for them to launch theirs first. We would still obliterate them and they know that.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘But people screw up.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lars. ‘People screw up. Man, I’m more worried about someone giving us a launch order by mistake. Donna was right about that. I know we have all those checks, but they had those at Three Mile Island. I think if there is going to be a nuclear war, that’s how it will start. Someone giving the wrong order to someone else who presses the button.’

  I got a grip. ‘Donna was wrong. If we all keep our heads and do our jobs there’s not going be a war. There can’t be. It’s madness.’

  Lars didn’t answer.

  Twenty-One

  Saturday 30 November 2019, Norfolk

  By the time Toby got down to breakfast it was half past eight and most of the family were already there; only Brooke and her husband were absent.

  ‘How did you sleep?’ said Bill, mixing politeness with genuine interest.

  ‘Not well.’

  ‘And how’s your head?’ said Megan, with a chirpy glee that was not at all polite.

  ‘Not good,’ Toby said, exercising his right to British understatement.

  He was getting old. Not only were the hangovers getting worse, but he was also finding it harder to sleep, especially after too much red wine. It wasn’t true what they said about expensive wine causing less damage the morning after.

  His wife being locked up in a police station hadn’t helped.

  When he had first got to bed, he had shared Justin’s anger with the Guth family and their secrets. The Guth family including Alice.

  There was stuff she knew that she wasn’t telling him, and he was quite sure she wasn’t telling the police. Stuff about the submarine. Stuff about Craig. Other stuff, no doubt. He found himself blaming her pig-headedness for getting herself in jail.

  Was Justin right that Craig’s death back in 1983 had something to do with Sam’s? If so, why would Alice care? Although he could see why Justin might.

  But as Toby had lain in bed and stewed, the anger had shifted shape into concern. He had no idea what a police cell was like. Was it like one of those American drunk tanks you saw on TV? Was Alice alone? Was she asleep? What was she thinking? What was she thinking about him?

  Was she OK? Obviously she wasn’t OK. Could she handle it? Although her family, her friends and her colleagues thought Alice could handle anything, Toby knew there were limits, and he feared Alice was near hers.

  He knew he should have confidence in Alice’s ability to get herself out of jail: in her ingenuity, in her father’s influence and effectiveness, in her innocence. But in the small hours of the morning, he was afraid that somehow she would remain ensnared in the justice system. That she would be tried and found guilty for murder. That she would spend the rest of her life in jail. Away from him.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  And then he thought of Sam, and of his pregnant girlfriend. It was so much worse for her – worse than for Alice, worse than for the rest of the Guth family. Sam had struck him as a really nice guy and he was far too young to die.

  Who the hell had killed him? Was it someone currently asleep in that very house? Or in the Cottage next door? Or was it, after all, Alice, in her police cell?

  Eventually, sleep had pulled Toby under and freed him from his increasingly muddled speculation.

  He glanced at
the row of wine bottles by the kitchen window, and poured himself some coffee. Without Alice around to organize it, breakfast was just toast and blueberry jam, which for some reason the Guths kept in the fridge. No marmalade.

  ‘Are you going to see the lawyer this morning?’ he asked Bill.

  ‘Yes. A bit later. I’m meeting someone here first.’

  ‘Can I come?’ Toby asked.

  ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll handle the lawyer. And the police won’t let either of us see Alice.’

  ‘I’d like to try,’ Toby said. ‘And I’d like to talk to this lawyer. I’m sure she’s good, and I’m sure you can handle her, but Alice is my wife, and I’d like to be involved.’

  ‘OK,’ Bill said. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘Who are you meeting here?’ Megan asked her father.

  Bill hesitated, but then decided to reply. ‘Admiral Robinson. He was the executive officer on the Alexander Hamilton. He retired a few months ago.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Megan. ‘So he flew over from the States?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bill, looking uncomfortable. ‘I contacted him when I heard about Sam Bowen. I guess he jumped on a plane.’

  ‘Why?’ said Megan.

  Bill looked at his daughter, the blunt questions clearly riling him. ‘I guess he’ll tell me when I see him.’

  Toby wanted to ask more, as did Megan, such as if Sam’s murder had nothing to do with the Alexander Hamilton why was an admiral flying all the way here from America? But they could both tell from her father’s face there was no point.

  Toby slotted some bread in the toaster, and Brooke appeared in the kitchen.

  She looked nervous, but then she had looked nervous ever since Sam had been killed.

  ‘Brooke! Have some breakfast,’ Bill said. ‘Where’s Justin?’

  ‘He’s taking the bags out of the Cottage to our car,’ said Brooke. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘Back to Chicago?’ said Bill.

  ‘No. We’ve got a room in Hunstanton. Justin wants to stay around in case the police need him.’

  Bill’s lips pursed. He clearly didn’t like that response. ‘Can’t you stay? I know Justin is angry, but we need you here.’