At the secret Central Intelligence Agency outpost, Base Alta, in Northern Norway, an agent takes charge investigating a terrorist organization with plans to strike New York City—but a CIA mole back in the United States threatens to upend the takedown.
This is the plot of Sayville author Elaine Whitehouse’s latest book, “Base Alta,” which is partly inspired by her own life working for intelligence organizations, but whose story is fictional.
The 136-page novella begins with the murder of Celine Mirza outside her Garden City home. Mirza is one of four women spies connected to CIA agent Sonia Rosengren, based at the secret outpost, Base Alta.
Rosengren is a part of an operation code-named XKIndulge that is trying to thwart a terrorist organization set on destroying landmarks and wreaking havoc across the United States.
While action and suspense await readers, “Base Alta” is also a character-driven story that isn’t solely about explosions and death; it goes deeper.
The book’s gentle tone takes readers into the minds of both the story’s CIA agents and the terrorists they’re hunting—a task Whitehouse said she felt made her book different.
“You put yourself into the character,” Whitehouse said. “I usually picture them in my mind.”
One of the terrorists the CIA agents are hunting down is Niyazi al-Rahman, who embeds himself on Long Island’s East End and attempts to land a job at Plum Island, the secretive virus research center, in an attempt to unleash a deadly pathogen on the public.
al-Rahman, however, experiences uncertainties about the operation and becomes more acclimated to the American way of life.
“He was born in the United States, so he’s an American citizen, even though he lives now in the Middle East,” Whitehouse explained. “And so that was an interesting exercise. How would a person feel knowing what they were going to do?”
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