Майкл Ридпат - Launch Code

They sat in silence as they ate their soup. Bill looked strained, as well he might. Toby liked Lars and had witnessed his death close up. But Lars was an old friend of Bill’s: they had been through a lot together.

‘Who is Pat Greenwald?’ Toby asked him.

‘Who?’

‘You know. The woman the FBI mentioned when they warned you about Donna. You told us this afternoon.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’

‘And Sam Bowen asked you about her. You told him you never met her.’

Bill nodded.

‘Well?’

Bill was silent.

‘Dad?’ It was Megan. ‘You need to stop hiding stuff from us. You need to trust us.’

‘It’s not that simple, Megan.’

‘No, it’s not simple! That’s the point. It’s really complicated. And unless someone takes the initiative to figure out what’s really going on here, Alice will go to jail and Toby will get shot and maybe you will too.’

Megan’s eyes were alight and her cheeks flushed as she glared at her father.

‘I can’t do it, Megan. How many times do I have to tell you, this stuff is secret and it’s secret for a reason? I’ve already told you way more than I should have.’

‘But not enough,’ said Megan. She eyed her father. ‘I get that you and Toby can’t tell the British police what you know, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t.’

‘Yes there is!’ Bill protested. ‘I trusted you, Megan.’

‘No you didn’t! You didn’t trust me enough. Trust me now. Tell me about Pat Greenwald.’

‘Are you threatening me?’ Bill’s voice was low, as he stared at his daughter.

‘Yes.’ Megan stared back. ‘I will go to the police.’

Bill looked at his son-in-law and his daughter. And sighed.

‘All right. Give me some of that wine.’

December 1983, North Atlantic

‘Gentlemen. Would you mind leaving the XO and me with Bill and Lars?’

Supper was over, and coffee had been served in the wardroom. It was the first evening Lars and I had been allowed out of the JO Jungle. The Alexander Hamilton had come off strategic alert two weeks early and was heading back to Holy Loch. After some discussion, and some scrabbling around to rearrange schedules so that another SSBN would be in place to cover for her, COMSUBLANT had decided to bring the Hamilton home. There were things to discuss.

Now the Hamilton was off strategic alert and would not be ordered to launch her nuclear missiles, the captain had decided he could set us free. Lars and I had been nervous about mixing with our fellow officers after what had happened. Craig was not just my friend, he was popular with the other officers and with the crew. And I had killed him. And Lars had tried to kill the ship’s commanding officer. If a submarine operates much of the time like a large family, then Commander Driscoll was the father. Patricide doesn’t go down well with the siblings.

It was immediately clear that the half dozen other officers were equally wary about socializing with us. But the captain led by example, welcoming us both vigorously and treating us as if we had merely slipped away from the submarine for a week or so, perhaps on some brief training course, and had now returned. Soon the tension broke into nervous hilarity, almost as if we had all been knocking back a few cocktails before dinner.

I was grateful. I, too, felt part of the Hamilton family, and I felt vulnerable. I realized I craved acceptance from the rest of the crew.

‘It’s good to have you both back in the wardroom,’ said Driscoll once the other officers had left. ‘You will be back on watch from oh-six-hundred tomorrow morning.’

‘It’s good to be back here,’ I said. While both the captain and the XO had visited us frequently in our stateroom over the previous week, this was different. This was normality.

‘The XO and I have concocted a simple story to explain Weps’s death. We outlined it to the officers and the chiefs this afternoon, and they say the crew will accept it. The whole ship feels grateful that the world hasn’t been obliterated, and that is thanks to you gentlemen.’

‘Are you using the accidental fall?’ Lars said. The captain had discussed this with us over the previous couple of days. To move between different levels of the operations compartment, the crew had to climb metal ladders, or to slide down them, holding both railings as they did so. The story was that Craig had somehow caught his foot while doing this, and had knocked himself unconscious. He had come around, but then died several days later.

‘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.’