ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a lot to the people who shaped this book:

My editor, Julia Cheiffetz at Dey Street. Julia’s passion for Elizebeth’s story was always there, even when I didn’t exactly know how to tell it, and our conversations enriched the book immeasurably. I’m grateful for her sharp eye, her instincts, and her belief. Thanks also to Sean Newcott, Lynn Grady, and the rest of the team at Dey Street: Tom Pitoniak, Kendra Newton, Heidi Richter, Dale Rohrbaugh, Paula Szafranski, and Owen Corrigan.

My agent, Larry Weissman. I am so glad to have the benefit of Larry’s counsel and his sensibility for narrative nonfiction. I feel the same about his unflappable partner, Sascha Alper. I can’t imagine writing books without their guidance and friendship.

Librarians and archivists: This book would not exist without the archivists who preserved, indexed, and annotated the Friedmans’ files with such care. Paul Barron and Jeffrey Kozak at the George C. Marshall Foundation are wonderful humans, and their library is just one of the great American places. I was amazed by Rose Mary Sheldon, the Virginia Military Institute classics professor who spent years assembling her epic “The Friedman Collection: An Analytical Guide.” She did it as a labor of love—didn’t earn a cent—and was generous with her time and wisdom. The NSA historian Betsy Rohaly Smoot and NSA librarian Rene Stein shared expertise and files with me. Hannah Walters at the Fabyan Villa Museum showed me around what remains of George Fabyan’s Riverbank and answered numerous questions about Riverbank in its prime. Thanks also to Thomas Larson at the New York Public Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division; Jessica Strube at the Geneva History Museum; JoEllen Dickie at the Newberry Library; and the staff of the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

Kari Walgran has been a friend and sounding board for years. Some of my favorite parts of the book grew from her questions and comments on drafts. Malcolm Burnley and Kirsten Hancock were capable research assistants who found and flagged important files. Phil Tomaselli turned up materials about the Nazi spy hunts in the UK National Archives in Kew. Eduardo Geraque in São Paulo sent documents from police archives there. Linda D. Ostman is a hero for discovering the transcript of the 1933 Consolidated Exporters case in a Texas court repository. I also appreciate research performed by Beth Robertson and Lisette Lacroix in Canada.

Thank you to the American women who spoke to me about their cryptologic experiences in World War II: Judy Parsons, Martha Waller, Pat Leopold, and Helen Nibouar.

I appreciate the historians, cryptologic obsessives, and technology enthusiasts who shared their time and wisdom. Philip Marks, the British expert in machine ciphers, was extremely patient in explaining Enigma systems and reviewing technical passages. Craig Bauer’s engaging books about cryptology helped me navigate the subject, and conversations with Craig were always clarifying. The historian Richard McGaha helped me chart a path through the crazy waters of espionage and counterespionage in Argentina. The renegade Canadian author John Bryden pointed me toward the coast guard’s clandestine decrypts in the National Archives. Jason Vanderhill in Vancouver knows everything there is to know about Canadian rum syndicates. James Somers is the kind of friend you want to have if you’re writing about technology, a terrific writer who is also a programmer. I enjoyed meeting and talking with Barbara Osteika at ATF, a relentless researcher, and William Sherman, the Renaissance scholar who told me about the Riverbank cipher collection at the New York Public Library. Any cryptologic or historical errors in the text are mine.

Thank you to friends who provided advice, encouragement, leads, etc.: Carrie Frye, Sasha Issenberg, Eileen Clancy, Christi Bender, John Whittier-Ferguson, Nathalia Holt, Elonka Dunin, Josh Dean, Jason Leopold, Roy Kesey, Ann Daciuk, Sheila Liming, Puneet Batra, Chris McDougall, Stephen Rodrick, Steve Volk, Samantha Newell, Rob Morlino, Neel Master, Elon Green, and my excellent magazine colleagues—Greg Veis and Rachel Morris at the Huffington Post Highline, and Kristen Hinman and Michael Schaeffer at Washingtonian.

I’m indebted to the University of Michigan and the Knight-Wallace Fellowship program for inviting me and my family to Ann Arbor in 2014 and 2015. In a lot of ways, this book is a direct result of the rare alchemy of that program. Thank you so, so much to Charles and Julia Eisendrath for one of the best years of my life, Birgit Rieck and the fellow fellows, John DeCicco, and Carl Simon and the Center for the Study of Complex Systems. And I will always be grateful to Matthew Power for encouraging me to apply in the first place.

Thank you to Duchess Goldblatt for allowing me to borrow one of her lovely sentences.

Finally, thank you to my family: Frank, Sharyn, and Lauren Fagone; Gloria Jewell; Lynn and Rich Bauer; and the Howell clan. Most of all, thank you to the bright, adventurous women in my life, Dana Bauer, and our daughter, Mia Fagone. Dana and Mia inspired the book and kept telling me they wanted to read it. To the two of you:

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