He and the general had war-gamed these scenarios. They both knew what was probably going to come next; what the Russians wanted, what the Russians had in mind. But call this wrong, and his boss would lose the President’s trust and would soon be out of a job. And it would not be only his boss who’d be looking for a new job. His own career would go into free fall.

Without thinking, he gave his boss an almost imperceptible nod of support; calling this right was far more important than jobs or careers.

“My prediction, Madam President, is that events are now going to start speeding up. We need to get ahead of the curve or we will be playing catch-up. We’ll be subtle. That I promise you. But . . . blowing up an infant school. Killing one of our soldiers and kidnapping four others. Not forgetting shooting down two of our fighters and killing a pilot. If that is the Russians’ idea of subtle, I think I probably have a bit of leeway. Anyway, the only way we might get them to back off is to show we mean business. Any failure to react will be taken in the Kremlin as a clear green light to invade Ukraine, and that’s for starters. That is the way the Russians think.”

“Agreed. Please will you fix?”

This was the first time that Bear had seen the President under real pressure and he was impressed at how she absorbed information and how quick she was to make a tough decision.

“Yes, ma’am,” MacWhite said. “And then there’s NATO. We need to try to get more NATO troops on the ground in the Baltic states to send a message to the President not to try it on. We also need to ensure NATO reserves are mobilized. I’ll talk to our NATO ambassador in Brussels, but I recommend you call the Secretary General. We’ve got to get the North Atlantic Council on board, so the State Department needs to get active on the diplomatic front. Showing determination and unity now will stop lives being lost later.”

0700 hours, Sunday, May 14, 2017

Residence of DSACEUR La Belle Alliance, Erbisoeul, Belgium

THE PHONE IN the kitchen rang. General Sir David McKinlay, just back from walking around the extensive garden of his residence with his springer spaniel and still clad in his dressing gown, put down the two mugs of tea he was about to take upstairs to the bedroom, where his wife still slept. He picked it up.

“Yes, Jamie,” he grunted, seeing that the call came from his Principal Staff Officer, Group Captain Jamie Swinton.