“All the indications are that NATO’s celebrated Very High Readiness Joint Task Force is also a hollow force. For a start, it is only planned at being a brigade-sized force of five thousand men. It would struggle to deploy any heavy equipment in any meaningful timeframe. It has no permanent command structure and is dependent on bringing together units who have never worked together from across the Alliance, all the way from Albania to Norway. As for the rest of the NATO Response Force? The same applies. Only worse. And anyway, its deployment depends on all twenty-eight members agreeing the decision in the North Atlantic Council. Our friends in some of the capitals assure us that there is unlikely to ever be any such agreement. And, even if there were, by the time a decision is made it is likely to be too late,” Merkulov concluded.

“So we have an open goal in the Baltic states?” asked the President, looking around the table.

All present nodded assent.

“Comrades, as the universal poet and playwright William Shakespeare said, ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to greatness.’ This is our tide and we must take it. History will not be kind to us if we fail to seize the moment to preempt any further encirclement and aggression from NATO. We must take this opportunity to destroy the Alliance while it is still weak.”

The President paused for effect and then said very quietly, but with menace, “Let the attack on the Baltic states begin.”

1000 hours, Thursday, May 18, 2017

Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia

TOM MORLAND, ALONG with the Latvian Intelligence Service Liaison Officer, Marina Krauja, was in their temporary office in the Training Wing at Ādaži as Corporal Steve Bradley, the six-foot-four-inch Kiwi, established comms with PJHQ over the INMARSAT secure VTC; a delicate operation conducted with an incongruously soft touch by such a giant of a man.

This time, as the Conference Room in PJHQ came into view, with the Joint Services eagle, crossed swords and anchor badge in the background, it seemed to reflect the overnight change in the world order because the picture on the monitor was very much sharper. Morland saw that the PJHQ Baltic team leader, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Graham, a balding, heavily bespectacled Gunner whom Morland had briefly met on his pre-deployment briefing, sat beside Major Jerry Dingley. Despite the small screen, he could also make out Nicky Allenby off to the side.

Graham led the session. Initially he was jovial. “Morning, Tom. So much for your cushy team task in lovely Latvia. You’ve certainly stirred things up since you’ve been there!”