The Spy House by Matthew Dunn

Will Cochrane has been at this covert operative business for 15 or so years. 70 missions, not all successful, and the scars to show for it. But some vengeful US Senator blasted his photo over the Internet effectively rendering him to be a non-operative operative. Mustered out of the service (apparently that is the subject of the previous unread book). Now he has to figure out what to do with his life. 

The Israeli ambassador to France was strolling a nearby park one lunch hour only to be cut down by a sniper's bullet. In the uproar that followed, Israel concludes that Hamas was behind the kill and prepares for war. Invade Lebanon and rid it of this Hamas threat in one massive strike. Of course such a war will cause the middle east to explode, which bothers Israel not one bit.

In Gaza, a UN rep searches for children that he can take out of the squalor to the west to raise and educate. Help one child at a time. The 12-yo Safa is chosen and moves to France to live with the university professor-guardian. He is brought up to hate Israel.

This presents a problem for the US President. Does he give Israel his support or not? Either way is a loss for the President. In the White House situation room, all his security advisors line up on one side of that fence or the other.

All except Admiral (ret.) Tobias Mason. Housed at the Pentagon, Mason is the president's Svengali, whispering balanced opinion in the President's ear. He wonders if Israel isn't jumping the gun and proposes a listening post in Beruit to sift through the chatter for clues to Hamas' complicity. The post, the Grey Site, is manned by a spook from the US (a close friend and former colleague of Will Cochrane), France, UK, and Israel. It's an impenetrable windowless site deep in a basement and behind a massive steel security door that can only be locked from the inside. The four spooks live and work in this dungeon. A message is intercepted by the American and relayed to Washington for transmission to France, UK, and Israel.

The next morning, the Grey Site goes black. No response, no communication. Nothing. A joint team goes to the site, cuts their way in through the steel door and find all dead. The evidence they find is that the American killed the other three and then himself. Had to be. No way to get in.

Israel concludes Hamas found out and killed them. The plan is to invade in two weeks. Mason convinces the president to hold off his decision about supporting Israel until an unbiased party can determine the how and why of the murders at the Grey Site.

Mason is in contact with colleagues at the CIA and MI6 looking for someone unconnected with any country or policy to find out. Why not Will? He is currently unemployed and looking for something meaningful. After some haggling, Cochrane agrees.

From London to Washington, back to London, and now Beruit, Cochrane distills what few clues he can find. Unfortunately, all point to the American spook (and friend) gone over the edge and killing the rest of the Grey Site. Even after seeing the site, he finds nothing that can change the narrative.

Then comes Chapter 35. Not some unit or corrupt group. I mean the actual Chapter 35 of the book changes everything from Cochrane's investigation to his future and what about the boy Safa.

This is the 3rd book by Matthew Dunn reviewed here. Dunn is a former spook and now author. His books ring with authenticity, much like LeCarre. The attention to detail is monumental, especially when it comes to surveillance. One doesn't get that kind of detail from an interview with a retired spy. This comes from experience. I'm not concerned with book sale numbers. I read what sounds like fun. But I would guess that sales of books by Dunn don't approach that of Brad Thor, Alex Berenson, or other current best-selling thriller authors. And I have no clue why. His are every bit as good and probably a bit closer to reality (OK, the shoot-outs may be embellished a bit. It is fiction). But the ins and outs of the spycraft presented by Dunn are first-rate and presented with skill and flair.

Now I'm going to back up one book and find out just what caused that Senator to get such a burr under his saddle about Cochrane and report back.

ECD

Sentinel by Matthew Dunn

In Spycatcher, we were introduced to Will Cochrane – Spartan – the most lethal instrument in the arsenal of MI6. To become Spartan, and there is only one, Will had to pass a torturous year long training program of which all before him had failed.

All except one. The first Spartan was in deep cover in Russia for years and had established a complex network of contacts from lowly peasants to some in the highest levels of the military and the various renditions of the KGB. He also managed to survive 6 years of imprisonment and torture, never revealing his true identity or what he was doing.

But MI6 couldn’t be sure that their initial Spartan was still reliable after what he endured in prison so they cut back his authority and the freedom he had as Spartan, giving him a new assignment and code name – Sentinel.

One of Sentinel’s network is killed in remote Norway, leaving a cryptic message about a traitor and a plan to draw the US and Russia into a war. Cochrane is sent to find Sentinel, learn the details of the incomplete message, and stop this insane plot.

The head of the most elite unit of the Russian’s version of the SEALs (code name Razin) is picking off Sentinel’s top contacts one at a time. Spartan and Sentinel join forces to protect Sentinel’s network and kill Razin. But Razin stays one step ahead in his hunt and in a hand-to-hand confrontation, turns out to be Spartan’s equal – something Spartan’s never experienced before.

Razin’s plan, if successful, will probably work. The idea is to make a routine military maneuver look like an attack on Russian soil, thereby prompting a Russian response.

This is #2 in the Spycatcher series (the third Dunn book I’ve read) and Dunn tells us more and more about Cochrane’s history and how he came to be recruited and to become Spartan. Dunn delivers the goods in a way that only one who has been there can. If I had to nitpick, it would be in his overly long description of a stakeout and pursuit by his team of spooks. In Spycatcher, it was riveting. In Sentinel, it’s bordering on repetitious. Hope the same scenario doesn’t turn up in the next book, Sling Shot.  But that won’t stop me from reading Sling Shot or Counterspy, the next 2 books in this series. 

East Coast Don

Spycatcher by Matthew Dunn

OK, so I started in with Dark Spies, #4 in Dunn’s series of thrillers. The main character, Will Cochrane, seemed captivating enough to go back to the beginning to fill in some gaps in Cochrane’s backstory.

 

So, here is the Cliff Notes version: Dad was a British intelligence officer who, when will was in primary school, went off to Iran around the time the Shah was ousted and never returned. Will’s mother died when he and his sister were in high school. When it was time, his sister went off to college and a reasonably normal life while Will opted for the French Foreign Legion, eventually becoming one of their elite paratroopers. After 5 years, he went back to the UK for university. Unknown to Will, a colleague of his father had been watching over him and after graduation offered Will a chance to get back at the bad guys like those who killed his father, so he joined MI6. Being lethal, stealthy, creative, and, best of all, utterly ruthless when focused on a goal, Will was brought into the UK’s ultra-super secret Spartan program. Spartan is unique in that candidates are brought in one at a time and they either quit or die during training. Many had tried, but Will was the first to survive a training program that might make a SEAL wet his pants. The real unique aspect of the Spartan program is that there is only one active Spartan at a time – until he quits or is killed. Think of James Bond and the 00 program, only there is only one 00 agent - an agent who gets only the toughest assignments. His handlers are Alistar, a dapper and highly experienced MI6 agent and Patrick, a more course CIA agent. Both, essentially, answer to no one other than their respective President or Prime Minister, which means Will is given a very long and loose leash.

On to Spycatcher. The NSA has an electronic eavesdropping tool called Hubble that seems to operate well outside of the bounds of the Patriot Act. Hubble analysts piece together a potentially devastating terrorist plot out of Iran, but they are lacking in details like where, when, how, and most importantly, who is running it. Bits and pieces from Hubble identify Harry, an aging Croatian (or was it Serbian?) arms dealer operating mostly out of Sarajevo. Harry points Will on the trail of Lana who had been horribly abused during the Balkan War, but had been rescued by a shady Iranian who goes by a code name of Meggido – a highly placed operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the guy the NSA thinks may be behind the coming attack. Will’s goal is to us her as an intermediary to draw this Meggido out for capture before this massive attack takes place.

Will, Lana, and Harry jump around much of the former Yugoslavia, Paris, London, Scandinavia, and the NE corridor of the US in an intricate cat and mouse game of who is leading whom around. Dunn gives us a detailed insider’s look at pursuit and surveillance, tradecraft of letters that tempt the recipient into a mistake, and a significant running firefight in the snows of upstate NY that damn near explodes off the last quarter of the book; if you chose to read this book, when the chase heads well past NYC, make sure you have no obligations or interruptions because if you do, you'll probably just ignore any and everything else around.

A foundation philosophy of writing is to write about what you know best. And in doing so, authors frequently interject personal experiences into their writing. Dunn’s bio on the jacket liner says that as an MI6 agent, he was “trained in all aspects of intelligence collection and direct action including agent running and debriefing, deep-cover deployments, small-arms, explosives, military unarmed combat, surveillance, anti-surveillance, counter-surveillance, advanced driving, infiltration and exfiltration techniques, and covert communications.” The bio further states, “During his time in MI6, Matthew conducted approximately seventy missions. All of them were successful.” If even 10% of this book is autobiographical, Dunn must’ve been someone you didn’t want to have on your trail and, for sure, not someone to piss off. 

Do some of the circumstances seem a bit over the top at times? Of course they do. That’s part of the reason we read this genre - to see how people handle unfathomable challenges. That won’t put me off. So, for the foreseeable future, it looks like I’ll be leap frogging between Will Cochrane and Walt Longmire.

East Coast Don

available from Amazon

Dark Spies by Matthew Dunn

Now here is an interesting 'what if' scenario. What if an old hard line Soviet spy used the US-Muslim extremist war to effectively cut off the head of the US, now leaving Russia to waltz in as the new alpha dog on the planet? Then, what if you had a pretty good notion what was behind it all? To borrow a line from a classic Johnny Carson bit where he skewered Karl Maulden, 'What would you do? What WOULD you do?"

Will Cochrane, son of a Brit spy, now works as a joint MI6 and CIA asset. He and most of the intelligence agencies in the western world are on the trail of Cobra, thought to be the primary source of money for Muslim terrorist groups around the world. He gets yanked off the search for some reason and is assigned to cover the possible defection of a Russian agent to the West. He's is settled under cover in the wintry backwoods of Norway. CIA deepdeepdeep cover agent Ellie Fellowes is bringing in this asset, code name Herald. Will spots a team of Russians moving on the house. They are commanded by a major Russian officer, code named Antaeus. 

Can't be. Last time Will saw Antaeus was seconds before a bomb Will planted blew Antaeus' car to kingdom come. Antaeus is dead! No, he's in his crosshairs. Will is in contact with Langley and requests the go code to kill Antaeus for good. His handler says that Antaeus is not to be touched. There is no info on why to anyone who does not have Ferryman clearance. Only 4 or 5 people in DC have such clearance and they are willing to let Fellowes and her asset be killed.

Will's gut tells him to protect his comrade and starts to take out the Russian intruders, but not before Herald is killed and Antaeus escapes.

Now what? Will has gone from being perhaps a most trusted and effective operative to being the object of a massive manhunt in the matter of a few seconds. He and Fellowes figure the only real way to get out of this mess is to find out what project Ferryman is and who is running it.

Off he walks . . . to the Norwegian coast . . . over water to Greenland where he walks . . . to the western shore . . . where he gets help from some undercover Russians watching Canada . . . then a flight in a little prop plane in some dangerous weather . . . to Nova Scotia . . . to the Maine border . . . beat the border guards where he winged a guard . . . eventually down to DC, mostly by bus despite his name and face being plastered across every print and electronic outlet out there.

The FBIs most tenacious manhunter is Marsha Gage who is put in charge of the most exhaustive manhunt in history drawing in the entire DC metro police force, every FBI agent not in the hospital, every CIA asset in town, and the renowned Hostage Rescue Team of the FBI, effectively turning DC into a police state to catch this one very dangerous man.

Will needs info on the project Ferryman and those with access. The primary players with access are Senator Colby Jellicoe, Ed Parker, former CIA field officer now a CIA Director, (just below THE director), and Charles Sheridan (one ruthless spook). And Will's going to get what he needs, put it together with what he's learned while crawling around DC, and see if it all adds up to the US being successful at killing Cobalt or becoming an international pariah, if Antaeus has anything to say about it . . . but not before a massive running firefight along Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown.

I finished this over a late dinner. When I closed the book, I said aloud to no one, "Damn that was good."

The jacket blurb says that Dunn is a former MI6 operative with extensive covert and deep cover experience. This is the 4th book in his Spycatcher series and seeing as book 1 features Will Cochrane,  my keen intellect tells me that Cochrane is to Dunn what John Wells is to Alex Berenson or Mitch Rapp is to Vince Flynn, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Any fan of Thor, Flynn, Berenson, Steinhauer, Child, Fesperman, et al. will find a friend in Dunn. A guy with amazing skills and mind is cornered by both good and bad forces while he wrestles with what he's learning and how to handle the darkness building within him . . . not too mention a fascinating twist at the end that I've no doubt will come back in book #5. Last time I thought this highly of a new author (at least to us here at MRB) was Alex Berensen and we blazed our way right through his catalogue in no time.

Puts me in a quandary: what's next? Continue with the next Longmire mystery or root out Dunn's first, The Spycatcher, and see if my reading pace can keep up with the frantic pace of Dunn's stories? And he's been putting out books at a rate of 2/year. Either way I can't lose.

East Coast Don

available from Amazon