David Stone Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

The Echelon Vendetta

     "The Echelon Vendetta got its start in a real CIA surveillance operation which the CIA, for reasons known only to the CIA, first called ECHELON and then, when people started asking what ECHELON was, the CIA changed to something else and then refused to admit they had a technology trade surveillance operation at all. I have no idea why. ECHELON was designed to track – and if necessary stop, by Whatever Means Required (note the Ominous Caps)– the movement of vital defense-related technologies into hostile enemy territories like North Korea or Iran or Russia or China or Syria or maybe France. An excellent idea, and one with which all fair-minded citizens could agree. Unless you're with the ACLU. Or you wear a beret and think Jerry Lewis was a genius.

     At any rate, the ECHELON project, which is still running today, under another name, struck me as an excellent premise for a reality-based novel, which is what I like to write, since telling a story that not only MIGHT be true but in many way IS true is much more fun than writing serious literature meant for the ages. Hope you like the book."

David Stone.

A Short Conversation about The Echelon Vendetta with David Stone

Is The Echelon Vendetta in any way political?

David Stone: I hope not. My goal was to tell a memorable story in an original and compelling way. I hold no brief for causes any more. People are far too hell-bound. Man is not perfectible, and the past cannot be cured. Queen Elizabeth said that. The first one, I mean. Great broad, she was. My kind of woman.

Are all your stories based on your own experiences?

David Stone:     If they were I'd be dead now, although I've had my times. But not even I can drink like Micah Dalton. He's kind of like me, only younger, smarter, meaner, better-looking, and he has the liver of a Norse god. I'll tell you, I do love the stories that are in the world. Tom Wolfe was right; the best stories are out there in the streets and towns. A writer is at his best when he allows the world to show itself to him, pays close attention, and then uses all his skill to describe what he saw accurately, with grace; when he can; even with affection, if he can.

The Echelon Vendetta has a rather terrible man at its center. Is he drawn from real life?

David Stone:     Yes. He is. He's extremely dead now, and the world's a far better place.

Is Micah Dalton based on a real person? Other than being taller than you, I mean.

David Stone:     And better looking. Yes, to a degree.

Is he alive?

David Stone:     I sincerely hope he is.

And the man called Deacon Cather?

David Stone:     Those who knew him may see traces of James Jesus Angleton.

Did you ever meet Angleton?

David Stone:     No. I know people who knew him.

Will you ever reveal your true identity?

David Stone:     Not a chance.

Why not?

I like being unknown. I like my privacy, my life just as it is.

The Echelon Vendetta is an interesting title. Where does the name come from?

David Stone:     Although the CIA 'officially denies' the existence of a technology transfer surveillance program called ECHELON, the existence of such a program by any other name is a strategic certainty; not to maintain a vigilant watch over the transfer of vital industrial and technological processes to the enemies of The West – or to their complacent 'neutral' allies – would be a dereliction of the duties central to any agency charged with national security.
The book is called "The Echelon Vendetta" because the central narrative thrust of the book arises from an Echelon operation that went horribly wrong, resulting in the deaths of several innocent bystanders. The desire to avenge these deaths became the animating principle of the killer I have created in this book, a killer whose nature and actions are based on a couple of real-life killers I have actually seen at work and who are now thoroughly and deservedly dead.