2 weeks Ago By Reviewed by Douglas J. Johnston
There’s nothing like cracking open a book about an FBI agent’s infiltration of an American neo-Nazi group only to discover it stars a homegrown white supremacist. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * To continue reading, please subscribe: *$1 will be added to your next bill. After your 4 weeks access is complete your rate will increase by $0.
00 a X percent off the regular rate. There’s nothing like cracking open a book about an FBI agent’s infiltration of an American neo-Nazi group only to discover it stars a homegrown white supremacist. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? There’s nothing like cracking open a book about an FBI agent’s infiltration of an American neo-Nazi group only to discover it stars a homegrown white supremacist.
It would be no great stretch to alter this book’s subtitle to , because there’s a local angle, big time, to this memoir. Scott Payne’s account of his undercover investigation of American Nazis really only gets going near mid-book. Prior to that, he recounts his earlier undercover-agent stints with America’s second-largest (after the Hell’s Angels) criminal motorcycle gang, the Outlaws, and adventures busting “dirty” (drug dealing) cops in rural Tennessee.
Code Name Pale Horse The book’s written “with” former reporter Michelle Shephard — publishing industry code for her major input in the writing and polishing of Payne’s text. While working undercover in October 2019 in Silver Creek, Ga., Payne encountered a neo-Nazi first exposed by the .
The guy was no mere foot soldier in a U.S. domestic-terrorist movement, but a major player.
Payne became palsy with a dangerous loogan initially known only by his movement handle, “Dave Arctorum” — but latterly better known as Manitoba-born-and-bred, and former Beausejour resident Patrik Mathews, a Canadian army reservist. In 2019, Mathews was exposed as a member of a far-right underground militia group known as “The Base” by former reporter Ryan Thorpe. The RCMP raided Mathews’ Beausejour home in August 2019 and seized a quantity of guns.
Shortly thereafter he went missing. His pickup truck was later found abandoned on a rural property near Sprague, Man., close to the Canada-U.
S. border. Mathews migrated south to the Georgia wing of The Base, where Payne met him and first put him on the FBI’s radar.
Mathews eventually fell out with the Georgia group and joined a Maryland branch. He was arrested on multiple weapons and obstruction of justice charges in Delaware in January 2020. In October 2021, a Maryland court sentenced him to nine years in prison for his role in The Base, including plotting a mass killing.
Apart from being an engaging story, the value of Payne’s memoir lies in his exposure of a relatively new quasi-anarchist subspecies of Nazism — “accelerationism.” Nazis have always historically attacked liberal democracy, seeking its demise in favour of a totalitarian, and usually white racist, regime. Contemporary accelerationist Nazi groups such as The Base want to hasten — to accelerate — the end of democracy via violent acts that heighten political discord and sow chaos.
Their object: precipitate a race war that ends in an ultra right-wing dictatorship. As Payne puts it, older racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan “are basically your grandpa’s white supremacists.” The new accelerationist groups like The Base are vigorous and organized, he writes.
During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. They’re “not just angry white guys in their basements. They’re actively recruiting and radicalizing online,” says Payne.
“When they meet in person, they hone their skills at outdoor training camps, planning and plotting to target racial minorities and Jews.” Payne nicely portrays the tension and loneliness of life undercover, plus the exhilaration of thwarting the bad guys. But while briskly written, the book sometimes fails to fully transport you inside the undercover operations, so as to feel as if you’re in the moment yourself.
Still, it’s a revelatory tale, told by a brave guy who put his life on the line to take down a bunch of monsters — one local included. Douglas J. Johnston is a Winnipeg lawyer and writer.
Codename: Pale Horse:How I Went Undercover To Expose America’s Nazis By Scott Payne with Michelle Shephard Atria Books, 256 pages, $39 Advertisement Advertisement.
