In the new The Shadow War
spy thriller, an evil man, a former Russian KGB spy known as the Invisible
Killer, took over a dead person's identity in order to blend into American
society as a sleeper agent. The dead person was a street person, a drifter,
with no identity of his own worth speaking of.
The good guys, too, often
assume fake identities to add credence to their cover story. Designing a good
cover story is one of the most difficult and crucial parts of a CIA operative going
undercover. They must research extensively the details and customs of the
identity they're assuming for, even in a casual conversation, they may
inadvertently expose some inconsistencies as to who they say they are.
If foreign intelligence
services are suspicious of some minor irregularity or slight discrepancy is who
someone says they are, their falsified documents backed up with hacked
databases, even any bribed records keepers who helped create the false
identity, may be uncovered.
In The Shadow War, the Invisible Killer
created a conveniently unverifiable cover story. The dead person’s
identity that he assumed had a background that couldn’t be verified or
disproved- the place and period from his past had no personal records to be
scrutinized or witnesses to be interviewed.
Want
to experience a great spy thriller series? Check out the Corey Pearson- CIA
Spymaster site.
An unverifiable past
embedded in one’s cover story is not that unusual. A CIA operative may claim
all his past records may have been burned down in an orphanage fire… yes, he or
she pretended to have been raised as an orphan, and the parents are unknown.
Others may be the "lone survivor" of an accident or may have come
from a small town that was leveled by a tornado or some natural disaster. Yes,
the county courthouse and local hospital, along with all the personal records,
was destroyed.
Other cover stories with
past unattainable records or witnesses may be used by operatives who claim to
have been born and raised in countries ravaged by civil war or by horrific conquests
by foreign aggressors, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Potentially non-tragic
unverifiable cover stories are coming from communities that shun modern things
like hospitals and birth certificates, or where the hall of records has been
destroyed.
In The Shadow War, the CIA and operative
Corey Pearson tries to find the true
identity of the Invisible Killer, who’s posing
as an ordinary American. Here’s a few snippets:
Snippet 1: He stared out the window of the Beechcraft turboprop,
thinking of the monster he must hunt down. Nevidijva Ubica, alias
“Invisible Killer”, a former KGB spy who worked alongside Vladimir Putin during
the Cold War days. The latest intel on him suggests he’s embedded under deep
cover somewhere in the U.S. A dangerous man, indeed, highly suspected of
murdering two CIA operatives on Corey’s team, along with a KGB defector who
Corey had recruited and used as a double agent in the Dominican Republic.
Snippet 2: What was most
bothersome in Bocharov’s debriefing was when he swore that the Invisible Killer
created operational sleeper cells inside the U.S. while stationed in East
Germany… over forty years ago.
Mark yelled back from the
cockpit. “Houston’s approaching. Landing in five minutes.”
Corey buckled his seatbelt
and sipped his Vesper martini. The cells are no doubt still in operation and
the Invisible Killer is lurking somewhere within America’s heartland… by the
order of POTUS, I must hunt him down and kill him.
End of snippets
Robert Morton is a member of the Association
of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) and enjoys writing about the U.S.
Intelligence Community in his Corey Pearson- CIA Spymaster series.
Read his newest spy thriller The Shadow War, episode by episode, as
he writes it in the new Kindle Vella program.
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