Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

I squeezed her hand: it was what I wanted to hear.

  ‘Just think about it for a few days. That’s all I ask. And then, if you want, I will tell Pat you don’t want to see her or her Russian friend.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe speak to Lars about it? See what he thinks?’

  While Lars and I were waiting for our discharges to come through, we remained at the base, but were removed from working with the rest of the Alexander Hamilton’s crew. We were given the kind of superfluous administrative jobs that the Navy excels at creating; mine was in the department responsible for linen supplies. My office was, literally, a linen closet. It felt a bit like life on a submarine: there wasn’t even a window.

  Lars had a top-secret filing assignment and was just as bored as me. We had found throwing ourselves around a squash court a good way of getting over our frustration. We were evenly matched: I was the more skilful, but Lars was very quick around the court, and able to reach even my subtlest of drop shots.

  A couple of days after I got back to the base from New York we were alone in the locker room after a game when I told him about my conversation with Pat Greenwald and her suggestion that I might talk to the Russians.

  He was shocked.

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ I asked him.

  ‘Why not just talk to the papers? Off the record,’ said Lars. ‘That way everyone would know, including the Russians. They’ll have people who read our newspapers.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ I said. ‘And, in fact, that’s what Pat Greenwald originally wanted me to do. Set up a press conference. But even if it is off the record, the Navy would figure out it was me in an instant. Or you. I mean who else could it be?’

  ‘I see what you mean. But talking to the Russians? That sounds bad. Like spying-against-your-country bad.’

  ‘Maybe. But, in a weird way talking to the Russians through someone like Pat might be the best thing to do. The Navy wouldn’t find out. And it’s the Russians who are the people I want most to hear about it. They are the ones who have to show restraint if something like this occurs again.’

  Lars seemed unconvinced.

  ‘I wouldn’t tell them anything that would endanger an American submarine.’

  Lars blew through his cheeks.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  We sat in silence. I felt I had almost convinced him. I had almost convinced myself.

  But. I would be spying against my country, at least according to the Navy.

  ‘Remember that conversation we had with the XO in the wardroom?’ Lars said. ‘The one where he said the Russians should know what happened?’

  ‘Yeah. I think that’s what got me worrying about all this in the first place.’

  ‘He’s a smart guy. Maybe you should speak with him?’

  Forty-Two

  February 1984, Groton

  I decided to meet Lieutenant Commander Robinson outside, at the ruins of the fort which crowned a hill above the oldest part of Groton a few miles downriver from the sub base.

  Nobody missed me when I snuck away from my linen closet to drive south into town. I parked outside the library, and gave myself a half hour to wander around to make sure I wasn’t being followed. It was a clear, cold, still day, and there were few people on foot. None of them was following me, and the cars parked within sight of the fort were all empty.

  The fort itself was nothing more than a quadrangle of grassy earthworks overlooking the broad Thames River and the industrial port of New London on its far bank, where a couple of large freighters were unloading. I had visited it only once: with my parents soon after I had been posted to Groton. It was the site of a battle during the revolution. In 1781 the British, led by the turncoat general Benedict Arnold, had besieged the fort, breached its defences and massacred its defenders. A monument to the battle rose solemnly on the other side of the road.

  Now it was quiet. It was also cold.

  I stood on top of one of the ramparts waiting, the Thames glittering in the winter sunshine. A muffled crash drifted up from the General Dynamics shipyard a mile or so downstream – the sound of a new nuclear submarine being put together. At twelve-thirty precisely, the XO parked his car on the street a hundred yards away, spotted me and walked along the path from the road into the grassy square, surrounded by the remains of the walls. Down there, no one could see us.

  We were both in uniform in our all-weather coats. I considered saluting, but decided not to.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ I said.

  ‘It’s an interesting place to meet, Guth,’ he said. I could see he was curious. ‘A bit cold.’

  ‘I want to continue the conversation we had in the wardroom,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want to be overheard.’

  The more I had thought about it, the more I realized that the XO was exactly the right person to talk to. I didn’t know him well – we had only served on one patrol together – but I respected his professionalism. He was a conscientious, diligent, talented officer with direct experience with planning for a nuclear war. And that conversation had shown that he was also a thinking human being.

  If he agreed with Lars that what Pat Greenwald had suggested was treason, then I would have nothing more to do with her. But if he agreed with Donna . . . I wasn’t sure what I would do. But I would respect his judgement.

  Approaching him was risky, but he had opened up to Lars and me first, and I hoped that by reminding him of this, I would discourage him from turning around and reporting me.

  Robinson frowned, pulling his dark eyebrows together. ‘Is this something I should hear?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said.

  I could see Robinson hesitate. But curiosity overcame caution. And I also felt trust and respect for me.

  ‘I have a philosophical question for you,’ I said.

  ‘I have come all this way to discuss philosophy with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I love my country. That’s why I joined the Navy. But it’s also why I did what I did on the Hamilton. I didn’t want the country I love to be destroyed. To me, that is straightforward patriotism. Do you agree?’

  Robinson nodded slowly. ‘I do. And so does Commander Driscoll. That’s why we recommended you for an honourable discharge.’ He gave me a grudging smile. ‘If it were up to me, I’d give you a medal.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’m just glad to avoid a court martial,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about our conversation. You suggested that it would be good if the Navy was more open with the Soviets?’ I waited. I needed his acknowledgement before I went further.

  Robinson looked uncomfortable, but then he nodded. ‘I remember.’

  ‘It seems to me that it’s unlikely that this will be the only time an erroneous order is given to a boomer. Or maybe a missile launch site or a bomber. In fact, I would be surprised if this hasn’t happened before. It may even have happened on a Russian submarine.’

  ‘That is certainly possible.’

  ‘In which case it would be good if the Russians knew about it. Because if three missiles are accidentally fired at the Soviet Union one day, they might consider the possibility it was an accident. They might not retaliate. Do you think that’s right?’

  ‘I do,’ said Robinson, carefully.

  ‘So, philosophically speaking, would it be a good thing if the Soviets knew what we almost did in November?’

  Robinson turned away from me and took a few paces, staring at the grassy hump of the old fortification.

  My heart was thumping as I let him think. I hoped I hadn’t said enough for Robinson to have me arrested. The XO was a diligent officer; maybe that’s what a diligent officer should do.

  We stood there, apart, for two full minutes. Then Robinson turned and faced me.

  ‘I have two things to say to you, Lieutenant Guth. Firstly, I agree with your philosophical point. A true patriot would not want to see his country devoured by a nuclear holocaust. A
nd if the Russians knew about nuclear near-launches, they would be less likely to retaliate if one were to occur in the future, one where missiles were actually fired.’

  I felt a wave of relief.

  ‘I have another point, though, and please listen to it. I am a serving officer in the United States Navy. If I ever learned that you intended to approach the Soviets and tell them anything about what happens or happened on board a nuclear submarine, I would have to report it to the naval authorities. But I believe you were only speaking “philosophically”. Is that correct?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ I said.

  ‘So you have no intention of going to the Russians directly, then?’

  ‘Oh no. Of course not, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ said Robinson. ‘Then I think we understand each other. I doubt we will speak before your discharge comes through. Good luck, Lieutenant Guth. With life after the Navy.’

  Robinson held out his hand, and I shook it.

  With a shiver, he hunched himself in his coat and turned back to his car.

  As I watched him drive off, I knew I had my answer.

  Forty-Three

  April 1984, Paris

  They call April in New England ‘Mud’. There was no mud in the Jardin du Luxembourg in April, or at least not during the three full days Donna and I spent in Paris.

  We stayed in a cheap hotel just beyond the périphérique, and took the Metro into the city every morning. We did all the things young Americans do in Paris. We loitered in cafes, we loitered in museums, we hung around churches, we walked and we talked. Neither of us had ever been to Paris before: in fact the only country I had ever visited in Europe was Scotland. Donna had spent a month in Italy in her junior year at Swarthmore, and her French was pretty good – definitely better than mine.

  We fell in love with the city – like so many Americans before us – and we were falling in love with each other.

  I had been discharged from the Navy, and spent a couple of weeks at home with my parents before joining Donna in New York. My mother had been happy to accept my explanation that I couldn’t divulge why I had left early, and that the discharge was indeed honourable. But my father had not taken my leaving the Navy well, especially when he realized that there was little chance that I would come and work with him on his newspaper. He was a curious newspaperman and he also felt that I should be able to trust my own family; he wanted to know all the details.

  I held out.

  But now, even more inconsistently, I was about to tell a total stranger everything.

  Our three days coincided with the twenty-fourth International Conference on High Energy Physics, which was taking place in Paris that year. The plan, as explained to us by Pat Greenwald, was that we would saunter past a particular bench in the Jardin at 12.40 for each of the three days. If and when Donna saw Irena Boyarova, whom she would recognize, sitting there reading a book in English, we would place ourselves next to her and strike up a conversation, asking her about the book. If she was reading a book in Russian, we would walk on by.

  I suggested that we spend the half hour beforehand going back and forth on the Metro to make sure no one was following us. We did this, but we found it impossible to determine whether we were being followed or not in the crowded foreign city.

  The bench was just a few yards away from the Medici fountain. There was no sign of the Russian on the first day, but on the second the bench in question was occupied by a small woman with short greying hair wearing a shapeless brown coat. She was reading The Thornbirds.

  ‘There she is,’ said Donna.

  We paused in front of the bench. ‘Il y’a quelqu’un ici?’ Donna asked the woman.

  The Russian smiled. ‘Non,’ she said. ‘Asseyez-vous.’ Her face was small and round, as were her blue eyes, which glanced at us quickly, and then went back to her book.

  Donna and I unpacked a simple picnic from the bag Donna was carrying – bread, cheese and a couple of oranges – and began to eat. While we had both felt a sense of excitement at these meeting preparations over the previous couple of days, now I wasn’t so sure. This was all too much like a John le Carré novel. I didn’t like to think of the Russian physicist as a spy, and I certainly didn’t like to think of myself as one.

  It was cool on the bench; the sunshine that reached us was filtered by the chestnut trees above us. All three of us were hunched in our coats. After we had been sitting for a couple of minutes, Donna turned to her neighbour.

  ‘How do you like that book? It’s one of my favourites.’

  ‘Is it? Oh, good,’ said the woman in a heavy Russian accent. ‘It was recommended to me by a friend. But I have only just started it.’

  ‘Are you Russian?’ said Donna. ‘You sound Russian.’

  Although we were not assuming that anyone would be within listening range, Pat Greenwald had suggested that in the first couple of minutes of conversation we should talk as if we had just met, so that we would be acting that way to distant watchers.

  Soon Donna and Irena were chatting happily. Donna had introduced me, and we were sharing our lunch with her.

  ‘So you have something to tell me?’ Irena Boyarova asked me with a smile. ‘Something about how your nuclear submarine was ordered to fire its missiles and didn’t?’

  ‘That’s correct,’ I said. And I told her in the vaguest terms what had happened.

  She was listening closely. But when she started asking more detailed questions about the launch procedure, I demurred. ‘I don’t want to give away any secrets, here,’ I said. ‘I just want you to know what happened.’

  ‘And thank you for that,’ said Irena. ‘We have a friend, Pavel, the brother of one of my colleagues, who is the commander of a Russian nuclear submarine. I have spoken to him and he is very interested in what you have to say. He tells us that in our country the navy believes that it is impossible to launch nuclear missiles without proper authorization, and he says that the Soviet navy believes that is true of your navy as well. Pavel is not so sure. He says we need to be able to convince people that in certain circumstances all the safeguards and checks will not work. But to do that, we need details.’

  ‘I told Pat Greenwald I cannot give away any Classified information.’

  ‘You have done that already,’ said Irena. ‘And I am not interested in technical details about your submarine or its missiles. But details about weaknesses in the launch procedure are really important. What’s the risk? It’s not as if the Soviet navy can disrupt the launch orders from outside your submarines?’

  I hesitated. Irena was absolutely right; although the launch procedures were top secret, knowledge of them would not put any US submarine at risk. And the whole point of what I was doing, and the thrust of the XO’s argument, was that the more the Russians understood about how the US launched nuclear missiles, the less likely they would be to retaliate following an accidental launch.

  ‘Will I ever meet this Pavel?’ I said.

  Irena smiled. ‘Perhaps. I hope so. One day, maybe.’

  I liked the idea of this Russian officer who had come to the same conclusion I had, although I doubted Pavel was his real name.

  ‘Are you going to give this information to the KGB? Or the Soviet high command?’

  ‘We will get it to one or two generals who are sympathetic to our cause. Then they can pass it on. In the Soviet Union, the only way to achieve any nuclear disarmament is by persuading those in power that it is in their best interest and the motherland’s. And I really believe we can do that. In a few years’ time I believe we will see the Soviet Union reducing its nuclear weapons – if the US government changes its tune and is prepared to do the same. Your information will help us get to that point, but only if we have the details.’

  I hesitated; I wasn’t convinced that the details were relevant, but then I could see that giving them would furnish my story with credibility, and ultimately that was what was important. They would be of no help to a Soviet fast-attack sub creeping up on my shipmate
s in the Alexander Hamilton, of that I was certain.

  So I told her the whole story.

  She was impressed. When I was done, she smiled and touched my arm. ‘Thank you. For what you did. I thank you on behalf of the Soviet population. If you had not had the courage to kill your friend, my country would have been destroyed.’

  This thanks from an enemy affected me unexpectedly. I meant to reply, but found I couldn’t. In the end, ‘thank you’ in turn was all I could manage.

  ‘I must go back to my conference,’ said Dr Boyarova. ‘There is a chance that one of my compatriots may be watching us. If they are, they won’t be able to identify who you are until you get back to your hotel. So take your time and, if you can, give them the slip.’ Irena smiled. ‘I think I irritate them: I make it a habit to speak to random strangers wherever I go – they can’t follow all of them!’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ I said.

  ‘Until we meet again, which I hope we do.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said, unsure we would ever see each other again.

  ‘Do you think she’s a spy?’ Donna asked, as we wended our way through the little streets around the church of Saint-Sulpice.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She seemed genuine to me.’

  ‘She was very nice.’ Donna threaded her hand in mine. ‘I hope I haven’t gotten you into trouble.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve thought this through. Even if the KGB do hear about the near-launch, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? If anything, they will be more able to pass it on to the Soviet high command than Irena would be.’

  ‘That’s true, I guess. As long as you don’t get caught.’

  ‘I won’t get caught. I expect this will be the last time either of us sees Irena Boyarova.’

  The spring sunshine warmed up the afternoon, and we ended up at a cafe on the banks of the Seine opposite the Île Saint-Louis. We ate a cheap meal with a cheap bottle of wine, and then worked our way down to the quai a couple of feet above the river.

  ‘Let’s sit down and watch for our tail.’