The Negotiator (novel)
First edition (UK)
|
|
| Author | Frederick Forsyth |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | Bantam Press |
|
Publication date
|
1989 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 448 |
| ISBN | |
The Negotiator is a crime novel by Frederick Forsyth first published in 1989. The story includes a number of threads that are slowly woven together. The central thread concerns a kidnapping that turns into a murder and the negotiator's attempts to solve the crime.
Late 1989: Texan oil baron Cyrus Miller and shipping tycoon Melvin Scanlon conspire to bring the oil fields of the Middle East under American control. Meanwhile, United States President John Cormack and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev draw up plans for a $100 billion arms reduction bill – the Nantucket Treaty. This proves debilitating for Miller and Scanlon's plans, so they team up with three arms manufacturers who will be financially ruined by the treaty and hire mercenary Irving Moss, a sexual sadist and ex-CIA officer recently released from prison, to devise a plan to destroy the President and therefore the treaty.
The plan begins when the President's son, Simon, is kidnapped while spending a year studying abroad at Oxford University. When the Vice-President demands an expert hostage negotiator to handle the situation, CIA Deputy Director of Operations David Weintraub nominates his old friend Quinn, an ex-Green Beret sergeant who later became renowned as the world's most successful hostage negotiator, but he has retired to Malaga and is not interested in working for the government. Weintraub coaxes Quinn out of retirement and he agrees to handle the negotiations if they allow him to do it his way. He is joined in his designated London flat, against his wishes, by FBI agent Samantha "Sam" Somerville and CIA officer Duncan McCrea. The kidnappers make contact and after two weeks of negotiation, agree on a $2 million ransom in diamonds, but are spooked by a fake news report that the police are closing in: Quinn steals the diamonds, evades the police and FBI and sets up the ransom drop himself, but is abducted and held in the kidnapper's hideout alongside Simon. Later, Simon and Quinn are released at different points on a deserted road, but as Simon runs towards Quinn and the police, he is killed in an explosion. President Cormack is devastated when he learns of his son's death: the possibility of his being removed under the terms of the 25th Amendment is brought up. A postmortem shows that Simon was killed by a bomb hidden in a belt given to him by his kidnappers: the bomb was set off by a miniature detonator – minidet – found only in the Soviet space programme. The Russians are blamed and the Nantucket Treaty is effectively finished.
...
Wikipedia