Al Giordino
Albert Cassius Giordino is a fictional character in a series of adventure novels by Clive Cussler; he first appears in The Mediterranean Caper (published in 1973). He is described as being of Italian ancestry, 5'4" in height, 175 lb, with dark curly hair, swarthy skin, dark Etruscan eyes, and a Roman nose. He does not have an ounce of fat on his body and is stocky and strong. Cussler often describes him as the 'burly Italian'. One noticeable disfigurement on Giordino is the missing pinky finger on his right hand. This was lost during the book Pacific Vortex!, when Giordino jammed his finger into the barrel of a gun held by Delphi Moran.
Fictional biography
He attended elementary school with series protagonist Dirk Pitt, and the two have been friends ever since the two opposed each other in a kindergarten fight. Giordino played tackle on his high school football team quarterbacked by Pitt. Giordino and Pitt both attended the United States Air Force Academy and served in the last days of the Vietnam War together. After Vietnam, he joined NUMA with Pitt at the request of its founder and Director, Admiral James Sandecker, on a temporary loan from the Air Force, but this has lasted over the full course of the books. His current title is "Assistant Special Projects Director," yet he retains his rank of Captain from the Air Force.
His only enduring hobby is teasing Sandecker by stealing (in earlier books) and buying (in later books) his custom-made cigars. In earlier books it is mentioned that no matter how cleverly the admiral hides his cigars two are always missing every time he counts them, in what Giordino called Operation Stogie. In the later books, Sandecker is always confused as to how Giordino can have identical custom cigars, yet none of the Admiral's cigars are ever missing. Giordino began buying them from the same person.
Giordino never married, only once considering it with a woman named Pat O'Connell, at the end of the Atlantis Found novel. He realized that he travels most of the year and cannot expect a woman to put up with his busy workload. O'Connell was far too similar to Giordino, as she too became devoted to her study and cataloguing of the Amenes artifacts found in Antarctica. Giordino lives in a condominium in Alexandria, Virginia where none of the decor or furniture in the residence actually matches. In one book it is mentioned that he drives a split-window 1963 Corvette.
In The Mediterranean Caper, one of the first Dirk Pitt books, the circumstances of Giordino's death are foreshadowed. An evil double-agent is discovered, and given a gun to commit suicide. While Giordino is observing the double-agent walk into the distance to carry out this task, it is stated that until the time of Giordino's death he could not understand how someone could give up their life so unquestioningly. In Trojan Odyssey Giordino reveals the epitaph he wishes inscribed on his tombstone: "It was a great party while it lasted. I trust it will continue elsewhere."
Giordino will often carry an extra weapon from Pitt's arsenal or a gun taken from the antagonists.
Films
In the 2005 film Sahara, Giordino is portrayed by actor Steve Zahn. In Raise the Titanic!, his character (renamed Vinnie) is a cameo role.