Toby picked up the form, took Prestwitch’s pen and signed.
TWENTY-FIVE
November 1983, Norwegian Sea
‘Don’t do it, son. Do what you have been ordered to do. You owe it to your country.’
Commander Driscoll’s eyes were steady as they looked down the barrel of the Colt 1911, his left hand clutching the shoulder that had been smashed by Lars’s wrench.
My aim was remarkably firm as I focused on Driscoll’s forehead. The control room was crammed full of men, and they were all staring at me in silence.
‘You gotta shoot him, Bill,’ Lars said. He was standing barely a foot away from the captain, the wrench still in his hand. Williamson, a large navigation petty officer, was poised just behind Lars, ready if Lars took another swing at the captain.
I ignored them all.
Driscoll was right, of course. My duty as a naval officer was to put down the gun and let him go ahead with the launch. My duty as a naval officer was to play my part in sending three nuclear missiles – thirty warheads – to Moscow, Leningrad and East Berlin. Warheads that would flatten cities and kill millions. Warheads that would probably provoke massive nuclear retaliation from the Warsaw Pact.
Certainly provoke it, if what the XO had said the night before about the Soviets’ nervousness was true.
Unless the Soviets had already launched their missiles, getting their own pre-emption in first before NATO could initiate the first strike the Russians were convinced was on its way under cover of Able Archer 83.
In that case, we were the second strike. Our job, our duty, was to launch our missiles.
All of them. Not three of them. Why three? And why the same three targets that we had been given in a training exercise two weeks before? And why East Berlin?
The standard orders for a nuclear submarine launch, the ones that occurred most often in their drills, were a response to an all-out Soviet nuclear strike. That was, after all, the principal reason for the existence of the American ballistic missile submarines. Dotted around the world’s oceans, gliding quietly at three knots several hundred feet down, they were impossible for the Soviets to find and destroy. So if the Russians ever launched a nuclear attack on the United States, even a surprise one, the submarines would be there to retaliate. Between them they had the firepower to destroy every major Russian city, to kill tens of millions of Russian citizens.
Which was why the Russians would have to be insane to launch a nuclear attack on the United States.
But drill EAMs usually contained a section giving background, declaring that the Russians had launched their missiles, or were on the brink of launching their missiles. This one didn’t. In fact, neither had any of the EAMs we had received over the previous twenty-four hours.
No explanation at all. Odd.
Moscow and Leningrad made sense as targets, but East Berlin? That was seriously strange. East Berlin was never included in the Hamilton’s targets and for a very good reason. Nuclear warheads detonating there would destroy West Berlin too, massacring not just a couple of million of the citizens of one of the United States’ closest allies, West Germany, but also thousands of NATO servicemen. Including Americans.
Never included? East Berlin had been featured in that one drill EAM we had received three weeks before. At the time, we had assumed that was an exercise in retargeting to unfamiliar co-ordinates. Could it be, as the captain had suggested, that it was preparation for the target package that the National Military Command Center always expected the Hamilton to use in a war?
Maybe. But I thought it unlikely. It seemed more likely to me that the same message had simply been resent in error.
If there were already thousands of missiles criss-crossing the skies above the waves, then three more wouldn’t make any difference. But if there were none as yet, if the Soviets did indeed have their own fingers hovering above the nuclear button, then the Alexander Hamilton’s three missiles would set all the others on their way.
The world would be finished.
So I should shoot the man in front of me. Commander Driscoll, a man whom I liked and admired. A man whom I was pleased to call my commanding officer. A man with an ex-wife and two kids.
Despite being in the Navy for eight years, I had never killed anyone before. I had never been asked to kill anyone before.
Did I have the courage to do it?
To save the human race?
Yes, I did.
What would God want? Would God want me to take another man’s life? I wasn’t an avid Christian, I never went to the small services on the submarine led by Chief Kunkel, but I had been to Sunday school as a kid and I did still occasionally attend church with my parents. I believed in God.
Would God expect me to kill one man to save mankind? Yes. But was God trying to end the world? Was this some biblically inspired Armageddon?
I’d need a theology degree to sort that one out. I had no idea what God wanted, and no time to figure it out.
What would Donna say?
Shoot him. Shoot him now.
But Donna was wrong about this stuff. Wasn’t she?
If I didn’t shoot him, Donna would die. But perhaps there was a missile heading for New York right now. Perhaps Donna would die anyway.
‘Do your duty, son.’ Driscoll’s voice was calm. Almost friendly. His blue eyes, as always, commanded.
These thoughts flashed through my brain in seconds. A very few seconds. But I had to make a decision.
The Navy had anticipated this. Some of the brightest minds in the country had spent years thinking about moments like this. It wasn’t up to me, a lowly lieutenant, to make this decision. How could it be? How could someone like me possibly be relied upon to make a decision this difficult this quickly and under this pressure?
The Navy had it figured out. There were other people who decided. In particular, the President of the United States. Then there were others further down the line. On the Hamilton, there were at most two men who could decide not to follow orders, the captain and the executive officer, and in a case like this it was clear they should do what they were commanded to do.
And so should I.
‘COB?’ I said.
Piatnik, the chief of the boat, or ‘COB’, who was standing not six feet away from me responded. ‘Sir?’
I lowered the pistol and handed it to him, along with the holster.
The relief in the control room was palpable. Petty Officer Williamson immediately grabbed Lars, and hurled him to the floor. Another crewman snatched the wrench. It only took Driscoll a second to reassert his authority.
‘COB, give me the weapon. Arrest Lieutenant da Silva and lock him up with an armed guard.’
He strapped on the holster, and approached me, stopping right in front of me, his face not six inches from mine. ‘Lieutenant Guth. You did your duty. We are going to need you in the next few minutes. Are you willing to continue doing your duty?’
There was only one answer now. I stood to attention. ‘Aye aye, captain.’
Driscoll stared at me for a moment. Given what I had just done, he was taking quite a leap of faith to trust me. Almost done. What I had actually done was save his life. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Now, I’m going to my stateroom for the keys.’
There was silence as the captain left the control room. The crew were still transfixed by what had happened.
‘Back to work, gentlemen,’ said Robinson from the conn. ‘COB. Take Lieutenant da Silva to my stateroom and lock him in there.’ The submarine was too small to carry its own brig. The XO’s stateroom was as good a place as any to hold a prisoner.
I waited for the captain to return. He was quick.