“Jeez, Bear,” he said to Smythson, who did the same job for General Abe MacWhite, the chief in-house adviser to the President of the United States on national security issues. “There’s been one hell of a change in British attitudes. The President has just come off the phone with Oliver Little, the new Prime Minister. What a change from that fag who was there before. This new guy’s seriously on the war path. Whatever you say about the Brits—and their bullshitty Downton Abbey accents and stiff-upper-lip crap don’t fool me—they take some time to get going. But when they decide to get serious, boy do they go for it.”

Bear leaned back in his chair. “So, they’re rethinking things after the Queen Elizabeth?”

“Too right, Bear. The President is pretty wound up about the Queen Elizabeth, specially coming on top of the killing of US Air Force troops in the attack on Lielvārde air base. She sees the return of the survivors and the bodies as rank cynicism by the President. Sort of damned if he did return them and damned if he didn’t. And the fact that the Russians are hanging on to the Ukraine Four, as the press are now calling them, as they continue to insist they are Special Forces, has got her even more riled up.

“The Russians are playing this all wrong. Even if President Dillon wanted to find a way to avoid further conflict, she’d be hard pushed to. Don’t forget, there were CNN and Fox News crews on board and a couple of journos . . . Some of them still missing, presumed drowned, like the rest of those poor bastards. Killing our boys and girls in Lielvārde was not clever. But killing fellow journalists? That’s sacrilege. The press is talking about the Special Relationship and meaning it for once. Throw in the shared tragedy and the new empathy between her and the Brit prime minister and this is certainly rekindling our link with the Brits. She and Little are now totally aligned on the need to take the offensive against the Russians. The Brits are putting everything they can into the mix. The new UK Chief of Defense is pushing hard for an attack on Kaliningrad to unhinge the Russians and force them to swap the Baltics if they want it back. And the Prime Minister’s right behind him. The President wants to discuss the idea with NSA at the two-thirty meeting.”

“Thanks for the fast ball, Pete!” exclaimed Bear. “I’ll brief the boss now, so he’s warned off. But don’t expect anything but first thoughts. The General is the most aggressive soldier I’ve ever served under, but only once he knows a plan will work. This is going to need some serious thinking and planning, but we’ll have something for the President in the Woodshed shortly.”