Warsaw, Presidential Palace — late evening

  Poland had a particular relationship with Russian tanks. Not from books or museums — from memory, passed through generations as reliably as the colour of one's eyes. Walewski was the sixth generation of a Warsaw family, and he knew what it meant when the West made promises it did not keep.

  The meeting was held in the library, not the conference room. Libraries are less formal. And less likely to be bugged.

  Four people sat around a low table: Hoffmann, Walewski, Larsen, and Finnish Prime Minister Aino M?kinen — a woman who had grown up fifty kilometres from the Russian border and whose grandfather had survived the Winter War.

  "Let's skip the diplomacy,"

  said Walewski, pouring whisky into four glasses without asking anyone's preference.

  "We have a problem that can be stated simply. America is leaving. Russia knows it. We know it. Russia is waiting for the right moment. We don't have time."

  M?kinen took her glass but did not drink.

  "Finland joined NATO because of the Russian threat. But NATO without America is an administrative structure, not a military force. We share seven hundred kilometres of border with Russia. Seven hundred kilometres. Not them, not Germany, not France — us."

  "What do you propose?"

  Walewski opened a zipped folder and pulled out a document. It was not thick — only five pages. But every word had been weighed.

  "This is the first draft. We're calling it the VIP Initiative. It doesn't have a better name yet."

  Hoffmann began to read. Larsen read over her shoulder. M?kinen received her own copy and read quickly, pencil in hand.

  The document was brief — painfully brief for something of this scope. But the brevity was intentional. Details can be filled in later; the core idea must be as clear as a glass of water.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The core idea was this: a group of EU member states, operating outside the formal Brussels structures but within the EU framework, would create a joint nuclear programme. Joint research. Joint production. A distributed arsenal — each country receiving its own launch systems. A joint trigger — an attack on one is an attack on all, retaliation automatic and collective.

  Schuman was right. Concrete achievements.

  Hoffmann finished reading and set the document down.

  "NPT."

  "The Non-Proliferation Treaty. I know,"

  Walewski nodded.

  "But the NPT rests on the assumption that countries without nuclear weapons are protected by those that have them. If America ceases to be that guarantee — and it is ceasing — the treaty has lost its foundation. Its moral authority. Who will tell us we are breaking the rules when they broke them first?"

  M?kinen set down her pencil.

  "URENCO."

  "Exactly,"

  Walewski nodded.

  "Germany, the Netherlands, Britain. Uranium enrichment. The capacity exists. All it takes is a political decision about direction."

  Larsen leaned over a map he had not produced — he apparently had it memorised.

  "Denmark is interested. But we don't want to be mere passive recipients. If we join, we join as founding members with a full voice."

  "Of course,"

  said Walewski.

  "Founders have an equal vote regardless of the size of their economy. They pay according to GDP, but they decide as equals."

  Hoffmann stood and walked to the window. Warsaw at night — a city that had been levelled twice and risen from the ashes twice. A city that knew what it meant to rely on promises.

  "France."

  One word. But everyone in the room knew what it meant.

  "France has its own arsenal. The force de frappe. They have Le Triomphant-class submarine missile carriers, M51 ballistic missiles. The technology we still need to develop, they already have,"

  said Hoffmann.

  "But France will never share. It's part of their national identity."

  "Perhaps,"

  Walewski smiled for the first time all evening,

  "or perhaps it's enough to show them we can manage without them. And then let economics do the rest."