Crime, Thrillers & Mystery / Hostage Rescue
It was a rare occasion, and an exciting one, that the bespectacled accountants of the Financial Crimes Unit could host a briefing for the burly operators of the Hostage Rescue Team.
The two groups had little in common, so the breaking-of-the-ice was a worry. Financial Crimes opted to go with a cheery intro screen to their PowerPoint presentation, which was already projected onto the briefing-room wall as Hostage Rescue mumbled their hellos and good-mornings, and filed in:
Financial Crimes
Welcomes
Hostage Rescue
It was a good move, very smart. PowerPoint, Financial Crimes realized, was a dependable equalizer, a lingua franca in which they could all converse. From campuses to military bases to each floor of FBI HQ, every message got that little extra punch via PowerPoint.
Financial Crime’s Special Agent in Charge cleared his throat, and began the briefing.
“Thanks everyone, thanks. Good morning. There’s coffee and…oh, everyone’s set? Good, good…” the SAC saw blank eyes and stifled yawns on the Hostage Rescue side of the table, and knew he was already losing them. He hurried to the next slide.
click
“Here’s the man of the hour. You probably recognize the face. Philip Dayson, dipshit extraordinaire. CFO of Empire Capital Ltd. prior to last month’s implosion and meltdown. Probably one of the clumsiest embezzlers Financial Crimes has seen. We’d be plenty happy to let some state AG take this bozo down…but dammit, he had a taste for wire fraud, so we’re stuck with him.”
click
“This is the structure he used to bugger Empire’s P and L reports. Simple stuff, really; a first-year accounting student could figure this stuff out. A coupla off-shore shells, some dummy accounts…” the SAC saw the blank stares returning to Hostage Rescue’s faces. His boxes and org-charts were boring them again. Time to serve the meat.
click
“And this is Tommy Masterson, late of Fort Bragg. Early retirement from Delta year-before-last…and then he set himself up as prez and CEO of something called ‘Global Solutions.’”
“Nice name,” SAC, Hostage Rescue commented. His team snickered. They could all identify; they all faced the challenge of finding equally innocuous names for their own mercenary organizations, after their own retirements.
click
“Here’s the oil well in Nigeria that Mr. Masterson and Global Solutions were hired to protect. Don’t know how good a job Masterson did – Nigeria ain’t talking – but it’s clear he missed one salient point about his employer, Empire Capital.”
A Hostage Rescue team-member hazarded a guess. “They weren’t lookin for no oil.”
SAC, Financial Crimes beamed at this star pupil. “Exactly. Exactly. This was a dry hole in every sense of the word. Just a goddamn write-off, and probably a place to shift some other losses. Unfortunately for Mr. Masterson, he hired on just as Empire’s pyramid was fixing to collapse.”
click
“Bounced check for fifty grand, payable to Global Solutions. This was one of about a hundred or so checks that Empire bounced that week. But this one’s special. You guys know why.”
Their low whistles and incredulous chuckles showed they did. It doesn’t matter how low your accounts are…you just don’t bounce a check payable to your mercenary. You just don’t.
“So anyway…” click “This is Dayson’s house in Coral Gables. A fifty-thousand square-foot abortion he designed himself, apparently. We’re gonna take it, but who the hell is gonna buy it? At any rate – Dayson’s been lying low there, waiting for all the process to get served and for the goddamn press to go away…but yesterday Mr. Tommy Masterson came a-knocking.”
All the Hostage Rescue faces began to brighten. This was the part of the story they’d all like the best.
“The local office has been keeping tabs – we’d been planning on picking Dayson up but nobody figured there was any hurry. They debriefed Mrs. Dayson when she got out, so we’ve got a pretty good idea what’s been going on…” eager nods from Hostage Rescue, and gestures urging him to continue. “Masterson got inside – this was yesterday, noon – gave Dayson a few slaps, a few more for Mrs. Dayson…he kicked their dog to death…” sour frowns at that. The Hostage Rescue guys liked dogs. “He, um, tore down a Monet and pissed on it…” big smiles confirmed that Masterson redeemed himself with that one. “And now, we think, he’s got Dayson tied up in the boathouse.”click “This boathouse.”
SAC, Financial Crimes was wrapping up. “That’s about all we got. It’s going on twenty hours in there now…we think Masterson’s beating the shit out of Dayson, but we’re pretty sure he’s still alive. Local office has got some divers nearby, ready to in the water on your say-so. They can get some pick-up mics and maybe even some video on the boathouse, so you know what you’re dealing with. And so…” click
Financial Crimes
Thanks
Hostage Rescue
Good luck, guys!
Hostage Rescue had some fast jets at their disposal, so they were on the ground in Coral Gables within the hour. In the air, SAC radioed the go-ahead for the divers to hit the water. He was hoping for live audio and video by the time their wheels were on the ground…and resolution one way or another by day’s end. The boys wanted to wrap this up and get back to the office; March Madness was in full swing, approaching the Final Four. The boys had brackets to attend to.
They set up shop in Dayson’s front yard, which was a blessing and a curse. They were out of the line-of-site of the boathouse, so Masterson couldn’t see them…but they were also exposed to the frenzy of press that were swirling about the place. They were also exposed to all the local cops, which could be as much a pain in the ass as the press.
“But we gotta coordinate our movements! We gotta – ” this was some whining from a sheriff or deputy or some such. SAC, Hostage Rescue was studiously ignoring him as he spread out schematics of the boathouse on the sheriff’s (or whatever he was) car.
“We gotta coordinate firepower! I got SWAT guys, I got –”
Piece of cake, the SAC decided. They’d rush the place under the cover of flash-bangs and gas, and could probably take Masterson down without firing a shot. Really, nobody wanted to kill the guy. Sure, he’d have to go away for awhile – that was a hazard of the mercenary trade – but nobody in Hostage Rescue wanted to see him die. And if this Dayson character breathed a little gas in the process, and maybe bled from his ears a bit from the flash-bangs…well, nobody much minded that, either.
The divers had managed to tack a pick-up mic on the side of the boathouse, but Masterson had detected them and chased them off before they could install video. The audio was enough, though – it offered a chilling summary of Masterson’s efforts. The SAC listened a while, and had heard enough. Nothing but grunts of exertion from Masterson, and alternating cries of pain and anguish, and pleas for mercy, from Dayson. Masterson, it seemed, knew he’d be going to prison soon so he was taking every available moment to work his way through his considerable catalog of torture.
It’s gone on long enough, the SAC decided. He keyed his throat mic and ordered his team to suit up. He stepped around the still-babbling sheriff and began pulling on his own armor.
The receiver in his ear crackled. “Chief, you’d better come see this.” It was his second-in-command, stationed in the electronics van, who’d been tasked to monitor the audio feed from the boat house.
But the electronics van was also equipped with a full suite of gear to monitor media, weather and incoming alerts from Washington. As the SAC jogged toward it, he wondered which of these had caused his lieutenant so much worry.
He slid the van door open and found both his lieutenant and the techie from the local office staring at a TV monitor. They were watching the CNN Financial Network. The lieutenant was slumped with despair.
“Chief…chief…” was all he could say. The SAC watched for a moment – it was a breaking story that CNNfn was just releasing. It was about Empire Capital…and their relationship with another company…and that other company…its name sounded so familiar….
“Sonofabitch,” the SAC breathed. Then, to the techie: “Get me Washington, the Financial Crimes Unit, now.”
Within moments he had a landline connection to the SAC, Financial Crimes. He barked his questions without preamble.
“What’s this crap about Empire Capital and MarketWatch Holdings? What? When, goddammit? Listen…MarketWatch is clean, dammit. I’ve seen their annual…what? Well when the hell did that happen? My goddam broker…” He angrily broke the connection.
MarketWatch Holdings had been a hot ticket, and its name had spread. The SAC’s broker had practically begged him to jump in early. He’d moved most of his fluidity and even half of his goddam 401K into MarketWatch earlier that same month…
And so had the rest of the team. The team that invests together, goes the theory, is a tight team indeed.
But now…the word on MarketWatch was already spreading. The team was milling about, shell-shocked. A few had flipped open cellphones and were desperately calling their brokers. Even now, the color was draining from their faces.
“Okay guys, huddle up.” The SAC said quietly. The team drew together. The SAC drew a breath. “It’s true, guys. This asshole, Dayson –” he jerked a thumb back toward the boathouse “he was hiding profit from Empire in MarketWatch. When Empire came down…” he trailed off.
“Chief, I got forty grand in MarketWatch,” one of the guys said, his voice tight and high. “I got my kids’s college money there. Jesus Christ…”
“I know, Tim. I know. We all do.”
“What should we do? Should we call our brokers?”
One of the guys who’d already called his broker was shaking his head. “Those bastards can’t help, man. Hell, mine barely knows me, allasudden.” He angrily spat on the ground.
“We’ll figure something out, guys” the SAC soothed. “We’re in this together.” They huddled a bit closer, and in their big, standing circle, they hugged. It was a manly hug, though.
The sheriff – or whatever – had sidled up to the group and he now cleared his throat. “Excuse me, fellas. You look like you’re ready to move in there. I just wanted to let you know that me and my SWAT boys have got your – ”
The SAC held up a hand to silence him. He reached into the van and turned up the volume on the pick-up mic from the boathouse.
There were grunts, and deep wet smacks, and ongoing sobs and plaintive cries. The beating of Philip Dayson continued.
The team, as a group, looked toward the boat house, and back at their chief. Their chief answered the sheriff.
“No, we’re not going in, not yet. We’ll be on scene here for, oh, a couple more days at least.” He sighed. “You just can’t rush these things,” he said, as the sounds of torture droned on behind him.
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I read this from beginning to end and it was interesting and action packed, but I got lost a few times. I don’t think it was the writing. The writing was excellent. This isn’t my kind of story and I had to keep looking back to keep up. It kept my interest all the way, but some things seemed to happen too fast, like when they left the conference room and suddenly they were on scene. There was a lot of activity there and talk about someone being beaten and mention of going in but not now. With all that activity it would stand to reason that whoever was in the house would be aware of it. If they knew they were there anyway, I don’t understand why they didn’t just charge in. I found the writing to be very good, but the way the story was constructed made it hard to follow. The ‘click’ of the projector seemed a little generic. I would’ve just described the click. ‘the light blinked with another click of the projector as another . . .
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Some initial back ground would have helped me to better understand and follow the story. clever idea for a story and the phrasing and spacing you chose very different and unique. i enjoyed the read but would consider a brief intro to better help your readers. keep up the good work
I think this is a good beginning. I’m not sure about some of the language in the exchanges between the team while in the presentation room. For instance: dipshit extradonaire. The story loses nothing if it is cut and I’m not sure this would be used in the meeting.
Plenty of opportunities for this type of comment outside of the meeting among the guys discussing what they’re into.
I am gathering that the media is milling because Dayson, the CFO of Empire Capital, Ltd is being held hostage by a hit man who he stiffed for $50,000?
When the media spots the Hostage Rescue team, because as stated they are in full view of the media, wouldn’t this create a second frenzy area for the cameras? How will the team handle this? Somewhere along the line they have to be really angry that their rescue is being (probably)hampered by the obnoxious reporters, cameramen, etc.
One of the things that I really liked was the way the team has been stunned as they watch their personal security going down the tube on TV while they are supposed the extricate the man responsible for causing this.
They get dragged into the scenario from personal aspects having lost their own money in one of the shell companies and now they have a mixed message agenda. Get the guy out or within the limits of the law make him suffer for what he has done to them.
They pick the option that many angry people would, and manage to let Masterson dole out the punishment while appearing to be carrying out their jobs to the letter.
There might be a little more friction between the local swats and law enforcement and the team.
“But we gotta coordinate our movements! We gotta – ” this was some whining from a sheriff or deputy or some such. SAC, Hostage Rescue was studiously ignoring him as he spread out schematics of the boathouse on the sheriff’s (or whatever he was) car.
I would have an angry exchange of words to heighten the tension between the law enforcement entities.
I will be anxious to see another installment.
It’ good. Great dialogue, and the story really captures you. It sucks you in which I like. It’s good, keep writing you’re doing just fine.
I love the premise of this. The idea that hostage rescue as a commodity is funny and fresh, not to mention some of the lines like the manly hug.
Now for the stuff you pay credits for:
First, let me explain why I decided to read and review this. I am currently working on a project to develop a hostage threat assessment model for HRT teams. Therefore, I’m coming at this from a negotiator perspective, and not the layman one, so bare that in mind.
On that level, I was vaguely put off by the HRT response. The first issue would be a lack of negotiations, and the second, that HRT guys are a bloodthirsty lot.
Just as an FYI.
Okay, another thought is the broker angle. HRT are not paid the kind of money I associate with having a broker or a “global” company after retirement, which sort of forces the reader into accepting the entire team is dirty, which is a hard proposition to accept. HRT guys risk there lives to save others. If they wanted to make dough, they’d be doing another job.
Maybe you’ll move into that as the novel progresses, but again as an FYI.
As far as the writing, it’s good and mostly tight. There are a couple of things. I get no clear indication of who is the main POV from this chapter, which is fine. I’m sure it comes along later. But my point about that is, lines like this:
The sheriff – or whatever – had sidled up to the group and he now cleared his throat.
Then sound as if they are straight from the author’s lips and that doesn’t work. In a novel, it is important that I never hear your voice. Here’s another example:
It doesn’t matter how low your accounts are…you just don’t bounce a check payable to your mercenary. You just don’t.
Okay, moving on. I like the powerpoint presentation. It is a fresh approach, but it can read as a bit like narrative, and trying to explain needed backstory to reach a plot point, if that makes sense.
You might also want to watch out for dialogue punctuation and passive voice too.
Anyways, I hope this helps and that you do not take it as harsh criticism because I really did like it and would definitely read more.
Good luck.
Spacing is odd (an Urbis issue?).
PowerPoint as lingua franca line is great as is “dipshit extraordinaire”.
Try to avoid using ellipses where you can.
“eager nods”—needs a capital E.
No has names! Except the bad guy. That’s odd to read.
I’d end on “You just can’t rush these things.” You don’t really need to rest and the first part of that is a really great last line.
Great plot, clean, readable prose, you get through the exposition without dragging, and the dialogue is readable; your characters, on the other hand, are all a bit flat. Give them more personality. Failing that, at least give one or two of them names!
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