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.

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.

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