Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis

by Scott Payne, Michelle Shephard Narrated by Scott Payne

Overview

New York Times bestseller ¿ The thrilling true story of one man who risked his life to infiltrate the most dangerous neo-Nazi group in the United States, an “urgent and exciting look into the life of an FBI undercover agent” (Joseph D. Pistone, New York Times bestselling author) by “one of the top undercover agents in the Bureau” (Joaquin “Jack” Garcia, retired FBI agent and New York Times bestselling author).

When Scott Payne was growing up, an `80s kid with a big attitude and a taste for sleeveless shirts, he could never have envisioned where he'd find himself on Halloween night 2019. Having transformed into “Pale Horse” and infiltrated the nation's most dangerous, fastest-growing white supremacy group, The Base, he was huddled with a cell of neo-Nazis in the backwoods of Georgia as they slaughtered a goat and drank its blood in a ritual sacrifice.

A decorated agent dubbed the “Hillbilly Donnie Brasco,” Payne takes readers along with him on some of the most terrifying and riskiest assignments in FBI history. He went deep undercover with the lethal Outlaw Motorcycle Club in Massachusetts; to the front lines of the opioid epidemic in Tennessee; and infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Through it all, he stayed married to the love of his life, raised two girls, and spent his Sundays at church, sustained by family and faith.

Timely and unputdownable, Code Name: Pale Horse is a hard look at some of the most pressing threats facing America today. Honest and inspiring, it's the story of a hero determined to take down a hateful army-before the unthinkable could come to pass.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Code Name: Pale Horse offers an urgent and exciting look into the life of an FBI undercover agent, placing the reader deep inside Payne’s most dangerous and thrilling undercover situations, and showcasing both the hardships he endured and his steely mental resolve.”
—Joe Pistone, New York Times bestselling author of Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia

“A fascinating account of one man's journey into the evil dregs of the criminal underworld. Ride along with Payne as he takes you through the kinds of challenging and dangerous assignments that most undercover agents would never even consider, delivering a masterful tour de force! Truly a captivating story from one of the top undercover agents in the Bureau. His story will simply astound you.”
—Joaquin “Jack” Garcia, retired FBI agent and New York Times bestselling author of Making Jack Falcone

“Code Name: Pale Horse is nothing if not a spiritual quest. . . a glimmering light on our nation’s underbelly and the pitch-dark road ahead as forces of fascism spread amid the land.”
—Hamilton Cain, Chapter 16

“A fast-paced, riveting account of what white nationalist terror cells look like from the inside. Scott Payne’s first-hand experience and Michelle Shephard’s expert storytelling make a formidable combination.”
—Spencer Ackerman, Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award–winning reporter and author of Reign of Terror: How The 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump

“I raced through it. When Payne lifts up the rock to show what’s underneath, you can’t look away. A gripping read.”
—Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author

“Both exhilarating and frightening, this is former FBI agent Scott Payne’s account of discovering and ferreting out America’s Nazis, one of the largest and most insidious domestic terror groups in US history. The tradecraft on display is a true example of the undercover agent’s mantra, ‘Befriend and Betray.’ The book reads like a novel but, shockingly, is all true!”
—Robert K. Wittman, founder of the FBI Art Crime Team and New York Times bestselling author of Priceless and The Devil’s Diary

“The world of an undercover cop has never been more compelling. Payne's firsthand experience puts readers in the front row, observing the setbacks, triumphs, and inner workings of undercover operations. An enlightening, harrowing, and ultimately fulfilling read.”
—Booklist

"In this gripping debut memoir... Payne nimbly juggles a pulse-pounding account of his undercover efforts with a poignant glimpse at the toll his work took on his wife and young daughter. Fans of Joseph Pistone’s Donnie Brasco should snap this up."
—Publishers Weekly

“[A] tough-as-nails account... An eye-opening look at the small but eminently dangerous radical right-wing fringe out there in the shadows.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2025-01-17
An FBI agent recounts his years infiltrating white supremacist groups.

Being an undercover agent, writes Payne, isn’t much like the Hollywood depiction, though there’s truth in the method-actor part of the gig: the need to become someone else. The agent/actor is out there mostly alone, without day-to-day support. “Undercover work,” he writes, “can get pretty lonely at times. You never really get used to it.” Joining the FBI after working as a vice and narcotics investigator for a South Carolina county sheriff, Payne, brawny and tough, was put to work infiltrating biker groups in the Northeast, busting corrupt cops caught up in the drug trade and the like before going deep undercover to track down violent supremacists. This wasn’t the Ku Klux Klan, Payne writes, who are “basically your grandpa’s white supremacists,” but groups such as the Base, modeled after Al Qaeda (which means “the base” in Arabic), whose members are committed to the violent overthrow of the government. Largely disaffected rural people who are lightly educated and heavily armed, they call themselves “accelerationists,” buying into the theory that once the U.S. is overrun by lawless immigrants and the feckless Democrats do nothing about it, “society will decline, and the country will burn,” and the (white) nation will clamor for deliverance. Dubbed “the Hillbilly Donnie Brasco” and trained by the real “Brasco” himself (Joe Pistone), Payne runs with some ugly types to do his job—for one, a woman who takes him on to do home invasions and tells him, “If you need someone tortured, I like torture.” The work, he writes in his tough-as-nails account, became even more pressing after the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Now retired, he intimates that there’s plenty more to be done to curb supremacist radicalism, now in the ascendant.

An eye-opening look at the small but eminently dangerous radical right-wing fringe out there in the shadows.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160640976
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	03/25/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

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