-
Day 8 Assignments
Please post your Day 8 assignments here!
-
5 Replies
-
DAY 8 – ASSIGNMENT
Subject Line: Alan’s Thriller Plot!
What I learned is: I completely messed up some previous assignments, but hopefully am back on the right track now.
1. List out your structure using whatever structure you are comfortable with.
OPENING: After having dinner with Jay, Holly Sampson sneaks away to share the world’s best weed, but instead, gets roofied and abducted.
INCITING INCIDENT: Jay learns Holly’s been abducted and wants to help rescue her.
TURNING POINT 1: Holly’s one of a recent bevy of girls that’ve been abducted by a sophisticated sex trafficking ring that plans to auction her to the highest bidder on the dark web.
MIDPOINT: Holly wasn’t among the rescued girls sold to the Iowa truck brothel. Dark web auction bids for Holly sky-rocket.
TURNING POINT 2: Using Holly’s rich father’s money, Jay wins the bid to buy Holly back from the traffickers. But the traffickers bait and switch delivery of Holly with some other lookalike abducted girl.
CLIMAX: Jay and Holly’s father’s security team pull a bait and switch on the Beijing Brothel to save Holly. Holly flies back to America, but Chinese police arrest Jay for sex trafficking.
RESOLUTION: With the FBI’s help, the Chinese release Jay and he flies to vacation in Hawaii.
2. Inside your structure, fill in the gaps with the Life Threatening situations, Mysteries, and Villain’s plan. Do this one at a time. That will keep you from getting confused.
Villain’s Plan 1 -Lure Holly Sampson by offering to smoke the ‘world’s best weed’ with her, roofie her, and abduct her.
OPENING: After having dinner with Jay, Holly Sampson sneaks away to share the world’s best weed, but instead, gets roofied and abducted.
Mystery 1: Who abducted Holly and where did they take her?
Villain’s Plan 2: At a bar, a trafficker roofies Erin Raynor and plans to abduct her.
Life Threatening 2: A trafficker drugs Erin with a date-rape drug and tries to abduct her.
Life Threatening 3: The trafficker threatens to kill Jay for saving Erin.
Mystery 2: Who roofied Erin and threatened Jay’s life?
Life Threatening 4: The police arrest Jay for Holly’s abduction and jail him. He loses his job.
Life Threatening 5: Madison Hansen is molested by her stepfather.
Mystery 3: Where is runaway Madison going?
Villain’s Plan 3: Traffickers stake out the Denver bus stop hunting for runaways. They find 13 year-old Madison there all alone and offer to buy her lunch. After a nice lunch, they offer her a place to stay. She accepts. They abduct her and plan to sell her to a brothel.
Life Threatening 6: A trafficker takes Madison to their hideout and locks her up with several other girls.
INCITING INCIDENT: Jay learns Holly’s been abducted and wants to help rescue her.
Life Threatening 7: The trafficker Jay identified is found dead in a park gully the next morning.
Life Threatening 8: Traffickers auction Holly and Erin on the dark web.
TURNING POINT 1: Holly’s one of a recent bevy of girls that’ve been abducted by a sophisticated sex trafficking ring that plans to auction her to the highest bidder on the dark web.
Mystery 4: How can they get Holly back?
Life Threatening 9: The traffickers sell Madison and several other young girls to the trucker brothel and smuggle them to an Iowa truck stop.
MIDPOINT: Holly wasn’t among the rescued girls sold to the Iowa truck brothel. Dark web auction bids for Holly sky-rocket.
Mystery 5: If not to Iowa, where did the traffickers take Holly?
Life Threatening 10: FBI agents learn Holly’s being shipped off to China.
Life Threatening 11: A truck brothel thug tries to kill Jay and abduct Erin.
Life Threatening 12: The Denver detective shoots/kills the thug.
Villain’s Plan 4: Traffickers offer Erin Raynor a modeling job, which she accepts. They pick her up in a limo at the L.A. airport. But there is no modeling job. Instead Erin is locked in the back of the limo, which is totally insulated to prevent her from calling for help or being tracked. They smuggle her to a boat bound for China.
Life Threatening 13: Erin gets offered and unknowingly accepts a fake modeling job in Mexico.
Life Threatening 14: After learning it’s a fake, Erin agrees to be wired and tracked by the police as bait to catch the traffickers.
Life Threatening 15: The traffickers outsmart the police by putting Erin in the back of a ‘shielded’ limo. The police tracking devices don’t work.
Villain’s Plan 5: Sell Holly and Erin on the dark web the highest bidder.
Life Threatening 16: Police kill two traffickers at the boat holding Erin and the other abducted women, but not Holly.
Life Threatening 17: Holly is smuggled to China and sold on the dark web.
TURNING POINT 2: Using his and Holly’s rich father’s money, Jay wins the bid to buy Holly back from the traffickers. But the traffickers bait and switch delivery of Holly with some other lookalike abducted girl.
Life Threatening 18: The traffickers double-cross the highest bidder, Jay. They bait and switch Holly for a lookalike abducted girl.
Mystery 6: Where did the traffickers take Holly now?
Life Threatening 19: The traffickers sell and smuggle Holly to a Beijing brothel.
Life Threatening 20: Jay and a security expert from Holly’s dad’s company go into the brothel to try to rescue Holly.
CLIMAX: Jay and Holly’s father’s security team pull a bait and switch on the Beijing Brothel to save Holly. Holly flies back to America, but Chinese police arrest Jay for sex trafficking her.
Mystery 7: How will Jay get out of Chinese prison?
RESOLUTION: With the FBI’s help, the Chinese release Jay and he flies to vacation in Hawaii.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by Alan Larson.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by Alan Larson.
-
This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by
-
Subject Line: Kim’s THRILLER PLOT OUTLINE
1) List your 3-act structure and plot points.
OPENING: Sage working on her graphic novel. Manic. Losing her grip on reality.
SAGE’S SECRET: (SET-UP) Sage isn’t taking her meds and slipping into a delusional state.
SAGE’S MYSTERY: What’s going on with Sage?
SAGE’S EVENTS: Sage’s mania. Shares delusional beliefs with mom Carol. Hides something under her mattress.
SAGE’S POTENTIAL DANGERS: Vulnerable state of mind colors every decision.
INCITING INCIDENT: Sage goes to the Boardwalk. Meets Lindsey, who convinces Sage she’s being followed.
VILLAIN’S BIG SECRET: Lindsey plans to use Sage to get at her money from the book and movie deals.
MYSTERY A: Where’s my mother? Where’s my daughter?
EVENTS A: Sage learns Carol may be dead. With nowhere else to go, Sage goes with Lindsey. She exhibits more confusion and paranoia. Carol discovers Sage is missing and searches for her. The police dismiss Carol’s concerns. As Sage’s treating psychiatrist, Lindsey files for conservatorship of Sage (maybe).
POTENTIAL DANGERS A: Carol may be dead. Sage has nowhere else to go, so she goes with Lindsey. Without Carol, Sage has no allies to help her. Carol fears Sage has been kidnapped, but the police dismiss her concerns. Carol must investigate herself, but a run-in with Lindsey could cost Carol her life. Lindsey wants to position herself to access Sage’s money when it comes through and attach herself to Sage’s potential literary success.
TURNING POINT 1: Thinking her mother is dead and with no place to go, Sage goes with Lindsey to Los Angeles. Lindsey forces her to stay at the Fed West Center. Sage begins to believe she’s living in her graphic novel.
MYSTERY B: Why did Lindsey befriend Sage at the Boardwalk?
EVENTS B: Phone call between J.J. and Lindsey about the novel, revealing that Sage has a serious mental illness and that her mother has power of attorney. Lindsey also learns that Sage’s novel will be published and a producer wants to buy the movie rights to the book for 7 figures before the novel is even published. Under duress, Sage signs herself into the treatment facility. Lindsey withholds medication from Sage, feeds Sage’s delusions to make her believe she’s living in her graphic novel.
POTENTIAL DANGERS B: Sage is threatened with restraints when she tries to leave. She’s locked away and mistreated. Her captivity worsens her condition and she becomes very delusional. With Sage missing, her book deal could fall apart (Lindsey didn’t think this through), so *Lindsey needs to create another ruse.
MYSTERY C: Is Sage really living in her graphic novel?
EVENTS C: Sage faces her graphic novel villain, Sven, who tries to force her to rewrite the outcome of the battle in her novel. He employs brainwashing techniques to further entrench Sage in her delusions. Sage draws a map of what she can remember of her trajectories inside the Center and hides it in the lining of her shoe.
POTENTIAL DANGERS C: Sage is fully immersed in her graphic novel. She can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. No one knows where she is or what’s going on. Sage now believes she is the Federation West’s “one true prophet.”
MIDPOINT: Sage catches a glimpse of a popular rapper, Trey Vasquez, whose battle with mental illness is very public. He is in terrible shape and begging for help. Sage suspects things are not what they seem– that she is not really living inside the world of her graphic novel. But are her suspicions just more paranoia and delusion? Is Trey real? Is what’s happening to Trey happening to me too? Diana’s identity is revealed; she sneaks meds to Sage. Sage’s mother searches for her in roadside diners along the I-5.
TURNING POINT 2: Sage finds Diana dead. Sage confronts Lindsey, who has her tased. She discovers Trey trying to kill himself out of despair. She stops him.
VILLAIN’S SECRET: Lindsey is the real villain, not graphic novel villain Sven. We pursue the obvious, Sven’s graphic novel plan and his villain role. We learn Lindsey is behind it all.
MYSTERY E: Who? What? Why?
EVENTS: Sage spies on them. She breaks into Sven’s office, finds her phone. Sage and the audience learn that the mystery woman in Act 1– publisher J.J.’s wife– is actually Lindsey. Sven and Lindsey brutalize Sage.
POTENTIAL DANGERS: Lindsey will kill Sage rather than let Sage go, even if it means losing the money either way. Lindsey is not well herself.
CLIMAX: Sage uses her map and escapes the building, but doesn’t make it beyond the fence. Lindsey intercepts her, knocks her out, and drags her back to the Center. Lindsey threatens to kill Sage.
RESOLUTION: Sage breaks into Sven’s office and calls for help about the police about the time Carol figures out where Sage is. They arrest Lindsey for Diana’s murder. They arrest Sven as an accomplice. Her mother is there. They go home. Sage learns from J.J. that her book will be made into a movie. The last shot is Sage at home with Carol. She hides something underneath her mattress.
2) What I learned from this assignment is that with proper planning, I can make an outline for a thriller. It still needs some work, but it’s getting there. This is the time to deal with plot holes.
-
ASSIGNMENT EIGHT
List out your structure using
whatever structure you are comfortable with.PROLOGUE
n Wahid and Wong visit an agent that has stolen almost $500 million from them and forces him to wire back some of the stolen funds and then kills him and his family.
ACT ONE
1. Asha wakes up and discovers David has not been home all night.
2. David wakes up on a park bench in Central Park/outer boro park. He looks like he has slept in his clothes. Groggily he heads to his office.
3. Asha settles her daughter in front of her remote learning computer
4. As David nears his office he spots a man in a car—the only car parked on the street at 7.30 am—with a camera. He avoids the front entrance and goes in the backway and quickly gets on his computer and frantically works the keyboard.
5. Asha reaches her own work cubile at home and settles in nervously. She jumps when her phone rings but it is a Mandarin-language phone scam!
6. David peeks through his 2<sup>nd</sup> floor window and spots the cameraman in his car. He makes a quick getaway through a back entrance but is spotted by two agents in a passing car. He leads a chase cutting through a alley between two streets, but the car pursues him down the street as there are almost no pedestrians… then hops into a subway entrance. One of the agents follows him but is unable to decipher which line he has gone to.
7. Wong and WAHID are at breakfast at their NY hotel when Wahid receives a call on his cell from “the Big Boss” giving him further instructions.
8. Asha picks up the phone and calls David’s assistant Maria—she is working remotely from home…
9. As promised, three goons show up at WAHID’s room. They ask for instructions.
10. MARIA tells Asha that David is not there, but she says his electronic calender which she has access to, notes a 10.00 am appointment with two gentlemen named Wahid and Wong [who she believes to be Malaysian].
11. Asha asks Maria to call her if she hears from David.
12. Two Federal agents stealthily make their way into David’s office building and into his office. One looks through drawers and closets, the waste baskets, while the other tries his luck with the computer.
13. David enter a small apartment (somewhere Queen) and retrieves passports, guns and ammo. A [Asian?} woman comes out of a kitchen and hugs and kisses David. He asks her about the money and she hands him a backpack stuffed with hundreds. ]
[NOTE: At what point does WAHID come to know that DAVID’S wife is ASHA, his former lover]
14. The 2 feds searching David’s office are suddenly beset Wahid & Wong and their three guns. They all end up pointing guns at each other and shouting loudly, which echoes through the empty building. They both realize that each of their boss of bosses are friends and golfing buddies, and that Wahid and Wong may actually have received unofficial authorization to conduct the hunt for David in the US. They agree to collaborate.
15. ASHA looks in on her daughter who is working hard on some math problems. She tells her daughter she is running to the market for dinner items and the dry cleaners.
16. Wahid and one of his goons and 2 feds knock on Maria’s door. She answers the and the feds introduce themselves and ask if they know where David is? She says no, and lets them in the house… Wahid realizes she knows him or of him, and he kills her. The feds are appalled but Wahid says what do you care, she is illegal anyway!
17. Wong and 2 of his minions and one of the feds knock on Asha’s door which is opened by Asha’s daughter. They kidnap her.
18. Wahid calls David through WhatsApp. David is making love to his girlfriend when the phone rings. He answers it. Wahid tell him that he is holding David’s daughter and he better do it quick because his daughter is being held in a cage next to cage where there is a sleeping Burmese python that may wake up and realize it’s hungry—and it can slip through the bars of the cage is daughter is in.
19. David calls Asha and tells her about their daughter. He is almost hysterical. Asha gathers herself together. But he refuses to come back and says he is fleeing. They each make a confesson, she to her former relationship with Wahid, he to his present girlfriend and impending new child. As a parting gift he tells her where he has hidden guns in the house. She begs him to give her a quick lesson which he does on Zoom. She asks David for Wahid’s number and calls him.
20. Conversation between ASHA and WAHID… WAHID DEMANDS SHE COME AND SEE HER.
21. DAVID and his girlfriend are fleeing… they head South to Mexico… or Puerto Rico.
22. Meeting between ASHA and WAHID in a public place…. WAHID explains that DAVID has been embezzling their ill-gotten gains, which are not acceptable. And he blames ASHA for intitally introducing DAVID to him just before she resigned. He demands that ASHA persuade DAVID TO return as much of the money and assets as he has diverted or otherwise help him to catch David.
23. ASHA drives in a golf cart to where David’s lawyer David Hollis is playing golf, next to a small pond. Hollis tells him to give his number to the folks chasing and he feels confident he can arrange a deal. But he tells ASHA that his rates are higher for front line work.
24. Hollis calls Wahid to make a deal and they arrange to meet by the golf course pond.
25. ASHA goes to meet them as David her husband has disappeared with his girlfriend. But ASHA the numbered Swiss accounts where David has been stashing the diverted fund—
26. At the Golf Course, W&W agree to give Asha 24 hours to transfer the money to accounts he controls (he gives her the information) or her daughter will permanently disappear.
27. Just as they appear to have reached agreement the FEDS stumble on the group and a wild shoot out emerges. Asha dives into the pond while the FEDS and W&W are all killed.
28. ASHA searches W&W’s bodies and discovers where the kids is being held. She goes there by herself, searches the premises and finds her daughter. All is Well.
-
Sandra’s Life Threatening Sequence
What I learned is that interweaving the villain’s plans with mystery and life threatening events leads to more cohesive structure and plot points.
OPENING Creepy sounds coming from a museum object.
INCITING INCIDENT
Max purchases a rare manuscript that has a history of being cursed.
Life Threatening 1
Is the manuscript really cursed?
Villain’s Plan 1
His daughter discovers he has purchased the piece and starts thinking of how to manipulate him in order to get money from him
Mystery 1 Why is music playing without anyone near the piano?
Villain’s Plan 2
She pretends to offer help by enlisting a Shaman to quell the curse.
Life Threatening 3
Her friend suggests more life-threatening tactics to scare him further – now his physical life is in danger.
Mystery 2 How did the words “Satan Rules” get on the manuscript?
Life Threatening 4
Now Max thinks he is being taunted by Satan.
TURNING POINT
Max’s wife dies of apparently natural causes.
Life Threatening 5
Max is now more vulnerable. His daughter offers to move in with him to keep him company.
Mystery 3: Why is Maxim waking up to see the shadow of a figure claiming to be a dead poet?
Life Threatening 7
Now she has more control over the house and his mental state.
Villain’s Plan 3
She starts planting various devices around the house to scare Max.
Life Threatening 8
Max thinks he is going crazy but doesn’t know who to turn to.
Mystery 4: How did the fire start when the Shaman was trying to quell the spirit?
Life Threatening 9
He loses all his money and wealth in the stock market. Without the lure of getting his money, his daughter admits to her pranks and begs for forgiveness.
-
Subject Line: Karen Grube’s Life-Threatening Sequence (Day 7)
What I learned from this assignment is
1. List out your structure using whatever structure you are comfortable with.?
OPENING: Panic inside a large international bank headquartered in the U.S. as clerks, executives, customers, and cybersecurity experts realize their computer systems are completely inaccessible to anyone, even from their offices in other countries.
Mystery 1: How long will this last? Is this a ransomware attack? Who did this? Why? What are we going to do? Will the bank survive? How do we keep our customers? Who do we go to for help?
Mystery 2: Why is there no message from the attacker, either directly to the bank or a public statement? Why no ransom request?
INCITING INCIDENT: David Hamilton “Ham”, an Agent with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), are called in to investigate the hack. Ham believes the hackers got in through the bank’s Penetration Test system which they were using at that time, exactly the kind of testing that should have prevented this. They don’t know how the hackers knew they were running the test at that time, but the PEN Test system is separate from the main computer system and has a complete packet capture of all of the traffic at that time. It will take detailed forensics to search through it all.
MYSTERY 3: How did the hackers know when the PEN test would be run and how did they get the key that let them into it?
Villain’s Plan 1: His plan succeeded. His men got into the bank’s system. It took the bank three weeks to recover, but hey lost a large number of customers, their reputation, and over three billion dollars in value.
TURNING POINT 1: Three weeks later, Ham and his team raid the house where the hackers are working on their next attack. As they arrest them and take possession of their equipment, they are being watched on hidden camera by Phoenix, who orchestrated the attack. Phoenix now knows that Ham the biggest threat is to his final plan.
LIFE THREATENING INCIDENT 1: A week later, Ham, his team and his boss, Director Collins, watch the news as the two hackers leave the courthouse after being indicted. They get into a black SUV, where a man is seen on the news broadcast making a call on a cell phone. A moment later, Ham gets a call that his wife and daughter have been severely injured in a horrific accident.
MYSTERY 4: What or who caused the “accident.” There’s evidence that the car’s computer system was hacked.
TURNING POINT 2: Ham’s boss places him on personal leave. His sister and nephew move in with him to help him out. Paul, an old friend from their Marine/CIA cyberops team, calls asking for his help. He now works for the Bank for International Settlements. They’re about to launch a test of a central bank digital currency with eight of the world’s largest central banks. He’s discovered a flaw that will enable someone to take over the test, hack into the central banks, and possibly hold them for ransom, putting the entire world’s economic structure in danger. And he thinks someone else knows he’s found the flaw, but he can’t tell the BIS because he doesn’t want them to call off the test until he finds out who it is and stop them.
MYSTERY 5: What flaw did Paul discover? Who else knows? What do they want?
TURNING POINT 3: Ham knows there’s danger, so he asks his neighbor to drive his sister and nephew to a fishing lodge they visited as children and not tell anyone where they are. He tells his sister to buy a burner phone on the way and give the neighbor the number.
LIFE THREATENING INCIDENT 2: Paul is kidnapped from his office in Toronto.
TURNING POINT 3: When Ham can’t reach Paul, he goes to their former cyberops CO, Lt. Col. Janak, who now runs a world-renowned anti-terrorism training facility. Janak has a secret team of white hat hackers who agree to help him using the information Paul gave him. They hack into the BIS test system and leave a tracker for any outside connections. Before long, there is one, which they track back to a dark web chat area run by someone whose avatar is “Phoenix.” The team dives into that chat area just long enough to copy as many documents and messages as they can without being caught. A few of the documents mention Ham (his military background, his current work, his family) and reveal that it was Phoenix who orchestrated the earlier “rehearsal” hack on the bank that Ham busted. There’s also an encrypted screed about how Phoenix will rise against the creation of a one world currency to stop the anti-Christ from controlling the world’s economy signaling Armageddon. Mainly, the chats have to do with Phoenix telling his assassins and cyberassassins that this is going to be the most massive ransomware attack ever and they’re all going to be billionaires.
LIFE THREATENING INCIDENT 3: Against the team’s advice, Ham decides to create his own avatar and leaves a message for Phoenix telling him he needs his help to finish is plan. Phoenix tells Ham he knows who he is and that if he wants to save his friend, Paul, he should use the ticket he’s arranging for him to fly to Zurich.
LIFE THREATENING INCIDENT 4: Ham calls his neighbor to get his sister’s burner phone number so he can warn her to move again. The neighbor gives him the number but calls his nephew “Robert” instead of “Robbie” signaling something’s wrong. As soon as she hangs up, she’s murdered by one of Phoenix’s assassins. He takes her phone and her car keys, then checks the car’s navigation history to find out where she took Ham’s sister and nephew.
LIFE THREATENING INCIDENT 5: When Ham arrives in Zurich, Paul is there being held by one of Phoenix’s thugs. They’re taken to a private airport lounge where Phoenix is in shadow on a video monitor. He asks Ham and Paul why he needs them both. Paul lies telling Phoenix he’s already put in place a fix for the flaw he found and has to back it out. And Ham lies telling Phoenix that he’s modified the transmission receiver boxes at all eight central banks to reject the digital keys being sent if they detect the flaw in the encryption algorithm. On the screen, Phoenix displays a photo taken of Paul and Ham when they met, and a streaming video feed of Ham’s sister and nephew, bound and gagged. He warns them they’d better get to the BIS IT offices in Basel and undo what they did or they’re all dead. Phoenix doesn’t know Ham’s wife and daughter survived the crash and that they’re being kept in a safe location.
MYSTERY 6: Who is Phoenix? How does he know so much about the BIS test? Where is he? How do we make him think we’re doing what he wants?
TURNING POINT 4: Using Paul’s BIS ID, he and Ham check in to the BIS IT building in Basel, Switzerland along with “Oscar,” the man who escorted them from Zurich and who they now know is a BIS Security guard planted there by Phoenix. They go to 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 9, 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 asks Stephan to call the BIS Security office and ask 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. They’ve got him!
Phoenix messages Paul and tells him that if they don’t back out what they’ve done and let his plan work when the test runs the next day, he’ll take down the entire corrupt BIS, which will leave the entire global financial structure floundering. Either way, they have to be stopped.
TURNING POINT 5: 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. As the test begins, Phoenix watches from inside his safe-room. If he thinks it isn’t real, he’ll destroy the BIS IT Center computer systems.
LIFE THREATENING INCIDENT 6: Ham’s team from FinCEN is armed and make their way into Phoenix’s compound, killing all the guards except one. They force him to show them the entry to Phoenix’s high-tech safe-room, where they believe he’s watching what he thinks is the world panic at the destruction of all eight central banks. When they go inside, Phoenix is gone.
MYSTERY 7: Where could Phoenix have gone? Does he know what he’s seeing is a hoax?
TURNING POINT 6: Janak sends a drone over the local terrain spotting a sea plane anchored on a river a mile or so from the compound and an entrance to a cave about a hundred yards from one edge of the compound. The drone has ground penetrating radar which reveals a wave runner just inside the entrance to the cave and an interior wall where the drone stops being able to send its signal.
Searching the safe room, Ham opens the door to a bathroom and finds another a hidden door behind a mirror. The door leads to a tunnel that ends in a fully embedded steel door with biometric locks. Phoenix must be in there but they’ll never get inside in time.
Although Phoenix has his exit planned, Ham’s certain he won’t leave until he sees that the computer systems in all eight of the central banks are inaccessible and that the entire world is beginning to panic. But he has something else planned for the BIS itself. He wants to see them destroyed as well. He wants to be known as the man who stopped Armageddon.
THE CONFRONTATION: 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 safe room between Phoenix and the (fake) president of the BI. Phoenix keeps saying this wasn’t a heist, that what he’s doing is for the good of humanity and for God’s glory. The crypto keys have already been destroyed. 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.
By hacking into the steel door’s biometrics, Janak’s team is able to open the door into the second saferoom. “You’re too late, David.” Phoenix says calmly, watching events unfold on several monitors. “The central banks have already shut down and the world is beginning to panic. The BIS itself won’t be around much longer.”
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 up in smoke 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.
“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. He told us about the virus that would turn off the chilling towers below the computer center.
“This will never go to trial. I know too much about the BIS and how they use their influence to help their friends. The world needs to see this kind of global financial disaster, a so-called Black Swan Event, to free it from the slavery they face because of these arrogant tyrants.”
“You’re right. You won’t be tried here in the U.S. 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 His plans.”
RESOLUTION: Five days later, Ham and Janak walk through his anti-terrorism training compound. Ham agrees to lead Janak’s cyberdefense 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.
Log in to reply.