‘Why?’ The prime minister leant forward on to the table again, his demeanour more serious now.

‘To expand their sphere of influence, as they have in so many other places that used to be part of the Soviet Empire. That has to be our working assumption. The Night Wolves will come to the protesters’ aid, possibly tonight. They will clash with Estonian security forces. The tension will ratchet up. The local Russian population will increase their demands for Moscow to intervene, possibly for the entire region to secede, as we saw in Crimea.’

‘It’s possible the whole thing is just a feint,’ Ian said, desperate to be in on the act. Sir Alan didn’t deign to look at him.

‘A what?’ the prime minister asked.

‘A feint, Prime Minister, a manoeuvre, just designed to test us out.’

‘I should say it’s obviously designed to test us,’ the prime minister said, turning to Kate. ‘What do you think?’

She was acutely conscious of all eyes in the room being upon her and of the fury in Ian’s flushed cheeks. He’d forgotten that a stilted formality was the hallmark of all Cobra meetings – at least, all those she’d attended – and his easy insouciance jarred, even if the sentiments were designed to appeal to the man at the head of the table. He looked underdressed for the occasion, too. He was the only man in the room without a jacket.

‘Ian may be right,’ she said, throwing him a lifeline, on instinct. ‘Perhaps they just want to see how we react. But then we have only to look at what happened in Crimea and even in Montenegro, with that attempted coup. So it might be wiser to assume they mean business again.’

‘We’ve got about a thousand troops there?’ the prime minister asked the defence secretary.

‘That’s right, Prime Minister,’ he said. ‘Nine hundred men and women, principally from the Queen’s Royal Hussars and the Rifles, armed with Warriors and Challenger II tanks.’ He was a relatively young man for such a post, with a dramatically receding hairline and flawless skin. Like so many politicians, these days, he had been a special adviser before becoming an MP and always carried with him the air of a teenager pretending to be a grown-up. ‘Of course, NATO can quickly move reinforcements in from neighbouring countries.’ He pushed a sheet down the table. ‘That is the list of deployments in the region. We can also look to reinforce swiftly from here—’

‘It’s too soon for that.’ The prime minister glanced around the room, deliberately making eye contact with his audience. ‘Ian here may be right. Perhaps it is a feint. We need to be careful not to overreact. And, in any case, I’m not sure the public is ready for us to go to war over a country few have heard of.’

There was a stunned silence in the room, its occupants carefully avoiding catching anyone’s eye. Meg Simpson broke the spell. ‘Prime Minister, I’ve spoken to the French and the Germans already this morning. We’re talking about a fundamental tenet here of the most important and longest-lasting security alliance our nation has ever known. They want NATO to send reinforcements to Estonia today. We must—’