Chapter 44

Dixon didn’t enjoy feeling like he was being put on show. But it was part of the deal between NASA and the CIA that he would be on call for both whenever they needed him. This could mean going to seminars or meetings outside his field or, like this evening, finding himself padding out a room at a party.

He’d been summoned to Washington at short notice for what had been billed as a reception for all the great minds working to win the space race. The timing felt off to Dixon. Gus Grissom was scheduled to make the next Mercury launch in two days’ time. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to wait and celebrate after his mission was successful than to tempt fate before it? He’d asked Murphy that exact question when he’d called him that morning and told him to get up to DC. Murphy’s response was that the event was the president’s idea, and that attendance wasn’t optional.

Dixon had spent yet another night banging his head against theoretical and real brick walls and was more than happy to take a break from the lab. But he resented that it involved a four-and-a-half-hour drive in bad traffic from Langley to Washington and, so far, an hour of awkward conversation with people he didn’t know. Scientists, as a tribe, weren’t good at small talk, and Dixon was no exception.

The reception was being held at the Phillips Collection on 21st Street, just north of Dupont Circle. Dixon had wondered briefly why if it had been the president’s idea it wasn’t taking place in the White House. Then he’d remembered that winning over the hearts of the nation had been a much easier job for Kennedy than ingratiating himself with Washington society, and he needed to make nice with the city’s well-to-do.

The Phillips family were philanthropists and art lovers, and over the years had converted their sprawling 21st Street mansion into the city’s finest private collection of modern art. The large rooms that Dixon moved through were hung with works by Renoir, Manet, and Pissarro. Taste and money seeped from the walls. The Phillips were exactly the kind of people Kennedy wanted to impress. Yet, so far there had been no sign of the man himself.

Ripples of excitement spread through the attendees whenever the mansion’s front door opened, only to dissipate when yet another bemused scientist or society scion made their entrance.