Back Channel
Authors: Stephen L. Carter
Fiction
The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln
Jericho’s Fall
Palace Council
New England White
The Emperor of Ocean Park
Nonfiction
The Violence of Peace:
America’s Wars in the Age of Obama
God’s Name in Vain:
The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics
The Dissent of the Governed:
A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty
Civility: Manners, Morals, and the
Etiquette of Democracy
Integrity
The Confirmation Mess:
Cleaning Up the Federal Appointments Process
The Culture of Disbelief:
How American Law and Politics
Trivialize Religious Devotion
Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2014 by Stephen L. Carter
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House company, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carter, Stephen L., [date]
Back channel : a novel / Stephen L. Carter.—First edition.
pages cm
“This is a Borzoi book.”
ISBN
978-0-385-34960-4 (hardback)
eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-34961-1
1. Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962—Fiction. 2. African American women—Fiction. 3. Suspense fiction. 4. Spy stories. I. Title.
PS
3603.
A
78B33 2014 813′.6—dc23 2014019240
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jacket design by Oliver Munday
v3.1
For Lynn Nesbit
with gratitude, admiration, and affection
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
—Attributed, incorrectly, to Leon Trotsky