Queen Elizabeth was at the very western end of the Baltic, enough to show a presence but not to show aggression. And, he had to admit, ever since the Russians had grabbed the Baltic states they had gone quiet. Like a python swallowing a pig, they were now trying to digest their meal. And it was a very angry pig indeed. Reports said that the invaders were having to deploy ever greater quantities of men and materiel to control the enraged populations of the Baltic states. These Baltic nations had anticipated the problem and planned accordingly. Fearing just this invasion, the Baltics had pre-stocked forest hideouts with sophisticated weaponry. And, it transpired, they were not only extremely well trained and quick to learn, but the vast forests of their homelands were giving them plenty of places to hide.

TV news bulletins—and the Russians were rapidly discovering the hard way that if you opted for TV propaganda then you could not necessarily control the story—were reporting with admiration how effective the guerrillas were: most single shots resulted in a dead or injured Russian. Moreover, Russian helicopters, forced to fly low over the forests to stand any chance of spotting or pursuing guerrilla fighters, were taking one hell of a hammering from surface-to-air missiles. Even back in Russia, excepting state-controlled media, there were already parallels being drawn with the bloody horror of Chechnya.

Finally, to add insult to injury, there had been the very public humiliation of the President, who had arrived to triumph over his dead enemies and, doubtless, warn of what was to come to those who resisted. Instead, the world had watched on live TV as he shouted and swore at his guards, while burning helicopters fell from the sky behind him.

Bush allowed himself a grim smile at that thought. Yesterday, seeing a bunch of sailors leaning over an iPad and laughing, he had gone to investigate. They had shown him how some wag had superimposed the screaming President’s curses as recorded on live TV—dubbed in English—over the picture of Hitler ranting in the bunker from the film Downfall. Apparently the spoof had gone viral and multilingual. Even as Bush laughed and then told the sailors to get back to work, it had struck him how it made a refreshing change from incessant images of the President as all-conquering warrior and sportsman.

In fact, and just as important, even serious TV journalists and commentators were now suggesting that the President’s very public humiliation might have been the moment that the Baltics started to fight back. First they had laughed. Then they began to take heart. Although Bush doubted the President saw the joke. He could well imagine that the President—not a man known for his sense of humor—now had a score to settle with those who had carried out the attack.