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! 

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. Then, In Payback, a ruthless assassin is on the loose, murdering young CIA operatives- rising stars handpicked for a secret CIA Mentorship Program.

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- devour each one in a single sitting!

China Satellite Hacking Threat: How Beijing’s Space Warfare Strategy Could Cripple U.S. National Security

 

China Satellite Hacking Threat: Space Warfare, Cyber Attack, Military Satellites, National Security Crisis

The article from DW, “China building ability to hijack enemy satellites: report,” genuinely upsets me. Not because it sounds dramatic, but because of what it implies for national security and the very real possibility of putting Americans in harm’s way. According to the report, classified US intelligence shows Beijing is developing tools that could seize control of our satellites during wartime.

     That’s not science fiction. That’s not a theoretical risk. That’s a direct threat to the systems our military, intelligence agencies, and even civilian infrastructure depend on every day.

     The article, which cites reporting from the Financial Times, explains that China’s focus isn’t just on blowing satellites out of orbit. It’s more subtle and potentially more dangerous than that. The goal appears to be control. Instead of destroying a satellite and creating debris that affects everyone, the strategy is to hijack it. Take over its communications. Redirect its signals. Turn it against its owner.

     That changes the game entirely.

     Modern warfare runs on satellites. GPS navigation, missile guidance, battlefield communications, reconnaissance imagery, encrypted command signals, it all flows through space. If you can seize an enemy’s satellites, you don’t just blind them. You confuse them. You feed them bad data. You scramble their coordination. And you do it without firing a shot.

     The report also notes that both China and Russia have been making advances in satellite jamming and other counter-space capabilities. We’ve known about jamming for years. That’s disruptive, but it’s noisy and temporary. Hijacking is different. Hijacking is quiet. It’s precise. It’s deniable.

That’s what makes this so unsettling.

     Think about what that means in a crisis. A US naval fleet relies on satellite data for navigation and targeting. An aircraft carrier group depends on secure communications to coordinate aircraft, ships, and submarines. Intelligence analysts rely on satellite imagery to assess threats. If those systems are quietly taken over, commanders might be operating on manipulated information. Orders might not reach their destination. Weapons systems could be misdirected.

     And the scariest part? It might not be obvious it’s happening.

     This is exactly the kind of scenario I explored in my spy thriller novel Ghost Signal. In that story, the Falcon X, the newest drone in the US Navy’s arsenal, had its controls taken over by a mysterious signal and was sent crashing into the Caribbean Sea. The Falcon X wasn’t some outdated relic. It carried fully encrypted control systems, AI-assisted flight, and sensors so advanced it could see threats before they existed. Shooting it down was impossible. Hacking it was unthinkable. But it happened. A signal reached in, commandeered it, and sent it plunging into the ocean.

     The Pentagon called it a technical anomaly. Naval Intelligence has no answers. Inside the CIA, though, one conclusion is unavoidable: someone didn’t destroy the drone. They took control of it.

     CIA spymaster Corey Pearson and his team follow the trail to Nassau, Bahamas, uncovering a Russian intelligence operation that’s only the beginning. The drone wasn’t the target. It was the test. Beneath layers of encrypted code lies a blueprint for seizing America’s surveillance satellites, blinding US intelligence and crippling national defense without firing a single missile.

     That fictional scenario doesn’t feel so fictional anymore.

     The DW article suggests China is actively developing the ability to do something very similar in real life. The aim isn’t dramatic explosions in orbit. It’s dominance in the shadows. If you can hijack satellites, you can paralyze an adversary at the opening of a conflict. You can disrupt response times. You can sow confusion. You can reshape the battlefield before the first conventional weapon is used.

     And here’s what really bothers me: our entire modern economy runs on satellite infrastructure too. Commercial shipping, banking transactions, air traffic control, emergency response systems, all depend on space-based assets. A sophisticated hijacking capability wouldn’t just threaten soldiers. It could ripple into civilian life in ways most Americans never consider.

     This is a wake-up call. Space is no longer a distant frontier. It’s the backbone of national power. If adversaries are learning how to quietly seize control of that backbone, then defending it has to be a top priority.

 

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.

 

Russian-Owned Company Supplied Defective Armor to U.S. Military—What It Means for National Security

 

Are U.S. Troops At Risk? The Shocking Truth About Russian-Made Military Armor

Most Americans assume that when a U.S. combat vehicle rolls onto a battlefield, every bolt, plate, and panel has been vetted six ways from Sunday. We picture tight security, background checks, layers of oversight.

     That’s why I was unsettled after reading “Russian Company Produced Defective Plates for U.S. Military” in The National Interest. The report described how Evraz North America, a subsidiary of a Russian steel giant, supplied armor plating to the U.S. Army and allegedly falsified quality control tests. What we don’t picture is a Russian-owned firm slipping defective armor into the military supply chain and signing off on paperwork that says everything passed inspection. And yet, that’s exactly what left me worrying.

     That’s not just embarrassing. It’s dangerous.

     Armor plating is not decorative. It’s the difference between a vehicle that shields soldiers from shrapnel and one that turns into a coffin when it takes a hit. If quality control tests are faked, then the numbers on a spreadsheet become a lie that rides into combat with our troops. And once that vehicle is deployed, there’s no recalling it like a bad batch of cereal.

     This is where national security stops being abstract and starts feeling personal. Our defense supply chain is supposed to be hardened against exactly this kind of vulnerability. Yet here we are, learning that a foreign-owned firm with ties back to a strategic adversary managed to get its product into U.S. military systems. That should set off alarms for anyone who assumes the front line begins overseas. Sometimes it begins in a factory, in a testing lab, or in a procurement office.

     If this sounds like fiction, it’s because it reads like it. In my short-story spy thriller The Hunt For A Russian Spy, which you can read in one sitting, Russian operatives infiltrate a Boeing defense plant to steal secrets of a next-generation U.S. spy plane. They don’t storm the gates. They blend in. They exploit routine. They target the weak seams in a massive, complex system. The suspense in that story comes from how ordinary the infiltration looks at first. A badge swipe. A routine delivery. A trusted contractor.

     Now look at what’s happening in real life. Instead of sneaking blueprints out the door, the infiltration moves in the opposite direction. Substandard materials slide into our military vehicles. Paperwork says “passed.” Boxes get checked. Shipments get approved. The damage isn’t dramatic at first. It’s quiet. Bureaucratic. Hidden inside supply contracts and certification forms. But the effect is the same. An adversary finds a way inside the system that builds and equips our military.

     That’s the uncomfortable parallel. In fiction, we expect foreign spies to be cunning. In reality, we sometimes assume our procurement process is immune to that kind of manipulation. It’s not. Modern defense systems rely on a global web of suppliers. Steel, electronics, software, microchips. Each link is a potential pressure point. If a hostile government can influence or control even a small piece of that chain, it gains leverage.

     And leverage can mean weakened armor, compromised components, or access to sensitive information. It can mean soldiers driving vehicles that are not as protected as they believe. It can mean adversaries learning where our standards are thin and pushing harder at those weak spots.

     This isn’t about paranoia. It’s about vigilance. National security isn’t only fought with aircraft carriers and missile systems. It’s defended in audits, inspections, and supply contracts. It depends on knowing exactly who is making the parts that protect our sons and daughters.

     When a foreign adversary’s footprint shows up in something as fundamental as armor plating, it’s a reminder that the battlefield has changed. The fight isn’t just out there. It’s in the supply chain. And if we don’t guard it as fiercely as we guard our borders, the next breach may not be fictional at all.

 

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.

Bioterrorism in America: From the Rajneeshee Attack to Anthrax Letters and the Modern Engineered Virus Threat

The Shadow War spy thriller echoes real bioterror threats as Corey Pearson and his CIA team battle to thwart an attack on New York City

      Bioterrorism sounds like something cooked up in a Hollywood writers’ room. A shadowy lab. A rogue scientist. A city on the brink. It feels distant, dramatic, almost cinematic.

     But here’s the hard truth: it’s already happened here.

     Not in some failed state overseas. Not in a war zone. Here. In the United States. Quietly. Methodically. And in ways that most people have long since forgotten.

Back in 1984, in a quiet stretch of Oregon, followers of the Rajneeshee cult decided they wanted control of a local election in The Dalles. They didn’t stuff ballot boxes. They didn’t hold rallies. They went after something much simpler and far more chilling. They walked into local restaurants and contaminated salad bars with salmonella. Just sprinkled it in and walked away.

     For days, people in town started getting sick. Not just a little sick. Violently sick. Diarrhea, fever, dehydration. Families thought it was food poisoning. Doctors thought it was a bad outbreak. No one imagined it was deliberate. By the time it was over, 751 people were ill. Hospitals were strained. The town was shaken. And only later did authorities uncover what had really happened: a calculated biological attack designed to manipulate democracy.

     That’s the part that lingers. It wasn’t a foreign army. It wasn’t a missile strike. It was a group with a plan, access to a pathogen, and the patience to use it. No explosions. No sirens. Just bacteria on lettuce leaves.

     And it didn’t stop there.

     Seventeen years later, in 2001, envelopes began arriving in mailrooms across the country. Powder spilled out when they were opened. Inside was anthrax. The spores traveled through the postal system and into office air.  Five people died. Seventeen others were infected. Government buildings shut down. Newsrooms evacuated. Members of Congress suddenly found themselves targets of an invisible weapon. The country was already on edge after 9/11. The anthrax letters turned that tension into something more personal. Something that could show up in your mailbox.

     These weren’t plots from a paperback thriller. They were real-world proof that biology can be weaponized without tanks, jets, or battalions. It only takes knowledge, access, and intent.

     When I wrote my spy thriller Shadow War, I kept circling back to that reality. In the novel, CIA operative Corey Pearson starts out chasing what looks like a Russian sleeper cell. Standard spy stuff. But the deeper he digs, the more he realizes the real threat isn’t a bomb hidden in a van. It’s an engineered virus designed to ignite chaos in New York. The kind of weapon that moves silently through subway cars and office towers before anyone understands what’s happening.

     That idea isn’t fantasy pulled out of thin air. Scientists today can modify pathogens with astonishing precision. Most of that work saves lives. It leads to vaccines, treatments, breakthroughs. But the same tools, in the wrong hands, can be turned. Technology gets cheaper. Knowledge spreads. Barriers shrink. Intelligence officials have warned for years that nonstate actors could eventually gain access to advanced biological techniques. You don’t need a massive infrastructure anymore. You need expertise and a plan.

     That’s what makes bioterrorism different. It doesn’t announce itself. There’s no mushroom cloud. No deafening blast. It seeps in. It rides the air in a crowded room. It clings to a doorknob. It travels through systems we trust every day, from restaurants to postal routes to public transit.

     In Shadow War, as Pearson pulls at the threads, he discovers something even more unsettling. The threat isn’t purely foreign. There are cracks inside the system. Compromised insiders. Political agendas. Bureaucratic hesitation. The very institutions meant to protect the public struggle under pressure. That tension between external enemies and internal weakness mirrors the real world more closely than we like to admit.

     Look back at Oregon. Look back at the anthrax letters. In both cases, the country was caught off guard. Not because the science was impossible to understand, but because the idea felt too extreme to be real. Until it was.

     That’s why Shadow War resonates with readers who pay attention to the headlines. The novel imagines how quickly an engineered virus could tear through a city like New York. How fast hospitals could fill. How rapidly panic could spread once the pattern becomes clear. It’s fiction, yes. But it’s fiction built on the simple, documented fact that biological attacks have already happened here.

     That’s the uneasy space where reality and fiction overlap. And it’s the reason the threat doesn’t feel like a late-night thriller anymore. It feels like something that has already knocked on the door.

 

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.

How Robert Hanssen Betrayed the CIA and Cost Agents Their Lives

 

The CIA Mole Who Betrayed America for Decades

     For years, Robert Hanssen looked like the last person who would betray his country. He was quiet. Churchgoing. A bit awkward. The kind of guy coworkers barely noticed. That’s exactly why he got away with it for so long.

Behind the scenes, Hanssen was quietly wrecking American intelligence.

     Starting in the mid-1980s, he began handing secrets to the Soviets and later the Russians. Not because he believed in communism or hated the U.S., but because he liked the money and loved feeling smarter than everyone else. He didn’t sneak around with fake passports or dramatic meetings. He used old-school spy tricks. Dead drops in parks. Encrypted notes. Cash and diamonds left under bridges. It was boring. And it worked.

     The damage was staggering. Hanssen exposed U.S. intelligence operations across Russia. He gave away names of American sources who were risking their lives to spy for the U.S. Some were arrested. Some were executed. Others disappeared into prison systems never to be heard from again. Inside the CIA, people knew something was wrong. Assets kept getting rolled up. Operations kept collapsing. But no one could figure out why.

     That uncertainty poisoned everything. Trust inside the CIA and FBI eroded. Every failure triggered suspicion. Was there another mole? Was someone still leaking? The agency spent years looking over its shoulder, never fully sure the bleeding had stopped.

     This is the kind of nightmare scenario explored in the Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster Series, where Corey Pearson and his handpicked team chase Russian moles buried deep inside American power structures.  In the books, the threats include a mole inside the CIA itself, one hiding in a U.S. Senator’s office chaired by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, and even one lodged near the National Security Director. Fiction, yes—but Hanssen proved how close fiction can come to reality.

     By the late 1990s, the U.S. intelligence community was desperate. The FBI finally narrowed the suspect pool by looking backward. Who had access to the compromised files? Who fit the timeline? Who had the skills to stay invisible? Slowly, the picture sharpened. Hanssen’s name refused to go away.

     Agents put him under constant surveillance. They tracked his movements, his routines, even the way he walked. In February 2001, they followed him to a quiet park in Virginia. He slipped a package under a footbridge. Moments later, he was surrounded and arrested. No chase. No drama. Just the end of a long con.

     Hanssen would spend the rest of his life in prison. But his impact didn’t end there. Networks had to be rebuilt. Careers were ruined. The CIA never fully regained the confidence it lost during those years.

     That lingering scar is why stories like Corey Pearson’s feel so real. They ask the question intelligence officers still worry about today: if someone like Hanssen could hide that long once, how do you ever know he’s not hiding again?

 

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 work offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of espionage, inspired by the complexities and high-stakes realities of the intelligence community.

Inside the Soviet Union’s Black Projects: Cold War Experiments, Secret Weapons, and Vanished Programs

 

Cold War Soviet Black Projects Hidden Weapons, Space, and Secret Science

During the Cold War, everyone knew the Soviet Union kept secrets. What most people didn’t grasp was how deep that secrecy ran. Plenty of projects never showed up in parades, newspapers, or official histories. Beyond the famous rockets and fighter jets were programs locked down so tightly that even the engineers building individual components often had no idea what the final product was supposed to be.

     Some of these efforts were daring and imaginative, others dangerously reckless, and a few were just plain strange. When the Soviet system collapsed, many of them vanished with it, leaving behind rumors, half-burned paperwork, and unanswered questions.

     One of the strangest was a quiet Soviet attempt to build its own version of the American Space Shuttle, years before anyone outside the system ever heard about Buran. Deep inside closed facilities, engineers tested a small spaceplane that looked more like a sci-fi prop than a real aircraft. It was launched by rockets, skimmed the edge of space, and then glided back through the atmosphere. In the 1970s, it flew secret suborbital test missions to see how its heat shielding survived and how it handled extreme speeds.

     Officially, none of this was happening. There were no announcements or photos. Decades later, fragments surfaced: a few declassified files, a strange vehicle sitting in a museum with a vague label. Even now, the story feels incomplete.

     Propulsion research was just as murky. Soviet designers experimented with engines that went far beyond standard jets, systems that could run like turbojets at low speed and then transition into ramjet or even scramjet modes as altitude and speed increased. Wind tunnel models and ground test rigs existed, humming away behind locked doors.

     What’s missing is the aircraft itself. No confirmed prototype. No clear photographs. Some historians think this work fed directly into later hypersonic missile programs. Others believe it was simply too complex and quietly abandoned. All that remains are fuzzy sketches and scattered references in once-classified journals hinting at performance that sounds almost unreal for the time.

     The secrecy extended to weapon platforms that pushed into extreme territory. One example was a nuclear-powered cruise missile concept meant to stay airborne for days or even weeks. The logic was simple and terrifying: unlimited range in exchange for massive technical complexity and serious radiation risk. Test reactors were reportedly built, and at least one prototype airframe was considered before the project was buried. Officially, it never existed.

     Weapons in space were another hidden chapter. While the United States openly discussed missile defense, the Soviets quietly tested space stations designed to track, intercept, and possibly destroy satellites. Crews trained under intense secrecy, often unsure how much of their mission would ever be acknowledged. At least one station carried a real cannon modified to work in the vacuum of space. Oversight came from military-linked organizations under the watchful eye of the KGB. To the public, these stations were peaceful research platforms. In reality, they were something far more threatening to U.S. national security.

     Even darker were biological and chemical weapons programs hiding behind civilian research. On paper, these facilities worked on vaccines or industrial chemistry. In reality, some were developing weaponized viruses and nerve agents. Entire towns were erased from maps to keep the work secret. That blend of science and moral free fall feels uncomfortably familiar in the Shadow War spy thriller, where former KGB operatives plan a devastating viral attack in New York City. The plot echoes real Cold War logic, biology treated as just another weapon. In the novel, CIA spymaster Corey Pearson and his team race to stop it in time. In real life, the outcomes were far less clear.

     After the Soviet collapse, the fallout was chaotic. Some scientists finally spoke about what they’d done. Others disappeared into private companies or foreign programs, taking their knowledge with them. What ties all these projects together is how abruptly they ended. By the late 1980s, funding dried up. Prototypes were abandoned, documents destroyed or scattered, and teams dissolved. Designers who once worked under figures like Sergei Korolev, the mastermind behind the early Soviet space program, suddenly found themselves without direction.

     That’s what makes these black projects so unsettling. They show a side of the Cold War that rarely makes it into textbooks. This wasn’t just about keeping up with the West. It was about pushing limits, sometimes recklessly, with little concern for cost, danger, or what might happen down the line.  Secrecy protected these programs while they were alive, and obscurity finished the job after the Soviet Union disappeared. All that remains now are unanswered questions, and the uneasy feeling that some chapters of that era were never meant to be fully understood.

 

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 work offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of espionage, inspired by the complexities and high-stakes realities of the intelligence community.

 

 

Cold War 2.0? MI6 Mole Hunt Exposes New Threats to Western Intelligence Agencies

 

Spies Among Us: A Chilling Reminder From Britain's Longest Secret Mole Hunt

     There are stories that make you shake your head in disbelief. And then there are the ones that make your blood run cold. What just surfaced from Britain’s intelligence vaults? Absolutely the latter.

     Somewhere in the bowels of MI5, behind doors few ever pass through, a secret was buried for nearly 20 years. The kind of operation that feels ripped straight from the pages of a spy novel—but it was very real. Codename: Operation Wedlock. The mission? To determine whether one of MI6’s own—a high-ranking British intelligence officer—was quietly working for Russia. Yes, Russia.

     You’d think this was some Cold War relic, but no—this kicked off in the late '90s and ran well into the 2010s. Triggered by a CIA tip, British intelligence launched what may be one of its most sensitive internal investigations since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

     They were chasing a ghost. “Suspect 1A,” as the CIA identified him. A man in the heart of the British intelligence system, allegedly slipping secrets to the Kremlin, possibly under the nose of Vladimir Putin himself—then head of the FSB. Chilling? That's putting it lightly.

     The op was so secretive, MI5 briefed agents inside a church just to avoid detection. Others thought they were on a training exercise—until they left HQ and realized the mission was dead serious. Surveillance units operated from a fake private security firm in South London, quietly observing, gathering, and hoping for a slip-up. They even went so far as to conduct unsanctioned surveillance missions in the Middle East—breaking international law if caught.

     All this effort, all this risk... and in the end? No smoking gun. By 2015, the suspected mole had left MI6. Gone. Vanished into quiet retirement—or something far worse.

     And here’s where the unease should really set in.

     Because this isn’t just a British problem. It’s a global one. In my own spy thriller Shadow War, I wrote about a scenario where former Russian KGB officers infiltrated the highest echelons of American government. A U.S. Senator—Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee—compromised. Even the National Security Advisor's office wasn’t safe. Sound far-fetched?   Not anymore.

     Operation Wedlock reminds us: the Cold War may be over on paper, but the espionage games never ended. They just got smarter. More digital. More patient.

     Inside our own U.S. Intelligence Community, we like to think we’ve buttoned things up. But the truth is, spycraft has evolved. Today’s double agents don’t pass microfilm in alleyways—they drop files via secure backchannels or embed malicious code into harmless-seeming emails. They don’t have to be in the room. They just need access.

     Which is why we need to double down on trust—but more importantly, verification. The intelligence community, both in the U.S. and abroad, must treat internal security with the same seriousness we reserve for foreign threats. Every agency needs a robust counterintelligence division—not a token squad, but a full-fledged unit with teeth, capable of rooting out deception in all its forms.

     Because the next "Suspect 1A" may not be sitting in London. They could be right here, inside the very institutions designed to keep us safe.

The silence around Operation Wedlock should be a wake-up call—not a sigh of relief.

     We can't afford to wait 20 years just to come up empty.

 

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 work offers readers an insider’s glimpse into the world of espionage, inspired by the complexities and high-stakes realities of the intelligence community.