McKinlay updated him on his mid-air conversation with SACEUR and the key elements of the training-team proposal: multinational, based in Kiev and focusing on professionalizing the Ukrainian armed forces at the senior levels. He stressed that it met the lowest common denominator criterion of NATO and that all NATO Chiefs of Defense Staff had bought into the idea that morning. “I understand the political concerns,” he continued, “but I think we can allay ambassadors’ worries by emphasizing that this is not front-line support, nor any form of NATO boots on the ground.”

The Secretary General’s aide tapped his watch. It was time to move to the Council chamber.

At that moment, McKinlay saw, on the TV screen in the corner of the room, a CNN newsflash. Four pale, shocked figures in green jumpsuits; three men and one woman under a Russia Today news channel headline.

“Secretary General,” he said, “you might want to listen to this.”

The aide turned up the sound in time for the three men to hear the strident tone of the Kremlin’s chief propagandist, the Russia Today presenter Dimitry Kiselev, announcing in Russian, with English subtitles, that three American Special Forces, with a female signaler, had been captured inside Russia, having infiltrated across the Ukrainian border. The picture then cut to the smug, round-faced and smooth-cheeked Kiselev himself, working up an anti-NATO rant.

“We’ve seen enough. Time for the NAC,” said the now grim-faced Secretary General. “Let’s see if we can hold the Alliance together over this one.”

The three men left the conference room. The aides who had been waiting outside fussed around them like mother hens and they walked toward the Council chamber.

0700 hours, Friday, May 12, 2017

Briefing Room, Boryspill Air Force Base, Ukraine

“ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS, Phil?” asked the intelligence officer, as he concluded the briefing.

“No, thanks, I’m happy and good to go,” replied Major Phil Bertinetti, US Air Force. “I guess this should be fairly straightforward. We’ll get up to fifteen thousand feet and provide surveillance and reconnaissance overwatch for the American trainers looking after the Ukrainian weapon-locating battery operating behind the front line near Debaltseva.”

“Situation over the past few days has remained pretty quiet. There’s been the usual sporadic shelling from both sides, each reacting to the other, but the Russians are lying low after kidnapping our guys in Kharkiv. Any problems and you have the Quick Reaction Alert flight on the tarmac at immediate readiness,” the intelligence officer added.

Dark-haired and of medium height, while Bertinetti might look the part of a typical “top gun,” he was also a keen mountaineer who had summited the highest peaks in each continent, the Seven Summits challenge, before graduating from the Air Force Academy. A professional flyer to the core, with nearly 4,000 flying hours as a fighter pilot under his belt, his combat experience included Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq.