Interview With David Stone, Author of The Skorpion Directive

I have heard good things about espionage and thriller author David Stone so when I was offered the chance to interview him about his new book, The Skorpion Directive, I jumped at the chance.

David Stone is not his real name - he writes under a pseudonym because of his past as an intelligence agent. And it is that experience, and that old adage of "write what you know," that makes his book compelling reading. So most of my questions centered around that topic.

The Skorpion Directive is Stone's fourth book featuring character Micah Dalton, a CIA cleaner. This time he is trying to determine why a friend is dead and why the CIA seems inclined to pin the death on him.

How long have you worked in the intelligence community and are you still in that career? What were the highs and lows in that job?

I was active in the intelligence field for 23 years, if we include my time in the military. I’m retired now, and writing spy stories. What were the highs and lows? Details would still be classified, but essentially I was proud to be a part of an operation that provided weapons and cash to an insurgency in Central America that was fighting a Marxist takeover of that country by a man who was a devoted admirer of Che Guevara.

I admit that every time I see some brainless college kid wearing a Che Guevara tee-shirt I’d like to take him to the villages where Che lived and worked and get the survivors to explain to this kid just precisely what kind of psychopathic murdering sadistic cold-blooded man he really was.

So, being part of the force that fought and prevailed against what we called “The Children of Che” was a privilege I will always be grateful for. Other than that, we saved a lot of young combat soldiers by being able to tell them what was probably waiting for them in the dead brush at the head of the trail.

I also discovered that tracers work both ways and that the most dangerous thing on the battlefield is an officer with a map and that nothing brightens your day better than getting shot at and missed.

Article Author: Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education.

He reads at least 50 books a year and has about the same number of author interviews each year and, …

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