Donnegan knew most of the people seated around the large walnut conference table. The secretary of defense and the joint chiefs sat to the left of an empty center chair. The national security adviser was whispering something to the president’s chief of staff to the right of the empty seat. The rest of the country’s key decision-makers for military action and intelligence were arrayed around the room. They either talked quietly with each other or studied papers that had been placed before them.

There was an ominous buzz in the room. The events of the past few weeks had come to a head. Everyone knew that’s why he was here.

Donnegan noticed a short, white-haired gentleman, dressed in a gray pin-striped suit, nervously standing all alone at the far end of the table. That must be Alstair McLain, he thought, the guy who made the rules for the stock markets. He was shorter and heavier than he appeared to be in his newspaper photographs. Donnegan could not imagine why McLain would be called to this particular meeting.

The wall behind McLain was covered with a reverse-projection situation board. A large, finely detailed map of western Russia filled the majority of the screen. It looked very similar to the one the admiral kept in the Naval Intelligence Command Center, but this was even more comprehensive.

Donnegan was still acknowledging greetings from those who had noticed him enter the room when President Adolphus Brown strode briskly through the door behind him. All those gathered together in the room rose. They sat back down after the president had taken his chair at the center of the far side of the table.

Dr. Samuel Kinnowitz, President Brown’s bespectacled national security adviser, started the discussion by clearing his throat and pointedly closing the dossier before him.