Showing results by author "Norman Wood" in All Categories

In 1993, newly elected President Bill Crawford sent a secret CIA Clandestine Service team to hunt and kill the world’s wealthiest criminal and the leader of the Medellin Cartel, Alejandro Espinoza. Being made aware of the CIA’s exceptional Team Thorn, the president ordered Thorn’s Buddy Hayden, Nathan West, and Jack Reynolds to find Espinoza and put a toe tag on him. They needed to hurry because West was to start medical school in five months, and he wasn’t missing that, no matter who needed to be killed. Team Thorn thought this would be a cut-and-dry mission anyway. But that all ...

The Russian military and KGB’s planned coup and assassination of General Secretary Gorbachev threatened to disrupt the tenuous end of the Cold War with the United States. President Reagan would have none of it. Thwarting those Russian conspirators, who called themselves Red Sword, fell into the CIA’s lap. But rather than use a seasoned agent, the CIA considered rookie Nathan West. Would West be up to the task? He had the smarts. And as a former West Virginia State Trooper, he had some experience. But this job was in a whole other league. The CIA’s rigorous—and severe—program would...

In August 1990, Saddam Hussein, the paranoid psychopathic leader of Iraq, invaded Kuwait. Six months later, coalition forces, led by the United States, annihilated his army and forced him back into Iraq. With humiliation burning deep, Hussein seethed with revenge. As Hussein plotted, in late 1991, Team Thorn of the CIA Clandestine Service thwarted the KGB’s attempt to remove Mikhail Gorbachev from power. As a result, the USSR was dissolved, the KGB disbanded, and the Cold War came to an end. In this enlightened state, Russia’s SVR is now working with the CIA to keep Hussein under ...

By the end of 1986, Red Sword—the KGB and military officers planning the assassination of Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev—had made significant progress. To finance their plot with the needed one hundred million dollars, they would smuggle one hundred tons of Afghan hashish into San Francisco, using a former dirty CIA agent and an ex-con tugboat captain who was the friend of a convicted Russian spy. Their foolproof plan had everything covered—smooth and experienced operators, ingenious vessel designs to hide the hashish, and well-hidden base in the tangled waterways. Alerted...