“Thanks, Jamie. I’ll be with you right away. Ladies and gentlemen, I do apologize and I know how much work has gone into preparing this briefing. Please proceed, Skip,” he said, turning to Major General Skip Williams, the Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, a crew-cut, hawk-faced, athletic-looking young American major general, who wore the Screaming Eagle insignia of the 101st Airborne Division as the combat patch on the shoulder of his battle fatigues. “You take over and backbrief me later.”

“Sure thing, Sir,” said Williams.

With that McKinlay stood up and stumped out of the room with the Group Captain.

Five minutes later, he was back in his office and seated behind the desk installed by the very first DSACEUR, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. His Royal Air Force PA, Sergeant Lorna Bevan, first brought him a mug of the Scottish Breakfast tea to which he was addicted, and then ensured that the American-provided Tandberg secure VTC—Video Teleconference—system was up and running and that he was connected to SACEUR’s comms team.

“Dave, are you receiving me?” Admiral Max Howard’s finely drawn features, the thoughtful face of an Ivy League historian rather than a war-fighting admiral, filled the screen. “Things are moving fast in Ukraine and we may lose comms, so I’ll be brief.”

“Go ahead, SACEUR,” said McKinlay.

“Dave, I’ve just heard from my European Command HQ that a group of Americans are missing in Kharkiv. They were part of the training team sent to support the Ukrainian army and it looks as if they have been kidnapped by Russian Special Forces. We expect the Russians to put them on TV any moment now, claiming that they are US Special Forces, captured after crossing the Ukrainian border into Russia. Even worse, it looks as if one of them was killed trying to escape.”

“Hell, this is bad news,” responded McKinlay.

“It is. I’ve tried to brief the NATO Sec Gen,2 but I can’t get through to either him or the Chairman of the Military Committee.3 At present this is a US-only issue, but we can expect the Russians to claim it is evidence of NATO aggression.”

“I’ll get on to the Chairman of the Military Committee soonest and be ready to brief Sec Gen . . . But it would be useful to know the US line.”

“I’ve talked to the White House,” said Howard. “The President has accepted my advice that we show strength and, in fact, is all for going on the front foot. I hear the Brits are talking about pulling out their trainers, but the US is not going to back down in the face of Russian provocation like this.