McKinlay looked hard at the girl as he spoke. Important as this information was, she could just as easily have briefed someone more junior. He had a sense that this girl, who had been so impressive and direct in front of the PM only moments before, was not letting everything on. “Is there something you want me to do?” he asked, trying to keep any gruffness out of his voice. He had a plane to catch and a war to plan.

“Well . . . PJHQ know all this but refuse to warn them.”

“Let me guess,” McKinlay was thinking of a couple of his spook chums and their convoluted way of thinking, “because, if you do warn them and they are captured, then the Russians will torture them and discover what they know, and therefore what we know . . . and, don’t tell me, you haven’t informed these Mercians what we are planning or their role in it.”

“Exactly, Sir. In case they’re caught.”

“In case they’re caught . . .” McKinlay mused, thinking through the variables before replying. “Trouble is, and callous as it sounds, I have to agree.”

“But, Sir. It gets worse. They’ve identified a hidden minefield, which would totally stymie the American SOF forcing an entry into the perimeter.”

“Well, I guess there’s only one solution then, if this is going to work,” McKinlay replied. “Morland and his team will have to meet up with the US SOF when they infiltrate and guide them through or around the minefield.”

“Straight into an ambush by the Russian special forces, who we know are tracking them and are probably waiting for them . . .”

“Quite probably. We’ll just have to hope that Morland has thought through how he approaches the task. He sounds like a capable young officer. Let’s just hope he stays lucky.”

“But . . .”

“It’s what we soldiers are paid to do when we take the Queen’s Shilling on the day we join—harsh though it may sound.”

He gave her an avuncular smile before pushing himself to his feet. Then he caught himself and remembered his sense of humanity. This girl, little older than his own daughters, was a systems geek. She might come across like the captain of the lacrosse team but, in reality, she played with computers and radios. And now something clever she had set up was probably going to result in men being killed; men she had been communicating with, men whose names she had come to know, men she wanted to warn but was not being allowed to.