A book by Brendan DuBois that faces a What if the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into nuclear warfare after the US invaded Cuba in response to a U-2 spyplane being shot down why flying reconnaissance missions. When all is over, the Soviet Union has ceased to exist (being blown off the planet), but the United States has lost Washington, DC; New York; San Diego, and most of their civil liberties.

A reporter for a Boston newspaper investigates the muder of an old vet, but the crime turns out to have much larger implications when he finds that the victim had been a military liaison stationed at the White House in those last fateful days.

Point of divergence from our timeline: 1942