The book is really weird. I was under the impression it was a book about their life in the CIA, and in some ways it was. Both Baers are married to different people when the book begins, and it follows each of their careers with (mostly) alternating chapters with their viewpoints. The reader is dr...
I’m a fiction person so I’ve never read non-fiction because I *wanted* to. If I’m reading non-fiction, it’s because I have to. When I was younger, I read non-fiction because it was part of an assignment for school. Nowadays, I find myself reading for work. We’re encouraged to read one industr...
Former CIA operative Robert Bayer's first novel tells the story of what could have happened behind the scenes of 9/11 and what might have happened if officials listened to Max Waller.Waller had been a CIA operative for ages. He still has a vivid recollection of 1984 when Bill Buckley, the CIA chi...
NORTHERN IRAQ. When my team and I walked into northern Iraq on January 21, 1995, we had no idea anyone was making plans to move against Saddam. I’d volunteered to take a team into the north because I knew it was the only way the CIA could get a heads-up if Saddam was about to invade another neigh...
A Consent of Silence WITH THIS KIND of rot, you’d think that every map in official Washington would have a red flag planted on the dot labeled “Riyadh” to remind the bureaucrats that Saudi Arabia is on life support. The truth is just the opposite. ...
He kept reaching into his linen sport coat as if he were going for a gun. He wasn’t, of course, but this was Beirut. The gesture rattled the hotel staff.“Someone’s going to call for backup if you do that again,” I said, walking up to him.“It’s my cigar case.”“Pull it out, then. Kill the suspense....