"Where do they get those wonderful toys?" The Weapons of A Pius Man, an Illustrated Guide

The Weapons of A Pius Man: An Illustrated Guide

Writing A Pius Man, Part 5: A Love Story?

Part 5: Love Among the Spooks

In my usual description of A Pius Man, things slip through the cracks. It's a thriller. It's a war story. It's apologetics with bullets. It's a political techno thriller. There's a shootout down the Spanish Steps. We shot up the Vatican, blew up a hotel, blew up an airport, waged war against mercenaries, the Swiss Guard, killer priests, a dozen nations, have some fun with the UN, the World Court, and everything short of killer robots.



Oh, yeah, I have a love story in there too.



Don't look at me like that. I wasn't going to fill every page with shootouts, chase scenes, and explosions. None of my characters remotely resemble Bruce Willis. They all have hair, for one. Also, each character is a fully three dimensional, red blooded person, not some sort of bloodless, passionless plot device—none of them look like Tom Hanks.



As strange as it might seem, I am a romantic at heart. That said, if someone hands me something that even has a mild tinge of a romance novel, it better have a fantastic, original plot, or I will smack that someone with the novel. And possibly make them eat it.



I am uncomfortable and suspicious of any book that has a hero and heroine fall in love inside of one book. It has to be done well, or take place over a good period of time. That said, there are circumstances I can believe. It's common knowledge that high stress situations can lead to intense emotional bonding. In Stockholm syndrome, it happens over the course of hours, if not days. And that takes place between terrorists and their hostages. It shouldn't be too unreasonable that it should happen between two allies.

I had one character I had designed previously—Scott “Mossad” Murphy, first member of the Goyim brigade of Israeli Intelligence. I wanted his attention dragged to Rome from a tip by a German intelligence officer.

Designing this German was easy—I wanted the exact opposite of Murphy. Scott Murphy, the perfect spy, was short-ish, pale, with almost no distinguishing features. Slap on some makeup, he's whatever he wants to be. Therefore, physically she had to be beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous.... which made them a perfect fit. All eyes could be on her while he slipped into the background.



But how do I create a woman who was believably beautiful without turning her into something out of a fantasy novel? Simple—I use the physical features of someone real. I used the features of someone I knew. And what do you know, the previous year in college, I had someone who matched that description perfectly. Her name was Manana Kull.

Enter Manana “Mani” Shushurin of German intelligence... she was raised in East Germany, hence the last name.

Murphy could blend in and disappear. However, when I made him, he had a disdain for weapons. He was spy—he was not Jason Bourne, he was not James Bond, though he could pass for George Smiley. He didn't do weapons. If he needed a weapon, he didn't do his job.





Therefore, Shushurin had to be the expert in weapons and hand-to-hand combat.



I would bear no idiots in my books, so they were both smart, capable professionals, with complimentary skill sets and equal intelligence.



And somewhere along the line, two people who existed in a very lonely profession wound up falling in love in the middle of my thriller. Obviously, they weren't busy enough getting shot at. They were too good at keeping their heads down.



Ironically, this was part of the story I hadn't planned.



Joseph Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, author of a slew of comic books, tv shows, and novels, once wrote about characters in his work. Sometimes, they take one path when you tell them to take another. And sometimes you have to drive back along the path and take the route you wanted to take originally, with them pouting in the back seat.



Timothy Zahn, the only Star Wars novelist I will acknowledge anymore, mentions a similar phenomenon. He cites one instance of his character, Talon Karde, kidnapped and held hostage, and being led to a sinister temple of doom—as Zahn tells it “Karde had his men slowly surrounding them, and I had to pull them back because he had to go into the temple for the story to progress.”



Yes, for those of you who are wondering, writing fiction has been described as a form of schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder—usually by the authors themselves. Then again, when you generate an entire character biography in your head, have to decide what is perfectly in character for them to do at any given moment, make their reactions consistent... having another person in your head is the easiest way to put it.



Thankfully, I managed to tie the romance subplot into the overall story fairly easily. It even became critical to the book. How can two people falling in love save the world?



Well, you'll have to read the book to find that out.



Hey, it worked for Terry Goodkind.

How A Pius Man came to be: Part 3. Writing

Part three: The Creative process—AKA: Writing the darn thing.

During a winter break, I had gone through great pains to finish my thesis. It had been more or less a cultural analysis of Irish Rebel songs, which, like my books, had a lot of property damage, and fighting, with merry and bouncy tunes and boy, were these people having way too much fun.







That made up three credits of a semester where I had only two other classes, and no social life. The paper was mostly finished before the semester had even begun. I was even more finished when I pounded out two term papers before the first month was out.



What part of “no social life” do you not understand?



I started writing A Pius Man in February, 2004. I was finished with it by April. There were a lot of nights where I was up until three in the morning. The story wouldn't get out of my head or leave me alone. For the first time in my life, instead of making it up when I went along, I did an outline. I drew sketches and diagrams.



The sad part is, I kept footnoting the darned thing.



And it all came naturally to me. Two spies would follow the lead of a dead terrorist looking in the Vatican archives, and discover yet another dead researcher from the archives—a crime investigated by Giovanni Figlia. They would have to find Giovanni Figlia and his entourage from the Secret Service and the Egyptian police. And with modern technology, it was easy for the spies to know what the primary investigators were doing. “Sinister looking priest #1” would have to keep up as well, to make certain that nothing inconvenient would be discovered. The Interpol cop from Ireland would have to fly in and confirm that all this was, yes, linked together to Pope Pius XII.



And, thanks to maps on the internet, I can make the bus terminal arriving from the airport be one point on a straight line from the Vatican to the Spanish steps.



Should any of my other books see the light of day, you'll note that I have a pattern of property damage at public places. A gunfight in a science fiction convention; a battle at the Cloisters; a shootout at a Fireworks factory in Long Island; the Muir woods in San Francisco; a hostage situation at a Barnes and Noble bookstore; a chase with MacGyver moments in CostCo. Been there, done that, blown it up.



And for some reason, I couldn't get one image out of my head—an armored SUV going down the Spanish steps.



After that, the characters had to connect the dots, do the research, find a personal connection to the situation, and most of all—what is worth killing over for a secret over sixty years old? No offense to anyone on any side of the “debate,” but if someone proved that Pope Pius XII was a Nazi, or that he was a hero, who would kill for that?



End result: the book was eight hundred pages long. Two hundred thousand words, when the average novel was only one hundred thousand. And I had brought in EVERY, SINGLE, CHARACTER I had ever written, over a dozen books, excluding the science fiction ones. Because what had started with a simple and straightforward murder turned into an all out war, and I needed every person I could conceive of to support what protagonists I had standing. A very small army of light against a large army of darkness, and I didn't even have Sam Raimi.



From 2004-2007, there were several variations on the story. The first had an additional character. One had a character introduced from the very beginning who was used to bring in most of the history; he didn't disappear, but he was shifted. One version took out about 50% of the story and made it around five hundred pages.



Then there was the easy version. Split it up into three books. One character gets deleted, one gets transferred into book two, several sequences get shifted so that the character moments aren't all in one place or another, and ta da, instant trilogy.



Two major plot points in the story became a matter of what intelligence agencies call “blowback.” When someone fires a gun, gunpowder residue gets on the shooter's clothing, even though the gun is pointed away from the shooter.



In the world of intelligence, blowback means that an operation has come back to bite you on the ass: either an assassination went wrong and the target wants to return the favor; some dictator dislikes you blowing up his favorite weapons research facility and would like to bury you, that sort of thing.



If I used the blowback as the basis for completely different books, then dang, book one is only over a hundred thousand words. Excellent. Fill in details and character in books two and three, not to mention “previously, in A Pius Man” moments that I can use to pad the book.... or keep the audience up to speed. Either way....



And then, after all this was done, it was time for the hardest part of all. I had to sell it.



After all, it was only one book, being marketed to a publishing industry that was swamped with hundreds of manuscripts per day, manned by people who had to slog through this slush of paper.



How hard could it be?




Don't ask.

How A Pius Man Came to be: Part 2

Part 2: Now what?

So, you're going to right a history novel that's both thrilling and accurate, without resorting to something over the top fantastical in the meantime?



The answer there is: that's nice, wake me when you're done.



Oh, darn, wait—I want to write it!



Now what?



Before I begin the process of this book's creation, I should make something clear. I've wanted to write for a living since I was sixteen. By the time I had started A Pius Man, I had written almost a dozen other novels; a science fiction quartet that started as fan fiction and turned into a space opera; a thriller trilogy about a Secret Service Agent and the CIA assassin who kept running into each other; a murder mystery set in a Catholic high school summer camp; another mystery set at a science fiction convention; a hostage novel; I won't discuss the short stories. None of them had been published, but I had other things to do—high school, two bachelor's in three years, a master's in one, I was generally busy.



My point: writing wasn't an issue. I had more or less taught myself keyboarding by the time I had gotten the concept of the book, and had developed a mental habit of innovation out of the weirdest little things, as well as the ability to write for thirty hours straight.



But now, a new project. Working on a thriller encapsulating everything I had learned about Pope Pius XII. So, when in doubt, the title had to be a bad pun. Title: A Pius Man.



Then the questions started.



Well, where do I set the novel? Another world hopping journey, digging in the muck and mire, or perhaps solving puzzles laid out from World War II?



Been there, done that, and we've probably all seen that movie. If only for Ian McKellen's acting.



So, if I'm not going to bounce around the planet, where am I going to put this?



A few years prior, I had wanted to make a murder mystery set in the Vatican. I had never gotten past page one, but I wanted to have the scene open with a dead priest and a knife in his back.



So, when dealing with the Roman Catholic church, go to Rome. Check.



We need a conspiracy—what fiction with the Catholic church in it doesn't have some kind of deep dark conspiracy around it? Not counting The Exorcist.... few. Who's behind it? Well, the standard options are the government, the Church, or intelligence agencies.... I came up with a fun combination of all three.



Next step: who was I going to use in this mischegas of a plot? I didn't want an automatic hero. I didn't want a protagonist to leap out of a telephone booth or a police box. It wasn't happening. I needed vague characters. Someone whose loyalty the audience would question along the way. It wasn't going to be a paranoid thriller, but there are segments where it would be close.



One character was someone I had already invented—Commander Giovanni Figlia of the Vatican Office of Vigilance. His job is to protect the Pope. But if the Pope is guilty of a crime, or of conspiracy to commit murder, then what can he do? And just how do you arrest a pontiff anyway? He was already in Rome, a bit player I had invented for the background of a few other novels. It was time to give him a personality. A back story. Anything at all, really.



That's one...but what could possibly get him involved in a conspiracy going back decades?



Oh, that's easy. Kill an academic. Someone going through the Vatican archives. The “secret” archives, even though that's a bad translation error. Kill someone looking into Pope Pius XII.



Now, are we going to kill this guy in the Vatican? Really? Because I can't imagine how else we're going to involve Figlia...



Oooooh, wait, a bomb can fling a body a good distance, right? I can work with that.



Next, we need a fish out of water. Someone for whom the audience can relate to when she goes “Huh?” Especially when the audience is trying to figure out what sort of rabbit hole they fell into. My Alice had to be as out of place in the world of European Catholicism as possible... and who would be more out of place than an American Jew? Yes, my Alice is a Wilhelmina “Villie” Goldberg. Immediately, I had a vision of a short Italian acquaintance come to mind. She'd do for a physical model—about 4'11”. She'd have to be part of a security service, and making her American would make her a Secret Service agent.



Though if I stuck with that physical model, she would be a little short for a Secret Service agent who played human shield. However, foreign governments talk to the Secret Service about improving security, and all you need is a brain for that. So, when in doubt, get her from the NSA—which provided technical support for the protagonists.



How are we going to get her involved? Have her be there when we drop a body on Figlia... or his general area, at least. Check.





Somehow, having all this going on without another interested party being involved seemed unlikely. Someone from Mossad—if the Israelis wouldn't be interested in this subject, who would? Mossad involvement was easy to arrange—I created a character in one of my notebooks, someone who had arrived in Israel as part of a small emigration from the United States. A Gentile in Mossad... we have to call this section the Goyim brigade.



And what would attract anyone in Mossad to Rome? That's easy enough—there had been an earlier victim who had been researching the archives, and he was connected to terrorism. A dead terrorist with no confirmed killer—looks a bit suspicious. And a second dead body connected to Pius XII, seriously suspicious.



Mossad gets most of its intelligence from Germany, and the Germans would be involved anyway, given the subject matter—they are sort of touchy about the 1930s and 40s. So, throw in someone from German Intelligence. Two spies, check.



A neutral party would be good. Some character who has NO horse in this particular race; who has no investment in Pius XII being guilty, innocent, or not guilty by reason of insanity. Jews are out, Christians are out.... and if the Pope was going to declare a propaganda war on the Middle East (see below), he would probably tour it. Which means there would be a security specialist to coordinate with the Swiss Guards. He'd be connected to Figlia, for the coordination, and Goldberg, because she'd be improving security. But it would be too easy to have him be visibly neutral and good. We're suspecting everyone else, why not him? Hmm... oh, yeah, it seems that he stoned his wife to death. That'll work.



Check one investigative team: Papal Security, the Secret Service, and someone from, oh, make it Egypt.



And there's a wild card that has to be tossed in. Just to make everyone wonder what the hell goes on at the Vatican.... well, the man who shot Pope John Paul II was first jumped by a nun. Given how many clergy are in Vatican City, it would be more likely for one of them to first get to an assailant than some of the Swiss Guard. And if that should ever happen again, I would sure as hell want to bring in a security expert to train them....



Enter security specialist Sean A.P. Ryan. Already, he's earned comparisons to the comic book character Deadpool, the mercenary who will, occasionally, do the right thing, if only as a last resort. Not to mention being bat guano crazy. Wild card, check.



And what good is a mystery without a murdered witness? After all, they have Vatican trials for saints. Witnesses appear. One of the better known priests that I knew of was an Irish priest named Fr. Caroll-Abbing; he arranged much of the aide in Rome for fugitives and refugees. Caroll-Abbing was a real figure, but also quite dead when I started writing. However, I'm sure he must have had an aide. Caroll-Abbing was an Irish priest, assume an Irish aide.... and I had another character all ready and sketched out: Interpol Agent Maureen McGrail. And I had given her a previous professional dislike of Sean Ryan. We get to have some more fun that way.



And her arrival will certainly confirm that the events were all about Pope Pius XII—a dead academic may be accident, a murdered terrorist coincidence, but a murdered witness is enemy action.



I had my primary lineup. Two spies; a proper team of Papal Security et al; and two people from out of town. A three-tiered story. Works for me. In several books, Tom Clancy did at least three storylines for a hundred pages before he brought them together in a train wreck. I won't dawdle quite that long.



No, time to insert some paranoia. In any good thriller, you need to be under the impression that you can get it in the neck at any time from any direction. Kind of like a fast season of 24. We're in a thriller with the Catholic church, we must have at least one sinister looking priest, and a highly suspicious looking pope, someone so invested in the reputation of Pius XII, he'd do practically anything to see it's protected.



Hence Pope Pius XIII, who wants to make the World War II pontiff a saint, make him a figure to rally around....for...? Hmm. Rally around for what?



Enter another graduate course I took—problems in Contemporary African history. I had done a paper on the war in the Sudan, a war going on and off since the early 1980s. This Pope would have grown up with his country ignored, left to be bombed to hell, and—Darfur? Really? Thirty years of bloody warfare, civilians killed, churches bombed, and the world media focuses on one town? I suspect he would be a little put out by that, especially if he had lived in a town no one never heard of before or after it was wiped from the map.



How could I possibly make the Pope look sinister? I know—make him somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. He's using Pope Pius XII as a banner, using one side of the “debate” (mentioned in Part 1 of this article), Pius XII as hero and saint.



But, while making the Pope as sinister figure is nice—he's not going to run around Rome in a white robe trying to be inconspicuous. Especially since he's over two meters tall, and doesn't exactly blend in around Italy. (One acquaintance of mine returned from Rome and said “There are black people in Italy. Oh. My. God.” She was so shocked and appalled... she also wonders why I don't talk to her anymore.) He needs something every good Evil Overlord requires—a lackey. We need another priest.



Already have one. In a previous novel I drafted, I created a priest wandering around in the background—a priest with combat training from his time in special forces. He has martial training, kicks ass, and he has silver hair, and pale skin—no one would ever take him for an albino. Of course not. Suspicious looking lackey, check.



A three-layered plot with a wandering priest tying them all together.



Works for me.



Conspiracy, check.



Characters, check.



Now it has to be written.... Oh, shoot me now...

Short Story by Memo. The first Pius promo

A memo from the head of Vatican Intelligence to the head of Papal Security, with attached resume.

********************************************





Memo



From: Msgr. Xavier O'Brien, SJ [XO@vatican.va]



To: Commander Giovanni Figlia, Vatican Office of Vigilance [Vigiles@vatican.va]



RE: Training.







Giovanni,





You will remember our conversation of the 21st relating to the Pope's idea of training the locals for self-defense. Attached, you will find the resume of a security specialist who has been recommended to us for this purpose. He is an American, and a former stuntman—what better way to guarantee nonlethal combat than from someone who had to restrain himself in his job?



-XO



*******************************************



From:Giovanni Figlia. [Vigiles@vatican.va]

To: Msgr. Xavier O'Brien, SJ [XO@vatican.va]

RE: Training.



Msgr. O'Brien,



I do not know what to make of your proposal. As I understand it, His Holiness wants the priests and the nuns to be trained in nonlethal combat. I understand, given his days spent in Uganda and the Sudan, he is concerned about someone coming after him. I understand, also, that he remembers that Ali Agca was first apprehended by a nun when he shot Pope John Paul II before the Guard could get a hold of him, and he would like the next nun to try such a thing to be trained for it. I understand this.



But did you READ this resume before sending it to me? He lists his resume by property damage!! And what are those numbers next to each job in his work experience?



-Gianni



***********************************************



From: Msgr. Xavier O'Brien, SJ [XO@vatican.va]

To: Giovanni Figlia. [Vigiles@vatican.va]

RE: Training.



Giovanni,



As I said before, this man had been recommended to Josh personally by a dear and trusted friend of the Vatican. Yours is not to reason why....nor is it to finish the rest of the quote...simply evaluate him.



The numbers you ask about are the people killed during each mission. He wants no one to be confused about what he does. Rather commendable, don't you think?



-XO.





*****************************************



SEAN ALOYSIUS P. RYAN

93-20 RODEO DR, CA 11002

347-990-6669

SAPR@SAPRassoc.net







OBJECTIVE:



To serve with honor, to protect my client, his or her principles, and to end whatever threat is presented. When I am done, the client should be well aware of proper security provisions, weapons, tactics, and should have no need of myself or my personnel. I am currently seeking a position where I can quickly make significant contributions

EDUCATION: Autodidact.



HONORS/AWARDS:

1999: Stuntman of the Year Award;

1999: Presidential Scholarship, St. John’s University Honors Program, (award declined)

1997-2002: Craziest Stuntman of the Year award.

2001: Craziest Stunt of the Year award; Phi Eta Sigma, National Freshman Honor Society



TRAINING.



1989-Present: Krav Maga training, under Michael Blitz, Kombat Masters of Long Island (Expert Level)

1989: Weapons training by FBI Agent Alice West (Family Friend)

1997: Quantico Defensive Driving Course, by Agent Emily Tierney (Mother)

1997: Tutoring with Special Agent Candice Delong (family friend)





WORK EXPERIENCE

2000-2002: Lord of the Rings, Stuntman.

January, 2003: Bodyguard, Director Stephen S*******g, Singer Barbara S*******d, (0)

March 2003-Present: CEO, Sean A.P. Ryan and Associates.

April 2003: Bodyguard, Actor Phillipe Nero (est 5, house destroyed)

June 2003: Bodyguard, Actress Mira Gajic (est 40+)

September 2003: Bodyguard, Natalie Boatman (est 50+, Frat house destroyed)





PERSONAL STRENGTHS:

Excellent oral communication skills and interrogation techniques…able to work well with people at all levels with good feedback techniques to assure proper communication…can analyze problems and quickly generate viable solutions… efficient time management abilities…organized and disciplined…excellent interpersonal skills…team player… high-energy level…reliable…have synthesized vast quantities of material and expressed them in audience-friendly form.

PERSONAL:

26, Single, in excellent health, no children, willing to consider travel/relocation.

References available upon request.