‘I’m aware of all that, thank you, but not yet.’ The PM was looking at the list of deployments in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland on the table in front of him. He had a reputation across Whitehall for chronic indecision, but there was no sign of it this morning. ‘I have a call scheduled with the White House as soon as the president is awake. I imagine he will share my caution. For the moment, we remain as we were. I will circulate a draft press statement.’ He stood abruptly and walked out, taking the list of deployments with him.

For a moment, nobody moved or spoke. There were a few coughs. Then the politicians and their staff stood and filed out in silence. Only Shirley Grove, the cabinet secretary, held back. ‘Good work, Mrs Henderson,’ she said, then headed for the door.

It was a strange aside, since Kate had never before met the woman, but perhaps she was just making up for her superior’s bad manners.

6

KATE, SIR ALAN and Ian were the last to leave and they stood together for a moment in the morning sunshine on Whitehall. ‘One can’t blame his caution.’

Ian must have been aware that Sir Alan was intending to brief the foreign secretary on Mikhail’s offer to defect, but the chief skilfully deflected him with a request that he return to monitor the unfolding situation in Narva and inform Downing Street directly if there were developments. It was a role Sir Alan knew he would be unable to resist.

Ian jumped into a taxi. Sir Alan and Kate walked the long way around to the front entrance of the Foreign Office in King Charles Street, perhaps to give them time to talk. ‘If we needed anything to focus our minds,’ Sir Alan muttered, ‘it couldn’t have been planned any better.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’re not convinced?’

‘It feels a bit too neat, I suppose.’

‘Which part?’

‘This crisis blows up just as we need convincing that Mikhail’s offer to defect is serious.’

‘You think we should share that thought with the foreign secretary?’

‘No. You?’

‘Agreed. We need to see if this video exists and appears genuine. We can then take a sober view. But if they potentially have evidence, we have to see it.’

Sir Alan appeared lost in thought as they walked across the courtyard, up the grandiose staircase, and were ushered into the foreign secretary’s enormous office, with its magnificent array of leather-bound books and treasures from the days when the UK had bestrode the globe. Meg Simpson sat behind her mahogany desk, looking out over Horse Guards Parade and St James’s Park.

Normally, the foreign secretary received guests in the spacious red leather seating at the other end of the office, but perhaps she wanted to keep the great bulwark of the desk between her and the secrets they were about to impart. There was a single-page briefing note Sir Alan had evidently prepared on the desk before her and she plunged straight into its contents, without any reference to the strange Cobra meeting they’d all just sat through.