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Day 7 Assignments
Please post your Day 7 assignments here!
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9 Replies
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DAY 7 – ASSIGNMENT
Subject Line: Alan’s Life Threatening Sequence
What I learned from this assignment is: I completely blew this assignment on the first pass. Sorry.
1. What is the Villain’s plan and how does that put the Hero in danger?
The Villains’ plan to abduct Jay’s half-sister, Holly, and Jay’s love interest, Erin, and sell them in China on the dark web for huge sums of money. Money they will kill for. Jay blocks their first attempt to drug and abduct Erin, putting Jay on their hit list. His attempts to save Holly put him in constant life-threatening danger.
2. What other potential dangers could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront the Villain?
Jay gets arrested three times and imprisoned twice, loses his job, loses his marriage, loses his reputation, and continually steps into dangerous situations.
3. From the list of potential dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.
All of these potential dangers are in my story:
Threats
Talking about the danger
Physical danger
Surveillance / watched
Chased
Lured into a dangerous situation
Closeness to the villain
Trapped / Abducted / Arrested
Danger to someone they know
People around them die or are injured.
Stalked
Thugs or professionals hired to hurt them.
Presence of weapons or thugs
The unknown
Something that damages their reputation
The chance that a relationship could end.
Public humiliation.
Loss of a job or career.
Betrayal from someone close.
Someone operating covertly around them.
4. Sequence those dangers in order and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.
1. The trafficker roofies Holly and drives her off in his panel van.
2. A trafficker drugs Erin with a date-rape drug and tries to abduct her.
3. The trafficker threatens to kill Jay.
4. The police arrest Jay for Holly’s abduction and jail him. He loses his job.
5. Madison is molested by her stepfather.
6. A trafficker takes Madison to their hideout and locks her up with several other girls.
7. The trafficker Jay identified is found dead in a park gully the next morning.
8. Traffickers auction Holly and Erin on the dark web.
9. The traffickers sell Madison and several other young girls to the trucker brothel and smuggle them to an Iowa truck stop.
10. FBI agents learn Holly’s being shipped off to China.
11. A truck brothel thug tries to kill Jay and abduct Erin.
12. The Denver detective shoots/kills the thug.
13. Erin gets offered and unknowingly accepts a fake modeling job in Mexico.
14. After learning it’s a fake, Erin agrees to be wired and tracked by the police as bait to catch the traffickers.
15. The traffickers outsmart the police by putting Erin in the back of a ‘shielded’ limo. The police tracking devices don’t work.
16. Police kill two traffickers at the boat leaving with Erin and the other abducted women.
17. Holly is smuggled to China and sold on the dark web.
18. The traffickers double-cross the highest bidder, Jay. They bait and switch Holly for another abducted similar girl.
19. The traffickers sell and smuggle Holly to a Beijing brothel.
20. Jay and a security expert from Holly’s dad’s company go into the brothel to try to rescue Holly.
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This reply was modified 4 years ago by Alan Larson.
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This reply was modified 4 years ago by
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Subject Line: Kim J’s Life-Threatening Sequence (Day 7)
What I learned from this assignment is that the hero must be in near-constant danger throughout. The villain puts obstacles, the hero overcomes them.
1. WHAT IS LINDSEY’S PLAN & HOW DOES IT PUT SAGE IN DANGER?
Lindsey lures Sage to her Los Angeles Center and makes Sage believe she is living in her graphic novel. The Center is a psychiatric facility for “creatives” that Lindsey runs. Her unique and wholly unethical treatment center is “a safe space for artists to explore and apply the contents of their TRUE MINDS to their art.” The treatment includes withholding medication and brainwashing. It’s like a cult.
*By the time we meet Sage, she’s already at risk of a psychotic episode that will plunge her into the depths of delusion.
2. What other potential dangers could the hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront the villain?
* Lindsey stalks Sage. She enlists the help of two “shadowy men” to follow Sage on the Boardwalk furnishing an excuse to lure her away and “help” her, exacerbating Sage’s paranoia.
* Lindsey kidnaps Sage’s mother and plants a “renter” in Carol’s house so she can convince Sage Carol is dead.
* Sage’s separation from her mother exacerbates her illness.
* Lindsey betrays Sage.
* Lindsey withholds Sage’s medication, feeds her delusions.
* Lindsey coerces Sage to sign herself into the Center.
* Lindsey, as Sage’s treating psychiatrist, petitions the Court for conservatorship.
* Lindsey will kill whoever gets in the way of her ticket to fame and fortune, including Sage and her mother.
* Diana could help Sage, but Sage is too disturbed to accept it.
* Diana is found out helping Sage, and Lindsey kills her.
* Sage could be killed by the torture recreated from her novel. * Sage is subjected to numerous “tasing” incidents by Sven.
* Sage sees another patient in terrible shape. She recognizes him as a well-known pop singer whose mental illness is very public. He commits suicide after being exposed to Lindsey’s treatment. When Sage sees the cover-up, Lindsey threatens to kill her. Sage believes her.
* Sage’s graphic novel deal could be pulled when she goes missing.
* Sage’s reputation could be damaged by seeming unreliable or too risky to work with.
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ASSIGNMENT SEVEN:
K MENON:
What I learned: Not sure: Still trying to mine the basic narrative set up for possible threats, misdirections, false leads, that will need to be resolved to move the story forward. But I have started working out narrative flow (e.g., prologue, Scene 1, 2, 3, etc which helps me work out where these threats occur.
What is the Villain’s plan and
how does that put the Hero in dangerThe Villain (Wahid) hopes to launder up to $12 Billion in swindled funds from Malaysia into the US using a variety of offshore entities which will be invested by David into legitimate American businesses. It started with a few million in 2010, but by 2015, amounted to several hundred billion into assets such as car parks, commercial real estate, agricultural land in Florida, film financing, a Netflix like platform, entertainment complexes, malls, shopping centers.
But Wahid comes to realize that David may be diverting funds to benefit himself and used some of the funds to buy drugs, initially for himself but then actually inserting himself into the drug trade. Wahid believes that this will threaten their off-the-radar money laundering plan. He has come to NY with his associate, Wong, a former Malaysia Special Branch officer and they have been keeping David under surveillance but have not called on him.
At the start of the movie, David has disappeared. We are not sure if WAHID has caused this disappearance. In case, Wahid comes to David’s office but MARIA, David’s assistant only provides perfunctory information even though WAHID claims to be the principal behind DAVID’s one and only major clients (MARIA is unaware that all the different clients that DAVID has identified for her, is really only one client.)
Over the next couple of days, ASHA and MARIA make police reports about David’s disappearance. WAHID realizes that David’s wife is his former lover and that they have a child. He goes to see them but ASHA is not helpful. So he has WONG kidnap their seven-year old daughter. WAHID demands ASHA help him access all of David’s records.
But MARIA has already removed David’s computer as per instructions from David which she only discovered after he disappeared.
Now Wahid has a new problem. He decides to try and control Asha by kidnapping her daughter.
What other potential dangers
could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront
the Villain?After David’s disappearance, Asha is lost. She realizes she has to cooperate with Wahid and Wong for her daughter’s sake, or at least pretend to, while hoping to turn the tables on him. Asha enlists Maria’s help and Maria has a network burlesque performers from the demi monde that she can draw on. Then Wahid suggests Maria is having an affair with David
From the list of potential
dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.A. Danger to Asha’s daughter. How can she get Asha back?
B. Wong creates a fake attack on Asha by supposed drug dealers?
C. When Wong realizes that Maria is helping Asha he gets rid of her.
Sequence those dangers in order
and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.A. Asha and Wahid are mutually shocked to encounter each other, Neither had any idea of the other’s role in David’s life. They warily circle each other but both have a reason to cooperate.
A. Federal agents are sniffing around. They suspect David of working with stolen funds from Malaysia but don’t have a smoking gun yet.
B. Wong creates a fake attack on Asha by supposed drug dealers?
B. When Wahid realizes that Maria is helping Asha he gets rid of her.
C. Danger to Asha’s daughter. How can she get her daughter back?
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Subject Line: Jon’s Life Threatening Sequence
Create your Life Threatening Sequence.
1) What is the Villain’s plan and how does that put the Hero in danger?
The aliens are here to extract Eve’s DNA to reverse the effects of a bio-weapon that have prevented them from procreating.
2) What other potential dangers could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront the Villain?
The government in an attempt to silence Eve have kidnapped her. AKA US rendition.
She escapes into the air duct and discovers the government official behind her capture conversing with the aliens.
The aliens are requesting the government return a technology that was left after an alien saucer crash-landed in 1947 Roswell.
The government official asks about Eve’s grandmother. The aliens will need her again if they don’t get that device. Eve freaks out that her mother could be at risk and follows the alien. As the alien is about to transport back to the saucer Eve assults it and causes her to be transported along with the alien back to the ship.
Now she is trapped aboard the alien saucer with no ability to escape.
3) From the list of potential dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.
(these dangers apply)
Closeness to the villain
Trapped / Abducted / Arrested
Danger to someone they know
The unknown
Physical danger (does DNA extraction hurt)
Loss of a job or career (she already lost her job)4) Sequence those dangers in order and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.
Aliens attack her and photographer driving on a deserted highway
They request her presence for an interview
She goes aboard their Saucer but is that safe?
She refuses to mind her government minders when she discovers the truth
Her rebellious nature makes her a threat to national security
The government rendition of Eve puts her life at risk
She discovers the aliens are in cahoots with the government (who can she trust)
She attacks the alien. What consequences will she face from them?
She is transported to their saucer?
How will she escape the ship and get home and rescue her grandmother? -
<div>Ron Johnson: Life threatening sequence.
What I’ve learned is that for a thriller to be thrilling, it must have danger in nearly every scene, or the threat of danger, or it descends into less thrilling and becomes more of a drama. Especially after watching the latest installment by Liam Neeson which promised lots of danger but dragged half the time.
My danger:
Hightower is searching for the lost tomb and Linga Stone and Glory is attempting to find it first. He will do anything to stop her.
Glory’s uncle is kidnapped
She is nearly abducted by Hightower’s men and has to escape
Hightower has assigned men to intercept her.
Poachers will kill to protect their findings
The jungle is full of venomous snakes, wild animals and poisonous insects.
Physical dangers in water, slipping off mountainsides, or crossing rickety bridge.
She is kidnapped by Hightower’s men.
Supernatural powers; The spirit of Jayavarman II haunts the mountaintop
The power of the Lingam Stone could be
lethal</div><div></div>
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David Polcyn’s Life Threatening Sequence
Answer the question “What I learned is…?” and put it at the top of your assignment.
I learned to look at crafting the story from the problems the main character will face and endure. It’s an interesting process since it’s quite a different development prospective.
What is the Villain’s plan and how does that put the Hero in danger?
Cover up political corruption scheme using blackmail and dirty money. Joe inadvertently caught the whole thing, including murder on film while doing surveillance. The villain needs the tapes and needs to eliminate Joe.
2. What other potential dangers could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront the Villain?
Threats
His own paranoia.
Blackmail
Physical danger
Surveillance / watched
Chased
Lured into a dangerous situation
Arrested
Danger to someone they know
People around them die or are injured.
Stalked
Professionals hired to hurt them.
Presence of weapons
Damages to their reputation
relationships could end.
Their own secret could be revealed.
Public humiliation.
Loss of a job or career.
A demand to stop pursuing the mystery.
Betrayal from someone close.
Someone operating covertly around them.
3. From the list of potential dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.
Threats
His own paranoia.
Blackmail
Physical danger
Surveillance / watched
Chased
Lured into a dangerous situation
Arrested
Danger to someone they know
People around them die or are injured.
Stalked
Professionals hired to hurt them.
Damages to their reputation
relationships could end.
Their own secret could be revealed.
Public humiliation.
Loss of a job or career.
A demand to stop pursuing the mystery.
Betrayal from someone close.
Someone operating covertly around them.
4. Sequence those dangers in order and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.
1. Joe catches the politician with a mistress on tape.
2. Politician commits “suicide”
3. Joe is told he’s responsible. he reveals he keeps the hard drives locked. never online.
4. Joe is hired to get the rockstar on tape by exgrilfriend. He does.
5. On the way out the woman interacts with Joe. “I did what you wanted now let me go.” “They will kill us if they find you here”.
6. Ella’s assistant who hired him aranges for the tapes to be picked up.
7. Rockstar is murdered and hard drives stolen.
8. Joe is late to meeting and discovers body.
9 joe is a suspect and detained.
10. He contacts the lawyer he met in the begging to rep him. He’s the villain.
11. tabloids trash Joe and already have decided he is the murder. Claypool seemingly defends him says joe should give him the videos to someone he trusts.
12. He gets the videos and decides to give them to the producer from the tabloid show.
13. Producer is murdered before he can collect them.
14. Joe is pursued is he being followed by paparazzi or hit men?
15. Hides the videos.
16. He confronts Ella, who claims she never hired him. At first she tries to play him with kindness then tries to push him away. She doesn’t have an assistant. Doesn’t know the girl. She knew husband had affairs, they had an agreement.
17. Follows the call he received from “Assistant” to an abandoned landline where he is attacked and finds the dead woman from who was in both of the videos.
18. Joe is dosed and left there, escaping before the police arrive.
19. Joe is pursued while hopped up.
20. he goes to hide at Ella’s who may or may not betray him.
21 She talks him into taking the tapes to Claypool.
22. He goes into he building being followed by one of the assassins.
23. He arrives in Claypool’s office to overhear his assistant. That’s the voice of the person who hired him.
24. He escapes. Confronts Ella, she says she didn’t know.
25. Joe gets the tapes to the tabloid but there is enough political leverage not to show it.
26. Joe must live looking over his shoulder.
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Sandra’s Life Threatening Sequence
What I learned is that having a sequence of events adds intensity to the plot.
What is the Villain’s plan
and how does that put the Hero in danger?<div>The Villain’s plan is to make her father believe he is going crazy so she can manipulate him and throw his sense of himself off balance.
What other potential dangers
could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront
the Villain?</div><div>He could come across co-conspirators in her plan to ruin him who might hurt him physically.
From the list of potential
dangers, choose the ones that work for this story.The one that works best for this story is betrayal from someone close.
Sequence those dangers in
order and make a list like the one I did for Basic Instinct above.1. Max purchases a rare manuscript that has a history of being cursed but intrigues him nonetheless.
2. His daughter discovers he has purchased the piece and starts thinking of how to manipulate him in order to get money from him
3. She pretends to offer help by enlisting a Shaman to quell the curse.
4. Her friend suggests more life-threatening tactics to scare him further – now his physical life is in danger.
5. Max’s wife dies of apparently natural causes.
6. Max is now more vulnerable. His daughter offers to move in with him to keep him company.
7. Now she has more control over the house and his mental state.
8. She starts planting various devices around the house to scare Max.
9. Max thinks he is going crazy but doesn’t know who to turn to.
10. He loses all his money and wealth in the stock market.
11. Without the lure of getting his money, his daughter admits to her pranks and begs for forgiveness.
</div>
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Subject Line: Karen Grube’s Life-Threatening Sequence (Day 7)
What I learned from this assignment is that my hero isn’t in nearly enough real danger. His family and friends are, but not him. Of course, the entire world is in danger from the villain. I’m not sure what to do about that.
1. What is Phoenix’s plan and how does it put Ham in danger?
Phoenix’s plan is to destroy the world’s economic system by taking down the Bank for International Settlements. He intends to disrupt their test of a global digital currency between eight of the world’s largest central banks. But by doing this he thinks he can delay the beginning of the end times as described in the book of Revelation by preventing a one-world currency accessible only to those wearing the mark of the beast. Ham tries to stop him, which puts him, his family, and his friends in danger.
2. What other potential dangers could Ham experience as he tries to figure out what Phoenix is trying to do, how he’s going to do it, why he’s doing it, and how to stop him.
At first Ham thinks Phoenix plans on holding the central banks’ computer systems for ransom.
When Ham busts two of Phoenix’s men for committing a ransomware attack on a large international bank, Phoenix sees Ham as the biggest threat to pulling off his plan. Phoenix was actually watching on hidden cameras as the bust took place.
Phoenix orchestrates a horrific accident in order to kill Ham’s wife and daughter so the agency that Ham works for, FinCEN, will put him on leave. Ham and his boss decide it’s safest if Ham’s wife and daughter are presumed dead in the accident and are moved to a safer location temporarily. Ham’s sister and nephew move in with him to help him through what they believe is their death. Ham tells his sister he isn’t sure they’re dead. The bodies couldn’t be identified.
Paul, Ham’s former partner in a Marine/CIA cyberwarfare group in Afghanistan, asks Ham for help. He’s discovered a security flaw in an upcoming test of a single world-wide central bank digital currency that the organization he now works for, the Bank for International Settlements, is about to schedule. Paul believes someone else knows about the flaw and is planning on exploiting it to take over all of the central bank computer systems. Luckily, Paul has a fix for the flaw, but he doesn’t want to tell anyone else or implement the fix because he doesn’t know who he can trust. He doesn’t want the BIS to stop the test because he wants to stop whoever’s doing this. He gives Ham access to his own personal deep web area he just set up that only the two of them can access. He’s placed information there for Ham.
One of Phoenix’s men sees Ham and Paul meeting.
Paul is abducted from his BIS office in Toronto, Canada.
Ham sends his sister and his nephew to a fishing lodge they stayed at with their parents as children, asking his neighbor to drive them there so his sister’s car can remain at their house.
Ham is concerned that he can’t reach Paul. Since Paul warned him about going to his boss at FinCEN, he reaches out to his and Paul’s former cyberwarfare CO, Lt. Col. Janak, who now runs a high-end and internationally renowned anti-terrorism training facility in Kentucky. Jank introduces Ham to his secret anti-cyberterrorism team and they and Ham begin working together.
Janak’s team discovers that Phoenix runs a dark web chat area where he recruits assassins and cyberassassins to execute his plan, He only tells them their specific task and pays them in untraceable crypto currency. None of them knows who the others are.
Janak’s team hacks into the chat area and copies as many documents and chat transcripts as they can without leaving a trace. In one of those there’s what appears to be the beginning of a manifesto that makes it clear that Phoenix is a religious nutjob who thinks he can stop Armageddon by sabotaging the development of the one world currency predicted in the Book of Revelation forcing everyone to wear the Mark of the Beast. There’s also mention of Ham’s name, his military record, his work record, his personal life – everything.
Against Janak and his team’s advice, Ham creates an avatar and leaves a message for Phoenix telling him he needs his help if he wants his plan to succeed. Phoenix already seems to know who it is that left the message, replying that he doesn’t need him. Ham tells Phoenix that only he can undo the fix he just sent to the banks servers that will cause them to reject any incoming transmissions unless they’re encrypted in a particular way.
Phoenix arranges a ticket for Ham to fly from D.C. to Zurich. When Ham arrives he’s met at the airport by Paul being held by one of Phoenix’s assassins. They’re led to a private airport lounge where Phoenix appears on a video monitor in shadow with an obscured voice. He asks why he needs them both alive, and both Paul and Ham con him into thinking his plan won’t succeed without the two of them undoing what they say they’ve done to insure the real success of the BIS test.
Phoenix shows Paul and Ham the photo taken of the two of them when they met. He also shows them a live feed of Ham’s sister and nephew being held, drugged and unconscious and asks Ham who else in his family he’s willing to risk. Phoenix tells them they’re going to be taken to the BIS IT building where they’re going to reverse what they’ve done or watch them die.
In Basel, Switzerland, at the IT offices of the BIS, Phoenix’s goon signs in as a BIS Security officer named Oscar, planted there by Phoenix. Paul uses his BIS credentials to get them into the Computer Operations Center where the test is being programmed and observed by representatives of each country’s central bank. Stefan Muller, the head of BIS’s Innovation Hub shows Ham and Paul to an empty office where they can work. On one wall is an enlarged print of the January 9th 1984 issue of the Economist which displays a Phoenix rising out of a fiery conflagration of world currencies with the title “Get Ready for a World Currency.” Ham asks whose office this was. He’s told that Gerhard Hoffman recently asked to be transferred to the Toronto Innovation Hub to work on their portion of the test. Paul probably knows him. Ham has Stephan call the BIS Security office and tells them to detain Oscar in a holding cell.
At the BIS Security office, Ham convinces Oscar to tell him what he knows about whoever hired him and gets him to post what’s called a “hack tip” to Phoenix’s crypto currency account, a small percentage of the amount Phoenix paid him for bringing them to the BIS. With that information, they’re able to track Phoenix’s exact location in Toronto.
Phoenix messages Paul on the computer he’s using at the BIS and once again shows him the live stream of Ham’s sister and nephew, still bound and drugged and tells him he and Ham better back out the fix they engineered to the test before it runs the next day or they will be responsible for two more deaths.
Ham talks Stephan into not canceling the test and then leaves to fly back to Washington, DC. Paul stays to continue the pretense that he’s reversing the fix he put in for the test encryption algorithm.
Ham calls Janak in Kentucky and asks if he can send someone to find his sister and nephew. Janak decides it’s time to call in the feds, so he calls Jim Collins, Ham’s FinCEN Director, who sends two men from Ham’s team to find them and them back safely.
Ham coerces Oscar into leaving a message for Phoenix they can trace, a small “hack tip,” a percentage of what he was paid for bringing Ham and Paul to Basel, since Phoenix has no intention of leaving any of his men alive. With Janak’s team’s help, they now have Phoenix’s exact location outside Toronto.
Ham returns to the FinCEN offices in Washington and is met by Collins who tells him about Janak’s call and that Julia and Robbie are safe. The assassin that Phoenix sent to kill them is in an interrogation room. He then shows Ham the BIS employee ID photo of Gerhard Hoffman, “Phoenix.” Ham asks him to call up the video from the news coverage of two cyber-punks he captured leaving the courthouse. Ham zooms in on the image of the man on the on the phone waiting in the van for them. It’s Hoffman. He must have been behind their ransomware attack they busted. The captured assassin says he never met Phoenix but knows he was behind that ransomware attack and that he decided to get rid of the agent who arrested his men. He had one of his assassins orchestrate the pile-up that almost killed Ham’s wife and daughter in order to get him out of the way. Phoenix is a crazy religious nut-job who thinks he can delay Armageddon by stopping the BIS from developing a one-world currency, which he believes would signal the beginning of the Biblical end times.
Outside Phoenix’s compound in a remote wooded area not far from Toronto, Janak’s team sets up simulated video streams seemingly from all eight central banks. including fake news broadcasts, internal central bank cameras, and social media posts. Phoenix watches from inside his safe-room. If he thinks it isn’t real, he’ll destroy the BIS IT Center computer systems.
After watching what he thinks is the panic taking place in each of the eight central banks on monitors, Phoenix thinks he’s won. He sends out a message claiming that he has the crypto keys to the central bank computer systems and will return them if the BIS releases a statement within the hour saying they’ll shut down their entire operation. A fake BIS President on video asks Phoenix if he’ll settle for fifty billion in exchange for the keys. Phoenix sneers, No! The world’s better off suffering for a time rather than wearing the mark of the beast in order to buy food or pay for shelter. He won’t let the BIS create a one-world currency to prepare the way for the AntiChrist.
Ham, Collins, and the armed FinCEN team enter the compound, quietly killing all of the exterior guards except the one they identify as Phoenix’s second in command. They make their way to Phoenix’s safe room then use this man’s fingerprint and retinal scan to go inside. Phoenix isn’t there. The computers and monitors are off. One of the agents blocks the door with a filing cabinet so it can’t close on them. Ham looks around the saferoom for a second emergency exit. He can’t use his cell phone to call Janak or Collins from inside. Another agent hands him a two-way radio communicator. Janak tells him the room must be one big Faraday chamber and no signal from the outside can penetrate it, like a giant MRI machine. This can’t be where he’s communicating from. And even if he had video cameras in the saferoom to watch from somewhere else, he wouldn’t be able to send the feed anywhere.
Janak reviews the recorded feed from the drone they sent over the area earlier. He spots a sea plane docked on a lake about half a mile away. The drone also has ground penetrating radar. The recording shows a small opening to a cave leading in a few hundred yards. Just inside the mouth of the cave, there’s what Janak believes is a WaveRunner. The radar recording stops when it reaches an interior metal door. The drone can’t detect anything further, nor can they fly it directly over the compound without being detected.
Ham looks around the high-end, luxury saferoom once more. There’s a door across the room that opens to a bathroom complete with a shower, sink, toilet with a bidet attachment that has push button controls, and a full length mirror. The shower is dry. So is the sink. Ham tries pulling the mirror away from the wall with no luck. He turns the shower head from side to side. Nothing happens. On a hunch, he pushes the toilet seat warmer control twice. No luck. He presses it a third time. The control lights green and the mirror backed by a thick steel door slowly swings open revealing well-lighted tunnel.
“He’s still here somewhere.” Ham steps down the tunnel about 50 feet to the end where he finds another steel door with both biometric and voice controls. “We’ll never get past that and we don’t have time to figure out how to disable it. But we can disable and block that mirror door so he can’t get out any way but through the cave.”
Ham lets Janak and Collins know what he found. Collins suggests they go through the cave and try to get past whatever security Phoenix has there, but Janak suggests they should let him think he’s won so he doesn’t blow up the BIS building like he threatened. He’s got his exit planned. Let him try to use it. But they can disable the WaveRunner and the Seaplane.
What if shutting down the BIS isn’t enough and he sends the order to blow up the BIS IT building anyway? We have to get into that cave and see what he’s got inside there. No, he’ll stay long enough to watch the BIS building burn. He wants to be known as the man who stopped Armageddon. He has to see to it that what he’s done can’t be reversed. The central banks have to start shutting down. The President of the BIS has to beg him to release the cyber keys so the banks can reopen and prevent worldwide panic.
A small group of agents enters the cave, disables the WaveRunner, and makes their way to the door. Through their earphones, they can hear the discussion going on inside the saferoom between the president of the BIS and Phoenix. Phoenix is trying to explain to him why he’s doing this and keeps reaffirming that it’s for the good of humanity and for God’s glory. He’s trying to make him understand that this wasn’t a heist and that the crypto keys have already been destroyed so no one will ever get back into those computer systems. Every penny of their 8.6 trillion dollars has disappeared and it will never be found.
The steel door opens into this second saferoom. “You’re too late, David.” Phoenix says calmly, still watching events unfold on several monitors. “The central banks have already shut down and the BIS will be ceasing operations shortly. But I’m seeing to it that they’ll never open up again.”
Ham is the first to reach Phoenix. He shoves him back into his chair while another agent binds his wrists behind his back.
“Colonel, would you please turn off our video feed and show Phoenix what’s really going on.” Each screen now shows the real live feeds of groups at the central banks smiling and congratulating each other for the successful completion of their digital currency test.
“It’s not over. I already sent the signal for the BIS servers to begin self-destructing. The building will be go up in flames before anyone can get out.”
“Colonel, could you please add the BIS Computer Operations Center feed?” David reaches over and uses Phoenix’s remote to put the BIS feed on the center, large monitor.” Stefan Muller is talking on his cell phone to someone, then looks up into the camera and gives those watching a thumbs up!
“Phoenix, or should I call you Gerhard, It’s over. The only thing I want to hear from you this minute is why you sent someone to kill my wife and daughter! They’re both fine, by the way. We traced the call you made from the van setting up the ‘accident.’
Phoenix shrugs, realizing he’s defeated. “I needed you out of the way after you arrested my men in my little ransomware rehearsal.”
“They never demanded a ransom.”
“I asked them not to. I just wanted to see if this could be done using a single crypto key, what chaos it would cause, and how long it would take the bank to fully recover their computer systems. I didn’t want you around to stop me from taking down the BIS. I knew they’d put you on leave if anything happened to your family.
“Smart. But not smart enough. You forgot the first rule of cyber-warfare. You should have hacked yourself. You didn’t see the hack-tip Oscar left you after you paid him. That’s how we found you. Then we caught the man you sent to kidnap my sister and nephew, and he gave up what he knew about you once we told him you never intended going to share the wealth with him and that he’d probably wind up dead.
“This will never go to trial. I know too much about the BIS and how they use their influence to manipulate international financial institutions to benefit their wealthy friends. The world needs to see this kind of global financial disaster, what the BIS calls a Black Swan Event, to free it from the slavery they face because of these arrogant, corrupt tyrants.”
“You’re right. You won’t be tried for cyber terrorism here in the U.S. But there’s already a cell waiting for you at Gitmo. You’re an international terrorist, Gerhard. You’re never getting out. I have a few buddies there who’ll see to it. God has other plans for you that don’t include trying to interfere with Biblical prophecy.”
Five days later, Ham and Janak walk through his anti-terrorism training compound. Ham agrees to lead Janak’s cyberwarfare team. Janak smiles and tells Ham that he and his family can choose one of the homes they just walked by and move in whenever they’re ready.
-
Diana’s Life-Threatening Sequence
What I learned: Raise the stakes. Raise the stakes. Raise the stakes.
What is the Villain’s plan and how does that put the Hero in danger? To recover the mind-control chip at any cost.
What other potential dangers could your Hero experience as they try to solve the mystery and confront the Villain?
Threats
Talking about the danger
Physical danger
Surveillance / watched
Chased
Lured into a dangerous situation
Closeness to the villain
Trapped / Abducted / Arrested
Danger to someone they know
People around them die or are injured.
Stalked
Thugs or professionals hired to hurt them.
Presence of weapons or thugsSomeone operating covertly around them.
1. Husband killed
2. She is run off road
3. Receives threatening calls
4. Knife to throat
5. House and phones bugged
6. Car chase
7. Cornered by hit man
8. Kidnapped
9. Best friend’s husband after her
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