‘Long story short, Roberto knows it will be a good ten or fifteen years before he’s consolidated his power and built up his military forces to the point where he can go head to head with us,’ said McCutcheon. There was no trace of the drunken frat boy who had entertained everybody in the bar last night. Not much trace of a hangover either. ‘Our residual power is considerable, for now. Meanwhile, he’s trying to weld together a transnational force from the bits and pieces he cherry-picked from the carcasses of the South American states he took over.’

Caitlin glanced across at Musso, who had lost interest in butting heads with Blackstone and was now immersed in the documentation.

‘But Morales understands that we are completely overstretched in the three areas we do control. The Pacific Northwest, the New York–New England enclave and Texas. From the debriefing of his special forces guys, we’ve ascertained that he is interested in seeding colony settlements well outside our area of influence and direct control. That’s what these guys were doing. Forward recon. The idea is they grab up the turf, establish squatters’ rights, and dare us to do something about it when we eventually discover them.’

Caitlin didn’t bother reading the transcripts. As Colonel Murdoch, she was willing to take McCutcheon’s word for the gist of the document.

‘That didn’t work for Baumer and Ozal in New York,’ she said, curious to see whether either man would react to the two names. They didn’t, for which she had to credit them. ‘Surely New York disabused Morales of the idea he could just wander in here and plant his flag?’