CSCO: The Clandestine Service Case Officer Series
D. A. Pendleton
What’s it really like to be inside the mind of a CIA Case Officer? The answer begins in “CSCO: First Station”, the first in a series of global espionage adventures. Ben Daniels is a freshly-minted Clandestine Service Case Officer on his first tour of duty—to Prague—in a new, top secret cover program: he’s a lowly Army sergeant without even a college degree… which may be a supremely unassuming cover, but it does not endear him to his Chief of Station who considers Ben’s acceptance into the elite as a grave insult. Heresy! What began as a dream come true for a buck sergeant in Army intelligence rapidly deteriorates into a nightmare of debasement and despair; he can do nothing right in the eyes of the COS. The genesis of today’s Cold War traces its roots back to the period shortly after we defeated the Soviets in the original Cold War. If anything, the world has become more chaotic, unstable, and dangerous… with the Russian Bear scrambling to sink its fangs into any geopolitical weakness around the globe. And when it’s not the Russians, regional troublemakers and asymmetries threaten to wreak havoc, threatening liberty and stability, even our very homeland… terrorism, weapons proliferation, assassinations, rogue states, political meddling, nuclear blackmail, evil alliances. Enough to keep any Case Officer’s adrenaline working overtime. Over the course of three decades, the CSCO world of Ben Daniels’ career provides a deep exploration into human intelligence—HUMINT—operations, and the invisible actions behind all the watered-down headlines presented to the public… top secret tradecraft, training and technology; operational areas from the exotic to septic; unsung successes by anonymous case officers working behind the scenes of real historical events; personal and political dynamics across the Intelligence Community; and the appalling terrors that lurk for Ben in the dark warrens of the world of espionage. The first three novels of the series chronicle Ben Daniels’ first tour of duty over the course of three years, as he stumbles and fumbles his way into knife-edged clandestine operations that no new CO would ever be allowed to chase deliberately. As the Russian intelligence services become incensed to re-stoke their arch-rivalry with the CIA, a rising young officer in the KGB sets his sights on Daniels as his own personal arch-nemesis, all while a strategic plot unfolds over the course of decades. How can Ben ever redeem himself in the eyes of the COS? . . . Mondays are not friendly to our fledgling Case Officer. . . |
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