Launch Code

FORTY-EIGHT

June 1984 New York

I got a job in a bar on the Upper East Side after I was discharged, while I waited for the business school semester to start. I was staying with Donna in her tiny studio apartment. This was fine for me – her studio was many times the size of the JO Jungle – and she coped pretty well. I was tidy, I was considerate. It was great to be together.

I found adjusting to civilian life a bit of a shock. I had been in the arms of the Navy since the age of eighteen and I had gotten used to the structure. It wasn’t so much my own liberty to do what I liked that bothered me, as much as everyone else’s. It kind of bugged me if people didn’t do what they were supposed to. The manager who ran the bar was a nice guy, as were the other staff, who were mostly students or actors, but the operation was slapdash. Glasses unwashed, drinks unpoured, counter unwiped.

I would just have to get used to it. I was going to have to adjust to the civilian world, rather than the civilian world adjusting to me.

From what the others told me, the bar used to be a thriving pick-up joint, but the AIDS scare was taking its toll. Weekends could get busy, but it was quiet early in the week. One Monday evening a morose-looking guy of about forty in a crumpled suit drank his way through a few whiskeys, chatting to me disjointedly as I kept him topped up. He was foreign, probably an expat banker.

After we had closed up for the night, I was surprised when he emerged from the shadows outside the bar.

‘Can I have a quiet word?’ he said.

I tensed. The man didn’t look like a mugger, or a guy trying to pick me up – not that there was much of that any more with the fear of AIDS.

A con man, probably.

I turned to face him. ‘No,’ I said, firmly.

‘My name is Vassily Sapalyov,’ he said. ‘I am a colleague of Irena Boyarova. I believe you know her?’

‘I see.’

‘Let me buy you a drink? There is a hotel a couple of blocks away. Their bar will still be open.’

‘Haven’t you had enough to drink?’

The man laughed. ‘I’m Russian. I have not had nearly enough to drink.’

The hotel bar was indeed open, although empty, and Sapalyov bought us both single-malt whiskies. Glenfiddich.

‘I love this stuff,’ said Sapalyov with a grin. ‘I think it is the one thing I enjoy most about trips outside Russia.’

The melancholy seemed to have left him. It was if he was a different person. As if he had been acting before.

‘Are you a physicist too?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Yes, just like Irena.’

I doubted that, somehow. The guy just didn’t look like a physicist. ‘What is your field?’ I asked. I was a nuclear engineer and I had majored in Physics at the Naval Academy: I was planning to ask questions.

‘I’d rather not say,’ said the Russian.

‘You work for the KGB, don’t you?’ I said.

‘Of course not,’ said Sapalyov. ‘Why do you Americans think all Russians work for the KGB?’

‘All Russians outside the Soviet Union.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

I didn’t care about this joker. But something else caused me much more concern. ‘Is Irena in the KGB?’

Sapalyov had intelligent eyes. Not the kind of intelligence that can immediately grasp negative probabilities in Quantum Mechanics. They were shrewd. They could read people. No way was this guy a nuclear physicist.

‘Irena is not in the KGB,’ Sapalyov said. ‘She is a devoted worker for peace and a good friend of mine. The information you gave her has made its way to people who can influence our nuclear policy.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘We would like to introduce you to Pavel. You may have heard of him?’

‘Yes, Irena mentioned him. He is an officer in your navy.’

‘That’s correct. Like you he is concerned about nuclear accidents. He knows of a similar event on one of our submarines that happened two years ago in the Pacific.’

Despite myself, I was intrigued.

‘How do I get to meet this Pavel? He’s a serving officer, right?’

‘A neutral country. You would have to fly there, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you now you have left the Navy.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘What have you got to lose? Just talk to him.’

‘To a serving officer in the enemy’s navy?’

‘But that’s the point, isn’t it, Bill? He has the same doubts you do.’

I drained my whiskey. ‘No, Mr Sapalyov. I have done all I’m going to do. I’m not a spy, or at least I don’t consider myself a spy, and I won’t become one. I won’t have any more contact with you in the future, or Irena Boyarova.’

‘But there is so much more you can do for the cause of peace,’ said the Russian.

‘No. That’s it.’ I stood up.

‘You have already betrayed your country,’ said Sapalyov. His voice was low, a growl.

I sat down again and leaned over towards the Russian. ‘Don’t try to threaten me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t care. I don’t care if you expose me. I don’t care if you assault me. I don’t even care if you kill me. You don’t know what it’s like to stare the end of the world in the face, like I’ve done. I don’t care what the consequences are: I will not betray my country. Is that clear?’

And at that moment, I truly didn’t care.

‘If you can use the information I gave you to make a nuclear war less likely, all well and good. If you want anything else from me, you won’t get it.’

Sapalyov’s shrewd eyes assessed me. He decided I wasn’t bluffing.

‘I have no intention of making you do something you don’t want to,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want to meet Pavel, that’s fine. I – we – are grateful for what you have already told us.’

‘And by “we”, who do you mean?’

‘The Gorky Trust Group. The Soviet peace movement, such as it is.’ The Russian reached out his hand and touched my sleeve. ‘I just have one last question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘Would any of the other officers on the Alexander Hamilton be willing to speak to us? After all, they saw the world come to the brink of destruction just like you.’

I thought of Lars. Of the XO. Of Commander Driscoll. Then I thought of the KGB.

‘No.’

The Russian let his disappointment show, but after a moment’s reflection seemed to accept my refusal. ‘I understand. Goodbye, Lieutenant Guth. And if you change your mind, just tell Dr Greenwald.’

As I walked downtown towards the subway, I was worried. I knew nothing about spies, but there had to be a good chance that Vassily Sapalyov was one. Which meant that Irena Boyarova was probably a spy also. Maybe even Pat Greenwald.

I was still happy with what I had told Irena. Part of the reason for doing it was that the Soviet leadership would know the US had nearly launched nuclear missiles at them accidentally. That had been the XO’s rationale, and I thought he was right. But no more. They would not get anything more from me.

I supposed I had laid myself open to blackmail. But I didn’t think it would be in the Russians’ interest to expose me and what I had done. They wanted me a willing cooperator. And they had nearly persuaded me.

Of course, it wasn’t just me, it was Donna. They could try to claim she was a spy as well. I would have to tell her about the evening.

I was willing to risk exposure to draw a line. The best way to extricate myself from this little mess was firmness and courage. I could do it.

And I suspected Donna could too.