Jonathan Killian is a member of Majestic-12, and therefore one of the richest men in the world.
History[]
Early History[]
Jonathan Killian was born to a wealthy American businessman and a French mother. Killian's father was the owner of the Axon Corporation, a missile-building contractor for the United States military.
In the late 1990's, Killian inherited all of his father's businesses upon his death, which in addition to Axon Corp included several smaller companies. Over the next three years, Killian was able to increase the annual profits for Axon Corp significantly. Because of this, he was soon invited to join Majestic-12, a group of twelve of some of the richest men in the world and whom had also included his father as a member. Soon after he joined, Killian found himself disliking Member No. 5, due to his spoilt personality.
At some point, Killian took possession of the Forteresse de Valois castle in France, either by purchasing it or inheriting it from his family. Unbeknownst to most, Killian enjoyed watching chaos unfold and seeing how it affected people, and so he installed traps around his castle, including a pair of antechambers with burning oil and microwave emitter, and a shark pit with a guillotine. Killian would occasionally subject people to these torturous deaths, particularly the shark pit, where he would occasionally give people false hope of escaping if they killed others for his own amusement.
When Majestic-12 decided to enhance their overall fortunes, they began planning to initiate a new Cold War, which their individuals businesses would benefit from and improve their wealth. Through Axon Corps' contracts with the U.S. military, they discovered a pair of top secret American projects called Kormoran and Chameleon, which involved disguised battle tankers and clone missiles respectively. By taking over both these projects, they could make several western countries believe they had been hit by terrorist missiles.
During the initial planning, the chaos-loving Killian realised that if additional missiles were apparently launched from other countries' worst enemies, then it would result in a world of anarchy. Killian suggested adding this extra step to the other members of M-12, however they refused, knowing that if they did what Killian proposed, then they would not receive the Cold War they desired, but something far worse. Killian would make this request a few more times, to Chairman Randolph Loch's distaste, and was consistently refused.
Though Killian pretended to go along with the rest of Majestic-12's plan, he instead began preparing to initiate his extra step on his own. He began preparing the additional Kormoran vessels, as well as an abandoned Soviet missile silo in Yemen, and then decided to forewarn a few African countries, under the public guise of opening supermarkets, so that they would incite further world chaos by taking advantage of the fall of western civilisation. For M-12's benefit, Killian used his contacts in the DGSE to warn the French that they were to be an intended target, but they could be seen to avoid their missile strike and become a new dominant superpower if they helped M-12 by preparing terrorists bodies for them to use as scapegoats once the plan got underway.
When M-12 discovered that a few individuals could upset their plans due to certain skills or knowledge that they possessed, they decided to start a bounty hunt to keep them from doing so. It was soon decided that Killian's Forteresse de Valois castle would be used as the verification point where the heads of the targets would be brought for assessing by Monsieur Delacroix, whom Killian had already brought onboard for his extra-step plan.
Among the fifteen targets was Shane Schofield, a U.S. Marine with a reputation for succeeding against the odds. Unsettled by this, M-12 decided that they would arrange a sham mission as an ambush to increase the chances of him being eliminated. To this end, Killian had the former Intelligence Convergence Group operative Cal Noonan arrange the faux mission for Schofield and two other targets, and hired the mercenary group Executive Solutions to go after the targets and act as his personal bodyguards during the hunt.
Scarecrow[]
Shortly after the hunt began, Killian trapped Member No. 5 and some of his staff in the shark pit. Though Killian hoped that the target of his distaste would fall victim to the sharks, he was disappointed that Member No. 5 instead chose to behead himself on the guillotine. He then proceeded to his office to engage in a teleconference with the others members of M-12 to discuss their plan. During this, Killian decided to make one last attempt to convince the rest of M-12 to take on his extra step, however Loch still refused, pointing out that changing their plan at that stage would pose a huge risk, and threatened Killian with a council penalty.
Killian remained in his office as most of the targets' heads were brought in for assessment, however while watching his security feeds he saw that Schofield and his girlfriend Elizabeth Gant had disguised themselves as assistants for the Black Knight in order to infiltrate the castle. Killian approached them, pretending not to know who they were and invited Schofield and Gant to freshen up. As he lead them away from Knight, Schofield noted Killian's appearance on television recently, before Killian revealed his love of anarchy and seeing people in stressful situations. Killian then welcomed Schofield to his castle by name, just as Cedric Wexley and other Ex-Sol mercenaries spotted the pair, enjoying they looks on their faces before they bolted.
After a highly destructive chase that involved the destruction of several of Killian's cars, Knight and Gant were captured and brought back to the Forteresse de Valois, where Killian had them imprisoned in the shark pit. After Killian failed to get Knight to reveal who had paid him to oppose M-12's plan, Gant retorted to Killian's boasts that Schofield would stop him and M-12 from succeeding. Unperturbed, Killian noted how IG-88 had earlier used Gant as bait to try and draw in Schofield, but had failed. Gant realised with horror what was about to happen, as Killian noted he would not bother making them same error, and had Noonan behead her in the guillotine. Before he left the pit, Killian ordered a simple death for Knight, however the bounty hunter managed to escape underwater.
Hours later, right as Schofield helped bring down the last Kormoran tanker and disarmed the Chameleon missiles that M-12 had planned to use, Schofield realised that he had obtained data that suggested that Killian was going to go a step further and cause global chaos. As he, Knight and Rufus rushed to Yemen to try and prevent the last Chameleon missile from launching, Killian had his African allies scramble their aerial fleets to slow them down as he launched his final Chameleon missile, set to strike Mecca, early. Ultimately, however, Schofield managed to disarm the missile while in flight.
Schofield, Knight and Rufus were soon captured by Noonan's former ICG ally, Wade Brandeis and his Delta team, and brought back to Forteress de Valois. After they were secured in the shark pit, Killian ordered Noonan to have Schofield beheaded while facing the blade, and commended Schofield for his heroic actions, pointing out that the world would never know of any of it however. As Killian ordered Noonan to drop the guillotine's blade, a shuriken thrown by Mother at the last second saved Schofield.
As Mother freed the prisoners, Killian retreated back into his castle while his forces opened fire, but found himself pursued by Schofield and Knight. Killian attempted to trap them both in his ante-chamber traps, however both were able to survive thanks to equipment they had on hand, and Schofield managed to hit Killian's ear and hand before being forced to fight Wexley.
When Schofield finally confronted Killian in his office, Killian mocked Schofield, claiming that if he killed an unarmed man, he would only prove that he had broken him. However, Schofield pointed out something Killian had said earlier about suicide bombers being ready to die and take the enemy with them, and after taking hold of the billionaire Killian realised that Schofield intended to kill them both. Schofield then threw himself and Killian out of the office's high window, though as they fell, Schofield was saved with a maghook fired by Knight, leaving Killian to continue falling to his death.
After Death[]
When Schofield was later being tortured by Marius Calderon, the Lord of Anarchy mentioned Killian's order of Gant's death to taunt the Marine. (Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves)
Personality[]
Killian is known for his love of anarchy, causing it and especially seeing how it affects people.
Assets[]
- Axon Corporation: The United State's primary contractor for supplying intercontinental ballistic missiles, a corporation that Killian inherited from his father.
- Forteresse de Valois: A castle located on the coast of France which serves as Killian's main home, which he has had modified in several ways to befit the modern day, as well as several trap systems.
- Car Collection: A number of rare and expensive cars owned by Killian, which he considers to be simply toys for him to collect. His collection includes:
- A red Ferrari Modena
- A silver Porsche GT-2
- An Aston Martin Vanquish
- An electric-blue Subaru WRX
- A black Lamborghini Diablo
- Three yellow-coloured Peugeot rally cars sponsored by Axon Corp.
Trivia[]
- Killian (having a disfigurement or odd feature like some of Reilly's other villains) has heterochromia, a defect which makes both of his eyes different colours; one blue, one brown.
- Though not doing so himself, Killian is directly responsible for the first death of a recurring main character in Reilly's novels.