Майкл Ридпат - Launch Code

‘So I would be a martyr? Or a fugitive? Those would be my choices?’

‘You would be a brave man,’ said Pat. ‘Doing the right thing.’

‘Donna really didn’t tell you much about what happened, did she?’ I said.

Pat shook her head.

‘The thing is, I killed someone. A good friend. I had to — it was the only way to stop the process. Right at the end, an officer opens a safe containing the trigger for the missiles. Only he knows the combination. I killed that officer, just before he opened the safe.’

‘Oh,’ said Pat.

‘So, you see, the Navy could court martial me for murder as well as mutiny and treason. But they have decided not to.’

‘In return for you keeping quiet?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You just told me you keep your word. Well, I do too.’

She led us deeper into the park into a warren of narrow paths and steep little hills winding through trees. Here, in the cold shade, snow clung to the frozen earth.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I have another idea.’

I waited.

‘You know that our movement is pushing for unilateral nuclear disarmament?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have a problem with that?’

‘Yes, I do.’ I was glad to have the opportunity to make the point. ‘The only reason there hasn’t been a nuclear war in the last thirty years is that both sides have nuclear weapons. Deterrence has worked. If one side reduces its nuclear arsenal then the other side might think they could win a war. And we’ll have one.’

‘And do you still think that? After what happened on your submarine?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe. But now I’m concerned there will be a nuclear war anyway. An accidental nuclear war.’

‘OK. A few years ago I would have disagreed with you about deterrence. I thought all nuclear weapons were bad and to do anything other than scrap them immediately was insane. But now quite a few of us think that we need to encourage nuclear disarmament throughout the world. Here, but also in Britain and France and China. Maybe soon in Israel. And in Russia.’

‘Russia? How are you going to do that?’

‘We have been in contact with Russians who think like we do. In particular, physicists who understand the damage that nuclear war would do. I know that in the west we assume that the Soviets are itching to wipe America off the face of the earth, but actually they are as scared of nuclear war as we are. Remember the Cuban missile crisis? The Russians blinked. They didn’t want a world war then; they don’t want one now. And, more to the point, they can’t afford more nuclear weapons.’

‘So what are you suggesting? That I speak to the Russians?’

‘Yes. Not to the government, but to the peace activists we know.’

I frowned. ‘Are you sure they aren’t just fronts for the Russian government?’

‘Yes, quite sure. The Russians are not very subtle about the way they try to co-opt our peace movement. They finance the World Peace Council, everyone knows that. The Peace Council tries to give us money; we refuse. No, these people are different. In particular the person I’m thinking of. Donna has met her.’

I glanced back at Donna, who was listening. She nodded. ‘It’s the Gorky Trust Group. Remember I told you about them?’

‘Gorky is a secure Soviet city,’ Pat said. ‘Our contact is a physicist there.’

‘I know Gorky,’ I said. ‘It often turns up in our target packages.’

That shut Pat up for a moment. ‘Don’t you see?’ she said. ‘If the Russian peace activists know that the United States nearly launched nuclear weapons at them by mistake, then maybe they will let us know of similar incidents there. And then if we reduce our missiles, maybe they will reduce theirs. The only way we are going to stop this insane race is if Russia and the United States begin to trust each other. The Russians get that. There’s a Moscow Trust Group and now this Gorky one.’

I shook my head. ‘That’s never going to work in the real world,’ I said.

‘It was working!’ Pat said. ‘That’s what the SALT talks were all about. Until Reagan came in and started talking about winning the nuclear arms race just when we were about to wind it down. And you can help that.’

I didn’t answer.

The trees opened up on a lake, surrounded by rocks. It was extraordinary to think that we were in the middle of one of the biggest cities on earth.

‘Well?’ Pat said.

‘No,’ I said.

‘He’ll think about it,’ said Donna.

‘No, Donna,’ I protested, as Pat left us to walk back to Hunter College, and Donna and I headed south through the park.

‘Just think about it,’ Donna said.

‘It would be treason. I would be betraying my country. That’s not something I would be prepared to do.’

‘But don’t you see, you are betraying your country by saying nothing!’ Donna said. ‘And not just your country, every country in the world. The human race!’

I shook my head.

‘Just think about it, please.’

We walked around the lake, together but apart. This worried me. I had hoped that my experience on the Hamilton would bring us closer together, bridge that divide of our views on nuclear weapons. But it looked as if, far from burying the question, it was raising it up between us.

Donna’s fingers found mine. ‘Bill. You can do what you want on this. I like you a lot, and I will still like you if you decide to keep quiet and not see Pat’s contact. I’m not going to try to coerce you to do something you don’t want to do. That’s not how our relationship should work.’

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.’