None of the anger she had seen flash in his eyes was evident in Blackstone’s reaction to the taunt. He laughed.

‘Indeed, I was not in the desert, Tusk. Nor you, as I recall.’

Caitlin was certain this was a cue to revisit the subject of Musso’s surrender of Guantanamo to the Venezuelans, and prepared to intercede before the meeting descended into a shambles. But the Governor waved off Musso’s diversionary attack.

‘I suppose we should cherish the memory of Powell for not finishing the job the first time around. It meant we were lucky enough to have so many of our forces outside the Wave in March ’03. But what I really wanted to say, Kate, is that I believe we are living through a time of shattered, discontinuous history, and I have come to the conclusion that it will fall to us, as it fell to our grandfathers, to resist a tyranny, to prevent it establishing itself in our world.’

‘You see yourself as Winston Churchill, then, Governor?’ Musso deadpanned.

‘No, but I see us facing the same question Churchill faced in the years when he alone stood before the truth of what was coming.’

McCutcheon returned with a steel briefcase before his boss could build up another head of steam. He placed it on the table around which they sat, careful not to scratch the surface. After entering separate combinations for both locks, he snapped open the lid and took out two folders, which he handed to Caitlin and Musso. Inside hers, Caitlin found transcripts of interviews and photographs of four men.

‘What you have here,’ said Ty McCutcheon, ‘is a record of the interrogation of the surviving members of a Federation special forces squad captured by long-range TDF patrols in central Florida –’

‘Wait a minute,’ protested Musso. ‘Florida?’

‘Hey, I said long range,’ McCutcheon replied.

‘You’re not supposed to be in Florida.’

‘Neither are they.’

Caitlin could see the exchange getting off topic. This incident was obviously why Blackstone had sought to mend his fences with Seattle. This was why he thought he needed help. A point of weakness.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said, in Katherine Murdoch’s best warning voice. ‘Perhaps you could give us the Reader’s Digest version, Mr McCutcheon?’

Blackstone’s aide checked with his boss, who nodded.

‘These four men were captured in the St Teresa area, an hour south of Tallahassee. They were part of a six-man squad, but two of their number were killed during the encounter with our lurps.’

Long-range recon patrols, Caitlin reminded herself. An old Vietnam term. Nowhere in her briefing papers had it mentioned the TDF pushing lurps all the way into the Florida panhandle. That was still pirate-controlled territory.