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Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Foreword
  4. Preface
  5. Prologue
  6. PART ONE
  7. Kharkiv, Ukraine
  8. The President’s weekly defense and foreign policy meeting, The Kremlin, Moscow
  9. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC), Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Belgium
  10. Briefing Room, Boryspill Air Force Base, Ukraine
  11. The Kremlin, Moscow
  12. Washington, D.C.
  13. Residence of DSACEUR La Belle Alliance, Erbisoeul, Belgium
  14. North Atlantic Council Conference Room, NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  15. Banks of River Daugava, Riga, Latvia
  16. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  17. Riga, Latvia
  18. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  19. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  20. NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  21. National Armed Forces Joint HQ, Riga, Latvia
  22. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Mons, Belgium
  23. Central European Time 1600 hours, Eastern Standard Time, The White House, Washington, D.C.
  24. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  25. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  26. Camp David, Catoctin Mountains, Maryland
  27. British Embassy, 5, J.Alunana Street, Riga, Latvia
  28. The Russell Arms, Butler’s Cross, Buckinghamshire
  29. HMS Queen Elizabeth Middle Slip Jetty, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth
  30. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  31. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  32. Somewhere in the forest, Gauja National Park, Latvia
  33. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London
  34. HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Baltic Sea
  35. Control Room, Kilo Class submarine Krasnokamensk, Baltic Sea
  36. PART TWO
  37. Prime Minister’s Office, House of Commons, London
  38. The Presidential Dacha Barvikha, Odintsovsky District of Moscow Oblast
  39. The White House, Washington, D.C.
  40. NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium
  41. Gauja National Park Forest, Latvia
  42. PART THREE
  43. “The Tank,” Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
  44. North Atlantic Council NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  45. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Cheltenham, England
  46. GCHQ, Cheltenham, England
  47. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  48. Headquarters, Kaliningrad Special Region, Kaliningrad
  49. The President’s Office, The Kremlin, Moscow
  50. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  51. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  52. Command Bunker, Iskander Missile Battery Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad
  53. Over Wroclaw, Poland
  54. Forest north of Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  55. 25,000 feet above Kaliningrad
  56. Close to the Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  57. Epilogue
  58. Glossary
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Notes

FYODOR FYODOROVICH KOMAROV arrived early that morning at the National Defense Control Center, the NDCC, where the War Cabinet meeting was to be held. The news from Riga had been phoned through to him on Tuesday evening, just as he arrived back at his apartment behind Tverskaya Street. He’d been at the gym working out on the judo mat with the President. Komarov had checked again the arrangements for this morning’s meeting and was drinking tea in the office of the Commander, Lieutenant General Mikhail Filatov, as he waited for the President to arrive.

In the corner of the office, Russia Today was running and re-running the story of the killing of the three ethnic Russian girls on its 24-hour news bulletin. The open, smiling faces of the three girls, all promising students at the University of Riga, stared out from the TV screen.

Komarov raised his glass of tea in silent salute to Major Vronsky. He had chosen the victims well. They were beautiful. That alone would cause maximum impact and outrage and reinforce the messages being broadcast by Olga Bataman, the highly photogenic, articulate presenter on the morning news. Outrage that young, hard-working, well-educated Russian girls, their lives ahead of them callously snuffed out by a fanatic’s bullets. And all the while peacefully exercising their democratic right to protest against the discrimination imposed on them by the fascist Latvian state. Followed by desperate pleas from the Latvian Russian Union for Russian protection. Russian mothers in tears, fury on their faces, demanding protection for their children. The outrage of a sniper allowed to escape by the Latvian police. Who would be next?

Meanwhile, Filatov sat nervously at his desk. The youthful-looking Commander of the NDCC who, with his perfectly coiffed hair and full lips, seemed more like a fashionable hairdresser than a Russian general, clearly knew that this was a big day for him. But it was also a dangerous day. It was rare for the War Cabinet to meet here and that meant he and his staff had to get everything exactly right.