“Oh right. Of course. You do work so hard, Miss Sizemore. Well, we’ll miss you,” he said loudly, before scribbling, “I’m so sorry, honey. THANK YOU!” on the legal pad before him.

  She looked at the note then back at him. “I’ll get right on that cake order, Mr. Bentley,” she said, backing out of his office door while giving him a hard stare.

  Despite her annoyance, Helen approached the task with her usual tenacity, reporting mission success to Talbot within minutes. Initially, the head baker protested it was too late for her rather involved request of a hummingbird cake.

  “So I reminded him of all the business I steer his way—birthdays, baby showers, staff breakfasts, all those hush-hush celebrations we have around here that we don’t even acknowledge. I asked him to ‘kindly recommend another bakery.’ I said, ‘If they’re good, who knows? I might call them the next time I need something. Whom do you recommend I call?’ And he backed right down, said he’d put a rush on the fresh fruit he would need to create the cake, that he didn’t in the least mind spending his Friday night at work. I ignored that little dig and said, ‘That’s why I always call your bakery. You always come through.’” She concluded her story and waited to hear Tal’s praise.

  “And so do you, Miss Sizemore. I appreciate your handling this.” He offered a quick nod, the cue for her to exit so he could return his attention to his work.

  “That’s it then?” she asked with a scoff. “That all you need? Fine.”

  Before resuming his work, Tal ruminated on his growing Helen problem. Their last encounter at the townhouse hadn’t moved her in the direction he’d hoped. He had several maneuvers in mind to address it and normally would not initiate anything so dramatic when he was covered up with work and this current, consequential assignment. But the way she had begun looking at him, the very posture of her body when they were in the office together, signaled to anyone paying attention that a boundary had been breached. She was too casual now, her tone too sharp with him when she was upset. She was acting entitled—that was the word—and it was only a matter of time before someone detected they were more than boss and subordinate. He had tried to get her to back off when they’d had that fight at the townhouse, but she had not relented. Time for the phone call that could take care of this for him, move the entire thing out of his hands and into the purview of government bureaucracy. He placed the call, feeling a fleeting pang of conscience, before turning to the files on his desk that needed his full attention.

  Top of mind was the project he and Knox were wrestling with, one he hoped would bring him approbation from the higher-ups, maybe speed his rise within CIA. It was nearing zero-hour for the next stage of Operation Grand Slam, timed to give the president the upper hand when he sat down for talks with Khrushchev in Paris in just a few weeks. American negotiators would come armed with an accurate picture of Soviet military strength thanks to photos U-2 spy planes had been snapping for years now. They wouldn’t reveal these photos, of course, but the images had allowed the Americans to see past Soviet feints. Years earlier, Tal and his team had recruited two of the world’s best scientific minds for the project. Aircraft designer Kelly Johnson had dreamed up the ultra-light, ultra high-flying, and very odd-looking U-2 while Polaroid Company co-founder Edwin Land, already a wealthy man from his raft of patented inventions, had built the high-resolution cameras for Kelly’s plane.

  Eisenhower had been wary of the whole thing, but they’d worn him down, convincing him to use all capabilities at hand so the Soviets couldn’t continue to lie about how many ICBMs and long-range bombers they had. And when Ike had gotten a look at the first round of U-2 photographs, he was sold. The photos showed “every blade of grass,” in Ike’s words and zero evidence the Soviets were preparing for war. Recent missions had traversed the Semipalatinsk Test Site, the Dolon Air Base where strategic bombers were stationed, the missile test site near Saryshagan, and the Tyuratam missile range. No massive armament program was underway. There was no “missile gap,” despite what Washington Post columnists continued to claim. Why had Eisenhower—the former Supreme Allied Commander, liberator of Fortress Europe—gone soft against the Soviets? the columnists yammered. The opposite was true, Talbot knew: the president wasn’t worried because he’d seen for himself the limited cards the Soviets held. But the president, Director Dulles, and Talbot’s team had to endure the wrong-headed criticism because publicly refuting the allegations would expose the U-2 surveillance program.

  Talbot and Dulles had assured the president that even if the Soviets discovered the overflights, they couldn’t stop them. Cruising at 70,000 feet, no MIG or Soviet missile could reach them. And if the unthinkable happened like a mechanical mishap, the pilot was equipped with fatal dose of cyanide and would pull the “destruct” lever in the plane. None of the carefully chosen flyers in the program wanted to end up in Soviet hands. Each was brave and brilliant and went into the operation knowing the risks.

  The next flight was set for Sunday over several especially sensitive Soviet targets. Talbot blamed his preoccupation with mission details—the weather forecast had scrambled the schedule—as the reason he forgot to order a birthday cake. Two big projects coming together at once, he chuckled. The party Saturday night would be a perfect distraction—he could knock back a string of bourbons and everyone would assume he was just celebrating his wife. Sunday, he’d keep up with mission progress by phone and look forward to the congratulatory handshakes he’d receive Monday.

  His series of afternoon meetings concluded, Talbot gathered his things and headed out to the reception area and Helen’s desk. Two pieces of typing paper, a carbon in between, were rolled into the typewriter carriage. This afternoon? That was ambitious, Talbot thought, and impossible. He laid a piece of tissue flat in her trash can. Not tonight, Helen, he thought. Time for both of us to move on.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Sunday, May 1, 1960

  Arlington, VA

  Talbot fell into bed after Eleanor’s birthday party, enjoying a single hour of dreamless sleep before his wife jostled him. His three-thirty call.

  “How ‘bout some coffee, Tal?” she asked. “Tal? You awake?”

  “Yes. I’m up. Coffee, yes,” he said swinging his feet to the side of the bed, rubbing his hands across his face.

  “It’s on your desk in your office. All you have to do is walk down the hall. Your reward awaits once you actually get moving.”

  He laughed and thanked her, splashing some water on his face before heading to his office for what he hoped would be a perfunctory check-in on this phase of Operation Grand Slam.

  Instead, he learned Grand Slam was shaping up to be a grand disaster. The U-2 had gone missing, the USAF communications specialist confirmed to Talbot. The pilot, a Captain Powers, had been expected to land in Norway hours ago, but there was no sign of him. Talbot knew the cleanest outcome, for the country anyway, would be that he’d crashed in the sea, hopefully not in Soviet waters, never to be heard from again. Chances were slim he’d been shot down over the Soviet Union, slim that the fragile plane—laden with technology—would be identifiable if it had crashed or the pilot triggered the destruct button. Talbot hung up and phoned his deputy Derek Knox.

  “We’ve got time,” said Knox. “It’s early. He’s only a few hours overdue. He’ll turn up.”

  “Any chatter about a shoot down? Indications they tracked the plane or he ditched over Russia?” asked Talbot.

  “None,” said Knox. “If Powers got into trouble—depleted oxygen, engine failure—once he knew he was going down, he’d activate the destruct button and bail. He wouldn’t leave anything for the Soviets to find. He’s well-trained. He knew the drill.”

  “If they hit him, it means they saw him coming.”

  “Again, unlikely,” said a confident Knox. “He’s 70,000 feet in the air. Soviet radar is trained miles below that to track their air traffic. MIGs can’t fly that high so they couldn’t engage him. Wish we had a better idea of what’s going on, but let’s not overreact.” They agreed to wait to bring in Director Dulles until they knew something concrete and to speak again in a few hours.

  Talbot spent a few more restless hours in bed, reasoning through the facts he knew, coming to terms with the probable loss of the pilot. When he and Knox spoke again late morning, there was nothing new. Powers’ overflight was to have lasted nine hours; he was now nine hours overdue, with no wreckage spotted in the Barents Sea, no chatter picked up from the Soviets. As Tal’s anxiety swelled, Eleanor hovered, replenishing his coffee, offering bourbon which he declined, and retrieving the plate of toast he’d allowed to grow hard and cold. He gave her no details of the apparent crisis and she didn’t pry.

  That afternoon, Talbot gathered at the office with Director Dulles, his immediate boss Robert Bissell, and the rest of his team to review the cover story developed during mission planning: NASA—the new aeronautical agency that had replaced the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics—had lost a weather plane.

  “We’ve got a U-2 ready, painted up with a NASA emblem, that we’ll show the press when it’s time,” explained Bissell between anxious drags on his filterless Camel cigarette. “Unarmed, civilian plane, aloft to take gust-meteorological measurements across the globe and conduct cloud atlas photography—just charting world weather patterns.”

  Talbot continued. “The U.S. military is not involved—this is a scientific endeavor the president knows nothing about—and he’s looking forward to the upcoming meeting with the Soviet Premier in Paris.”

  “So, no sign of wreckage yet?” Bissell asked.

  Knox shook his head. “Still time for something to surface. Let’s have some patience.”

  When the president called in to the meeting moments later, it was clear he was well out of patience. Eisenhower was furious. He and Khrushchev were just coming to understand one another, he thundered, thanks to the Soviet Premier’s carefully planned tour of the U.S. months earlier, which had yielded a reciprocal invitation for Eisenhower to visit Moscow after the Paris summit. The timing of this fiasco, he roared, could not be worse.

  No one responded right away, Dulles sitting with his face in his hands, Bissell staring out the window, chain-smoking, and Knox, head bent, examining flight tables on the clipboard in his lap. Talbot finally waded in.

  “Sir, I know the mutual regard you’ve developed with the Soviet Premier—the personal relationship—is critical to keeping us out of a hot war. We will do everything we can to protect that. But sir, thanks to the intelligence this project has collected, we can count the number of long-range bombers parked on the tarmac on an air base outside Leningrad.” Dulles lifted his headed and nodded for Talbot to continue. “The reason we can sleep at night is because we know—we have photographic evidence—that the Soviets are not preparing a surprise attack, that we are not on the verge of nuclear war. So if we’ve lost a pilot—and we all feel awful about that—it was a risk we agreed to take because these surveillance flights have made the entire world safer.”

  After a long, loud sigh, the president said he hoped that was the case, ordered them to find out what the hell was going on, and hung up the phone.

  . . .

  Talbot arrived home that evening and picked at the soup and salad Eleanor prepared for dinner, more interested in his bourbon and Coke. After she cleared the plates, Eleanor returned to the table and sat quietly, waiting.

  “We’ve lost an asset, Ellie, a big one,” he finally said. “Along with a human being. Can’t seem to find them anywhere.”

  “Soviets aware?” she asked.

  “Potentially involved. It’s possible they knew what we were doing. I mean, there were signs they were on to us a couple years ago, but they couldn’t respond so we continued.”

  “Continued what, exactly?”

  And since he expected all this would be splashed over the newspapers before long, he told her a sanitized version of what happened—that a surveillance plane might have strayed into Soviet airspace. That yes, sometimes the “straying” was intentional and this time, the aircraft might have been shot down.

  Eleanor’s eyes grew wide absorbing the implications of Talbot’s words. She reached across the table for his hand.

  “You don’t know anything for sure yet, Talbot. Let’s wait to see how this plays out. No need to worry until you know something. But I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this, Tal. I know you’re exhausted.” She rose and carried the remains of his drink to the sink. “I don’t think more drink will do you any good. But sleep might. Go on to bed. I’ll clean this up and join you in a minute.”

  Talbot gave her a weary smile and did as she suggested.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Sunday, May 1, 1960

  McLean, VA

  Late Sunday morning, Caroline phoned over to the Bentleys, partly to thank them for Eleanor’s lovely birthday party, more so to give Talbot an opportunity to express his appreciation for her contributions towards its success. He answered the phone, his tone abrupt and hurried.

  “Tal? Hello. Just calling to say I think we did well, pulled it off…”

  “Yep.”

  Sometimes he could really be an ass, thought Caroline, who had not expected to have to fish for a thank-you for assembling the guest list, the menu, the flowers.

  “Everything alright, Tal?”

  “Need to keep the line free, Caroline. Work issue. I’m sorry. I’ve just got my hands full. I’ll tell Eleanor you called and, you know, you loved the party, happy to help with it, happy to see her and so on. I’m headed out this afternoon so call then. Good for you?”

  “Of course, of course. I’ll catch up with her later. Unless—does she need me, do you think?”

  “She’s fine. You don’t need to come. Call her later. That works. Gotta run.”

  Caroline stared at the handset, hearing it drone with the connection severed. Some CIA somebody is in hot water, she thought.

  “That was quick,” Rémy smiled as she entered the kitchen, a week-old copy of Le Monde spread on the table before him. It was his habit on Sundays to drive to Rosslyn to retrieve the paper along with breakfast pastries from the French bakery there that doubled as an international newsstand. Their eight-year old daughter sat at the table with him, a Nancy Drew mystery in her hands. “Let me guess. The Bentleys are still lazing in bed and can’t even rally to offer a proper thank you for your help with the party.” He extended his arms toward his wife, who folded herself into his lap.

  “Not exactly. Talbot picked up. But he’s in the middle of some sort of work problem and wanted to keep the line free.”

  They exchanged a long look before Rémy spoke.

  “They have two phone lines, no? He’s got that work line he’s so proud of, so…” Caroline cut him off with a nearly imperceptible head shake, her eyes cutting toward their daughter. But the girl had caught the tone. She lifted her head from her book and looked at one parent then the other, her interest in another potential mystery peaked.

  “Where are your brother and sister, Colette?” Caroline asked. “Round them up and we’ll head to the park.”

  It would be easier for the adults to discuss adult things with their children distracted by the park’s many charms.

  . . .

  Caroline met her future husband when she was an undergraduate at American University. Daughter of a Long Island construction manager, she had resisted her parents’ plea that she enroll in Oneonta or the teacher’s college in Buffalo and get a teaching degree—something safe. Like many Americans imbued with a post-war sense of possibility, she wanted to study government and public service and decided AU would be the best place, situated as it was in the Nation’s Capital, the new center of the world. She first laid eyes on Rémy in a course called A Changing Europe, a survey class that she joked later, could be summed up in a single sentence: Fascism, Socialism, and Communism are bad and can’t hold a candle to American democracy. She’d told her roommate she’d written exactly that on the final exam, “And Voila! Got the A!”

  At thirty, Rémy enrolled in AU to collect the final few credits of a degree he’d abandoned early in the war. When the professor coaxed him to tell stories of his experience in the Resistance, his humility, along with his seductive accent, caused most of the women in the class to fall deeply in love—some of the men, too—imagining his brave exploits that involved sabotage and helping downed Allied flyers escape to safety. Caroline, with her simple background and unclouded love of country, stood out from the string of aggressive coeds who worked hard to get his attention. After two years of dating, his degree in his pocket, he asked for her hand and she said yes, their decision to marry also securing the paperwork he needed to remain in the United States.

  When Rémy was hired into his position in the Arlington Planning Department, Caroline began work as a temp for the federal government, providing an extra set of hands at events when the State Department hosted foreign dignitaries. Soon after, the Auclairs bought their townhouse next door to the Bentleys. The youngest couples in the complex, they came to know each other at a homeowners meeting, watching the spectacle of angry, older residents appealing to the board to address what they believed were outrageous parking, trashcan, and mailbox violations that threatened the very post-war world order itself. Across the room at one meeting, Eleanor happened to catch Caroline’s eye as a resident articulated the deep, deep damage caused when the trash collectors come later in the day, as opposed to the early morning. He bolstered his argument with points and sub-points, photo evidence and notarized testimony he’d collected from other residents. Both Eleanor and Caroline were doing their utmost to suppress laughter that threatened to erupt loudly, convulsively and their eye contact only made it worse. Each scooted into the hall to relieve the pressure, Rémy having fled moments earlier. The women found him bent at the waist, tears streaming, at the speaker’s tragic tale.