Code Name: Pale Horse—How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis
Scott Payne is a good ole boy from South Carolina and retired FBI undercover agent, who recounts his career with the agency. For all his corn-pone accent and style (including pretty devout Christianity), Payne’s a pretty clever guy and sincere anti-racist, starting with how his White community and some rural cops treated Black teammates on his high school football team, and ending with a belief that “accelerationist” White Supremacist domestic terrorists are the greatest danger America faces today.
Undercover work is a high stakes delicate game. Payne started with local cops, doing simple “buy and bust” operations on street-level dealers. But kingpins and real organizations aren’t noticeably harmed by low-level enforcement, and Payne moved onwards to the FBI.
His first major case was infiltrating the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a classic gang focused around whatever crimes make money, mostly smuggling and moving odd product. Payne is pretty sympathetic to the Outlaws and some Tennessee opioid dealers, even as he works to put them behind bars.
He has a lot less sympathy for members of The Base, the White Supremacist network he played a key role in taking down. These guys are online losers, radicalized by group chats and social media, treating spree killers as inspirations and just looking for a chance to take out as many people with them as they can.
I’ve got mixed feelings about undercover work. It’s definitely scary stuff. Payne came close to death at least once when the Outlaws searched him while he was wearing a wire, and when The Base used debugging tech on his truck which could have spotted his GPS tracker. Targeted undercover is definitely more efficient than randomly jacking up suspicious (read Black) people. But a lot of the FBI’s undercover work is focused on Muslims and COINTELPRO political stuff. These investigations take years, and undercover agents like Payne are the tip of large and expensive investigative teams.
Some interesting stuff. Even being an undercover agent isn’t necessarily a full time job. Payne still had to do regular agent paperwork and served as a tactical firearms instructor. Also, if you’re a criminal and a friendly stranger shows up willing to do illegal stuff you suggest, they’re probably FBI. Especially if they’re willing to kill people for money. Ostensible hitmen are pretty much always FBI.