Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Yes,’ said Driscoll. ‘The XO will brief you on the details in a moment.’

  ‘But will the whole crew’s stories match in an investigation?’ I asked. I could imagine a determined investigator swiftly finding conflicting narratives.

  ‘My hope is that no one will ask,’ said Driscoll. ‘I’ll tell Commodore Jackman what actually happened, but I’m one hundred per cent sure the Navy will want to cover this up. If I give them a credible story that is already in place, they will go with it.’

  Commodore Jackman was the commanding officer of SUBRON 14, the squadron of which the Hamilton was a part.

  ‘Have you told them about us yet?’ Lars asked.

  ‘No. But I will do all I can to make sure that you don’t suffer consequences for what you did. If they try to court martial you, well, I hold some cards.’

  ‘We both do,’ said Robinson with a smile.

  ‘Obviously, I can’t guarantee anything. But one thing I need to know is: do you want to stay in the Navy? I’m sure boomers are out of the question, probably for any of us, but you could maybe serve on fast attacks? I need to know what you want before I can push for it.’

  He looked at both of us. Lars and I had discussed this over the previous few days together. I knew what Lars’s response was.

  ‘I want out,’ said Lars. ‘I’d like to think I have been a good officer in the past. But I’m damn sure I can’t be again in the future.’

  ‘I understand,’ said the captain. ‘Lieutenant Guth?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t give you a straight answer to that yet,’ I said. ‘There’s still some things I need to figure out.’

  Driscoll frowned. ‘All right. We all need to figure stuff out. But let me know as soon as you have. The XO will brief you on what we’re saying happened to Weps.’

  The captain left the wardroom.

  The XO sipped his coffee, his dark eyes fixed on us.

  ‘I admire you guys,’ he said. ‘That takes real courage, to do what you did.’

  Lars and I were silent. It had taken courage. But.

  ‘The courage to kill your friend,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the XO. ‘But it’s also the courage, the intelligence, to figure out that you owe your loyalty to the human race, more than just the US Navy. I’m not sure I could figure that out. In fact, I know I couldn’t.’ He paused and stared at his cup. ‘Truth is, I didn’t.’ He looked up. ‘That’s going to be difficult for me to live with.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have done what I did if Lars hadn’t shown me it was the right thing to do.’

  ‘And now we are going to cover it up,’ said the XO.

  ‘That has to be right,’ said Lars. ‘From our point of view as well as the Navy’s. If this got out it would undermine the whole nuclear deterrence regime.’ That was something else that Lars and I had discussed at length.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said the XO. ‘We assume that the Russians want to attack us, they want to destroy us with their nuclear weapons, and the only thing that’s stopping them is our nuclear weapons. But that’s not correct.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Lars. ‘Because it seems to me that the communists are trying to take over the whole world and have been ever since the Russian revolution. “Workers of the world unite.” That’s the whole world.’

  ‘Sure, that’s how it started,’ said the XO. ‘But then Stalin changed the slogan to “Socialism in one country.” Not the whole world.’

  ‘He was happy to swallow up Eastern Europe. And what about Vietnam? And Syria? And Africa? What about Cuba?’

  ‘We have been just as aggressive as the Soviets in all those places,’ said the XO. ‘More so, really. All those dictatorships we have propped up in South America. Fidel Castro didn’t even know he was a communist until we told him he was.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ said Lars. ‘Are you trying to tell me Castro isn’t a communist?’

  ‘He is now,’ said Robinson. ‘I’m just saying maybe we made him that way.’

  ‘We are only protecting ourselves and the free world,’ said Lars. ‘Hell, that’s one of the reasons I joined the damn Navy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the XO. ‘I get that. But I wonder if the Russians think we are an equal threat to their socialist world. In fact, now I believe they think we are a bigger threat. I think they are more scared of us than we are of them.’

  ‘Is this your CIA friend at the Pentagon?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. And he is convincing. Ronald Reagan is talking about the arms race as a race the US can win. And the Soviets are asking themselves the question, what does losing the arms race mean? What does losing the Cold War mean? Does it mean the US launches a nuclear decapitation strike?’

  ‘I’m with Craig on this,’ said Lars. ‘That just doesn’t sound right to me.’ He leaned forward. ‘That’s not why I took a swing at Commander Driscoll. I wasn’t thinking about the rights and wrongs of my country’s nuclear strategy. I was just taking the only chance I could see to stop the world from blowing itself up.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m really glad you did it,’ said the XO. ‘But the more I think about it, the more I think that deterrence only works when we and the Soviets understand what we are doing, and trust each other.’

  ‘Trust each other?’

  ‘Yeah. They trust us to be ready to press the button if they launch missiles, and we trust them to do the same thing. Result: nobody launches anything.’

  ‘Except we nearly did,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the XO. ‘And one day there will be some Russian crew on a submarine or in a missile bunker who might nearly make the same mistake. All I’m saying is that it might be better for trust in each other if we told each other all about it.’

  I understood what the XO was saying. I wasn’t sure I agreed with him, but I understood him.

  ‘That’s why this Able Archer exercise was so screwed up,’ the XO went on. ‘All it did was make them think we had the capability to launch a pre-emptive strike. It may even have made them think that that’s what we were actually doing. It brought nuclear war closer, not further away.’

  ‘So what should the exercise have done?’

  ‘Been more open. Not used new codes or such widespread radio messages. Showed them and us that NATO could defend Europe. That if the Soviets attacked, we would respond. But that we had neither the interest nor the capability to attack them first.’

  I glanced at Lars. The XO had a point.

  ‘So are you saying you are not going along with the cover story?’ Lars asked.

  The XO smiled. ‘Oh, no. In the real world, that’s the best option. And it’s also the best way of making sure that you guys don’t get court martialled.’

  Lars nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘XO?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you going to stay in the Navy?’

  Lieutenant Commander Robinson smiled. ‘I’ve been thinking about that too. And yes. If they’ll allow me, I’ll stay. Now. Let me tell you how Weps fell down that ladder.’

  Thirty-Four

  January 1984, New York City

  New York looked spellbinding in the snow. The north-east of the United States had spent three days in a blizzard, but the storm had spun off into the Atlantic overnight, leaving the city glistening brilliant white.

  My train down from New London had been delayed three hours, but had eventually pulled in to Penn Station. I wandered through the streets, passing rosy-cheeked New Yorkers gazing in dazed wonder at their city’s new cloak. And the odd wad of cardboard and blankets in doorways, beneath which other New Yorkers, whose cheeks were grey and black, burrowed.

  I made my way to St Mark’s Place, and stood to one side as a woman bundled up in scarf and greatcoat emerged from Donna’s building, her scalp pink in the cold beneath her green Mohawk. The East Village was the East Village, even at ten degrees below freezin
g.

  I pressed Donna’s buzzer.

  ‘Hello?’

  I swallowed. ‘Hi. It’s Bill. Can I come in?’

  Silence.

  ‘Donna?’

  ‘Bill. You shouldn’t be here. We agreed not to see each other anymore.’

  ‘Well, I am here. And I have something to tell you.’ More silence. ‘And it’s freezing.’

  The door buzzed and I pushed my way into the building.

  Donna’s apartment was warm and she was wearing an old green Joni Mitchell T-shirt I recognized. Her honey-blonde hair had been cut shorter, but the little notch was still there in her chin. It was more than three months since I had seen her, and she looked more beautiful than I remembered. I just wanted to grab her and kiss her.

  But I stood in the doorway. ‘Hi,’ I said, smiling. Hoping to coax out that familiar lop-sided hint of amusement.

  I failed.

  ‘You had better come in,’ she said, looking away from me. ‘Do you want coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  She busied herself with the coffee maker. I took the opportunity to stare at her back while she couldn’t see me. I wanted to wrap my arms around her so badly.

  ‘How’s the stapling going?’ I said.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she grunted.

  ‘Just OK?’

  ‘No,’ she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice. ‘I’ve decided it’s a waste of time. I’m going to law school in the fall. Penn, if I can get in.’

  ‘I’m surprised,’ I said. ‘I never thought of you as a lawyer.’

  ‘Not that kind of lawyer,’ Donna said. ‘I’ve realized that if you want to actually help people, you need the law on your side. Protesting can only get you so far.’

  ‘I see.’

  She poured two cups of coffee and gave me one. No milk – she remembered that.

  ‘I know about Craig,’ she said. ‘Vicky told me.’ Her voice softened a touch. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, sitting on her bed and pointing to the one armchair in her studio. ‘Say what you’ve got to say and then go.’

  ‘Can’t I drink my coffee?’

  ‘Say what you’ve got to say, drink your coffee and then go.’

  I sipped from my mug. I had expected a small protest from Donna at my appearance. It’s true she had insisted we shouldn’t see each other again. But not this hostility. It was as if she hated me.

  I wanted to ask why. But I decided to say what I had come there to say.

  I had agonized over whether to come. The captain and the XO had concocted a story for what had or had not happened on the Alexander Hamilton, and how Craig had died. The other officers had bought into it, as had the crew – and the Navy. And we had all sworn not to tell anyone.

  And here I was planning to speak with Donna.

  But I couldn’t help it. She was why Lars and then I had questioned orders and then disobeyed them. She was why the USS Alexander Hamilton had not launched those three missiles at Moscow, Leningrad and Berlin.

  She was why there had not been a world war. She had to know.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We were about four weeks into the patrol . . .’

  She listened closely, hunched over her mug of coffee, hanging on my every word.

  When I was done she was silent for a moment. ‘Wow,’ she said.

  And then a tear ran down her cheek.

  I stood up, moved on to the bed beside her, and put my arms around her shoulders. At first she was stiff, but then she sobbed and squeezed herself into my arms.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her face was buried so deeply in my chest I could barely hear her.

  I waited. Eventually, she broke away. She sniffed and wiped her nose.

  ‘I found it really hard when we broke up. I missed you. So I decided to hate you, hate what you stand for. Hate you for being willing to blow up the world. And then you get the order to do it, and you do this.’

  ‘I killed Craig,’ I said.

  ‘I know. That must have been horrible. Despite what I’ve just said, he was a good guy. I don’t know why I’m crying. It should be for him. Poor Vicky. I saw her just before Christmas and she said he had died on patrol in a freak accident. She was really upset. I thought maybe that’s what you wanted to tell me.’

  ‘I bet she was upset.’ I took a deep breath. Would I have to face Vicky? Lie? I would rather not; in fact I would do anything in my power to avoid her.

  ‘Don’t tell her,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell anyone. Everything I’ve told you is top secret. I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘In particular, don’t tell Pat Greenwald.’

  ‘Did I tell you about Pat?’

  ‘No. the FBI did. Who is she?’

  ‘The FBI?’

  ‘Yes. Two goons came to see me in September just before we headed out to Scotland. Said that you were a peace activist – which I told them I knew already – and that you knew Pat Greenwald who had some contact with the KGB.’

  ‘The KGB? That’s ridiculous. And you’re telling me that the FBI has been spying on me?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘So does this woman have anything to do with the KGB?’

  ‘No! Absolutely not. I met her at Seneca this summer. You know – the women’s peace camp upstate? We bonded.’

  ‘So she doesn’t talk to any Russians?’

  ‘She speaks to a couple of Soviet peace organizations,’ Donna admitted.

  ‘Controlled by the KGB?’

  ‘We’re not that stupid. We want peace, we don’t want the Soviets to win the Cold War.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But whoever she is, you won’t tell her any of this, will you? Because I could get into serious trouble. Rest-of-my-life in prison type trouble.’

  ‘No,’ said Donna. ‘I won’t tell her. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.’

  ‘Good.’ But I was nervous. Could I trust her? Should I have told her?

  She sipped her coffee. ‘I was right, wasn’t I?’

  ‘About the risk of an accidental launch order? Yes, you were absolutely right. And it was only because you and I had had that argument in Mystic that I told Lars about it. And that’s why he tried to stop Commander Driscoll.’

  ‘Is he in trouble? Are you in trouble?’

  ‘Neither of us is. What we did is in breach of all kinds of Navy regulations, but, hey, the world didn’t end.’

  Donna smiled. Laughed. Wiped her eyes. ‘I don’t know why this makes me so emotional. It must be worse for you.’

  ‘I can handle it,’ I said. ‘Lars is finding it difficult. He’s been drinking heavily ever since we got back Stateside. Two nights ago he was high on the base. That was really dumb. They don’t like sailors driving nuclear submarines high on drugs.’

  ‘I get that. What are you going to do?’ A cloud of wariness passed across her eyes. ‘You are not going out on patrol again, are you?’

  ‘I’m up before the Personal Reliability Program next week. They’ll tell me they can’t trust me to press the button next time, and they’ll be right. They’ll revoke my certification.’

  ‘So will you leave the Navy?’

  ‘I don’t know. In theory I could serve on fast-attack submarines, and you would be surprised how many desks there are with submarine officers sitting behind them. But yeah, I might leave the Navy.’ I looked into her clear blue eyes. ‘It kinda depends on you.’

  ‘Me?’

  Her eyes softened as she understood. Very slowly she raised her face towards mine.

  And then she kissed me.

  Thirty-Five

  May 1996, Cobham, England

  Saturday mornings were crazy in the Guth household. Actually, I suspect that every morning was crazy, but I was at work Monday to Friday and on Sunday we shared kid duty.

  Saturday, it was just me. Donna stayed in bed, or sometimes
went outside for a walk. Alone.

  There were four kids by that stage. Maya was nine months old and crawling, Megan two and terrible. Brooke was five and Alice was six and my loyal assistant. Maya was angelic, of course, and Alice did a great job entertaining her. Megan and Brooke were more work.

  We had been in England a couple of years. I had been transferred by my employer, a US defence communications company based in Virginia, to their European headquarters which was near Reading. We had rented a small house in Cobham, because it was close to the American school. At that stage, only Alice was attending the elementary school, but the idea was everyone would go there in time.

  Donna had given up her legal career, at least temporarily, after Megan was born. Four kids under seven is a lot to manage.

  The doorbell rang. It was two clean-cut American men – one white, one black – dressed in white shirts, ties and suits. On a Saturday morning. I wasn’t surprised when they showed me FBI ID.

  I was surprised when they said they wanted to speak with Donna and me together.

  That took a few minutes to sort out, but Donna got dressed and came downstairs, and the four girls were successfully installed in front of the Saturday morning cartoons in the living room.

  ‘You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you?’ I asked. I had had some dealings with American intelligence since moving to England, but that had been the CIA, not the FBI. The FBI classically dealt with domestic US crimes.

  Like spying.

  ‘We would like to ask both of you about a woman named Patricia Greenwald,’ the black taller one began. He had introduced himself as Agent Watkins. The other one was Agent Macdonald.

  Yes. Like spying.

  Donna frowned. I knew she wouldn’t like that subject. ‘Aren’t you done with all that? The Cold War is over, peace has broken out. Or haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Thankfully that’s true. But the end of the Cold War has brought some interesting new facts to light. KGB and Stasi files in Moscow and East Berlin.’