Welcome to the COREY PEARSON- CIA SPYMASTER SERIES!

      Whether you’re looking for a quick, thrilling short-story read or an immersive spy novel to sink into, Corey Pearson’s world has something for every adventure lover. Buckle up, explore the world of espionage, and join Corey Pearson on his next mission today!   

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COREY PEARSON- CIA SPYMASTER NOVEL SERIES: Enter the deadly world of Corey Pearson – CIA Spymaster, where deception is survival and the enemy hides in plain sight in these full-length novels. In Mission of Vengeance, Pearson hunts Russian agents behind a Caribbean massacre. In Shadow War, he uncovers a sleeper cell plot threatening millions on U.S. soil. From covert ops to nuclear threats, these gripping thrillers fuse real spycraft with breakneck action. The line between ally and traitor blurs—and only Pearson’s team can stop the chaos before it’s too late.

COREY PEARSON- CIA SPYMASTER SHORT STORY SERIES: These quick, 20-30 minute reads are perfect for spy thriller enthusiasts who crave high-stakes missions packed with real-world espionage and gripping spycraft. Read them in any order and get whisked away into Corey Pearson’s daring adventures, all in a single sitting!

Palantir shows how powerful intelligence software can protect America from hidden dangers

The CIA Uses Palantir for Advanced Data Analysis and Threat Detection

     Palantir isn’t your typical tech company. It doesn’t crank out gadgets, social media platforms, or flashy apps. Instead, it builds something far more powerful: software that can take a mountain of scattered information—phone records, financial transactions, airline manifests, social media posts, criminal databases, classified intel—and turn it into a clear picture of what’s really going on behind the scenes.

     For years, folks in U.S. intelligence have leaned on Palantir to connect dots way faster than any human ever could. And because it’s that powerful, people have called it everything from a national-security lifesaver to “America’s most dangerous corporation.”

     To see why, you have to look at what Palantir actually does. Imagine a tool that grabs data from dozens of sources that normally sit in separate silos—an FBI watchlist here, a DHS travel log there, a snippet of CIA human intel on a classified server, and thousands of scattered banking entries. Palantir pulls them all together.

     Using it is like dumping ten different puzzle boxes onto a table and somehow ending up with one big, clear picture. It doesn’t make decisions for analysts, but it gives them something they never had before—true visibility. Suddenly the networks, hidden links, odd timing patterns, and buried red flags come into focus instead of staying lost across systems that never talk to each other.

     That’s why intel agencies swear by it. If a suspect books a flight under a slightly tweaked name, pays through a shell company tied to a hostile cyber actor, and then shows up in the corner of a foreign surveillance video, Palantir is what pulls those clues together. Not instantly or magically, but fast enough to matter.

     A real example: After the Paris terror attacks in 2015, analysts used Palantir to sift through travel records, phone metadata, and financial transactions to map out the network behind the attackers. It showed who was linked to whom and how they moved across Europe, giving counterterror teams a head start they wouldn’t have had on their own.

     And that’s the point. In counterintelligence, time isn’t just important—it’s everything. Palantir doesn’t hand you the answers, but it gets you close enough, fast enough, to stop something before it happens.

     Of course, power like this brings worries. Civil-liberties groups fear that if Palantir can connect data this well, it could be turned on regular people, creating a level of visibility that feels too Big Brother for comfort. And they’re not wrong to watch it. When a private company holds that much data and works with everyone from the CIA to local police, transparency matters. The issue is, Palantir isn’t exactly known for being open about how it all works.

     But things get even more interesting when you compare Palantir’s real-world abilities to the fictional tech in the Corey Pearson—CIA Spymaster Series. In the novels, Corey and his team move through Washington, D.C. and foreign hotspots while posing as everyday civilians—a wildlife photographer, a travel agent, a cybersecurity contractor, a wedding-photographer couple, and a wandering tech geek who looks harmless until he powers up his battlefield tablet.

     They go after enemies hiding inside America’s institutions—people who rely on chaos created by scattered data. To hunt them, Corey’s team uses tools that feel a lot like Palantir: fast, powerful systems that can knit together intel from multiple agencies.

     But unlike in the real world, where Palantir gets side-eyed, the fictional version is used exactly as intended: as a shield, not a weapon. Corey isn’t mapping the private lives of ordinary Americans; he’s hunting threats planning to harm them. When a sleeper agent moves money through an unregistered crypto wallet or a burner phone pings near a secure site, Corey’s system flags it. The goal isn’t omniscience—it’s early warning.

     This is where fiction and reality meet. In real intel work, you rarely get a perfect tip. You get scraps—half a name, a maybe-wrong date, an unverified source, a money trail that stops too soon. Palantir turns those scraps into something humans can actually use.

     Corey’s team works the same way. They’re not snooping on random people—they’re chasing the faint patterns terrorists hope no one notices. That’s where the real threats live.

     And that’s the tightrope with Palantir. A tool this powerful can either protect a democracy or undermine it, depending on how it’s used. Corey and his team use it the right way—they scrub innocent names, shut down gray-area searches, and stay locked on real national-security dangers. In the real world, keeping that discipline depends on oversight, policy, and who’s in the driver’s seat.

     So is Palantir the most dangerous company in America? It depends on your angle. It’s definitely one of the most powerful. But like any tool, everything hinges on who’s holding it. In the hands of dedicated intel pros—real or fictional—it becomes what it was meant to be: a shield against those hiding in the shadows.

     The real question isn’t whether Palantir is dangerous. It’s whether our institutions are strong enough to use it the way Corey would—carefully, intelligently, and with protecting Americans front and center.

     Hopefully, Palantir will spy for Americans, not on them.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His thrillers reveal the shadowy world of covert missions and betrayal with striking realism.

Russian Disinformation Still Targets America and What It Means for 2025

 

Disinformation From Russian Trolls Hijacks American Politics and Public Opinions

Russian disinformation used to feel like a Cold War relic, but it never went away. It just got slicker, louder, and far better funded. And remember when the DOJ was digging into Rudy Giuliani’s Russia-linked dealings and the FBI had to warn members of Congress and certain media outlets that they were being manipulated by Kremlin operators? That moment wasn’t an outlier. It was a snapshot of how deeply Moscow understands the American mind and how boldly it tries to bend it.

     What makes this whole thing surreal is that the warnings are not subtle. U.S. intelligence agencies have had to tell powerful people inside our own government that they are being manipulated by Russian information ops. It is like watching someone walk into an obvious scam, and you cannot stop them.

     I started tracking all of this years ago while researching my Corey Pearson – CIA Spymaster Series. The series grew out of one question: what if we looked at Russian disinformation not as background noise but as the central threat it really is? The more I dug, the more disturbing it got.

     Take the notorious troll farm in St. Petersburg that never sleeps. It has turned disinformation into a full-scale industry. Between early 2016 and mid-2018, the Internet Research Agency burned through over $35 million crafting fake personas, fake arguments, and fake news designed to push Americans into real anger. During one six-month stretch in 2018, the operation spent almost as much as it had the previous year. That kind of budget is not for casual mischief. It is for influence.

     And the reach keeps growing. A decade ago it was basic memes and clumsy sock-puppet accounts. Today it is high-end deepfake videos, AI-generated audio, and content factories that can crank out fake news faster than most real newsrooms. We now live in a world where a convincing video of someone saying something they never said can be made in minutes. Russia knows exactly how powerful that is, which is why U.S. Cyber Command is actively identifying individual operatives and letting them know they are being watched.

     This all ties directly into a real-world example from one of my spy thrillers, Mission of Vengeance, where a former KGB officer defects and tells Corey Pearson about a Russian troll operation hiding behind a DVD bootlegging business in the Dominican Republic. That storyline was fiction, but only barely.

     In the novel, Bocharov pushes his phone across the table and reveals what he knows:

     “Putin has rejuvenated the KGB mindset. The old ‘Active Measures’ strategy is back. They are flooding the Caribbean with disinformation about U.S. exploitation. Spetsnaz teams are in place. And the same bloggers and hackers who interfered in your 2016 election are working out of my estate in the Dominican Republic.”

     That scene was pulled straight out of real Russian playbooks. The old Soviet KGB planted the idea that the CIA killed Martin Luther King Jr. In the eighties, they spread the rumor that AIDS was a U.S. bioweapon created at Fort Detrick. Today, instead of whisper campaigns and forged letters, they use Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, and thousands of coordinated bots.

     Bocharov’s estimate in the novel that “roughly 146 million Americans and Caribbean citizens” are exposed to Kremlin-backed lies may sound dramatic, but it is not far from reality. Facebook admitted that as many as 126 million American users saw Russian-generated content by 2017. Twitter found tens of thousands of Russian bots pushing political tweets during the 2016 election cycle. And that was before AI supercharged the strategy.

     Why does it matter? Russian disinformation is not just an election problem. It is a mindset problem. It is designed to make Americans doubt everything, including each other. That confusion is the real win for Moscow. When trust collapses, steering public opinion becomes easy.

     You can see the impact most clearly outside of politics. Public health is a prime example. Years before COVID hit, Russian troll farms were already pumping out contradictory vaccine content aimed at Americans. Some posts pushed extreme pro-vaccine arguments, others pushed anti-vaccine conspiracies, and many played both sides at once. The goal wasn’t to promote a position. It was to trigger outrage, make people fight, and weaken public trust in science and medical institutions.

     Researchers at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins discovered that Russian-controlled accounts from the Internet Research Agency quietly ran thousands of these contradictory vaccine posts from 2014 to 2017. They weren’t trying to sway anyone toward a single belief. They were trying to make vaccines themselves feel suspicious and divisive. By the time COVID arrived, a lot of that groundwork had already taken hold. Americans weren’t just disagreeing. They no longer trusted information sources that had once been reliable.

     That is the power of Russian disinformation. It isn’t about pushing one lie. It is about eroding the shared reality that keeps a society grounded. Once people start doubting institutions, experts, and even basic facts, they become easier to manipulate, easier to provoke, and easier to fracture. That is the true battlefield, and it goes far beyond elections.

     That is exactly why Corey Pearson keeps running into these operations in the  Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series. The threat is not a relic. It is a pressure point that keeps shaping American politics and public opinion, and it is only getting more advanced.Top of Form

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His thrillers reveal the shadowy world of covert missions and betrayal with striking realism.

Where the CIA Really Stores Its Top-Secret Files: A Look Into America’s Most Mysterious Vaults

 

Inside the CIA's Hidden Archives: The Shadowy World Behind the Vault

      People love to picture CIA secrets locked in some underground room with a giant vault door and a blinking red light. Turns out, that is not too far off. The Agency stays quiet about how it protects the heavy stuff, which only adds to the mystery. What we do know is enough to make you picture a place where curiosity goes to die and questions are treated like contraband.

     The obvious starting point is CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Everyone knows the famous seal in the lobby. What most people never see are the areas behind it, sitting behind layers of ID checks, guards, cameras, and long hallways meant to make outsiders lose their sense of direction. Deep inside that maze sit the Agency’s main storage areas for classified files. Not the casual stuff, but the kind of material that makes even seasoned officers lower their voices.

     If you have ever seen the movie RED, you probably remember Ernest Borgnine as the older gentleman who runs the CIA archives like a watchful gatekeeper. He knows every secret tucked into every drawer and carries it all with a calm smile. The CIA would never confirm anything like that, but the idea sticks because it captures the vibe of those hidden rooms, the sense that someone deep inside knows more than they will ever say.

     The real CIA archives hold everything from boxed paper files to locked safes to tightly controlled server rooms. Think windowless spaces, cold lighting, and the feeling that every wall is listening. Only a fraction of CIA personnel ever walk into these zones, and even they only see small slices of what is stored there.

     The vault is not limited to Langley. The CIA relies on a web of secure sites called SCIFs, short for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities. A SCIF is an information bunker. No phones. No outside signals. Thick walls. Even the wiring has rules. If a SCIF could talk, it would probably sound irritated from years of keeping secrets inside and trouble outside.

     Inside these spaces, classified information lives two parallel lives. One is analog. Paper files sit inside safes with combo locks, alarms, access logs, and stacked layers of clearance. The second is digital. The servers that hold top secret material never touch the public internet. They run on sealed networks with encryption, multi-step authentication, and constant monitoring. Even inside the CIA, someone with Top Secret clearance might still be barred from half the material in the same building.

     A lot of the protection is cultural. People train to guard information as tightly as the hardware does. You do not talk in the wrong place. You do not ask for details you do not need. The mindset becomes part of the lock.

     Now, if you have read the spy thriller Shadow War, you already got a taste of how intense this world can feel. There is a moment when Corey Pearson, the CIA spymaster at the center of the story, asks General Morrison for permission to dig into the Agency’s archives. He wants to uncover what really happened to Duane VanHouten, the older mentor who guided him early in his career and was later murdered by Russian intelligence in Kuwait. Those memories keep clawing at him.

     Even in fiction, access is treated like stepping into a place that can change a person. Morrison warns him that the Archives hold truths powerful people want buried. The real CIA treats its archives with that same weight, even if the details stay hidden.

     And that is the point. No one outside the inner circle knows the full picture of where the most sensitive files sit or how deep the rabbit hole goes. Maybe a handful of people have walked through the most restricted rooms. Maybe the most dangerous material is spread out so no single breach could topple it all. The secrecy is intentional. It protects the work, the people, and sometimes the country.

     Wherever the CIA hides its most guarded files, those places are built to keep the truth quiet, the curious at bay, and the shadows right where the Agency wants them.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His thrillers reveal the shadowy world of covert missions and betrayal with striking realism.

SpyWatch: How Russia Targets America’s Stealth Aircraft Technology

 

America's Next-Gen Aircraft Are Prime Targets for Russian Intelligence

     When I look at how America’s high-tech aircraft have evolved, it feels like I’m watching the future trying to break its way into the present. Take the X-44 MANTA. It never got past the concept stage, but it showed just how far our engineers were willing to push stealth. No tail, no extra drag, just a sharp, clean triangle built to cut through the sky while staying off the radar’s map.

     It was the kind of idea that arrives too early for its own good, then gets buried, then resurfaces decades later when people realize it wasn’t crazy at all. Now the Air Force is chasing the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, and you can practically see the MANTA’s ghost floating around in those early renderings. It’s funny how ideas don’t really die. They just wait for technology to catch up.

     And that’s exactly why foreign intel services latch onto these programs. When something like the MANTA shows up, even just as a concept, it hints at where American aerospace is headed. That kind of progress means power, and power always draws thieves. Russia’s been playing this game since the Cold War, and their playbook hasn’t changed much. They send in businessmen, engineers, folks on short-term visas, so-called consultants, and every kind of go-between you can think of to grab our aviation tech before it ever leaves the ground.

     A few years back, a Russian official named Alexander Korshunov got grabbed by authorities for trying to snag jet engine composite tech from an American company. He wasn’t hacking from some basement either. He was working through insiders and industry contacts, trying to quietly walk off with years of U.S. research.

     The whole thing showed how these operations actually look in real life: slow, patient, and hidden behind handshakes and business deals. That case was a good reminder that the hunt for our secrets never really stops. It just shifts targets depending on what’s new and valuable.

     I think about that when I work on my own writing, especially The Hunt For A Russian Spy. In that story, Corey Pearson goes undercover in one of Boeing’s most secretive facilities to catch a mole before they walk out with the plans for a hypersonic spy plane. And even though it’s fiction, I wrote it with real world cases in mind. Corey pretends to be a janitor, sets up hidden surveillance, lays digital traps, all while blending into the background like another tired face punching a time clock.

     The scary part is that real moles use the same camouflage. They hide in the ordinary. They rely on the assumption that people stop paying attention after a while. That’s how leaks happen. That’s how technology slips away.

     Watching a video about MANTA pulled my mind right back to Corey’s mission. Whether it’s a spy plane in a story or some wild stealth concept from the 90s, our edge has always come from pushing past the comfortable stuff. If we let those ideas slip away or let someone else twist them into their own weapons, we lose the air advantage we’ve spent generations building.

     The implications for national security are simple and blunt. We cannot afford to let our most advanced aviation concepts leak into the hands of foreign intelligence. The value isn’t just in the hardware. It’s in the years of research, the failures, the breakthroughs, the quiet trial-and-error that no adversary should ever get for free. Protecting that isn’t paranoia. It’s survival.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He writes the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Short Story Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. Each short story can be read in one sitting, for those on the go! His thrillers reveal the shadowy world of covert missions and betrayal with striking realism.

Inside the Controversy: Why Trump Backed MBS Despite U.S. Intelligence Findings

Trumps Defense of MBS: What It Reveals About U.S. Intelligence and Power Politics

I read about President Trump’s meeting with the Saudi crown prince, and what stood out to me was the sharp gap between what Donald Trump said in public and what U.S. intelligence had already concluded about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. In the Oval Office, he backed Mohammed bin Salman and said the crown prince knew nothing about the killing. But the intelligence assessment made it clear that MBS approved an operation to capture or kill Khashoggi, based on his tight command over Saudi security services and the involvement of his trusted protective unit.

     To me, the logic behind that assessment is straightforward. MBS runs the security state with a firm grip, signs off on major actions, and keeps close control of the people who would have been involved. It is hard to imagine such a sensitive and risky mission happening without his say-so. That view isn’t fringe either. It has been broadly accepted by regional experts and policy analysts, even though Saudi Arabia disputes it.

     What strikes me most is not just the disagreement between Trump and the intelligence community, but the way the moment played out. The president publicly sided with the crown prince while leaving the intelligence findings unacknowledged, which sent a signal far beyond that room. It suggested that political alignment or personal rapport could outweigh formal assessments and the gravity of a journalist’s killing.

     It reminded me a bit of my spy thriller novel Mission of Vengeance, where CIA spymaster Corey Pearson is guided by a president who refuses to back U.S. intelligence policies that prop up dictators and tyrannical regimes, which makes the contrast in real life all the more striking.

     When I think about this from a national security angle, the implications feel pretty direct. If the United States signals that certain partners can cross major lines without consequence, it weakens the country’s credibility when trying to deter similar behavior from rivals. It also muddies the values it claims to defend. Allies start to wonder what the standards really are, and adversaries take note when power seems to carry impunity.

     For America, strong security doesn’t come only from military strength or strategic ties. It also comes from the consistency of its principles and the reliability of its word. When the United States speaks clearly, acts consistently, and backs its intelligence, it can rally allies and set boundaries that others respect. When those signals get mixed, the country loses leverage. In a world already tilting toward more aggressive state behavior, that loss has a way of coming back to bite.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the full-length Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His thrillers reveal the shadowy world of covert missions and betrayal with striking realism.

SpyWatch: CIA Drops Top Spy Leader Pick: Politics and U.S. National Security Concerns

 

Ralph Goff was a seasoned spymaster and dropping him raises national security questions

The decision by the CIA to drop a seasoned agency veteran, Ralph Goff, from consideration for the top clandestine operations post sends a clear signal—there’s more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. After 35 years of service, six station chief tours and a stint as chief of operations for entire swaths of Europe and Eurasia, Goff seemed practically built for the job. Yet, despite having a confirmed start date, the appointment was abruptly reversed with no public explanation.

     What makes the reversal really interesting is the speculation around Goff’s outspoken support for Ukraine. In the era where foreign policy is increasingly entwined with intelligence-community leadership, his advocacy appears to have been a factor. After retirement he didn’t fade into the background—he traveled to Ukraine, met with officials, supported humanitarian efforts—and that kind of public posture in an intelligence veteran is both rare and risky. It raises the question: when operational experience meets outspoken foreign-policy views, does that make someone indispensable—or too politically exposed for the job?

     The optics are stark. An agency that deals in secrets moves openly to sideline someone who has been at the cutting edge of human intelligence, presumably because of external pressures or internal politics. It suggests that the selection for senior intelligence roles isn’t just about operational acumen—it’s increasingly about alignment with broader strategic narratives and political comfort. For those in the trenches of clandestine operations, that’s a chilling message: even the most decorated case-officer isn’t immune from being sidelined if his views, even after agency retirement, fall outside acceptable bounds.

     From a national-security standpoint the implications are serious. Intelligence work isn’t just about what you know—it’s who you trust, how you deploy that knowledge, and whether you have the freedom to act without political interference. If capable leaders like Goff are being passed over because their post-service public statements or affiliations don’t fit the current strategic tone, the agency risks losing not just talent but authenticity. Opponents—state and non-state—thrive when U.S. intelligence looks uncertain or compromised.

     In plain terms: when the people running clandestine operations are themselves under the microscope for their views, the risk grows that the real work gets second-guessed, delayed or altered. That feeds directly into adversary hands. A weaker or more politicized intelligence community is less credible, less nimble, and less fearsome. And in a world where adversaries are actively probing, infiltrating and influencing, we can’t afford either.

 

Robert Morton is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and writes about the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). He also writes the full-length Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, which blends his knowledge of real-life intelligence operations with gripping fictional storytelling. His thrillers reveal the shadowy world of covert missions and betrayal with striking realism.