August, 1943: In his short time as a spy with the Office of Strategic Services, young Cletus Frade has faced many unlikely situations, but nothing like his new assignment. Having helped Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Frogger escape a Mississippi P.O.W. camp, he must now get the defiant German to turn against his country.

Promoted and placed in charge of a top-secret spy operation for a fledgling Central Intelligence Agency, James Cronley discovers links between the former German intelligence chief and the Mossad before receiving shocking intelligence from an undercover agent.

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. In his first assignment, he's got seven days to extract a vital piece of information from a Soviet agent, but there are enemies everywhere--and, as Cronley is about to find out, some of them even wear the same uniform he does.

"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 lying low ever since, but that little vacation is about to end. Somebody--Odessa,...