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few stray flurries, illuminated by the lights of his office, heralding the coming of another winter storm, were visible. It was dark and bitter cold outside. Just like his mood, Ruff thought. Pivoting on his good leg, Ruff turned away from the foreboding scene and toward the two general staff officers who had brought Ruff news that he had not wanted to hear.
    For a second he looked at the two officers. The contrast between them was remarkable. General Walther Schacht, chief of the General Staff’s intelligence section, was comfortably seated in a chair with his long legs jutting out while his head, canted to the side, rested on the hand of his left arm, which in turn rested on the arm of the chair. It seemed to Ruff as if Schacht was bored as he listened to Colonel Gerhard Paul render his report. That, however, was only natural. Bavarians, Ruff thought, were easily bored when dealing with serious matters. Paul, a native of Leipzig and chief of Schacht’s Eastern Europe Department, chose to stand while he briefed his Chancellor on the situation in the Ukraine. Everything about Paul was militarily correct. From his erect, almost ramrod stiff position of attention, to the clarity and conciseness of the report that he delivered, Paul was what Ruff expected soldiers to be. It had been, Ruff thought, a mistake to exclude the senior officers of the East German Volksarmee from the West German Bundeswehr at the time of unification. He was glad that he had finally been able to reverse that decision. It gave those officers raised in the lax atmosphere of the Bundeswehr worthy role models.
    When Paul finished, the room fell silent as the two general staff officers waited for Ruff to speak.
    Shuffling over to his desk, Ruff stood next to it, leaning against the side of the desk in an effort to relieve the pressure on his bad leg. Though it would have been wise to sit, Ruff chose to stand during this meeting. It was, after all, a very serious matter. Besides, in his own way Ruff was testing General Schacht. It seemed to Ruff that if he, the Chancellor of Germany, was standing, then protocol would dictate that Schacht should also stand. But Schacht didn’t, and therefore failed Ruff’s little test.
    “Are we sure, Colonel Paul, that the Ukrainians know nothing about this?”
    Without hesitation, Paul responded to Ruff in a crisp, no-nonsense manner. “The Ukrainians have been mesmerized by the buildup of Russian forces. None of their intelligence summaries over the last four days even mention the possibility of action by the Americans. It is as if the Americans are not there, even though the Americans have made no effort to cover the deployment of forces into eastern Slovakia.”
    “Then it would seem,” Ruff stated in exasperation, “that the Ukrainians, like us, have fallen for the American deception plan that their deployment into the Czech and Slovakian republics was an effort to discourage the Hungarians from grabbing land that probably is rightfully theirs.”
    Ruff’s tone and manner reminded Schacht of a professor of history, not a chancellor. Lifting his head off his hand, Schacht shook his head as he spoke. “I am still convinced that the initial purpose of the American deployment into the Czech and Slovakian republics was nothing more than that, an effort to put pressure on the Hungarians. And by the way, they succeeded. Hungarian units have begun to move back from the Slovakian border.” Schacht waved his hand over his head. “This new matter is entirely different.
    As much as I admire the Americans, I do not think that they are capable of such an effective deception operation. My American section, after careful re-examination, finds nothing to support such a claim.”
    “Whether or not it was planned, Herr General, the fact remains,” Ruff shot back, “that the Americans have decided to take action unilaterally with forces supposedly committed to NATO and stationed in our country without bothering to consult