Cold War, Hot Passions Omnibus One

COLD WAR, HOT PASSIONS 
OMNIBUS ONE 
by André Jute 

the epic saga of ten intertwined Russian and American families who live and die by their love of liberty and the searing passions their fight for freedom arouses in war and peace. 

“Wild but exciting. A grand job with plenty of irony.” 
New York Times 

“Jute has clearly conducted a great deal of research into everything he describes, investing the novel with an air of prophecy. His moral concerns are important.” 
Times Literary Supplement 

THE GREATEST CONSPIRACY THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN STARTED WITH THE STORMING OF THE WINTER PALACE

In the beginning they were impassioned young revolutionaries risking only their own lives for justice. The prince, the soldier, and the peasant became the patriarchs of three families whose generations are enfolded in the sweep of humans and inhumans, inquisitors and victims, that tells the story of the KGB — which is the story of Russia in the Twentieth Century — from the day Lenin created it as the Cheka in the Smolny Convent: the Extraordinary Commission from the beginning and from the inside, motivated by its own imperatives of fear and fanaticism, through the murders of whole classes, the massacres of kulaks, the betrayals of friends and family, the show trials of colleagues, the psychiatric tortures of dissidents, right up to glasnost, when the fourth generation must answer the question, Was the result worth three generations of suffering and sacrifice? 

While on the other side of the world a slumbering giant awoke slowly to a threat, not of a Russian bear stirring, but of German tanks rumbling… 

THE GREATEST SECRET INTELLIGENCE AGENCY THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN BEGAN AS ONE MAN’S DREAM

There was David, the Boston patriarch, comrade of “Wild Bill” Donovan and father of the intelligence mandarin Joshua. And Joshua’s friends. The roistering, confessing Richard, the last soldier-priest. Joe-Bob from the Louisiana swamps, who saw the power of politics, an artist with a knife. Hillel, the penniless Jewish refugee from Germany, equally handy with a pistol or a computer. Harvey McQueen, the permanent outsider, the greatest spy of all time, who exposed Kim Philby and dug the Berlin Tunnel into the heart of Russia’s darkest secrets. 

And their women. Virginia, the senator’s daughter. Nicole the Resistance fighter. Giselda the German spy. Jen whom the pressure turned into a lush. Belinda the brain. Fiona the faithful. 

And there was Hubbell, who saw the final truth. He knew it was greater than power could ever be—and gladly risked the world for it. 
***
There were two cars. One took away their jumpsuits and parachutes. They climbed into the other car. David sat beside the driver, a woman. He leaned over the back of his seat. ‘The Contessa de Grubelli drove racing cars before the war but I hope her skill will not be called upon tonight. I asked General Donovan to send me his very best men.’ 

‘To do what?’ Hillel asked. 

‘To take over a country.’ 

‘It had better be a small country, sir,’ Richard said. ‘There are only three of us.’ 

‘It is only a small country.’ 

‘Then between us and the sea we got them surrounded,’ the irrepressible Joe-Bob laughed.