Over these endless hours together, Talbot began to believe that this woman he called Eleanor was rooting for him, that she earnestly sought to regain his trust, and might even love him. The pulsating outrage over what she had done took on a new texture as he learned more about her, his anger turning from his own losses and towards the mother who had failed her, had allowed her daughter’s identity to be erased and served her up to the wolf Cossutta, who used her. He blamed himself that he had not loved her well enough to cause her to abandon what Cossutta asked her to do—that the force of his love should have somehow been enough to compel her to truth. She said he had it backwards: she had loved him through every bit of it—his affairs and her own lies—because she naively believed the only way to protect him, keep him safe and alive, was to cooperate with Cossutta.

  A second, central thing that drew them together was their concern for Caroline and her children. They bore a guilt they could never acknowledge or confess, knowing Rémy’s decision to cooperate with Eleanor’s change of heart had cost him his life. So to feel useful, to find redemption, to pay penance, they became errand-runners and carpoolers, cheerleaders in the front row of piano recitals and baseball games. They babysat, delivered meals, took the kids shopping for Christmas presents for their mother.

  And amid all their playacting, the stability and surety and love they worked to convey to the children, they began to show it to one another, to see a glimmer of a remade future with one another, one crosshatched with scars but that might still be worth having—if they were granted the opportunity.

  EPILOGUE

  February 10, 1962

  Glienicke Bridge

  It had taken nearly two years and interminable hours of negotiations. The exchange would take place across a bridge that spanned the Havel River at the border between West Berlin and East Germany. No matter that one prisoner on the West Berlin side of the water did not want this to happen, had no interest in living in a place that would never feel like home. This was the deal the Americans had struck; the prisoner’s wishes did not matter.

  Three detainees in all would take the walk to the East German side, in essence, trading one prison for another. The first offered three meals a day, a warm bed, access to books, ideas, conversation. The second meant a life constrained in a different way: perpetual surveillance, decisions about work and housing made by others, limited fruit and too much cabbage—whether they were welcomed as heroes or exiled to a labor camp. Had things been different, Rémy would be with them, the prisoner thought, his Gallic sensibilities surely struggling by this point to camouflage his disdain for the charade that theirs was a journey to freedom.

  They waited in the van, the U.S. Army driver periodically cranking the engine to get a little heat going, while negotiators for both sides stood at the center of the bridge, toeing the white line that divided East from West, smoothing out the logistics. As a dense gray dawn overspread the landscape, the door of the van slid open.

  The prisoner wanted to weep, to rail, to resist, to refuse to go, to make the case again that it was not fair to be consigned to a life in what was now, after all these years, an unfamiliar land. But histrionics would do no good. Their arms gripped by American soldiers, the three prisoners were guided through the snow to the deck of the bridge then suddenly released to make their way toward the Soviet military vehicle that waited on the opposite shore. Another man headed toward them, erupting with joy the moment his Soviet minder released him, running into the arms of the two Americans soldiers who awaited him. Overcome as he was by his sudden freedom, Captain Francis Gary Powers might have missed a cold look cast in his direction by the American army colonel overseeing the exchange.

  “Dobro pozhalovat’ domoy!” shouted the Soviet officer on the other shore, welcoming his three newly returned comrades.

  “This is not my home,” the prisoner spat. “I know nothing of life here.”

  “Your Russian is rusty, my friend,” said the officer. “But you’ll have ample time to improve. And let me remind you: you’re not in America anymore. When you say things like that here, there are consequences.”

  Over the officer’s shoulder, the prisoner spotted a broad familiar figure, her smile wide, palms clapped to the sides of her face, standing next to the truck that would take them away to a life reimagined. As the prisoner neared, the woman opened her arms, repeating the name of the returned prodigal like a chant. She leaned in for a kiss, to whisper regret over their long separation, her relief over this long-delayed return.

  “Now you’ll know how I feel waking up every day in a place I hate, Gilberto. Idiota. Stupido uomo egoista. Te lo meriti.” You deserve this, Cossutta’s wife hissed, but I do not. She pulled back to look him in the eye then laughed before trudging back to the truck, boots crunching in the snow, arms gesturing wildly that the soldiers were free to do what they wanted with her husband: he was their problem now.

  . . .

  A world away, Eleanor watched the report on the prisoner exchange on the evening news, imagining the life Cossutta would live now. The news anchor focused mostly on Powers’ joyful return, with only a sentence about those handed into Soviet custody. There were no pictures, just a description of three returnees—a professor of Renaissance sculpture and two of his associates, described as having worked to undermine the U.S. government. There were still questions, the newsman said, about how the returning American pilot survived the crash of his plane, which handed prodigious technology over to the enemy. “Congressional investigators insist the question of how the Soviets intercepted the U-2 aircraft has still not been satisfactorily answered,” he said, before turning to a preview of the televised White House tour the First Lady would soon be conducting.

  Talbot scoffed. “Oh, I think by now the U.S. has a pretty good idea of how the Soviets intercepted that aircraft. They’re just not telling Congress.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes, giving her head a little shake as if to clear it. “Will we ever know why Powers didn’t destroy the plane? Why he didn’t follow orders?”

  “Maybe he wanted to live. When the moment came, he wanted to live,” Talbot said. “Or, it happened so fast, he couldn’t reach the destruct lever. Either way, he’ll be back in the U.S. to grapple with the consequences of all of it.”

  “Could have been me crossing that bridge today. How in the world did it work out that I’m still here—that I’m out of it, finally?”

  Talbot swirled the bourbon in his glass, thinking. “I could answer that a number of ways. You’re still here because George is a terrific lawyer. You’re still here because you turned. Took you a while, but you cooperated, told the truth, knowing you could go to prison—or worse. But to the broader question of why you’re here—living with me, in this house—well, Ellie, that’s because of a little entanglement in Florence many years ago.”

  “An entanglement.” She gave a low laugh and looked him in the eye. “Is that what you call this? You still here because you can’t get un-entangled?”

  He rose and went to the shelves that held the art pieces she loved, several things having been added, recently, to the collection. There was the tie clasp that commemorated his honorable discharge from the service. It had arrived in the mail some months back, the return address an apartment in Virginia Beach where it seemed Helen had decided to restart her life. There was a photograph of Tal and Eleanor, taken the day of their second wedding ceremony, both of them smiling, their joy effusive, genuine, and mutual. George had handled the paperwork that finally, legally, gave her the name Eleanor but this time, the marriage license correctly listed her birthplace as Kirov, USSR. The little art deco box from Florence now held the Minox, a symbol of both Talbot’s best work and his worst mistake. Chamberlain had disabled the mechanism and presented it to Talbot, suggesting it serve as a reminder of how badly and quickly lies send life off the rails. The other addition came via Chamberlain as well—a print of the photograph of fifteen year-old Mishie, which Talbot had placed, incongruously, in a gilded, Florentine frame. Talbot took it from the shelf and carried it with him to sit next to Eleanor.

  “I stayed for her. So she’d have a chance at a life that wasn’t orchestrated by somebody else. I want her to have that. I want you to have that.”

  “Not sure I deserve it.”

  “None of us deserves it. Not a one. It’s called grace, Eleanor. And now that we’ve reached this point, maybe we can exhale. Live our lives. Plan a future.”

  She reached for his face, moved a dark lock of hair off his forehead and looked into the eyes of a person she’d first met sixteen years earlier but only recently had come to know. Who’d only recently come to know her.

  “We could do that?” she asked, tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m not sure I know what it’s like to imagine a life wide-open, without secrets.”

  “Yeah. We could. We will. Do stuff again. Go places.” Talbot thought a moment. “Maybe you can take me through the Renaissance sculptures at the National Gallery like you used to.”

  Eleanor looked alarmed. “Not that. I’ve seen enough of that to last a lifetime. But maybe the Renwick Gallery? American arts and crafts.”

  “American,” echoed Talbot. “Yes. I’ll show you around.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Even today, questions remain regarding the U-2 Incident—how the Soviets brought down this particular flight on May 1, 1960 and how American pilot Francis Gary Powers survived the crash landing of a plane he had promised to destroy. Until Powers’ fateful flight, the Soviets had ignored years of overflights without public acknowledgment or protest. I worked within these gray areas to write The Florentine Entanglement, imagining how Eleanor’s work might have furnished just enough data to allow the Soviets to zero in on this U-2 zipping through Soviet airspace on this particular day.

  Aides assured President Eisenhower the U-2 could fly unimpeded because Soviet technology could not reach it as it cruised 70,000 feet above the earth. Beginning in the mid-1950s, U-2s began photographing sensitive Soviet installations, returning safely to bases in Turkey and Pakistan. The intelligence yield was so rich—you could count the parking spaces at Soviet military bases—Eisenhower and his staff found it hard to relinquish opportunities to gather more images. Popular political columnists of the day, unaware the administration had unequivocal photographic evidence of Soviet military strength, accused Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied Commander who’d helped win World War Two, of going soft on the Communists. There were rumors of a widening missile gap with the Soviets and the fear they’d built a long-range bomber that could cross the ocean. Eisenhower knew there was zero evidence of this but could not refute it without giving away the spy plane program. But surely, as reporters accused him of ignoring the Soviet threat, he must have been tempted.

  So how, on that May Day 1960, was Powers’ plane taken down? Some believe a MIG flying at a lower altitude fired up at him. Alternatively, a MIG might have been hit by a surface-to-air missile (SAM), and ricocheting debris from the MIG hit the U-2. Or perhaps, a Soviet SAM hit Powers’ plane directly. In response to the repeated U-2 incursions, the Soviets had made rapid and significant improvements that extended their SAM range. Given the uncrowded skies on this May Day holiday, Powers might have been easier to spot. As to how and why Powers survived the crash, accounts say his plane went into a flat spin, which likely slowed his descent and lessened the crash impact. This disorienting spin could have also prevented Powers from reaching both the destruct lever, and the poison he was meant to take to keep himself out of Soviet hands.

  Michael Beschloss’s excellent book May Day provides deep insight into Eisenhower and Khrushchev during the U-2 crisis, while Monte Reel’s A Brotherhood of Spies describes how a vast collection of thinkers were brought together in secret to create the U-2 program, the CIA’s first large-scale technological operation. Liza Mundy’s The Sisterhood affirms not only how tough it was for women to advance beyond the clerical ranks within CIA, but that serial affairs were once the habit of men in the case officer and agent ranks. Married men, most notably founding Director Allen Dulles, were referred to as “geographic bachelors,” men who seemed to forget commitments they’d made to wives when they traveled, in favor of women within reach. It would not have been unusual for his superiors to overlook Talbot’s extracurriculars, until, of course, it appeared to threaten national security.

  For additional book and movie recommendations about this incident and this era, visit PamelaNorsworthywrites.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To the gracious readers of War Bonds—how to thank you for your many kindnesses as I set out on this writing journey? Your emails and reviews, along with conversations at book events, provided just the right oomph to bring this second book to life. While even more morally conflicted than their War Bonds brethren, I hope you rooted for the Florentine characters all the same and that above all, they kept you guessing.

  I extend wholehearted thanks to the members of the many book clubs I’ve been privileged to attend—for the hours of lively, thoughtful, enriching discussions. It’s been a gift to see history through the prisms of your family stories.

  Huge thanks to my family—all of them smart and lyrical writers themselves—who asked important questions that made this story better. My brother, Jeff Mason, shared his legal expertise, helping me hash out how a scandal like this might play out publicly, and nudging me to include important context. My sister, Melanie Fraser, has a special talent for encouragement on top of her ability to sniff out typos and less-than-clear sentences. Her input improved this manuscript immensely. I’m grateful to my children and their SO’s for their love and interest and the piles of books they find for me that deepen my understanding of historical context. Thanks to Margarita Rogers who has championed my writing to all within her reach. And to friends and family whose names I borrowed (purloined?) to fill out this rather long cast of characters: know I pictured your sweet, earnest faces and as I tapped away on my Mac.

  To Reagan Rothe and his wonderfully efficient team at Black Rose Writing and to Atlanta’s Hot Olive Agency led by the fearless Raven Wilson: thank you for helping get my work into the universe.

  Finally to Gray, my husband, live-in publicist, and consultant on aircraft and aeronautics, who’s always willing to sort out plot lines and technological considerations with me, who kindly ignores me when I’m heads-down in my writing, and who never complains when we spend the whole day at a literary event. The good guys in my novels? They’re all based on Gray.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Pamela Norsworthy earned a 2025 Georgia Author of the Year nomination for her debut novel, War Bonds, which drew heavily on her father’s experiences in World War Two. A former journalist, Pam began writing fiction to explore the vast, unforeseen reverberations when world events collide with the peaceable lives of average people. A lifelong singer, Pam enjoys making music and performing with her guitar-playing husband, rooting for the Atlanta Braves and her alma mater, the University of Virginia, and lingering over spirited dinners with friends to chew over ideas from every angle. She and her husband live in Atlanta, Georgia, where Pam’s writing is interrupted every day at noon by their two barking dogs, taken by surprise once again by the arrival of the mail carrier.

  OTHER TITLES BY PAMELA NORSWORTHY

  NOTE FROM PAMELA NORSWORTHY

  Many thanks for reading The Florentine Entanglement. Please visit pamelanorsworthywrites.com to find book club questions, blogs that add historical context, and to sign-up for my newsletter.

  Word-of-mouth is crucial in helping a book find its audience. If you enjoyed The Florentine Entanglement, please share on social media, or leave an online review. Even a sentence or two makes all the difference.

  With appreciation,

  Pamela Norsworthy

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