Michael sensed he had gone too far. It seemed Gus was staring at something very, very far away. His orders told him to do something, but he couldn’t do it. Not yet.
He didn’t know enough.
Finally Gus said, “This coffee is good. Thanks.”
Michael sat with him for a little while, and then got up.
“Later, Gus.”
The old man didn’t say anything else.
In nearby Portsmouth, the Federal Building in the center of the city contained offices from the Post Office to the Armed Forces Recruiting Centers to the local office of the FBI. Michael parked nearby and walked for a bit, arriving to a room where he made a phone call to give an update.
His supervisor was brusque with him. “You should be wrapped up by now.”
“I’m close. I don’t want to spook him.”
“This whole thing can blow up in our faces unless it gets handled right. So handle it.”
“I will.”
“You better.”
And then his supervisor hung up.
The Wednesday next, Michael came to the park bench where Gus sat. In addition to bringing two coffees, he had brought a bag of doughnuts. Gus grunted when he saw the doughnuts. “My doc says I shouldn’t eat this stuff.”
“What do you say?”
“My doc should mind his own goddamn business.”
The doughnuts came from a local bakery—not a chain shop—and they were tasty and filling as both men ate. Michael took in the channel, the bridges, the brick buildings of Portsmouth and the cranes and gray buildings of the shipyard.
“You said you worked on a lot of subs over the years,” Michael said. “Any one of them stand out in your mind?”
Gus took a good mouthful of coffee. “No, not really.”
“You sure? I think there’d be at least one that stuck out in your mind.”
“Nope.”
“Not even the USS Thresher? You sure?”
Gus paused, one hand holding the coffee cup, the other holding a half-eaten cruller. He coughed. “What do you know about the Thresher?”
“It was built over there, at the shipyard. Came back for some overhaul work in 1963. Went out one morning for a test dive, off Cape Cod. Something went wrong. It sank, all hands lost. One hundred twenty-nine crew members and civilians. Hell of a thing.”
Gus lowered his shaking hands, let the coffee and the cruller fall to the ground. Michael said, “Went out on April 10, 1963. A Wednesday. Funny thing, hunh? Every time I come by here and you’re sitting here, looking at the shipyard, it’s a Wednesday. What a coincidence, eh?”
“Sure,” Gus said. “A coincidence.”
“Never a Tuesday. Or Friday. Or Saturday. Only Wednesday. Why’s that?”
No answer.
Michael pressed on. “Tell me. You ever see an osprey out there?”
Gus turned to him, tears in his eyes. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
Michael took out a leather wallet with a badge and identification, and held it up for Gus to look at. Gus looked at it, sighed, and sat back against the park bench. He seemed to age ten years from one heartbeat to another.
“How did you do it, Gus?” Michael asked. “How did you sink the Thresher?”
Michael waited, thinking he now knew this guy pretty well, and Gus didn’t disappoint. He didn’t argue, he didn’t deny, he didn’t try to get up and run away.
Gus just seemed to hold on to his cane tighter. “Wasn’t meant to sink the damn thing. That wasn’t the plan.”
“What was the plan, then?”
Gus said, “You told me the code words, in the right sequence. You should have figured it out, you and the rest of the FBI.”
Michael put his identification away. “You’d be surprised at what we don’t know.”
“You seem to know enough.”
“No, not really,” Michael said. “Biggest thing for me is, why didn’t you bail out once I said ‘kingfisher’ that first day?”
Gus turned to him. “What? Where would I go? Shuffle off to my assisted living facility? Empty out my savings account and take a Greyhound to Florida? I didn’t know who the hell you were… so I waited you out. Maybe you were a birdwatcher. Maybe not. I’m old enough now I don’t really give a shit.”
Michael knew his supervisor wanted him to wrap this up as quickly as possible, but he was patient. Maybe too patient, but he wanted to make sure he had this one settled before proceeding.
“So what can you tell me, Gus,” he said. “How did it start?”
“You go first,” he said. “How the hell did you find out about me, after all these years?”
Michael laughed. “What, you haven’t been watching the news last year? In case you didn’t get the memo, the goddamn Evil Empire has collapsed. The Communist Party’s practically outlawed, peace is breaking out, and the Soviet Union is no more.”
“So?”
“So when you got a country that’s collapsing, the Army’s being called out to harvest potatoes, and their Navy is sinking dockside, then everything’s for sale. Everything! So we’ve had guys going over to Moscow and other places, passing out the Benjamins, getting files and dossiers. You wouldn’t believe the old secrets that are being given up. We had special squads lined up to get answers to old puzzles… I put in for the JFK squad but I was assigned to naval matters. And we found your dossier… or parts of it. Got your real name, your job at the shipyard, and your assignment for the Thresher.”
Gus sighed. “I never got contacted after she sank. I thought I was in the clear. Thought they had forgotten me.”
Michael said, “Then you don’t know how they operated. The KGB had a seal they’d put on some of their more sensitive documents. Dolzhny khranit’sya vechno. Know what that means? It means ‘to be kept forever.’ That’s how their minds worked. They thought they’d be victorious against us evil capitalists, so nothing would ever be burned or shredded. Their proud files would be kept forever.”
Gus looked out at the channel, and Michael said, “But something was missing in your dossier, Gus. It’s why you did it. Was it money? Were you that hard-pressed for money back in the 1960s? Was it gambling? Medical bills for a family member? Did the KGB promise you a ton of cash?”
“No, nothing like that. It wasn’t for the money. Didn’t get paid a dime.”
“So why did you do it, Gus? Why did you betray your country? Sabotage a nuclear powered submarine, the first in its class, a sabotage that would sink it and kill everyone on board?”
The old man sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me. C’mon, let me in on it.”
“Why?” he shot back. “To make it look good on your arrest report?”
Michael laughed. “Who said anything about arresting you?”
Gus turned, shocked. “Then why the hell are you here? What’s going on?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said earlier? We’re getting old questions answered, puzzles figured out. I didn’t say anything about arrests, now, did I?”
The old man slowly turned his head back. Michael said, “Look, the JFK squad. They’re compartmentalized, so I don’t know what they’re learning. But suppose they did find something out. Like somebody in the KGB ordered the hit on JFK. Or if Oswald really was sent over as a patsy to cover up for whoever really did it. What, you think the President will hold a news conference and say nearly thirty years of official history and explanations were wrong? And by the way, let’s start a new Cold War to get revenge for what the Reds did back in ’63?”
There was a siren sounding out by the shipyard, which eventually drifted silent. “Same thing with you, Gus. We just want to know how it happened, why it happened, and fill in those gaps in the secret histories. And once those gaps are filled, I’ll leave you here and I promise, you’ll never be disturbed, ever again.”