He looked up from the paper and stared at Lawrence Keller. He raised his eyebrows as if to say: Satisfied?

“Thank you,” Keller said.

“They’re bluffing,” General Stark said.

“What makes you think that, General?”

Stark raised a bound sheaf of paper from the table in front of him. Stark was a man who was fond of paperwork.

“I’ve brought a Pentagon intelligence assessment of Russian strength relative to our own, which was developed over the past eighteen months. I brought it because I anticipated the possibility that they would pull these kinds of antics in an attempt to get us to veer off course. I’d like to summarize its findings, if I may.”

Mark Baylor nodded. “Please do.”

Stark nodded. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

It irritated Keller to hear Stark calling Baylor by that title. He should call him Mr. Interim President, as unwieldy as that might sound. David Barrett was the true President of the United States, and as soon as this meeting was over, Keller was going to get started on a plan to reinstall him.

“Fact,” Stark said, raising a finger. “Russian Air Force, naval, and ballistic missile capabilities have degraded significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. As of December 2003, more than fifty percent of the MIG fighters in their arsenal are legacies left over from before the collapse. Maintenance on them is suspect, and we believe that at least five percent and possibly as many as ten percent are not even flight-worthy as of this moment. In any event, MIGs, new or old, are no match for our modern F/A-18 fighter jets. Their pilots are no match for our pilots. The Russian jets patrolling the skies are so much window dressing.”

Stark barely paused for breath. He raised a second finger.

“Fact,” he said. “The Russian Navy is in worse shape than their Air Force, if that’s possible. Many Russian ships and submarines are rusted hulks that can barely leave port. In August of 2000, less than five years ago, gentlemen, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk exploded and sank during naval exercises in the Barents Sea, the first major exercises the Russians had attempted in ten years. All one hundred eighteen crew were lost. Russian communications systems, and command and control, were so poor that for six hours the Russian Navy didn’t even realize the ship had gone down. An internal assessment conducted by the Russian Navy, which we intercepted, suggests that sailor morale is as low as it’s been at any time in the modern era.”