Shadow
&
Subterfuge
A SIX-BOOK SERIES OF
HISTORICAL ESPIONAGE THRILLERS
Name: Fred Brown
Current Picture:
Missions: 6
Status: Retired, Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal
Service Dates:
Presidential Appointment, 1940 - 1942
Office of Strategic Services, 1942 - 1946
Office of Special Operations, 1946-1947
Central Intelligence Agency, 1947 - 1962
Recall to Duty, 1967 - 1969
Recall to Duty, 1988 to 1990
That was my name for the first seventeen years of life. Since then, I've been many people each with a new alias. That's what happens when you become a spy.
At 17, I had my life planned — escape the farm, go to university, study electrical engineering, and start an career full of adventure. But the U.S. government had plans for me and they had never told me — until then.
Two weeks after graduating in 1940, a trio of government agents arrived in an Army staff car — let's call them the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. The night before, I'd listened to Churchill's Dunkirk speech on the short-wave radio I'd built from scratch. So, I knew what was happening in Europe.
They brought me a draft card and told me I would be a spy — a deep cover mole planted in Nazi Germany. I could chose to go now and get training, or wait until I turned 18 and go by the draft. I was natively fluent in German, allowing me a chance for survival and having some training would increase my odds, I though. My desire for adventure was strong. As an Eagle Scout, my sense of duty to country was ingrained. I jumped at the chance, not realizing they had planned this as a suicide mission.
I would have to "fit in ... or die" as Frederich "Zelly" Zellner, a Hitler Youth member destined for the Schutzstaffel or SS. But circumstances turned strange. They asked Ma for pictures of me and she had them already sorted in a drugstore sack — as if she knew. I found my scout court of honor picture on the cover of a Nazi magazine published in Germany two years before. My spy mission wasn't an adventure. It was a deliberate deception that thrust me into an international conspiracy as if I were a pawn. In short, it became a nightmare.
Join me as I fight to survive, fulfill my missions, and make it home to friends and family.
Fred Brown's Missions
Mission #1 — The Eagle Scout Picture
Mission 1 — The Eagle Scout Picture
Two weeks after his Texas high school graduation, Fred Brown's life is disrupted by three US government agents. They give him an alias, Fredrich "Zelly" Zellner, and send him to spy in Nazi Germany. When he discovers his Eagle Scout "Court of Honor" picture on the cover of a three-year-old Nazi magazine, he grows certain that his whole life is a lie. Sucked into a global conspiracy, he must meet the demands of many bosses, discover who he is really is, decide where he belongs, and escape the certain death that looms from both the Gestapo and the war.
Mission #2 — Iron Curtain Lies and Spies
Mission 2 — Iron Curtain Lies and Spies
Expected declassification August 2026
As the Iron Curtain fell over Europe, the allies turned their spies and lies against each other. Questions lingered. Is Hitler dead? How are Nazis escaping justice? Did Germany develop the atomic bomb? What did the Soviets learn from the German scientists they abducted? Fred Brown is the only person who can find the answers because of his first mission. Authorities give him a new identity - Don Richardson, a counter-intelligence agent - and send him to Europe to find answers. However, the Russians learn of his arrival through a double agent in either the US or British government and Zellner is just the man they need, an expert in both missile guidance and atomic energy.
Mission #3 — The Kremlin Parity Protocol
Mission 3 — The Kremlin Parity Protocol
Expected declassification: Unknown
Fred takes on another identity, Lars Schmidt, a West German mole in East Germany's fledgling Stasi in 1949. He is sent to witness the Soviet Nuclear Test in Kazakhstan. When people recognize him from his previous spying, they manipulate him for their own purposes. The test is successful, but he discovers the Soviet's blatant disregard for human life and Stalin's eagerness to use the weapon. Next, he must escape and bring the knowledge to the free world. The only route home is daunting, difficult, and devoid of help. It seems a double agent is revealing his every attempt and has turned his own government against him, sending his odds of success near zero. As the United States grows increasingly anti-communist, he holds the only solution but will he make it and will they listen if he does?
Mission #4 — Sons of the Street
Mission 4 — Sons of the Street
Expected declassification: Unknown
Fred is recalled to duty from his NASA job. Meanwhile, a junior KGB officer is eyeing a promotion opportunity. Thinking the jobs are mere analyst work, they take their twelve-year-old sons to Budapest. Gunny's new sidewalk surfer toy catches Yuri's admiration, and they become friends. The waves of the Hungarian Revolution toss them into the undertow while their fathers fight each other. In the ensuing street war, the missions of the fathers and the friendship of the sons are tossed into the crucible. Every decision and every spoken word has fateful consequences. While the men and boys fight for survival, what happens to the bonds of family and friendship when war changes everything? .
Mission #5 - Shattering the Status Quo
Mission 7 — The Year of Fire and Hope
Expected declassification: Unknown
While Fred prepares for the Apollo 8 mission at NASA, Gunny leaves on his first CIA mission, Prague in the spring of 1968. He reconnects with his young crush from Budapest, a French ballet dancer, and she asks him to rescue her father, held captive in Hanoi since the loss at Dien Bien Phu. Gunny goes "off book" to earn her love, parachuting into the rice paddies of Vietnam. The French officer isn't a prisoner. He's "gone native" and is now military advisor to Ho Chi Minh and planning the Tet offensive. Caught in the wrong place at a bad time, Gunny's only connection home is a NASA satellite link to his father. How can he convince the US to avoid escalating the war when the CIA thinks he's renegade?.
Mission #6 — Vienna Marks the End
Mission 6 — Death Knell of the Iron Curtain
Expected declassification: Unknown
Gunny is undercover in Poland, funneling money from the US through the Catholic church to Lech Walesa's Solidarity. With the crack down and imposition of martial law, Gunny is arrested, tied to the CIA, and his previous activities are discovered. Fred beseeches President Regan to rescue Gunny. When the entreaty fails, Fred takes the task personally. As Glasnost and Perestroika come of the Soviet Union, father and son are reunited. Gunny goes to Vienna to study Russian poetry until a renegade KGB team, led by Vladimir Putin, kidnaps him. Fred takes NASA leave to be in Berlin as the wall falls and learns Gunny is in East Berlin's dreaded Hohenschonhausen prison. Can the duo reach freedom to enjoy peace?.
What Secrets Lie in the Shadows?
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Meet the Spymaster
The Shadow and Subteruge series is written by Gary Kidney.
About himSilent Key Press
Silent Key Press is the publisher for the Shadow and Subterfuge series of historical espionage thrillers. The books, related websites, and social media are fiction. Every effort have been made to insure they are based upon historical events and actual covert operations. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictionally. All other elements are drawn from the author's imagination.