Майкл Ридпат - Launch Code

‘What are they?’

‘I can’t tell you but, believe me, a captain couldn’t launch missiles on his own authority.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Certain.’ Unless everyone heard the XO repeat the captain’s instructions, the crew wouldn’t obey his orders. And then the weapons officer had to extract the firing trigger from a safe to which only he knew the combination, so the captain and XO together couldn’t order a launch. A rogue captain was something the Navy had prepared for and indeed something the crew trained for.

‘What if the order comes from some Dr Strangelove wireless operator pretending he got it from the president?’

‘They’ve thought of that too.’ Authentication codes would ensure any launch order was properly authorized.

‘OK. So they’ve thought of the obvious stuff. But what about the stuff they haven’t thought about? The non-obvious stuff? Or the combinations of the obvious stuff? Combinations like Three Mile Island.’

‘Donna. There are so many checks and counter-checks, an accidental launch just couldn’t happen. Believe me, it just couldn’t.’

Donna paused, thinking it through. Her logical thought process was unnerving me more than emotional idealism would have done. ‘All right. But let’s say your submarine receives an order to launch its missiles, and you personally are not sure about it. You think there might be something wrong. What do you do then? Do you follow orders? Do you press the button? Or do you use your common sense and refuse?’

‘That wouldn’t happen,’ I said.

Donna raised her eyebrows.

‘That wouldn’t happen.’ And then I repeated it again to myself.

Late the next morning, we took a walk along the river through the old buildings and the schooners. We had swiftly recovered from the ‘following orders’ conversation, and it had been a great evening. A great night.

‘You know we’re flying out to Scotland at the end of the week?’ I said. ‘I usually look forward to the patrols, it’s what it’s all about after all, but I’m not so sure this time.’

I glanced at Donna. Maybe I was looking for some agreement from her. No, I was definitely looking for some agreement from her. But she didn’t say anything.

‘You’re a great letter writer, you know that?’ I said.

Donna murmured her assent, head down.

‘Well, they have this thing called a familygram,’ I said. ‘Obviously it’s impossible to receive mail when we are out at sea, but they do let us have these familygrams. They are like telegrams: you can send eight per patrol, you are only allowed forty words, and they get censored. So they are not private. But the crew all love getting them.’

Nothing from Donna.

‘Would you send me some?’

I had been looking forward to asking Donna, had been looking forward to her joking about what she would put in them, and then agreeing. All the single guys on the submarines were jealous of those with wives or girlfriends. A familygram from your mom was nice to get, but not quite the same.

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure what she would say.

‘Donna?’

She stopped. We were right by the water, a few feet from one of the old vessels that had been built in a Mystic shipyard, a dignified three-masted bark.

She looked at me. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

Oh, no, I thought. Not that. Shit. Shit, shit, shit! Don’t think! I wanted to shout.

But she had been thinking.

‘You saw what happened to Craig. And there was that other officer on your ship, you told me about, the one who tried to kill himself because his girlfriend left him?’

That was the previous executive officer. His wife had walked out on him a year before and he hadn’t handled it well.

‘Yes, but he had other problems. Drugs.’ He had been taken off the boat and replaced with a new XO, Lieutenant Commander Robinson. The crew had felt sorry for him but, in truth, nobody had liked him; Robinson seemed a whole lot better.

‘You have to admit, submarines are not great for relationships, are they? Am I wrong?’

I took a deep breath. ‘No, you’re not wrong. But this relationship has just started. We have to give it a chance.’ I felt everything crashing down around me.

I reached for her hand. ‘I meant to tell you this last night. I think I love you. No, I do love you. I’m sure of it.’

There were tears in Donna’s eyes. ‘And I can feel myself falling in love with you. That’s the problem. That’s the whole problem. If this was just a casual relationship, just sex and a few laughs, it would be great. But it’s more than that.’

‘Is it the nuclear thing? Is it that you can’t fall in love with a guy who’s serving his country?’

‘Partly. Maybe. But it’s mostly I don’t want to fall in love with a guy who spends half his life away from me.’

Did she want me to give up the Navy? Was that what she was asking me to do? Would I do it? The Navy meant everything to me. But so did Donna.

‘And no, I’m not asking you to give up submarines for me. We haven’t got to that stage yet. And we should never get to that stage.’

I just looked at her. I didn’t know what to say. ‘When did you decide this?’

‘A couple of days ago. I thought I should tell you face to face rather than writing a letter. I was going to spit it out immediately and get the next train back to New York. But then you said you had booked the inn, and you looked so excited about it, and I couldn’t bear to let you down and I wanted to be with you really badly.’ A tear was running down her cheek. ‘I should have told you yesterday.’

‘No you shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘If we are only ever going to have a few days together, I wouldn’t want to have missed one of them. Especially this one.’

My brain was racing. What could I say to stop her? What could I do? Demonstrating how much she meant to me wouldn’t do it. That was the whole problem.

The worst thing was, I knew what she was saying. I almost agreed with her. She was right. You had to be an idiot to go out with a submariner.

And whatever else she was, Donna was not an idiot. Neither was she one to change her mind.

I looked at her beautiful, tear-stained face.

‘OK.’

What else could I have said?

Friday 29 November 2019, Norfolk

The police didn’t just take Alice; they took Bill and Lars as well. But not Toby. They refused to take Toby.

Bill and Lars were not under arrest; the police wanted to ask them some more questions and they wanted to do it at the station.

Serious questions then.

And they had a warrant to search Alice’s belongings and to take away her laptop, iPad and phone.

Toby was angry the police wouldn’t take him too. He was angry they had arrested Alice. He was angry that they were stupid enough to think Alice had killed anyone. And he was angry with Bill for letting them arrest her. He was sure there were things that Bill could tell them that would get Alice off the hook.

But he held it all in, at least until they were all out of the house. He had watched as two officers went through Alice’s clothes and her briefcase, and didn’t object when they rummaged through his own underwear mixed with hers. Being angry wouldn’t help; the police wouldn’t release a murder suspect just because her husband was angry.

At last they were gone. He, Maya and Megan stared out of the kitchen window at their departing car.

‘What a bunch of bloody idiots!’ Toby said. ‘How can they think Alice killed anyone?’

‘They are,’ said Maya. ‘They’ll realize their mistake, don’t worry, Toby.’ She put a hand on his arm. She seemed to have recovered her habitual air of detachment. ‘I’m going up to my room. Let me know if there is any news.’