“What the hell do you mean there’s nothing that we can do to respond?” The Prime Minister was clearly furious; his jaw stuck out obstinately, as his eyes bore into the wilting Defense Secretary. “Do you mean to tell me that your recommendation to me after the Russians have sunk Queen Elizabeth, with the loss of nearly nine hundred sailors and commandos, is that we sit back and do nothing? You cannot be serious!”

“Well, Prime Minister . . .” Everage said ingratiatingly in his Estuary accent. Walker was reminded of Dickens’s David Copperfield and Uriah Heep, as Everage, hair flopping over his gaunt undertaker’s face, wrung his hands together and tried to avoid eye contact with the irate Prime Minister.

There was a knock on the door and Walker went over and half-opened it, irritation at the interruption turning to approval when he saw who it was.

“Sorry to interrupt, Prime Minister,” said Walker, noting the relief on Everage’s face at being let off the hook. “It’s the new Chief of the Defense Staff. The police refused to let him in without an escort. He insists on seeing you.”

“Show him in,” the Prime Minister ordered.

Walker fully opened and then stepped away from the door to allow General Jock Kydd—despite accepting a knighthood from the Queen, he had made it known that he was never to be referred to as “Sir”—to enter.

A sudden surge of physical energy, like an electric current, filled the room as Kydd stepped forward and looked around, as if checking where any potential threat could come from. Broad-shouldered, slightly hunched, he rocked gently from foot to foot, fists clenched at his sides, like a boxer sizing up his opponent.

Looking at him, Walker couldn’t help thinking that the new CDS looked more like a bodyguard in a movie about the Kray brothers than the new, professional head of Britain’s Armed Forces. He took in the shaven head, ill-fitting, black off-the-peg suit, white shirt with chest hair poking up above the fastened collar, stringy blue tie, and black, steel-toecapped, “executive super safety” shoes, bought from the Bodyguard Workwear online shop.

On taking over as Prime Minister, Little had immediately appointed Kydd, whom he had first come across in Afghanistan where he had set up a program to bring former Taliban into the political process, as his new CDS. Despite his eccentric manner, Little recognized Kydd’s qualities and the importance of his evident credibility with the Americans. A phone call to Kydd had brought him out of very recent retirement.

Little dispensed with pleasantries. “CDS, I am told by the Defense Secretary that there’s nothing we can do.”