Eleanor was genuinely busy the rest of the day, speeding toward the confrontation she had waited so long to have. At two, she picked up the phone and called Talbot.

  “What?” he said. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing yet. But it will soon, I expect. I just wanted to say hello. And goodbye, if…well…I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  Talbot was silent. “I’m with you in spirit, Eleanor. Hoping for the best.”

  At three-forty, a man who had busied himself much of the afternoon among the periodicals, made his way up the steps to Eleanor’s office. He entered and closed the door.

  Eleanor turned. “May I help you?”

  “I have a research question,” the man said.

  “Ah, yes. Shall we proceed to the research volumes? They’re on the main floor.”

  She reached for her cardigan. “Sometimes it gets chilly there.” She smiled. Her visitor nodded.

  They walked down the steps side by side, Eleanor pausing to put on the sweater then stopping to fix her shoe, the thin, sling-back strap having slipped off her heel. Their slow descent gave Chamberlain’s team time to slide into position.

  Eleanor and her escort exited the library, the man placing a hand on Eleanor’s back to direct her towards a black sedan idling at the curb a half-block down the street. A young man who appeared to be about college-age followed just behind them, nose buried in a comic book. A second, older man followed him, newspaper tucked under his arm.

  Eleanor suddenly stopped, whispering something to her escort and shaking her head in apology. Her shoe again. She stepped over to the bus stop, placing a hand on the bench there to steady herself, so she could address the wayward strap. She reached down to her heel, pulling the leather this way and that, then straightened, drawing her arm up and slamming a fist under the man’s chin. He staggered, briefly. The doors of the sedan flew open and two men walked determinedly in Eleanor’s direction. A beat too late, they realized as the gentleman seated on the bench was not, in fact, waiting for the bus. Chamberlain stood and leveled his Colt M1911 at them both while the college kid and the man with the newspaper wrestled Eleanor’s original escort into a delivery van parked in front of the library.

  . . .

  Two-hundred and fifty miles away, Cossutta was at work in the Fordham Fine Arts Sculpture Studio with a young woman he had encouraged to enroll in his summer tutorial, whom, he believed, could benefit from his particular touch. He’d called her in to work one-on-one this afternoon, to help distract him from the operation he believed was underway in DC to get Eleanor out of the country.

  After a few words of inspiration, that she needed to listen to the clay, coax it into what it wanted to be—the same, tired words he used with all the young women he invited into his studio—Cossutta laid his hands on hers as she massaged the soft green clay on the table. He interlaced his fingers with hers, leaning into her hair, inhaling. The student seemed oblivious to his attentions. After a time, he tired of the clay work and invited her to sit with him at the small cafe table in the studio to discuss the flaws in her technique, an open bottle of Chianti there to lubricate the conversation. Before he could proceed, the Dean opened the door, his alarm at seeing a professor drinking wine in the middle of the day with a student apparent.

  “Dr. Cossutta—a word?” he asked timorously, beckoning him to the studio door.

  Cossutta complied, picking up his wine glass—then thinking better of it and setting it back on the table. Once he crossed the threshold into the dim hall, two U.S. marshals appeared.

  “Afternoon, professor,” said one as the Dean stood shaking his head, speechless. “You’ll be coming with us.”

  “What? For what? For a midday respite with a student?”

  “Well, no, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be doing that either.”

  “What, then? I demand to know what is happening. Norman,” he pled to the Dean, “make them stop this nonsense.”

  The second marshal pulled out a set of handcuffs and snapped them on Cossutta’s wrists. “Not really nonsense, professor. Not from what the warrant says.”

  The marshals muscled him down the hall and out the door, the Dean watching and still mute. The young student had seen it all from the classroom and made her way to the hall to have a word with the Dean.

  “That guy?” she said. “After the stories I’ve heard, I’m not a bit surprised.”

  . . .

  And so it went throughout the day—police officers, marshals, FBI agents, executing sealed warrants then launching themselves on targets up and down the Atlantic Coast. “The best kind of Blitzkrieg,” Chamberlain joked, and one that produced a larger haul than he could have imagined, law enforcement finding two, three, four suspects at various locations where they’d expected to nab just one. Eighteen people were taken into custody without a shot fired, each confined separately at the DC jail. It would be up to the courts to sort out who was whom and given the assortment of Slavic accents among the detainees, it was bound to get interesting.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY

  Friday, July 15, 1960

  Arlington, VA

  Talbot paced the townhouse, wearing a path from the front hall through the living room to the dining room, desperate for news, leaving the bourbon alone for now, wanting to keep his head clear. At eight, Chamberlain called and described a mission that had gone like clockwork, yielding documents and technology in addition to the perps in custody.

  “Eleanor can tell you more. And I’ll come by in a day or two to discuss where we are,” he said, his voice exultant but weary. “We’ve given Dulles briefings every step of the way, Talbot, and I think we’re getting close to clearing your charges. Eleanor’s situation is still under discussion, Auclair’s too. Give us a few days.”

  “Understood,”

  “Just make sure you continue to abide by terms of your release, in case there’s anyone else out there we missed and don’t know about yet, who might be paying attention to what’s happening at your house. We’ve still got surveillance on you and Eleanor, but please, watch your step, okay?”

  Eleanor arrived home an hour later, accompanied by Engwall and a stack of takeout boxes from the Italian place on Dupont Circle. They entered through the garage and trudged up the steps where an anxious Talbot waited. Forgetting for a moment how his world had changed over the past two weeks, he reached for her when he saw her, easing her head to his shoulder, feeling her relax into him, a posture once so familiar that now felt startling. He whispered thanks to God that she was safe.

  “Come. Sit. Both of you,” he said, releasing his wife and reaching to unburden her and Engwall of their takeout boxes. Eleanor moved warily, appraising Talbot’s show of concern after days of studied indifference. She went to the cabinet to retrieve some plates.

  “I’m not staying,” said Engwall. “I just wanted to make sure she got here safely and that you two got a bite to eat tonight. Helluva day. She can fill you in.”

  Talbot extended his hand. “Thanks,” he said. “Truly. Glad things went as they did. Be careful getting home.”

  “Officer Bentley, the streets of Washington may be safer tonight than they’ve been in a while. I’ll let myself out.”

  Talbot sank heavily into the kitchen chair across from Eleanor, accepting the lasagna she’d transferred to a plate. Before he could ask a single question, she began speaking.

  “It was so smooth, Talbot. Everyone in place, moving exactly as we rehearsed it.”

  “Clockwork, Chamberlain said.”

  “It was, at least where I was. The targets? They were stunned, really, like they’d never even considered there could be snags, that I might not be on board.”

  “Swept up a lot of people, I heard.”

  “Yes. They’ve been putting photos in front of me for the past five hours. Most were people I didn’t recognize, but others—I’ve seen them at the library, at Giant Food, outside the National Gallery. One guy—I swear I’ve seen at St. John’s.” She gave a shiver.

  “So your side was there, making sure you were doing your job.”

  She looked up from her meal and locked eyes with him. “It’s no longer my side, Talbot. It’s not. Please hear me. I’m on your side. I know it’s the right side. It just took me a while to get here.”

  Talbot’s lips drew into a tight line. He rose, opened a bottle of wine, and pulled two glasses from the shelf. “Feels like we should celebrate a little.” Eleanor nodded.

  He drank nearly half his glass before he spoke again. “It’s just hard, Eleanor. Hard to know where your heart is, what you truly believe—given the alternatives you were facing. Siberia or East Germany or something.”

  “I can’t make you believe me,” she said quietly, gazing past him, her shoulders giving a slight shrug. “But I know what I know. I know what’s true. They can put me in jail here, but as long as they don’t make me go back, trade me for a Western spy or something, I’ll be satisfied.”

  “Happy to spend the rest of your life in prison?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Because for the first time since I was nineteen—no before that—since I was a girl too young to understand, I will be free. I can be myself. I’ve made some progress in that direction since you brought me here—whether you believe that or not. And if I have to continue that progress from jail, at least I’ll be able to think for myself. Read what I want. Judge things for myself. I can’t expect you to understand what that means to me. You’ve been free your whole life.”

  They sat at the table as the food grew cold, Talbot replenishing their wine glasses, both lost in their own thoughts, considering the depth of the love and lies between them. Finally Talbot asked about their earliest days, whether she had actually been interested in him or just found him a proper target for her work.

  “I had never even spoken with an American man, Talbot. You were a new species to me.” Her tongue loosened by the wine, she gave him a smile he had not seen in months. “I absolutely wanted to get to know you better. Here you were, so so confident and self-possessed—and still, you asked my opinion of things, paid attention when I showed you around Florence.”

  He allowed himself a chuckle. “I was a rube. I knew nothing about art and I needed to catch up.”

  “I remember small things, books you shared that you thought I’d like, you asking me to pick the wine, or to order for you at a restaurant because I knew the menu better. And my ring—the engagement ring that you gave me in that little art deco box we still have…”

  “You’d spotted it in the artists’ stalls outside the Uffizi. One thing I got right.”

  “You got a lot right. That box holds a place of honor in our bookcase all these years later. But…” and here she paused, eyes welling, “at the same time, it was excruciating, Talbot, with Gilberto telling me to climb into bed with you when he was still…”

  “…climbing into bed with you.”

  “I was a girl. From Kirov, of all places. Idealistic, knowing nothing about the world. No experience with men. Here was my security, the man who defined things for me, saying ‘Just give yourself away. It’s not important.’ What he did was cruel.” She withdrew a cigarette which Talbot reached over to light. “It wasn’t until we got here, away from him and whatever magic he conjured, that I realized I did like you. I liked us, this place, this way of life. And that grew into a love I had to keep at bay…because Gilberto wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  Talbot sat quietly, appraising her.

  “Can I ask you a question now?”

  He nodded.

  “The women. Were you looking for someone to replace me? A woman who could give you children, maybe?”

  He considered her question.

  “Be honest,” she pleaded.

  “It’s not so easy,” he replied. “I’ve told myself so many stories about why I did what I did, why I was justified, using them, lying to you. I’m not sure how to be honest.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “I needed to feel important, Eleanor. They were young. They were impressed with me, my responsibilities, my shadowy service in the war.” He gave a wistful smile. “Four of them in all. And Caroline, as you know.”

  “You have Caroline to thank for why those cameras they found in your office didn’t work.” Talbot looked at her, questioningly. “After they filmed some of your… exploits…during our little dinner parties, I disconnected them. Explained to Gilberto we’d had some electrical work done and the cameras were accidentally damaged.”

  Talbot shook his head then reached for his drink.

  “Was there anyone you wanted to keep?” she said lightly, the tone contradicting the intense set of her face.

  He closed his eyes before he answered. “Not one. Not a one. When they got too invested, I had them promoted. Transferred. Something that seemed to happen outside of my control so they could just move on and out of my life and not turn it back on me. Except Helen. She didn’t want to move.”

  “Plucky Helen.”

  Talbot smiled.

  “But why Caroline?” she asked. “She was the hardest for me to understand.”

  “Because she knew you best, Eleanor. She’s smart and insightful and was the closest thing I could find to you. And maybe I wanted you to notice, so we could have a big, awful fight and say what needed to be said, and maybe I’d finally understand why you’d lost interest in me, in our marriage. Maybe it would be a way to find my way back to you.”

  . . .

  In the hours before dawn, as she lay in her bed, Eleanor became aware of another presence in the room, of an arm draped heavily over her middle, of Talbot’s rhythmic breathing at her neck. She leaned into him, clasping her hand over his, unconcerned that his hand might stray over her raised scar, no longer needing to hide it from him, wondering if they would have the chance to heal the invisible scars that saddled them both. She wondered: was this Talbot finding his way back to her, or preparing for their inevitable goodbye?

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-ONE

  Monday, July 18, 1960

  Washington, DC

  Cossutta was ferried to Washington the day after the raids, complaining persistently that he was a simple artist—AN ARTIST!—wrongly denied his rights. He lobbied every member of law enforcement he encountered to send him back to Italy and avoid the costly unpleasantness involved in bringing charges against him. He railed against his solitary confinement through the weekend, calling it inhumane and beneath him. For perhaps the first time in his life, no one listened to the imperious Italian so accustomed to getting his way.

  Cossutta was among a group called to a closed courtroom for a first appearance the Monday after his arrest, where he heard the breadth of the charges against him. He was alarmed at how many on his team had been seized but concerned more about one he did not see. It was Rémy, then, who was responsible for this disaster, whose mistakes had disrupted their work and Cossutta’s comfortable life. It could not be Mishie, he told himself, for she had done her job quietly, ploddingly, obediently, year after year, as he had trained her to do.

  Her early work had been so peripheral that soon after Cossutta arrived in New York, the Centre wanted her cut loose and returned to Moscow. He had objected, arguing he saw potential, that having her suddenly demand a divorce from her CIA husband and decamp to Europe would invite unwanted scrutiny. But the real reason he fought to keep her was because of her use to him personally, physically, the weekends he enjoyed with her that steadied him, that he believed made him more effective, even if the intelligence she provided was spotty. He had tamed her, he liked to think, from the feral creature she’d been when she arrived in Florence into the cooperative agent she now was. His patience, the path he’d insisted they take with her, had paid off with the jackpot of intelligence she’d unearthed in the past year, earning praise from the Centre and the Soviet Premier. He had been pleased at this validation, as she had been his little project for so long. And despite her recent emotional outburst and the American airs she put on that he found so tasteless, he felt certain she would never betray him.

  Rémy, in contrast, functioned closer to the center of the operation and more than once, Cossutta had found him somewhat careless—his phone call the previous week the latest example. With countless, safer ways to pass messages, he’d opted to pick up the phone, their most exposed option. Cossutta knew his line was clean, as were the lines in the Arlington Planning Department. But still. Rémy got sloppy when he was in a hurry and that sloppiness had probably led to something overheard, a slip that resulted in this round-up of Cossutta’s network. The French, he thought. This is why Hitler had such an easy time of it until the Americans barged in.

  As Cossutta left the courtroom, he signaled to the custodial officer that he was ready to make his phone call, that he needed to secure counsel before his arraignment. The officer told him he’d have to return to his cell first but would be retrieved within the hour so he could make his call.

  . . .

  Chamberlain and Engwall arrived at the Bentleys’ townhouse late Monday afternoon—no tape recorder in tow this time, just a pile of paperwork for Talbot to sign. The charges against him had been dropped, but he would not be returning to CIA. His signature on the documents Engwall pulled out of his briefcase would trigger a healthy severance, ensure Talbot wouldn’t sue the government, and guarantee his permanent silence on all projects he’d worked on in the course of his intelligence career. It was Eleanor, now, who was placed on home detention, while Director Dulles and his deputies, in consultation with the president, decided her future.

  “And Rémy?” Talbot asked. “What happens to him?”

  Chamberlain sighed. “His case is a bit more complicated, to be honest. We doubt he would have come forward if you hadn’t forced the issue. There may be more to wring out of him. He’ll keep his cover for a few more days and we’ll watch. Either the bad guys try to establish a new link with him now that Cossutta’s out—which could bring us a few more scalps—or they figure out you and Auclair are no longer playing for their team.” Chamberlain gave a little grimace. “At that point, we’ll take you both into custody.”