Launch Code

THIRTY-THREE

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.’

‘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.’