The year is 1975. The Cold War hangs over the world like a storm that never breaks, but always threatens to. In America, people go about their days with a quiet undercurrent of dread. The newspapers talk of détente and diplomacy, but in diners and living rooms, in the spaces between words, there is a shared understanding that the next crisis—the next misstep—could be the one that finally pushes the world into the abyss. Some people live as though they are counting down their last days, convinced that the great flash of nuclear fire is not a matter of if, but when.