The Coldest Warrior by Paul Vidich

Pegasus Crime

By Charlie Gofen

U.S. biological warfare scientist Frank Olson’s mysterious death has sparked investigations, countless magazine and newspaper articles, and a Netflix miniseries. Now espionage author Paul Vidich offers up a taut thriller inspired by Olson’s defenestration from a hotel in 1953.

In Vidich’s latest novel, The Coldest Warrior, the bioweapons scientist (who is named Charles Wilson in this fictionalized version of the story) has been deeply involved in ultra-secret germ warfare programs, and when he is deemed a security risk, the CIA decides to eliminate the risk.

More than two decades later, a government report on CIA misdeeds stirs up the Wilson case. The year is 1975. The Senate has opened an investigation, and the scientist’s relatives are also demanding answers, but there are some powerful men in Washington who have a vested interest in preventing the truth from emerging, and they will take extraordinary measures to stop people from talking.

Veteran CIA officer Jack Gabriel is tasked by his boss with finding the truth. Gabriel is a company man who doesn’t want to dishonor the Agency, but he also has a strong moral compass that drives him to seek justice. In addition, he is a family man, which adds a layer to the story, both because his continued inquiry puts his loved ones at risk, and because he will have to grapple with his own personal deceptions, including lying to his 14-year-old daughter about who he works for.

The Coldest Warrior succeeds on two levels. First, Vidich’s story has momentum and never flags. He does a nice job detailing Gabriel’s investigative methods (including exhuming a body to conduct an autopsy) and incorporates some fun tradecraft (chalk marks on a mailbox to signal a meeting; homing devices placed under the dash of a car). There’s a scene in which two men are rowing on the Potomac that is simply thrilling. And watch out for a nice twist at the end of the novel.

In addition, Vidich raises vexing moral issues through his storytelling. To what extent should we view questionable CIA activities from the 1950s – germ warfare, LSD experimentation, torture, and assassination – in the context of the time, when the U.S. was afraid that the Soviet Union was “ruthlessly intent on expanding its totalitarian power and taking over the world as the Nazis had a decade earlier”? Do we have an obligation to deal with the misdeeds of our past? To attempt to right wrongs? And can we achieve these goals without a public reckoning?

Charlie Gofen is an investment counselor in Chicago who has taught high school and been a newspaper reporter.