Roger L. Liles has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is The Berlin Tunnel - A Cold War Thriller.
The Cold War Begins
Summary
As the Cold War between East and West commences, so does our story. The setting is war-ravaged Berlin in late 1946. From that devastated and divided city, spies from both sides began to move with relative ease throughout occupied Germany. America and its allies need to determine the composition and deployment locations of the military forces; Russia has moved into the very heart of Western Europe. The Russians work diligently to deny the Western powers knowledge of their intentions and strategies while consolidating their position in their new vassal states in Middle Europe including East Germany; their ultimate goal is to spread communism to the rest of the world. Recently declassified documents have revealed the true nature and extent of the spy versus spy conflict that occurred from the mid-1940s through the early 1990s between the American CIA and British MI6 on one side and the Russian KGB and GRU (plus eventually the East German Stasi) on the other. In late 1946, Kurt Altschuler arrives in the divided city of Berlin. His job as an Associate Press News Agency reporter serves as a cover for his true role as a CIA agent. His first assignment is to establish a spy network that covers the Russian-occupied zone of Germany. Two years later, during the Berlin Blockade, he meets Erica Hoffmann, a beautiful East German archeology student. Any relationship between a CIA agent and an East German woman is strictly forbidden; she might be part of a "honey pot sting". Love could not have found them at a worse moment. Their tempestuous relationship keeps Kurt in Berlin and on the front lines of the Cold War for the next 13 years. The 1953 East German uprising which was violently suppressed by Russian tanks is a seminal event in Kurt and Erica’s stormy love life. The next year, Kurt is tasked with managing the construction of the first Berlin Tunnel; if successfully completed, it would allow the British MI6 and the CIA to monitor communist communication throughout Russian occupied Europe. Ultimately Kurt becomes chief operations officer for CIA station Berlin. In that capacity, he manages the East-West spy-versus-spy interactions in Berlin for years. His experience allows him to direct his subordinates when the Berlin Wall is closed, the Berlin Crisis occurs, and a second tunnel is built into East Berlin. He yearns for action and even risks brief excursions behind the Iron Curtain. The novel begins and ends with a deadly confrontation between Kurt, a rogue CIA agent, and three Stasi agents in an abandoned warehouse in East Berlin.
©2020 Roger L. Liles (P)2020 Roger L. Liles
The Berlin Tunnel - A Cold War Thriller
Summary
Books, movies, and popular media have eulogized the major role that British breaking of the Enigma Code played in the winning of World War II. During the Cold War, a more monumental effort was made by America and her allies to intercept and exploit Russian and communist countries' communications. In the mid-1950s a tunnel was built by British MI-6 and the CIA, which tapped into a buried communications cable in East Berlin. They successfully intercepted and exploited East European and Russian communist communications for over a year. Suddenly, in 1956, the tunnel was “discovered” by the Russians, denying the allies this exceptionally valuable intelligence source. This novel, The Berlin Tunnel, is a fictional account of how a second tunnel might have been built between East and West Berlin. It is a thriller which takes the listener into the super-secret world that the author occupied 50 years ago. Every scene in The Berlin Tunnel could have happened. The time - 1960-1961, and the place - the Divided City of Berlin, have been faithfully recreated using extensive research and the author’s personal experience. Young American Air Force Captain Robert Kerr arrives in a divided Berlin awash with spies who move freely between the East and West. His task - build a top-secret tunnel under the river Spree into East Berlin - tap into highly classified communications links between civilian and military leaders in Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries. The knowledge gained from this source will help America’s leaders to manage an imminent confrontation between the East and West over Berlin, perhaps even prevent World War III. At all cost, knowledge that the tunnel is being built must be hidden from the Russian KGB and the East German Stasi, as well as our closest allies - the British and French. Only those involved in its construction can be allowed to know of the existence of the tunnel. Love couldn’t have found him at a worse time. Soon after he arrives, Robert falls for a German girl, Anna Fischer. It is spy verses spy as the dreaded East German Secret Police the Stasi use every means possible to determine what Robert and his construction crew are doing in Berlin. But it is Anna who is often caught in the crossfire between the Americans and the Stasi. The conclusion of the novel centers around events that focus the attention of the world on Berlin. First, the Wall is closed, trapping 19 million East Germans including, Anna’s entire family, behind the Iron Curtain. A few months later, the world held its collective breath when the Berlin Crisis occured - High Noon at Checkpoint Charlie - the only time in the Cold War when Russian and American tanks faced each other. Robert and Anna are caught up in these momentous events as they try to free her family and survive in a very dangerous city.
©2018 Roger L. Liles (P)2019 Roger L. Liles