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sofa, across the coffee table, was the Defense Secretary, Chris Pierce, sitting forward, his elbows on his knees with a file of papers open in front of him. West had brought Pierce to the Pentagon because of his extraordinary war record which began in Vietnam and ended in Iraq. Highly intelligent and with years of experience as a battlefield leader, when Pierce spoke he did so with both deliberate simplicity and assertive body language to reinforce his point. In full flow, he sometimes reminded Newman of a nightclub bouncer.
    The thick-set Tom Patton, Secretary for Homeland Security and former governor of Oregon, was at the other end of the table. John Kozerski, Chief of Staff, sat back down on an upright chair next to the phones on the Oval Office desk. Peter Brock was next to Newman on the sofa.
    West addressed Newman again: 'Mary, do we have any American nationals in North Korea?'
    'Two aid workers,' said Newman. 'One with Oxfam, a Peter Bennett from Chicago. And one from Save the Children Fund. She's actually half Swedish and half American, a dual passport holder, Agneta Carlsson. It's not the easiest place for Americans to work.'
    West pulled his chair forward to get closer to the map on the coffee table. He put his spectacles on and jabbed his finger on the name Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, on the west of the Korean peninsula which hung off northern China like a pig's knuckle.
    'Where's Scott?' asked West, referring to Scott Cartwright, his Trade Secretary.
    'In Argentina, sir,' said Kozerski.
    'Then you fill in, Mary. Do we buy from or sell to these sons of bitches?'
    'Negative, Mr President,' said Newman. 'It's banned under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Together with Cuba, North Korea is the only place left on it. We have deals on nuclear power which go back to 1994. There's been an impasse pretty much since 2003. But as far as the impact on trade, it's not an issue.'
    'Tom, do they have any terrorist cells in the US?'
    'Not that we know of,' said the Secretary for Homeland Security. 'They haven't been involved in a terrorist operation since the eighties, when they blew up the South Korean cabinet.'
    'In Seoul?'
    'In Burma. They were on an official visit.'
    West whistled through his teeth. 'That's one hell of a thing to do.' He brushed the map flat and shifted it on the table to show the massive blue of the Pacific Ocean. 'Chris, these nuclear weapons they have. Do they work? And can they strike us with them?'
    'They might,' said the Defense Secretary.
    'Might?' snapped the President. 'Is that the best you can do?
    Pierce took a breath. 'In the nineties, we know they extracted 60 pounds of plutonium from the nuclear programme. That's enough for five 20-kiloton nukes. They restarted it in 2003. We think they might have ten operational nuclear warheads for silo-based missiles and two smaller ones that could be transported by boat or aircraft - the bomb in the briefcase scenario. They have maybe fifty Taepodong-2 missiles of the type that was used against Yokata, and many more shorter-range missiles, most of which could hit Japan and, of course, South Korea. They've been working on an even longer-range version of the Taepodong-2, which they want to get to our western coastline. But we doubt that's functioning.'
    'So they could nuke us?' said West.
    'I believe they could nuke us in Japan, but not here in the US.'
    'Then what are they playing at?'
    'Mr President,' intervened Peter Brock. 'We've had time to discuss this with other governments in the region. The overwhelming view is that North Korea is in more crisis over this than we are. They claim the missile guidance system was faulty, and no way was the base to be targeted. In fact, the missile carried no warhead at all. They warn that if we take action against North Korea, we could provoke a backlash similar to the reaction of a wounded tiger. Leave her be and she'll die. Taunt her, and she'll kill.'
    'What does Japan say?' pressed West.
    'Nervous, clearly,'