Irina Valera. The woman who had almost killed him twelve months ago was standing at the back of the room, staring up at something Knox couldn’t see. She looked calm. Her face was unreadable—if she felt anything about what was happening in front of her, she wasn’t showing it. A phantom pang of pain shot through his chest.

Knox also recognised the man standing next to Valera. It was Dixon, the head of the Corona project and one of the two men who had persuaded. Valera to get on a plane to America a year ago. He thought about Bennett, and if she was watching the broadcast somewhere, maybe crammed into a room as full as Holland’s office with her fellow trainee CIA field agents.

The camera only lingered on Valera and Dixon for a few seconds before it cut away again, this time to the White House and an empty dais bearing the presidential seal and flanked by American flags. The big moment had finally come. Kennedy walked into shot and Holland’s office fell silent again.

He took to the stage and immediately began his address, his speech punctuated with his trademark ‘err’s’ and pauses.

‘I understand that part of today’s press conference is being relayed by the Telstar communications satellite to viewers across the Atlantic,’ he said. ‘And this is another indication of the extraordinary world in which we live.’ Mocked-up footage of the satellite spinning in space then came on the screen. ‘The satellite must be high enough to carry messages from both sides of the world, which is of course a very essential requirement for peace,’ he continued, as the camera switched back to him. ‘And I think this understanding which will inevitably come from these speedier communications is bound to increase the well-being and security of all people, here and those across the oceans.’

It was a casual, relaxed performance but the words had been very carefully chosen, and Kennedy’s message was clear.

He went on to talk about the price of the American dollar, which had been a rumbling news story across Europe for the last few weeks. However, Knox didn’t hear any of that. He was too busy thinking about the president’s opening remarks and the presence of Irina Valera at the heart of the Telstar project.

Telstar had been pitched as the newest triumph of innovation driven by America’s dual belief in itself and limitless budgets. But as far as Knox was concerned, that’s not what Telstar was at all. It was a public relations exercise, a dazzling piece of propaganda beamed directly into millions of households up and down Britain, and even more across Europe and America. He wondered what Khrushchev would have said if he was the one behind the podium, being broadcast to the world.