When the Queen's life is threatened, it takes a remarkable CIA agent to save her Blackford Oakes has never been afraid of obeying orders. During the war, it's what kept him alive. When he leaves the air force for Yale, Oakes is studious, temperate, and polite. He knows how to follow rules-but he also knows the secret to breaking them: Never tell a little lie when a big lie will do. He's exactly the man the CIA is looking for. Just before Oakes graduates,...

Blackford Oakes dodges KGB spies and Hungarian freedom fighters while trying to stop Sputnik The students of Budapest rise up against the Soviets with the assurance that the West will help them fight. Instead, 200 Russian tanks roll across the Hungarian border, sweeping the resistance aside. It's a heartbreaking setback for democracy in Eastern Europe-and a pain in the neck for Blackford Oakes. Trapped in Budapest when the fighting breaks out, this...

Blackford Oakes hunts for a mole inside MI6 after a catastrophe in Albania Albania may be a small nation, but it's about to become the front line of the Cold War. In hopes of toppling the brutal Communist regime that controls the country, the British intelligence service has handpicked an elite group of Albanian freedom fighters to be molded into commandos by Blackford Oakes, the CIA's all-purpose warrior. With the help of MI6's most ruthless clandestine...

Blackford Oakes takes to the jungle to bolster the American presence in Vietnam It starts with a naked president. Blackford Oakes, the most elegant spy in the CIA, meets Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House swimming pool, and has no choice but to accept the president's invitation to skinny-dip. Even naked, Johnson is all business, lambasting Oakes and the CIA for allowing the continued infiltration of guerillas into South Vietnam. Johnson demands...