Bear braced to attention, as the man described by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as “perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met” nodded a good morning, but said nothing. He knew the man would have already run ten miles before dawn and would eat but one vegan meal later in the day. Bear was in awe of him but, he acknowledged, he had no desire to be anything like him.

MacWhite picked up the CIA and NSA reports and scanned them. Only when he had finished did he speak.

“Morning, Bear.” The tone was quiet, laconic and full of authority. “How was your run?” There was a glint of amusement in MacWhite’s eyes and Bear grinned back. “A bit more of a sprint than usual, Sir . . . and yours?”

“Something doesn’t add up here.” MacWhite was scanning the CIA report again and his mind was obviously now in the grim suburb of Donetsk. He looked at the satellite photo of the shattered ruins of the primary school destroyed by a series of devastating salvos from a BM-30 “Smerch” heavy multiple rocket launcher, capable of firing twelve, 300-millimeter caliber rockets in thirty-eight seconds.

“We know the Ukrainians have used this weapon system in the Donbass previously, but we’re pretty sure their heavy weapons are still situated well away from the combat zone, in line with the Minsk Two ceasefire agreement. This says that none of our satellites picked up any firing from Ukrainian territory . . . and yet it also says this attack came from the direction of Ukrainian lines.” The general was not so much asking a question as making a statement.

Bear nodded. “I saw that, Sir. The signal traffic picked up by the NSA and corroborated by the British suggests that the Russians are behind this. Either they fired those missiles or their proxies did. The only explanation for a horror on a scale like this, is that the Russians will pin this on the Ukrainians to give them a reason to break the ceasefire.”

MacWhite grunted agreement.

The phone on Bear’s desk rang. He picked it up, listened and nodded. “We’re coming right on over.” He looked at MacWhite. “The President’s ready for your morning update now, Sir. She’ll be in the Situation Room in fifteen minutes.”

Soon afterward they were sitting in the neon, strip-lit Situation Room in the White House with its widescreen TVs, PowerPoint presentations and banks of computers. A grim-faced President was being shown photos of broken children’s bodies being lifted into ambulances or laid out, faces and bodies covered, awaiting transport to the mortuary. Just as the staff briefer was saying that everything pointed to Russian involvement, the live feed CNN cut to an emergency broadcast from Moscow’s Russia Today.