Charlie Thorne And The Last Equation

CIA agent Dante Garcia, 28 years old, is a secondary protagonist and Charlie’s half brother. They share the same father but different mothers. Dante resents their father because he abandoned Dante and his mother. Like Charlie, Dante is of multiracial heritage, which allows him to blend in anywhere in the world—a useful skill for a CIA field agent. Though he is not a genius, he is highly intelligent and gifted. He has risen in the ranks of the CIA quickly, which is why CIA Director Jamilla Carter trusts him with the Pandora mission.

Dante has almost no relationship with Charlie. Early on, he seems to have no qualms about blackmailing and threatening his sister to ensure her cooperation, including putting a 12-year-old girl in physically dangerous situations. He is loyal to the CIA and perhaps naively believes the US government has good intentions and can be trusted both with Charlie’s life and with the potential power of Pandora. By the end of the novel, his position changes. He comes to care for his sister and is willing to give up Pandora for her safety.

CIA agent Milana Moon is Dante’s partner on the Pandora mission. She is a Native American from the Blackfoot tribe reservation in northern Montana. She grew up poor and attended school on an athletic scholarship. At the University of Pennsylvania, she excelled and quickly drew the attention of the CIA, who recruited her right after graduation. She is an excellent marksman, speaks Arabic and Chinese, and is “cool under pressure” (98).

Like Dante, she is loyal to the CIA. Though she speaks with Charlie with patience, even admiration, and offers her encouragement throughout, it becomes apparent that she is merely playing “good cop” to gain Charlie’s trust. She even pretends to agree with Charlie about not handing Pandora over to the government but reveals her true motives after Charlie locates Pandora. Despite this indication of loyalty to the CIA and betrayal of Charlie, Milana does not tell her superiors that Charlie survived the fire and escaped, implying that she now doubts the wisdom of entirely trusting the government.

Jamilla Carter, the Director of the CIA, is a Black woman in her 60s. She is thoughtful, intelligent, and calculating. Though she agrees with Dante’s assessment that Charlie will be useful, she does not for one moment trust Charlie. She views Charlie in black-and-white terms. Because Charlie stole money, she is a criminal, no matter her motives or her age. Carter believes she will need to “take care” of Charlie, implying that she is willing to kill a 12-year-old girl if she believes it to be a matter of national security.

Though Carter is not actively involved in the Pandora mission, her influence impacts several plot points, including her decision to call in Mossad agent Isaac Semel when she believes that Charlie, Dante, and Milana may have betrayed her. Carter’s beliefs and actions seem to justify Charlie’s disdain and distrust of the government.

The Furies are a terrorist group with six members from Eastern Europe who are trying to find Pandora before the CIA does. The group is white supremacist and anti-immigration and known for “small scale” attacks like “smashing windows, throwing Molotov cocktails into refugee camps, a few cases of assault” (73). All six members are “Caucasian, in their twenties and early thirties” and “angry thugs committed to a terrible, sadistic cause” (94). They all have similar backgrounds, including lack of employment, failure with women, and varying levels of jail time.

The leader and most dangerous of the group is Alexei Kolyenko. As the only one with any real intelligence, he is the most competent. His family is originally from Russia, but he was born in Germany to a low-income family. He attended university before leaving due to financial difficulties. He is a “half-decent mechanic” and speaks three languages. He is also the most hateful of the group, with the appearance and ideologies of a neo-Nazi, including blond hair, blue eyes, and a swastika tattoo, as well as a deep hatred for immigrants and a penchant for violence.

Alexei embodies the vitriol, rage, and racist hatred of all white supremacist groups. His violent ideology makes him unrelenting and dangerous. Alexei and the Furies are the antagonists throughout most of the novel. However, Alexei and the Furies are also a red herring in the novel, hiding the real mastermind behind their attempts to find Pandora, who does not appear until Chapter 30.

John Russo is the primary antagonist in the second half of the novel, revealed in Chapter 30 to be the real leader of the Furies. This revelation comes as a shock to Milana and Dante, as John is a CIA agent they believe to be dead. John was one of their best agents but suffers from his extensive undercover work and begins to feel more comfortable in his fake identities. While working undercover to investigate the Furies, he decides he does not want to return to his real life as John Russo and switches sides, joining the Furies. He alone discovers Einstein’s secret code. Though he does not agree with the Furies’ ideology, he intends to use them to find Pandora and take the equation for himself. He will then sell it to the highest bidder and build himself a new life.

John is highly intelligent, ruthless, and amoral, single-mindedly focused on his own gain. He quickly realizes that Charlie is the main threat to his success despite being a child. However, he still underestimates Charlie several times, thinking of her as simply a girl and, therefore, not equal to his intellect and ability. Even when he loses Pandora to Charlie and is about to die, he is shocked and bitter that his intricate planning has been lost “to a girl, no less” (382). His attitude stands in contrast to the girl empowerment tone throughout the novel.