‘It is an empty threat.’

Musso decided to push his luck. ‘You have raised the issue of what the Israelis did recently,’ he began. ‘They had less than two hundred nuclear weapons. We, my friend, have far more than that, and more to the point, we really do not need your oil anymore.’

Leaning forward again, Musso invested his voice with all of the growling threat he could muster. ‘How many ballistic-missile submarines does the Venezuelan navy have, General Salas?’

Stavros looked as if he was holding his breath. Musso rolled on.

‘You tell that little cocksucker el presidente of yours that if we do not get acceptable terms, we will atomise every major population centre in Venezuela by the end of the day.’

Salas turned pale. ‘I…I-I’ll need to consult my superiors,’ he stammered.

‘You do that.’

PACOM HQ, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

With Tommy Franks back in the top job, Admiral Ritchie found that many of the political calls he’d recently had to make could be passed up the line to his superior – a situation for which he was entirely grateful. He had even managed to get home for more than four hours and have a meal with Amanda this week, after which they’d spoken on the phone with Nancy, their daughter, for a few short but precious minutes. She was staying with a couple of college friends in Edinburgh, sharing an apartment rather than braving one of the American refugee camps in the south of England. It was a blessed relief to hear her voice again. It meant that he could set aside personal worries and concentrate on his much greater professional ones.

Ritchie had his hands full coordinating refugee flows throughout the Pacific, while standing watch over the strategic situation in Asia – a fancy way of saying he was holding his breath and watching the collapse of China and the north-east Asian economies, hoping it wouldn’t spill over into the wider world. His ability to do anything about it was disappearing fast. He simply couldn’t sustain the Pacific Fleet for much longer, even with the help of allies such as Japan, who were themselves teetering on the brink of collapse.

But Tusk Musso’s gambit had dragged him right back into the centre of a purely political question. Would he be party to authorising a strategic interdiction? Damn the euphemisms, call it what it was: a nuclear attack.

He stood opposite Franks in the Joint Operations Centre for the whole of the Pacific Command as they listened to the last of Musso’s briefing on speaker-phone. The room was a large space, but old-fashioned. It had been due to be replaced in a few months with a much larger, modern facility. Maybe it would happen, probably not though. For now, both men leaned forward to listen to their colleague as his disembodied voice crackled out of an old speaker-phone.

‘I really don’t think we can let them put ten thousand hostages in the bag,’ said the Marine. ‘They’ll turn the civilians into human shields, for certain. We either show them they can’t fuck with us, right now, or I promise you they will. After Gitmo, it’ll be the Canal. And they won’t even have to land there. They can just start executing hostages on the hour until we leave. You know they’ll do it.’

Ritchie found himself agreeing, but he waited for Franks to speak. The soldier’s melancholy features seemed even more hangdog than usual, which was saying something. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had returned from the Middle East with enormous dark pouches under his eyes, and cheeks hollowed out by the stress. A flap of skin hung loose beneath his chin where he had lost a lot of weight.

‘General, I do not know whether our submarines will even respond to an order to fire on Venezuela,’ Franks replied. ‘Only the President can authorise a launch. What d’you think, Jim?’ he asked, turning to Ritchie.

The admiral shook his head. ‘Right back at the start of this, I had the devil’s own job getting my boomers to break protocol when I needed China boxed in. I didn’t know whether they’d have launched on my say-so even if I had ordered them. I still don’t. Only the President of the United States can authorise the use of nuclear weapons. The commanders in charge of those assets are trained not to respond to any other command authority’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Musso.

He found Salas back in his office, arms folded, glaring out of the jagged hole where a window had been just yesterday. George Stavros had remained seated and was watching the Venezuelans with mute hostility. He relaxed only slightly when Musso returned from the radio shack.

‘I could just order my men to take this building, you know,’ said General Salas, keeping his back to them. ‘You could not hold it long, General Musso. I can see that from here. Perhaps that might be a better idea than allowing you to run off every few minutes to consult with your superiors, no?’ he finished, turning to face Tusk at last.

It was very poor acting, thought Musso. He’d seen much better dramatics at law school during moot season. ‘No, General,’ he answered. ‘That would not be a very good idea. You’re here under a flag of truce, to negotiate a surrender on acceptable terms. Perhaps if you faced up to your responsibilities as an officer and started behaving like a professional warrior rather than a gang lord, we might get somewhere.’

The Venezuelan’s neck flushed noticeably, but his face froze in a cold fury. He sat himself very carefully down behind the damaged desk again.

‘Have you spoken to Caracas?’ asked Musso, all but ignoring the gross umbrage taken by Salas at his remark.

‘Si,’ the General said, deciding in the end not to respond to the insult. ‘I am authorised to offer safe passage to all Americans in Cuba. We, in turn, will accept custodianship of the unaffected region of Cuba until the Cuban Government reasserts itself.’

Musso snorted. ‘We want more than just safe passage out of Cuban waters. It wouldn’t do to have one of your submarines taking pot shots at us as we try to sail out of the neighbourhood. We want a guarantee of safe passage out of the Caribbean and Atlantic as well.’

Salas narrowed his eyes. His lips turned white and his nostrils flared again. ‘You are pushing your luck, General Musso,’ he said with a tightly clenched jaw.

‘No,’ Musso corrected him. ‘You are pushing yours.’

‘Tell the President that it is not a bluff, Mr Shapiro,’ said Franks. ‘Tell him we are deadly serious. The rules have changed. Hell, there are no rules anymore – not when he feels free to fire on our civilians whenever it suits him… I don’t give a damn that they deny it. That’s one of the things that’s changed: I don’t have to give a damn anymore. Just tell him.’