Blackstone seemed pleased to have been asked that one. ‘That’s where Morales has proven himself to be smarter than Powell,’ he replied. ‘Predictably enough for a former gang leader. You would expect him to understand turf wars. What he learned from New York was modesty. When you sit down and read the transcripts, and I don’t expect you to do so now, you’ll see the Federation takes away from New York a realisation not to challenge us openly, head on. There’s no military component to what they were planning in Florida, apart from the special forces doing advance reconnaissance. They intend to set up small, discrete civilian colonies, to grow them quietly, until the point where the colonies would declare themselves for the South American Federation, rather than us. At that point, it would actually benefit Morales if we responded in the way we did in New York. They could then sweep in and portray themselves as the protector. Any civilian casualties would count against us. The settlements would beg for protection from the imperialist gringos. Roberto could move some of his better assets up here, to shield them, and unless Seattle is willing to spill a lot of supposedly innocent blood, he gets to hold on to his gains. He gets a continental foothold on the edge of a very empty continent. Or that was the plan, anyway. Until we caught his special operators.’

‘They weren’t that special, as it turned out.’ McCutcheon grinned.

‘We’ll need to debrief the prisoners ourselves,’ said Musso, who appeared to be trying to keep an open mind.

‘Not a problem,’ the aide shot back. ‘Well, sorry . . . there is a problem with one of them. He didn’t survive the initial debrief. But the other three are just raring to go, Tusk.’

Musso sent a withering look his way, although Caitlin could see the former Marine had been thrown by the unexpected development. As much by Fort Hood’s activities in Florida as by Roberto Morales, she imagined. She purposely closed the folder and returned it to the table.

‘This is interesting, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘And I mean that. The Chief of Staff, and I imagine the President, will be both interested and grateful to see this. It will go into my report.’ She glanced over at General Musso. ‘But given that we’ve caught this so early, do you really think it’s necessary to reassign scarce military resources when we could achieve the same result, scaring him off, with a quiet, diplomatic word?’

‘Ty? Would you?’ Blackstone asked, nodding towards the pastry tray.

‘Sure,’ said his aide, standing up to retrieve a danish.