THE NORMAL BUSTLE and chatter of diplomats, military staff officers and note takers milling about before an NAC, North Atlantic Council, meeting was absent as McKinlay took his seat next to SACEUR in the conference room at NATO’s Brussels headquarters. A deep sense of despondency hung over the room as Radek Kostilek, the Secretary General of NATO, walked swiftly into the chamber and sat down at the large round table at which the twenty-eight ambassadors of the member states were placed in alphabetical order, behind their name plates and individual national flags. NATO’s failure to deter the Russian invasion of the Baltic states, the heavy casualties suffered by the US Air Force detachment at Lielvārde air base, the sinking of the two mine countermeasures vessels in Riga and, most catastrophic of all, the torpedoing of HMS Queen Elizabeth, had rocked the Western Alliance to its very foundations.

This had been a massive failure by the Alliance; a disaster unprecedented in the history of NATO and the military, political, social and economic consequences were at last sinking in, even in the countries most hostile to overt military action. The frontiers, as well as the balance of power in Europe, were about to change yet again and this time, unlike the end of the Cold War, the democratic West was going to be the clear loser.

Kostilek had confided to Howard and McKinlay before the meeting that he feared the Alliance was on the brink of collapse as a result. Whether NATO was to survive depended on how it reacted to these blows. He had to set the right tone from the start of the meeting, otherwise the naysayers would take control.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Kostilek’s voice, his Polish accent accentuated by emotion, was commanding. “Please stand. We will first hold a minute of silence in memory of the many NATO soldiers and sailors who have only recently given their lives in defense of freedom.”

McKinlay pulled himself to his feet, as did everyone else around the table. As they stood in silence, the flags of member states that had suffered casualties were projected onto screens around the conference table in alphabetical order: Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, United Kingdom, United States of America.