The railhead at Kysyl Khoto

A brilliant rocket‑fuel engineer finds his routine at White Sands shattered by a terse, coded telegram about a “railhead at Kysyl Khoto.” The message lands him in a cramped Washington waiting room, where the striking Dr. Frances von Munger—part scientist, part saleswoman—offers him a position in the Commerce Department’s secret Special Bureau of Economic Analysis. She promises that his technical mind could become a decisive weapon in the quiet war of numbers.

The bureau’s mission is to trace the flow of Soviet wealth as meticulously as blood circulates through a body, blending publicly available journals with shadowy informants. Huguenard, the engineer, is drawn between the comfort of his air‑conditioned lab and the unsettling allure of shaping geopolitical outcomes through data. As the bureaucrats lay out their grand vision—winning wars before they start—the protagonist must decide whether to remain a detached specialist or step into a world where economics becomes espionage.