Warning. Spoiler Alert. Please Do Not Read The Following Unless You Have Already Read Path of Assassin
The idea for Path of the Assassin had come to me while writing The Lions of Lucerne. I had never intended Scot Harvath to be a recurring character, but my publisher was getting such great feedback about Harvath’s character that they encouraged me to keep him going.
Originally, the main character of Path was going to be Philip Hudson – a Chicago Ad Exec who survives a brutal hijacking and is the only person who can ID the man behind the attack. Having served in an elite military unit, Hudson was going to be called upon to hunt down the hijacker and bring him to justice. Now that I was bringing Harvath back, though, I had to change the story. In essence, I split the Hudson character into two separate people – Scot Harvath and Meg Cassidy.
As far as my bad guy was concerned, it intrigued me that Abu Nidal had basically fallen off the international radar screen. Everyone was focused on a Saudi exile named Osama Bin Laden who was believed to be behind the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as the attack upon the USS Cole. Even though Abu Nidal had been labeled by the U.S. State Department as the most dangerous terrorist in the world, the public focus on him seemed to have shifted entirely. Rumors ran rampant that Nidal had hung up his spies and was dying of cancer in either Egypt of Libya. As it turned out, Nidal was in neither place. While I was writing Path, the world learned that the world’s most dangerous terrorist had been hiding in Iraq. This announcement came on the heels of another equally startling announcement that Nidal committed suicide by shooting himself in the head multiple times.
The odd facts surrounding Abu Nidal’s death notwithstanding, I wanted to breathe new and more frightening life into the specter of the Abu Nidal terrorist network. To do that, I tried to ask myself several questions that would help create an intimidating and complex villain for my main character, Scot Harvath, to go up against. What if Nidal had offspring who no one in Western intelligence knew about? What if Nidal’s offspring was reared and educated in the West? What if Nidal then handed the reigns of his organization over to this offspring and set his progeny loose upon the world? Good stuff, but the writing of the book turned out to be very difficult.
I was right in the middle of writing my hijacking scene when September 11th happened. Less than two weeks before, I had been told very politely and very firmly by the head of American Airlines’ security that the hijacking questions I was asking him were not ones he cared to answer and though he respected the contact who had put us in touch, he was not going to talk with me about anything else. I completely appreciated the man’s position – after all, I was asking some very detailed questions that undoubtedly could have compromised American Airlines’ security. When 9/11 happened, I was laying 50:50 odds that it would only be a matter of time before the FBI came knocking at my door asking why I was so obsessed with hijacking an American Airlines plane only weeks prior to September 11th. The visit from the FBI never came.
In the wake of the attack, most of my military, law enforcement, and intelligence contacts were unreachable. My wife and I would eventually learn that someone we knew died in the World Trade Center, while another person – a classmate of mine from high school, escaped and said the smell of jet fuel lingered in his nostrils for days.
Writing Path was very challenging on many levels, but I was very pleased with the end product. I developed characters in that novel that readers have written to me saying they hope to see me bring back, and I did in my next novel, State of the Union.
The research on this book was very enjoyable, especially the time I spent visiting Cairo, Rome, and the island of Capri. At the time I was writing this book, visiting Libya was out of the question, so I relied on firsthand accounts from people I knew who had been there – in both overt and covert capacities.
I have had a lot of people ask me if Scot Harvath’s feelings about the CIA reflect my own, and nothing could be further from the truth. Though I base my work as closely in fact as possible, it is in the end fiction. I could have picked from a host of federal agencies for Harvath to dislike, yet be forced to work with, and the international reach of the CIA seemed best suited for an international thriller. Conflict comes from opposing ideas, beliefs, etc. If Harvath got along with everyone, what fun would it be? In the end, I have the utmost respect and admiration for the CIA and the men and women who work there. They do a very difficult and selfless job for our country against amazing odds. Unfortunately, we hear when things don’t go their way far more often than when they do. Our country is very lucky to have them and I appreciate and admire them beyond measure.
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