A Clandestine Operations
3 primary works • 6 total works
Book 1
In the first weeks after World War II, a squeaky-clean new second lieutenant named James D. Cronley Jr. is spotted and recruited for a new enterprise that will eventually be transformed into something called the CIA. One war may have ended, but another one has already begun, against an enemy that is bigger, smarter, and more vicious: the Soviet Union. The Soviets have hit the ground running, and Cronley's job is to help frustrate them, harass them, and spy on them any way he can. His recruiter thinks he has the potential to become an asset -- though, of course, he could also screw up spectacularly. And in his first assignment, it looks like that's exactly what might happen. He's got seven days to extract a vital piece of information from a Soviet agent, but Cronley's managed to rile up his superior officers (he seems to have a talent for it), and if he fails, it could be one of the shortest intelligence careers in history. There are enemies everywhere -- and, as Cronley is about to find out, some of them even wear the same uniform he does.
Book 2
James Cronley’s first successful mission for the new Central Intelligence Directorate has drawn all kinds of attention, some welcome, some not, including from the Soviets, his own Pentagon, and a seething J. Edgar Hoover. Now complications have sprung up all over, including a surprising alliance between the Germans and, of all things, the Mossad; and an unplanned meeting with an undercover agent against the Soviets known only as Seven K.. Cronley knows that if just one thing goes wrong, he’s likely to get thrown to the wolves. And he thinks he hears them howling now.
Book 4
"When Jim Cronley hears he's just won the Legion of Merit, he figures there's another shoe to drop, and it's a big one: he's out as Chief, DCI-Europe. His new assignments, however, couldn't be bigger: to protect the U.S. chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials from a rumored Soviet NKGB kidnapping, and to hunt down and dismantle the infamous Odessa, an organization dedicated to helping Nazi war criminals escape to South America. It doesn't take long for the first attempt on his life, and then the second. NKGB or Odessa? Who can tell? The deeper he pushes, the more secrets tumble out: a scheme to swap Nazi gold for currency, a religious cult organized around Himmler himself, an NKGB agent who is actually working for the Mossad, a German cousin who turns out to be more malevolent than he appears -- and a distractingly attractive newspaperwoman who seems to be asking an awful lot of questions. Which one will turn out to be the most dangerous? Cronley wishes he knew."--Amazon.com.
Special agent James Cronley, Jr., finds that fighting both ex-Nazis and the Soviet NKGB can lead to strange bedfellows, in the dramatic new Clandestine Operations novel about the birth of the CIA and the Cold War.
A month ago, Cronley managed to capture two notorious Nazi war criminals, but not without leaving some dead bodies and outraged Austrian police in his wake. He's been laying low ever since, but that little vacation is about to end. Somebody--Odessa, the NKGB, the Hungarian Secret Police?--has broken the criminals out of jail, and now he must track them down again.
But there's more to it than that. Evidence has surfaced that in the war's last gasps, Heinrich Himmler had stashed away a fortune to build a secret religion, dedicated both to Himmler and to creating the Fourth Reich. That money is still out there in the hands of Odessa, and that infamous organization seems to have acquired a surprising--and troubling--ally.
Cronley is fast finding out that the phrase, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," can mean a lot of different things, and that it is not always clear which people he can trust, and which are out to kill him.
A month ago, Cronley managed to capture two notorious Nazi war criminals, but not without leaving some dead bodies and outraged Austrian police in his wake. He's been laying low ever since, but that little vacation is about to end. Somebody--Odessa, the NKGB, the Hungarian Secret Police?--has broken the criminals out of jail, and now he must track them down again.
But there's more to it than that. Evidence has surfaced that in the war's last gasps, Heinrich Himmler had stashed away a fortune to build a secret religion, dedicated both to Himmler and to creating the Fourth Reich. That money is still out there in the hands of Odessa, and that infamous organization seems to have acquired a surprising--and troubling--ally.
Cronley is fast finding out that the phrase, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," can mean a lot of different things, and that it is not always clear which people he can trust, and which are out to kill him.
When two WACs are accosted by Soviet NKGB agents from an officers' club in 1946 Munich and kill three of their attackers to escape, the incident triggers shock waves that have major repercussions throughout a fledgling CIA.
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Top Secret / the Assassination Option
by W.E.B. Griffin and William E., IV Butterworth
Published 24 February 2017