“Ma’am, no question that the French military will be up for this. The worry is that their army is totally fixed on internal security. They’ve got ten thousand soldiers deployed guarding schools and supermarkets against the jihadi terrorist threat, so readiness will be an issue. And, of course, we can’t be sure of the politicians. It’s much the same for the Brits, although thankfully they’re not committed to internal security in the same way. You can be sure that their military will be more than keen to get involved and their soldiers are still pretty good. The challenge will be the political leadership.”

“Leave the British PM to me.” Dillon was firm.

“Madam President, if I may.” SACEUR spoke. “I’ve just spoken to my Brit deputy who briefed me on today’s North Atlantic Council meeting. He told me that Number Ten is pretty well in meltdown at the prospect of declaring Article Five and having to deploy British soldiers to defend Latvia. The military may be up for it, but the Prime Minister seems determined to go to Parliament and there’s no certainty that he’ll get a majority. In fact, and on past form, even a small majority may not be enough to persuade him.”

“Sounds like I need a personal call with the Prime Minister . . . Remind me, Marty, how quickly can you get the 82nd Airborne into Latvia?” quizzed Dillon.

“If you give me the green light now, we’ll get the Global Response Force into Riga in eighteen hours. And if the airport is still closed as a result of the cyber-attack, we’ll drop them in. Straight out of Fort Bragg, non-stop across the Atlantic, like they did last year on Exercise Anakonda in Poland. It’s the airborne way.”

“And if the Brits were able to join you?”

“No problem, but it would slow things down. We’d arrange a link-up on the ground in the UK with their lead airborne company. We’ve checked with the Brits and it’s 3 Para. As I told you, they’ve trained alongside our lead battalion. That means they know each other well, have all the comms and other details squared away, and they’ve practiced precisely this sort of operation. But to get all of that organized would mean it would take about thirty-six hours before they were all on the ground in Riga.”

“Marty, you’ve got that green light. Please get them all moving. Now, I’ve got some calls to make. The President, the PM and then the French. I’ll do them from the Oval Office.”