August 19, 2022 • 21 mins
Rick welcomes New York Times bestselling author and former CIA officer Robert Baer to talk about his newest book, The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia. Afterwards, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of 21 novels Steve Berry joins Rick to discuss his latest, The Omega Factor.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rick Tittle and this is the Rick Tittle
Podcast on the eight Side Network. Join me as I
get busy with the biggest names in sports and entertainment.
Thank you for that, and welcome back to the show.
Rick Tuttle with you coast to coast and around the
world on the American Forces Radio Network. It's our pleasure
now to welcome to the show. New York Times best
(00:22):
selling author Robert Bear his new Blue, his new Bluke.
It is a book and a bluke. It is explosive
and a never before told story. It's entitled The Fourth Man,
The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the top of
the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia. Now, just
(00:43):
for a little background, Robert Barr is one of the
most accomplished officers in c I a history. Robert, welcome
to the show. Tell us a little bit more about
the Fourth Man in the genesis of this book, please, okay, Rick,
It's it was simple. Um, when I was in the
CIA in the nineties, my boss called me in and said, Hey,
(01:05):
there's these ladies. They're gonna come work for you, and
they're gonna be working on a project. Don't ask what
it is and they're not gonna tell you and leave
it at that. And then twenty years later, I'm driving
with this boss and he said, guess what. There was
another mole in the CIA, right at the top, and
he dropped the name on me and I said, oh,
(01:26):
come on, this is not come on, no, no, no,
I just don't believe it. He says, I'll tell you
what you do. You sit down and reconstruct the investigation
with the investigators that used to work for you, uh,
and talk to everybody you can and then make up
your mind. So this book started four years ago and
I've been obsessed by it ever since and run down
(01:47):
every lead I could. And my conclusion is there was
a fourth man number two. It's an active open investigation
by the FBI. They're still questioning people as of three
weeks ago, looking for more evidence. Um, and it looks
like the guy is still alive and he would probably
get away with it. Well. In the aftermath of the
(02:10):
Cold War, and you think, after everything that happened with
with Yeltsen, and they're taking down statues of Lenin and
you think, oh, we're all friends now, But yet it
seemed like the n espionage got ratcheted up, and you know,
three high profile Russian spies, um, all caught by American intelligence.
What was it about the you know, the black market
and the sort of wild west that was the collapse
(02:31):
of the Berlin Wall. Well, we thought Russia was done. Um.
I spent a lot of time in Russia in those days.
I thought it was done too. Is KGB who cares
about it? Who needs to spy in Russia? They're they're
gonna come around, and we've got Yellson. It's gonna be
a free market economy and we can go back and forth.
And but what we didn't know because we had no sources,
(02:55):
was the KGB had withdrawn into the shadows and was
preparing it's comeback. And eventually they picked Putin as their
front man. So by when Yelson is sick, he's in
a lot of trouble. There was a very quiet Kudata.
Putin was put in the into the Kremlin, and since,
(03:18):
as you know, has been using his ex colleagues in
the KGB to run the country. In other words, there
really is a deep state in Russia. And it's the
same deep state that that was behind the invasion of Ukraine.
I think about Putin's background in the KGB and then
prime minister for a couple of years, and then kind
(03:38):
of an eight year gap and he came back. How
has he been used as a marionette? And then how
much is he pulling the strings himself? He is uh,
he was in counter intelligence. He's paranoid. He thinks the
worst of the United States. He was able to put
a good face on on himself for a while, but
(04:01):
he's clearly carrying out at KGB agenda, which is to
retake Ukraine, the Baltics, Georgia, in every part of the
former Soviet Union. He can't and he will. He will
do this till his dying day. He will either succeed
or die in the Kremlin. His grandfather was Lenin and
(04:22):
Stalin's chef. Is that right? He comes from a long
line of Bolsheviks and he thinks like a Bolshevik um
And he was also understood Russian organized crime and he
used that to both of his power and make a
lot of money. And the guys around him do how
(04:43):
have we underestimate? You know, it's a kleptocracy Russia. So
it's a combination between these these paranoid spies and criminals.
How much of it because I remember that the World
Cup and you know, the Olympics, and he was just
kind of scene as a almost docile figure and our
(05:04):
Trump's friend in a way. I mean, when did it
all sort of go one eighty from the way we
viewed him to what reality was. Well, we didn't really
understand there was a journalist killed, assassinated, and then he
had some other people assassinated, and then there was the
case of Litvinenko, the former intelligence officer was killed with
(05:26):
the nerve agent in London, and we just tended to
look the other way. We didn't really understand what was
happening in Moscow that this there was a reversion to
Stalinist days in a huge way. Um. I mean, Kruscheff
and the rest of them didn't assassinate people abroad. It
(05:46):
was Stalin who mainly did. And we're going back to
those days. And just as his father, his grandfather worked
for Stalin, he he thinks the same way. Yeah, Trotsky
got they got him in Mexico. I mean, they no
stone unturned. All right, Let's get back to the mole
in the CIA. How do you believe that this mall
(06:07):
has gotten away so far. Look, I wrote a thriller
here because I put all the suspects down, who they were,
a little bit of background on him, and I let
the reader come to his or her conclusion who the
mole is and if the FBI is right, if this
(06:30):
investigative team inside the CIA's right. He was head of counterintelligence,
and that meant that he oversaw he was actually looking
for himself. He's like the homicide detective who commits a
murder and then it's charged with a task with finding
the murderer. And once you're in that position, you know
(06:52):
exactly what to do. Um, As the investigators told me,
they believe that he kept on presenting suspects to the
FBI as the fourth man, So it just tied up
the FBI's time. It took forever for the FBI to
figure out what was going on. Um that they were
getting they were misled by this guy. So in other words,
(07:15):
you know, if you want to think about it, it's
the story is Tinker Taylor, soldier spy, except the mole
rather than Hayden, it's George Smiley, if you've ever read
that novel, A guy, a guy cast with looking for
himself and just it's just a brilliant story, so you
can see why I'm so obsessed with it. Alternatively, the
KGB over these years could have framed him open all
(07:40):
possibilities and and and that's why you really have to
pay attention to the book and read it through and
it will come as a surprise at the end. Last
question for you. And we know there are countless people
who devoted their lives to the CIA and protecting this
country who got no do and a lot of people
in their own family then what they did? So what
(08:01):
was it like just as a chain of command and
a loyalty issue when c I A, UH employees, officers whatever,
they accused their own boss whose legendary there of spying
for Russia. What are the ramifications of that? They were
(08:21):
Their careers were destroyed by the fourth Man, completely destroyed,
and in a way, their lives were They were obsessed
by this story and they're terrified. Um, there are murders
involved in it, there are uh. They were terrified to
come home at times they thought that they were going
(08:41):
to get hauled up in some phony charge. It destroyed
their lives. They're obsessed, and it's why the investigators came
to me. I'm not getting this second hand. They presented
the evidence to me. It's best they could and there
were multiple sources that with this evidence, including the FBI.
(09:02):
So I know there was a fourth man. I obviously
know he wasn't arrested, and I do believe he's still alive,
and if he's as good as I think he was,
he won't go to jail. Well. Uh, A gripping read,
as always from Robert Barry. He has written four New
York Times bestsellers. There's this is not a novel, It's
(09:25):
the real deal. It is called The Fourth Man, The
Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA,
and the Rise of Putin's Russia. Robert, congratulations on the book.
Thanks for coming by and talking about it. Thanks for
having me on. You're listening to the Rick Tittle podcast
on the eight Side Network. Stay tuned for more. It's
(09:45):
our pleasure nounce you welcome New York Times bestselling author
Steve Barry as a brand new novel called The Omega Factor. Steve,
welcome to the show. I know this is set in Ghent,
which is a city that I love. The Castle of
the Duke's downtown, been there a couple of times. It's
a great backdrop to the plot. So if you could
(10:09):
give us a little thumbnail on what this is all about,
please hear. The novel deals with the most stolen, violated,
and destroyed work of art in history, and that is
the Ghent altar piece that is located in the cathedral
again and if you watch the monuments Men movie, that's
what they're after. The Hitler stolen in the monuments Men,
(10:32):
recovered in forty five prior to that, one of the
panels were stolen, has never been seen since, and then
another eleven times over the last five years that painting
has been attacked. And that fascinated me. So I wove
this modern day thriller around the gain altarpiece and what
what is the secrets? What is it about this thing?
What's there that drives people to be so you know,
(10:55):
so passionate about this this thing? And um, you know,
as you don't know, I don't know if you call
us a historical novel, but when you use a real
world thing like that, in real world, real world situations,
do you think that kind of end lends itself to
the credibility and the believability of of a fictional story.
That's my niche. That's what I do. I take something
(11:17):
from the past, something real, something obscure, that you may
not know a lot about, but I'm hoping you're going
to want to know more about, and then I write
a modern day thriller around that. So that's sort of
the niche I have. I have sixteen Cotton Malone novels
that do that. Cotton took a year off this year,
so I created this new guy, Nicholas Lee, who works
for Unisko, and he goes around the world protecting the
(11:40):
world's cultural treasures. And my books are action history, secrets, conspiracies,
international settings. They are great escapes and they're they're fun.
But along the way you're probably you're gonna learn some
things to particularly hear about the Gain Altarpiece and then
again about another secret from the Catholic Church. And I
know that sounds kind of tired and worn out, but
and I've done four books with them, but I came
(12:02):
across something that no one had really ever, really dealt
with much in fiction before, and particularly in thrillers. Uh,
and it fascinated me, and so I'm hoping it's going
to fascinate the readers, and unfortunately I don't want to
say because it's a surprise in the novel. Yes, well,
how mouth watering is it? To Finally, I mean, as
much as you have an established character like Hotton, a
(12:22):
new protagonist, as you mentioned Nicholas Lee, he can be
anything you want. It's a blank canvas. So when you
were forming him a Unesco investigator, what were some of
the traits that you were trying to put in on him?
And then how much is Nicholas Lee? You well, Cotton
Malone is me, so I it's pretty much me. So
(12:43):
I didn't put me into Nick, and Nick is really
his own person, created, you know, completely out of my brain.
He's younger than Cotton, so he can be a little
more impetuous and not quite as a season. But he's
older than Luke Daniels, who's the younger guy in the
Cotton Malone series. He was funny. He's right in the
middle there. He has a family, he has brothers and sisters,
(13:04):
he has a background. He gets caught up with a
woman from his past who is connected to the Catholic Church.
Here he gets uh and and he's thrown into this
kind of unwittingly drawn into this adventure that he gets
gets pulled into. He was fun to create because I've
dealt with cotton for such a long time, and so
I had somebody knew, somebody fresh, somebody completely uninhibited from
(13:28):
the standpoint I'm not locked into any background and all.
I can make it whatever I wanted and and it
turned into a great escape. And that's what my books are.
They're just escapes. You can forget the world a little
bit and have some fun in this other world. A
woman from the past there, my eyebrows are raised. What
can you give us a little bit about her? Yeah,
(13:49):
she's you meet her in chapter one. She's sister Kelsey Dioso.
She they were going to get married, and she broke
it off at the end and and joined a convent
because that's what us a calling. And it's been ten
years now and and he's dealt with he's been dealing
with that, and now they're they're thrust back together again.
So I wanted to explore a little bit about that.
(14:10):
I grew up with nuns, so I had a great
um respect for them, and uh, it was it was
fun to kind of delve into their world. Got more
questions for Steve Barry the new novel The Omega Factor.
The other day, I had Rick Steve's on my show,
The of Course, the travel Guru with the PBS, and
(14:31):
I'm lucky enough to go to Europe double digit times.
But we were talking about places we still haven't been.
And one of the number one places on my list
is Carcasson, and I just you know, get a drone
shot of that, and I just I want to go
and walk those ramparts and go to those bastions and
towers and you have a bit of Carcasson and this
as well, don't you. We do haven't done. I've been
(14:52):
there three times. I believe I've been there. There's a
lovely hotel by the way inside the walls, and that's
where you want to stay, the hotel Carcason. You want
to that, You want to stay there. It is just
beautiful in there. You're literally back in another world. It's
a walled city, one of the few left in the world.
It was saved in the nineteenth century and it's there now.
(15:14):
Uh and you feel like you've gone back to the
sixteenth century there. It's quite impressive when you drive up
to its seat up on the mound, there with the
walls all around it, and particularly at night, it's quite
remarkable of all the visitors have gone. The streets are
kind of empty. You've all roam through there, and uh,
I couldn't resist. I had to put that in the novel. Yeah,
I've been lucky at to stay inside Rodenberg. Of the Taber,
(15:36):
which has some walls, the Carcassone, you feel like, I
would think you would run a fortress. Um. Yeah, Carcusson
is a little different. It's a it's a it's a
little older and a little more you're right, like it
was built to a stand a siege. Where Rodenberg, which
I've been there as lovely as well, a little different city.
There's also a happy in this novel down in the
(15:57):
Pyrenees mountains, and there's modeled it after a real one
down there called St. Martin's. It's referenced in the writer's
note in the book and it is if you're if
you if if Hollywood had built this, it would be perfect.
I mean it looks just like something Hollywood built. Sits
up in the mountains side of a cliff, has the
cloister of the cript has everything you think of for
(16:18):
a Mountaintop Abbey, and I've been up there twice and
so this novel, the climax of it takes place there.
Very cool. So the title of the book, can you
tell us a little bit about what the omega factor is?
I wish I could. That would give away the secret.
But once you see the surprise, you'll know what I'm
talking about. It won't be hard to you. You'll pick
(16:41):
it up real quick. I thought it would be vague enough, uh,
to not give anything away the title, but also intriguing
enough that you'll pick up the book and want to
go into it. So if I tell you what that means,
it's going to give away that's surprise. Yeah. Maybe somebody
myopic thinks it's a diet book about omega fatty acids
(17:02):
or something, right, and pick it up and not quite that,
not something something utterly different. Well, when I think about
you know, your your niche, as you said, about history,
and what you have done personally along with your wife,
you know, just dedicated to historical preservation and working with
the Smithsonian Libraries. Is that mostly based on you know,
(17:25):
finding old books and preserving them things like that. Well,
I love I love things to the past. I love history. Unfortunately,
you know, history today begins to it's not being taken
care of very well, particularly at a local level. There's
a lot of stuff out there deteriorating by the day.
And that's why we have history Matters. We go around
and help communities raise money for history preservation. And so
(17:49):
my love of old things, you know, draws me to that.
I particularly like old books. I love old rare books.
I use a lot of use books when I write
my novels, and uh, and I collect them as well.
So there, it's just something that draws me to it. Yes,
the other thing in this book. And you know, I
also grew up Catholic and was around a lot of
the nuns, and I went to a Catholic high school
(18:09):
into a Catholic college. There's a lot of theology I
took them there. But a secret order of nuns. You know,
we always hear about secret brothers and priests and Catholic orders,
but a secret order of nuns, I don't think I've
ever heard of that. Well, that's why I wanted to
try something a little different here. And and there's a
(18:30):
reason why that's there again, as it has will become
evident as you get in there. But I wanted to
have that, that order of nuns. I wanted to have that.
They fascinated me, So I said, well why not. I mean,
you know, there's a couple of bad Dominicans in the book.
The poor Dominicans catch you know, get you know, blamed
for everything. I do apologize to them in the writer's note.
I'm but they they've been around a long time, so
(18:52):
I think they can handle it. But unfortunately they kind
of get blamed for everything. But here, these nuns were interesting.
All of my books are filled with strong female characters.
Uh that's a trait of my novels. The I don't
really I don't have any. I don't have any weak
female characters at all. And and these nuns are super
alpha female nuns. They're tough boy and they get the
(19:15):
job done. I think probably the Dominicans had a coming
since the Jesuits usually get blamed for everything, right yeah,
but yeah, Jesuit me, they all get kind of the
uh you know, unfortunately they just you know, we need
a bad guy. Okay, there yet there and um, and
I couldn't resist. I had to have a little bit.
So I had to use a couple of moms. Sorry. Finally, Steve,
(19:39):
You've probably been asked this a million times, but for
this book, if you think about it as you know,
Netflix or Amazon Prime Special or even just a feature film,
do you think of anyone for Nicholas? Uh, Well, there's
a lot of people could play him because he's just
you know, in his thirties there and he'd be you know,
(20:00):
a lot. It could be a wide range of actors.
I mean, you know, I'd be cool if somebody would
bring it to life. I've had a lot of talk
about Cotton Malone over the years, has been optioned about
ten times. Just a lot of talk, but no one's
ever actually put it together and come with a check
and said I'm ready to go. And but it would
be fun if somebody would pick him up. The great
thing about this is a standalone so you just buy
one book. When you buy Cotton, you gotta buy sixteen
(20:22):
of them, so it's a bargain. So maybe if some
producer out there would find it, Uh, find it interesting,
I think make a terrific movie. Actually, yeah, now it's
all the character almost as Indiana Jones asked if if
you think about it, and I'm maybe Bradley Cooper. How
about him? He could actually, absolutely, absolutely he could be
He could be uniquely Um that's why I said that.
(20:43):
I wrote him in such a way, and I described
him in a very vague way as well, so that
he could you know, he could be pretty flexible. I
do the same with Cotton. I don't give a lot
of expert description for him, so it kind of leaves
the options open. So who knows. Maybe I will get
to see it come to life one day. Be really Nate, Alright,
this sounds really cool. A new novel by New York
(21:04):
Times bestselling author. Our guests Steve Berry pick it up
and it is called The Omega Factor. Steve, congratulations on
the book, Thanks for stopping by and talking about it.
Thank you for having been out there now in stores.
Hopefully people will love it. This has been the Rick
Tittle podcast on the eight Side Network.
Hi, I'm Rick Tittle and this is the Rick Tittle
Podcast on the eight Side Network. Join me as I
get busy with the biggest names in sports and entertainment.
Thank you for that, and welcome back to the show.
Rick Tuttle with you coast to coast and around the
world on the American Forces Radio Network. It's our pleasure
now to welcome to the show. New York Times best
(00:22):
selling author Robert Bear his new Blue, his new Bluke.
It is a book and a bluke. It is explosive
and a never before told story. It's entitled The Fourth Man,
The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the top of
the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia. Now, just
(00:43):
for a little background, Robert Barr is one of the
most accomplished officers in c I a history. Robert, welcome
to the show. Tell us a little bit more about
the Fourth Man in the genesis of this book, please, okay, Rick,
It's it was simple. Um, when I was in the
CIA in the nineties, my boss called me in and said, Hey,
(01:05):
there's these ladies. They're gonna come work for you, and
they're gonna be working on a project. Don't ask what
it is and they're not gonna tell you and leave
it at that. And then twenty years later, I'm driving
with this boss and he said, guess what. There was
another mole in the CIA, right at the top, and
he dropped the name on me and I said, oh,
(01:26):
come on, this is not come on, no, no, no,
I just don't believe it. He says, I'll tell you
what you do. You sit down and reconstruct the investigation
with the investigators that used to work for you, uh,
and talk to everybody you can and then make up
your mind. So this book started four years ago and
I've been obsessed by it ever since and run down
(01:47):
every lead I could. And my conclusion is there was
a fourth man number two. It's an active open investigation
by the FBI. They're still questioning people as of three
weeks ago, looking for more evidence. Um, and it looks
like the guy is still alive and he would probably
get away with it. Well. In the aftermath of the
(02:10):
Cold War, and you think, after everything that happened with
with Yeltsen, and they're taking down statues of Lenin and
you think, oh, we're all friends now, But yet it
seemed like the n espionage got ratcheted up, and you know,
three high profile Russian spies, um, all caught by American intelligence.
What was it about the you know, the black market
and the sort of wild west that was the collapse
(02:31):
of the Berlin Wall. Well, we thought Russia was done. Um.
I spent a lot of time in Russia in those days.
I thought it was done too. Is KGB who cares
about it? Who needs to spy in Russia? They're they're
gonna come around, and we've got Yellson. It's gonna be
a free market economy and we can go back and forth.
And but what we didn't know because we had no sources,
(02:55):
was the KGB had withdrawn into the shadows and was
preparing it's comeback. And eventually they picked Putin as their
front man. So by when Yelson is sick, he's in
a lot of trouble. There was a very quiet Kudata.
Putin was put in the into the Kremlin, and since,
(03:18):
as you know, has been using his ex colleagues in
the KGB to run the country. In other words, there
really is a deep state in Russia. And it's the
same deep state that that was behind the invasion of Ukraine.
I think about Putin's background in the KGB and then
prime minister for a couple of years, and then kind
(03:38):
of an eight year gap and he came back. How
has he been used as a marionette? And then how
much is he pulling the strings himself? He is uh,
he was in counter intelligence. He's paranoid. He thinks the
worst of the United States. He was able to put
a good face on on himself for a while, but
(04:01):
he's clearly carrying out at KGB agenda, which is to
retake Ukraine, the Baltics, Georgia, in every part of the
former Soviet Union. He can't and he will. He will
do this till his dying day. He will either succeed
or die in the Kremlin. His grandfather was Lenin and
(04:22):
Stalin's chef. Is that right? He comes from a long
line of Bolsheviks and he thinks like a Bolshevik um
And he was also understood Russian organized crime and he
used that to both of his power and make a
lot of money. And the guys around him do how
(04:43):
have we underestimate? You know, it's a kleptocracy Russia. So
it's a combination between these these paranoid spies and criminals.
How much of it because I remember that the World
Cup and you know, the Olympics, and he was just
kind of scene as a almost docile figure and our
(05:04):
Trump's friend in a way. I mean, when did it
all sort of go one eighty from the way we
viewed him to what reality was. Well, we didn't really
understand there was a journalist killed, assassinated, and then he
had some other people assassinated, and then there was the
case of Litvinenko, the former intelligence officer was killed with
(05:26):
the nerve agent in London, and we just tended to
look the other way. We didn't really understand what was
happening in Moscow that this there was a reversion to
Stalinist days in a huge way. Um. I mean, Kruscheff
and the rest of them didn't assassinate people abroad. It
(05:46):
was Stalin who mainly did. And we're going back to
those days. And just as his father, his grandfather worked
for Stalin, he he thinks the same way. Yeah, Trotsky
got they got him in Mexico. I mean, they no
stone unturned. All right, Let's get back to the mole
in the CIA. How do you believe that this mall
(06:07):
has gotten away so far. Look, I wrote a thriller
here because I put all the suspects down, who they were,
a little bit of background on him, and I let
the reader come to his or her conclusion who the
mole is and if the FBI is right, if this
(06:30):
investigative team inside the CIA's right. He was head of counterintelligence,
and that meant that he oversaw he was actually looking
for himself. He's like the homicide detective who commits a
murder and then it's charged with a task with finding
the murderer. And once you're in that position, you know
(06:52):
exactly what to do. Um, As the investigators told me,
they believe that he kept on presenting suspects to the
FBI as the fourth man, So it just tied up
the FBI's time. It took forever for the FBI to
figure out what was going on. Um that they were
getting they were misled by this guy. So in other words,
(07:15):
you know, if you want to think about it, it's
the story is Tinker Taylor, soldier spy, except the mole
rather than Hayden, it's George Smiley, if you've ever read
that novel, A guy, a guy cast with looking for
himself and just it's just a brilliant story, so you
can see why I'm so obsessed with it. Alternatively, the
KGB over these years could have framed him open all
(07:40):
possibilities and and and that's why you really have to
pay attention to the book and read it through and
it will come as a surprise at the end. Last
question for you. And we know there are countless people
who devoted their lives to the CIA and protecting this
country who got no do and a lot of people
in their own family then what they did? So what
(08:01):
was it like just as a chain of command and
a loyalty issue when c I A, UH employees, officers whatever,
they accused their own boss whose legendary there of spying
for Russia. What are the ramifications of that? They were
(08:21):
Their careers were destroyed by the fourth Man, completely destroyed,
and in a way, their lives were They were obsessed
by this story and they're terrified. Um, there are murders
involved in it, there are uh. They were terrified to
come home at times they thought that they were going
(08:41):
to get hauled up in some phony charge. It destroyed
their lives. They're obsessed, and it's why the investigators came
to me. I'm not getting this second hand. They presented
the evidence to me. It's best they could and there
were multiple sources that with this evidence, including the FBI.
(09:02):
So I know there was a fourth man. I obviously
know he wasn't arrested, and I do believe he's still alive,
and if he's as good as I think he was,
he won't go to jail. Well. Uh, A gripping read,
as always from Robert Barry. He has written four New
York Times bestsellers. There's this is not a novel, It's
(09:25):
the real deal. It is called The Fourth Man, The
Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA,
and the Rise of Putin's Russia. Robert, congratulations on the book.
Thanks for coming by and talking about it. Thanks for
having me on. You're listening to the Rick Tittle podcast
on the eight Side Network. Stay tuned for more. It's
(09:45):
our pleasure nounce you welcome New York Times bestselling author
Steve Barry as a brand new novel called The Omega Factor. Steve,
welcome to the show. I know this is set in Ghent,
which is a city that I love. The Castle of
the Duke's downtown, been there a couple of times. It's
a great backdrop to the plot. So if you could
(10:09):
give us a little thumbnail on what this is all about,
please hear. The novel deals with the most stolen, violated,
and destroyed work of art in history, and that is
the Ghent altar piece that is located in the cathedral
again and if you watch the monuments Men movie, that's
what they're after. The Hitler stolen in the monuments Men,
(10:32):
recovered in forty five prior to that, one of the
panels were stolen, has never been seen since, and then
another eleven times over the last five years that painting
has been attacked. And that fascinated me. So I wove
this modern day thriller around the gain altarpiece and what
what is the secrets? What is it about this thing?
What's there that drives people to be so you know,
(10:55):
so passionate about this this thing? And um, you know,
as you don't know, I don't know if you call
us a historical novel, but when you use a real
world thing like that, in real world, real world situations,
do you think that kind of end lends itself to
the credibility and the believability of of a fictional story.
That's my niche. That's what I do. I take something
(11:17):
from the past, something real, something obscure, that you may
not know a lot about, but I'm hoping you're going
to want to know more about, and then I write
a modern day thriller around that. So that's sort of
the niche I have. I have sixteen Cotton Malone novels
that do that. Cotton took a year off this year,
so I created this new guy, Nicholas Lee, who works
for Unisko, and he goes around the world protecting the
(11:40):
world's cultural treasures. And my books are action history, secrets, conspiracies,
international settings. They are great escapes and they're they're fun.
But along the way you're probably you're gonna learn some
things to particularly hear about the Gain Altarpiece and then
again about another secret from the Catholic Church. And I
know that sounds kind of tired and worn out, but
and I've done four books with them, but I came
(12:02):
across something that no one had really ever, really dealt
with much in fiction before, and particularly in thrillers. Uh,
and it fascinated me, and so I'm hoping it's going
to fascinate the readers, and unfortunately I don't want to
say because it's a surprise in the novel. Yes, well,
how mouth watering is it? To Finally, I mean, as
much as you have an established character like Hotton, a
(12:22):
new protagonist, as you mentioned Nicholas Lee, he can be
anything you want. It's a blank canvas. So when you
were forming him a Unesco investigator, what were some of
the traits that you were trying to put in on him?
And then how much is Nicholas Lee? You well, Cotton
Malone is me, so I it's pretty much me. So
(12:43):
I didn't put me into Nick, and Nick is really
his own person, created, you know, completely out of my brain.
He's younger than Cotton, so he can be a little
more impetuous and not quite as a season. But he's
older than Luke Daniels, who's the younger guy in the
Cotton Malone series. He was funny. He's right in the
middle there. He has a family, he has brothers and sisters,
(13:04):
he has a background. He gets caught up with a
woman from his past who is connected to the Catholic Church.
Here he gets uh and and he's thrown into this
kind of unwittingly drawn into this adventure that he gets
gets pulled into. He was fun to create because I've
dealt with cotton for such a long time, and so
I had somebody knew, somebody fresh, somebody completely uninhibited from
(13:28):
the standpoint I'm not locked into any background and all.
I can make it whatever I wanted and and it
turned into a great escape. And that's what my books are.
They're just escapes. You can forget the world a little
bit and have some fun in this other world. A
woman from the past there, my eyebrows are raised. What
can you give us a little bit about her? Yeah,
(13:49):
she's you meet her in chapter one. She's sister Kelsey Dioso.
She they were going to get married, and she broke
it off at the end and and joined a convent
because that's what us a calling. And it's been ten
years now and and he's dealt with he's been dealing
with that, and now they're they're thrust back together again.
So I wanted to explore a little bit about that.
(14:10):
I grew up with nuns, so I had a great
um respect for them, and uh, it was it was
fun to kind of delve into their world. Got more
questions for Steve Barry the new novel The Omega Factor.
The other day, I had Rick Steve's on my show,
The of Course, the travel Guru with the PBS, and
(14:31):
I'm lucky enough to go to Europe double digit times.
But we were talking about places we still haven't been.
And one of the number one places on my list
is Carcasson, and I just you know, get a drone
shot of that, and I just I want to go
and walk those ramparts and go to those bastions and
towers and you have a bit of Carcasson and this
as well, don't you. We do haven't done. I've been
(14:52):
there three times. I believe I've been there. There's a
lovely hotel by the way inside the walls, and that's
where you want to stay, the hotel Carcason. You want
to that, You want to stay there. It is just
beautiful in there. You're literally back in another world. It's
a walled city, one of the few left in the world.
It was saved in the nineteenth century and it's there now.
(15:14):
Uh and you feel like you've gone back to the
sixteenth century there. It's quite impressive when you drive up
to its seat up on the mound, there with the
walls all around it, and particularly at night, it's quite
remarkable of all the visitors have gone. The streets are
kind of empty. You've all roam through there, and uh,
I couldn't resist. I had to put that in the novel. Yeah,
I've been lucky at to stay inside Rodenberg. Of the Taber,
(15:36):
which has some walls, the Carcassone, you feel like, I
would think you would run a fortress. Um. Yeah, Carcusson
is a little different. It's a it's a it's a
little older and a little more you're right, like it
was built to a stand a siege. Where Rodenberg, which
I've been there as lovely as well, a little different city.
There's also a happy in this novel down in the
(15:57):
Pyrenees mountains, and there's modeled it after a real one
down there called St. Martin's. It's referenced in the writer's
note in the book and it is if you're if
you if if Hollywood had built this, it would be perfect.
I mean it looks just like something Hollywood built. Sits
up in the mountains side of a cliff, has the
cloister of the cript has everything you think of for
(16:18):
a Mountaintop Abbey, and I've been up there twice and
so this novel, the climax of it takes place there.
Very cool. So the title of the book, can you
tell us a little bit about what the omega factor is?
I wish I could. That would give away the secret.
But once you see the surprise, you'll know what I'm
talking about. It won't be hard to you. You'll pick
(16:41):
it up real quick. I thought it would be vague enough, uh,
to not give anything away the title, but also intriguing
enough that you'll pick up the book and want to
go into it. So if I tell you what that means,
it's going to give away that's surprise. Yeah. Maybe somebody
myopic thinks it's a diet book about omega fatty acids
(17:02):
or something, right, and pick it up and not quite that,
not something something utterly different. Well, when I think about
you know, your your niche, as you said, about history,
and what you have done personally along with your wife,
you know, just dedicated to historical preservation and working with
the Smithsonian Libraries. Is that mostly based on you know,
(17:25):
finding old books and preserving them things like that. Well,
I love I love things to the past. I love history. Unfortunately,
you know, history today begins to it's not being taken
care of very well, particularly at a local level. There's
a lot of stuff out there deteriorating by the day.
And that's why we have history Matters. We go around
and help communities raise money for history preservation. And so
(17:49):
my love of old things, you know, draws me to that.
I particularly like old books. I love old rare books.
I use a lot of use books when I write
my novels, and uh, and I collect them as well.
So there, it's just something that draws me to it. Yes,
the other thing in this book. And you know, I
also grew up Catholic and was around a lot of
the nuns, and I went to a Catholic high school
(18:09):
into a Catholic college. There's a lot of theology I
took them there. But a secret order of nuns. You know,
we always hear about secret brothers and priests and Catholic orders,
but a secret order of nuns, I don't think I've
ever heard of that. Well, that's why I wanted to
try something a little different here. And and there's a
(18:30):
reason why that's there again, as it has will become
evident as you get in there. But I wanted to
have that, that order of nuns. I wanted to have that.
They fascinated me, So I said, well why not. I mean,
you know, there's a couple of bad Dominicans in the book.
The poor Dominicans catch you know, get you know, blamed
for everything. I do apologize to them in the writer's note.
I'm but they they've been around a long time, so
(18:52):
I think they can handle it. But unfortunately they kind
of get blamed for everything. But here, these nuns were interesting.
All of my books are filled with strong female characters.
Uh that's a trait of my novels. The I don't
really I don't have any. I don't have any weak
female characters at all. And and these nuns are super
alpha female nuns. They're tough boy and they get the
(19:15):
job done. I think probably the Dominicans had a coming
since the Jesuits usually get blamed for everything, right yeah,
but yeah, Jesuit me, they all get kind of the
uh you know, unfortunately they just you know, we need
a bad guy. Okay, there yet there and um, and
I couldn't resist. I had to have a little bit.
So I had to use a couple of moms. Sorry. Finally, Steve,
(19:39):
You've probably been asked this a million times, but for
this book, if you think about it as you know,
Netflix or Amazon Prime Special or even just a feature film,
do you think of anyone for Nicholas? Uh, Well, there's
a lot of people could play him because he's just
you know, in his thirties there and he'd be you know,
(20:00):
a lot. It could be a wide range of actors.
I mean, you know, I'd be cool if somebody would
bring it to life. I've had a lot of talk
about Cotton Malone over the years, has been optioned about
ten times. Just a lot of talk, but no one's
ever actually put it together and come with a check
and said I'm ready to go. And but it would
be fun if somebody would pick him up. The great
thing about this is a standalone so you just buy
one book. When you buy Cotton, you gotta buy sixteen
(20:22):
of them, so it's a bargain. So maybe if some
producer out there would find it, Uh, find it interesting,
I think make a terrific movie. Actually, yeah, now it's
all the character almost as Indiana Jones asked if if
you think about it, and I'm maybe Bradley Cooper. How
about him? He could actually, absolutely, absolutely he could be
He could be uniquely Um that's why I said that.
(20:43):
I wrote him in such a way, and I described
him in a very vague way as well, so that
he could you know, he could be pretty flexible. I
do the same with Cotton. I don't give a lot
of expert description for him, so it kind of leaves
the options open. So who knows. Maybe I will get
to see it come to life one day. Be really Nate, Alright,
this sounds really cool. A new novel by New York
(21:04):
Times bestselling author. Our guests Steve Berry pick it up
and it is called The Omega Factor. Steve, congratulations on
the book, Thanks for stopping by and talking about it.
Thank you for having been out there now in stores.
Hopefully people will love it. This has been the Rick
Tittle podcast on the eight Side Network.
Host
Rick Tittle
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