Countdown to

Breaking Point

6/17/05

25 days (and counting to Breaking Point, in stores on July 12th)

Quote of the day:  Gina had never given it much thought before, but right now she knew.  She didn't want to die.  -- from Over the Edge

Note from Suz: Today, let's talk some more about Max.  

Although Max first appeared in the Troubleshooter series in The Defiant Hero, even though he helped save Gina's life in Over the Edge, despite being team leader in the rescue of a kidnapped American VIP in Out of Control and putting in an appearance (much to Sam's dismay) in Into the Night, I chose not to write from his point of view until Gone Too Far.  

Many people didn't realize that.  In fact, a few years back, when I mentioned this to my editor, she was like, "Wait a minute...  Really?!"  

Really.  The scene in Over the Edge where Max has to listen and watch as Gina is attacked on the plane is from Navy SEAL Sam Starrett's point of view.  Other scenes are from Desmond Nyland's point of view.  And many of the Max/Gina conversations are from Gina's point of view.

I didn't allow readers inside of Max's head until Gone Too Far.    And even then, it's not until midway through the book that he comes face to face with Gina again.

From Gone Too Far:  

Gina Vitagliano's tongue was in his mouth. 

Max knew he should back away. The girl was seatbelted in--it wouldn't take much effort at all to make her stop kissing him. 

Suz:  Okay, I just have to jump in and point out the use of the extremely un-PC word, "girl."  I happen to have some pet peeves (who me?! LOL!) -- and one of them is the use of the word "girl" instead of "woman."  Personally, I can't imagine calling a group of men "boys" -- to me, it feels insulting to call a woman a girl.  

And yet it doesn't bother me when a woman refers to herself and her friends as girls.  But if a man (particularly one in a business suit) approaches a group of women and says, "Will one of you girls type this up for me?" the hair stands up on the back of my neck!  LOLOL!!!

Anyway, if you've read many of my books, you may have noticed that most of my male characters treat women with respect.  And even when I'm inside of their heads, writing deep down in their point of view, I usually have my heroes think of my female characters as women.  Strong, grown-up, equally deserving of respect women.  

Here, however, I wanted to make clear that one of Max's issues is the fact that he's so much older than Gina.  He thinks of her as a girl.  Of course, as we come to know Max better, it's rather obvious that he purposely thinks of her as a girl -- because he's desperate to keep his distance.

Uh, Max?  Not doing so well right now with the distance-keeping, dude...

He also knew that the dead last thing he should do was kiss her back.

But then again, the dead last thing he should've done in the first place was come to Tampa. 

Suz:  Oh, Max, Max, Max.  You are SO toast.  Why do you fight this?  <g>

She was sweet and hot and her kiss was twice as mindblowing as he'd ever imagined, with her fingers in his hair, against his neck and face and God, God, God this was exactly what he swore he'd never do. 

But her lips were so soft and she kissed him deeper, and he'd wanted this for so long and suddenly he wasn't just getting kissed, he was kissing her. 

And Christ, it was probably the most selfish moment in his life, which was really saying something since he knew he was a selfish bastard, but he couldn't stop, couldn't stop, couldn't... 

He had to stop. 

He was definitely going to stop now. 

Suz:  This scene was so much fun to write.  For books and books, pages and pages, hundreds of thousands of words, Max had been working his ass off to stay away from this young woman.  But then what do I do?  I create a situation (a dead body on the kitchen floor in Sam Starrett's soon-to-be ex-wife's house in Sarasota) that brings him to Florida and puts him within a few hundred miles of Gina.  

And then, Gina being Gina, when she's face to face with him again -- literally -- she throws caution to the wind and kisses him.  

He's so completely unable to handle any of it -- seeing her, let along kissing her!  

But, goddamnit, he could taste the salt of her tears and that should've made him want to stop even more, but selfish, twisted son of a bitch that he was, it was actually a turn-on knowing that the mere sight of him made her cry. 

She still thought that she wanted him. It had been over a year since he'd last talked to her on the phone, longer than that since he'd seen her. And nothing had changed. 

But, goddamnit, did that mean that she still had the nightmares, too? Did she still flinch when strangers came too close? Did she still get that distant look in her eyes, remembering what she'd endured at the hands of her captors--a terrorism survivor's version of the battle-weary soldier's ten-mile stare?

He'd purposely stayed away so that she could heal.

Except he hadn't stayed away, had he? Here he was. In Tampa. With his tongue in Gina's mouth. Screwing up her life even more than it had already been screwed up by the bad guys. 

Max Bhagat, emotional terrorist. 

He pushed himself away from her. 

Suz:  Because what's the worst thing, in Max's mind?  A terrorist, right?  He's the head of a counterterrorism unit.  He's completely out of control, unable to stop kissing Gina until he calls himself the one thing that he hates more than anything...

She was breathing as hard as he was, and the look in her eyes promised paradise. If they hadn't been in the middle of the road, in the heart of downtown Tampa, she would've had her clothes off by now. And wouldn't that have been hard to walk away from. 

Suz:  Okay, from a writer's perspective:  The entire first part of this scene was description -- a kiss.  But mixed in with the description of the physical act is introspection.  We're inside of Max's head, so we get a glimpse of what he's feeling emotionally as well as physically.  AND mixed in there is some vital information that is revealed.  

Before I write a scene, I always make a list of all of the information I'm going to reveal to the reader in that scene.  

There are some important facts revealed above:

Okay, but now the kiss is over and it's time to break up the relentless description and introspection with some dialogue.

She opened her mouth to tell him God knows what, but he stopped her. He didn't want to hear it. 

"That wasn't supposed to happen," he said, his voice too harsh even to his own ears. 

Her face was so expressive with her wide eyes and generous mouth, and he could read her like a book. Confusion. Amused disbelief. He had to be kidding, right? 

Max clarified. "I shouldn't have let you kiss me, Gina." 

She laughed. Stopped. "But..." 

Now the confusion was mixed with disbelief and a glimmer of hurt. God damn it. But what did he expect? He'd purposely worded it so that the responsibility for what had just happened fell squarely onto her. 

Suz:  Here I'm mixing the dialogue with a description of Gina's reaction -- and Max's reaction to that reaction.  He hates the fact that he's hurt her, and yet...

"It was the heat of the moment," he told her, hating himself. "It wasn't real." 

Hurt morphed rapidly to anger in her incredible eyes. "You kiss me back like that and... That wasn't real?" She laughed. "Maybe you better say it again, Max, because I don't think you've even convinced yourself that that wasn't real." 

"I'm sorry," he said forcing his face and his voice to be distant. "But it wasn't--" 

Her voice shook as she cut him off. "There was more truth in that one kiss than in all the hours and hours of conversation we've ever had!" 

Suz:  Even though Max forces himself to be distant, Gina doesn't let him off the hook.  She's ready to fight for that truth she experienced in that kiss.  

So what does Max do?  He now physically moves away from her.  He's constantly trying to escape...

"I can't be more than your friend," he told her, hearing tinges of desperation in his voice. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, realizing as he backed even farther away that the rain had almost completely stopped. "I've made that very clear." 

"Yeah," Gina mocked. "You're a good friend. You don't visit, you don't call, you don't even write. You know, I've considered taking hostages simply to get a chance to talk to you. Although knowing you, you'd send a different negotiator." 

Max didn't say anything. There were times when it was best not to speak at all. 

Several police cars had pulled up, and one of the uniformed officers was heading toward them.

"She okay?" the man called.

"She seems to be," Max responded. He handed the man his ID. "I still want her taken to the hospital, get her checked out."

The cop nodded, standing straighter, shoulders back as he realized who Max was. "Yes, sir. An ambulance is on its way, sir."

"I don't need to go to the hospital," Gina said, unbuckling her seat belt and climbing out of the car. Jesus H. Christ, she'd actually gotten a belly button ring. "I'm fine." 

All of the other drivers seemed fine, too, thank God for airbags--or cars the size of Texas. The little old man in the 1975 Lincoln Town Car was more worried about his groceries melting in the back seat than any potential damage to his person.

But, "That's what Princess Grace thought, too," Max said to her.

"Who?" 

Yes, Gina was young. "Princess Grace of Monaco," he explained. "Grace Kelly. She died before you were born so you probably don't--" 

"The actress from Rear Window," Gina said. "Who died of internal injuries after a car accident, in 1982, and I was, too, born. If you'd said Grace Kelly right away, I would have known who you meant. You know, being born in 1980 doesn't automatically make me an idiot, Max." 

Suz:  And here comes some of Max's backstory.  His history.

But it did make him old enough to be her father. In 1980, he was finishing up--two years early--his undergraduate degree at Princeton. Twenty years old, he was already being wooed by the Bureau, and was negotiating for a chance to attend the Air Force's legendary Indoc, aka Superman School, without the four year commitment to the military.

His intention was to go through the Air Force's ParaRescue Jumper's Pipeline--a succession of intensely rigorous training schools--before heading to the relative tameness of the FBI Academy at Quantico.

But the FBI said no can do, so he'd politely thanked them for their time. Instead, he dove into an accelerated masters program at NYU where he took a class given by Professor Glenn Nelson, who was a former FBI negotiator and a lifelong friend of the then-head of the Bureau.

With a little pressure from Nelson, no can do became please, please do, and a year and a half later, when Gina was still practicing walking, Max was finishing up Indoc--earning both a reputation as an unstoppable son of a bitch, and his right to wear that big S on his chest.

He'd slid on down the Pipeline as Gina had begun potty training. 

Suz:  Max really loves to torture himself, doesn't he?  He just has to remind himself over and over and over of their age difference...

By the time she started first grade, he was well on his way to his current position as head of the Bureau's top counterterrorist group.

"So why are you here?" Gina asked. "No, don't tell me. You just happened to be out for a stroll in the pouring rain and recognized me sitting in my car--through a blurry windshield...?"

She was going to figure it out anyway, so he might as well tell her. "I was in town on other business," Max said. It was not quite a total lie. "I knew you were here, too, because... I make a point to know everything about everyone. I was just... checking up on you."

She was staring at him.

He cleared his throat. "I should probably move my car." His rental was right where he'd left it, two cars behind Gina's, the driver's side door standing open.

Realization was dawning in Gina's eyes as she looked from him to his car and back. "You were checking up on me, as in watching me to see if I'm okay, as in stalking me," her voice got louder with incredulity, "with no intention of letting me know you're in town?"

Crap. "Look," he said. "I happen to care about you. I know these past few years have been tough--"

"It didn't occur to you that I 'happen to care' about you, too?" she countered hotly. "You didn't even once think, 'Gee, I bet Gina would like a chance to check up on me, too?'"

"What's to check? I'm not the one who spent four days at the mercy of terrorists. I'm not the one who was--" Gang raped. He stopped himself from saying it. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Talk about nightmares. He still sometimes woke up sweating and practically gagging, the sound of Gina's cries ringing in his head. Echoes of her cries when those bastards hurt her, when he'd sat in the Kazabek airport terminal room the FBI/SEAL task force was using as a surveillance center and listened to her being attacked in the cockpit of that airliner, powerless to stop them, unable to do a goddamned thing to save her. 

Suz:  Because I'm writing an ongoing series, I always have to re-tell parts of other books -- in this instance, Gina's attack from Over the Edge.  It's always a balancing act -- trying to figure out how much information needs to be repeated to make the book stand on its own without boring the readers who've been following the series from the start.  

I try to use character point of view to make repeated information interesting to those of you whom I refer to as "dedicated readers."  <g>  For example, in Over the Edge, I write the scene of Gina's attack on board the hijack plane from Sam's point of view -- not Max's and certainly not Gina's.  (That would have been too harsh.)

But here, (and in previous scenes in GONE TOO FAR also from Max's point of view), I let readers get a brief glimpse of just how horrible it had been for Max to have to sit there -- powerless -- and watch as Gina was raped.  

Obviously, he has still not recovered from that trauma.  This is new information for those dedicated readers.  And I'm also filling the brand new readers in to some degree.  (Although there are still details of Max & Gina's past that those new readers will find out later in this book.)

"Gee, Max," Gina said. "You sound as if you still have a great deal of unresolved anger."

Max had met Dr. Elizabeth Dannowitz, Gina's therapist, a handful of times, so he knew that she was doing a very decent imitation of the woman. 

But he answered her as if she were serious. "Yes, I do." 

Suz:  This is where Gina realizes just how badly wounded Max was and still is.  Emotionally, the scene really ends right here -- she's got a lot to think about before she tries to talk to him again.  (Which she does several scenes later in the book -- when she comes to his office to confront him.)  

But for a sense of completeness -- and also to convey to the readers that Gina's had this realization, I wait to end the scene until she's taken away in the ambulance, until Max is back in his car and driving away.

She was quiet then, hardly saying much of anything as the police officer approached to check her license and the car rental agreement, as she filled out the accident report, as the paramedics came and checked her blood pressure, as she took her things out of the car so it could be towed away, as Max made arrangements with the local police to drive her back to her hotel after taking her to the hospital for a more complete examination.

And then, that was it. She was saying good-bye, still so preoccupied, her dark eyes subdued, and he was standing on the steaming sidewalk, watching the ambulance drive away.

The sun broke through the last of the clouds as he climbed into his car and headed south, for Sarasota.

Tom Paoletti's Navy SEALs had a name for a day like today, the kind of day that started with Sam Starrett escaping from Alyssa Locke, and ended with that troubled look in Gina Vitagliano's eyes. A day that had Max's tongue in her mouth somewhere there in the middle.

Clusterfuck.

Today was, indeed, a Grade A clusterfuck, no doubt about it. 

And it wasn't even over yet. 

* * * *

Suz:  Deep down inside, Max knows that he hasn't seen the last of Gina.  The day is, in fact, far from over yet! 

That's all for now!  Be sure to come back for tomorrow's installment in the Countdown to Breaking Point!

(Note from Suz:  I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before 10:00 a.m. eastern time.  Please be patient if I'm a little late...)

See you tomorrow!