Hostage

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It is early evening as Flight 573 heads towards the USA. An endless network of runways stretches into the distance beyond the control tower where Bruce Johnson is waiting for news. The room is silent, and he scarcely notices that he is holding his breath. They still don’t know if the plane will be given permission to land.

Bruce can see police cars and other emergency vehicles lined up next to one of the runways. A whole fleet of ambulances and fire engines. No one knows how this drama will end. Whether the whole thing will go disastrously wrong. He can’t see the men from the armed-response unit, dressed all in black, but Bruce knows they are waiting in the darkness with their guns at the ready. A thought passes through his mind:

We shoot the hostage. That’s rule number one.

He doesn’t know where that thought just came from. Shooting the hostage has never been a rule. No one in the FBI would ever think or act according to such a counter-productive principle. Rule number one is that we never, under any circumstances, negotiate with terrorists.

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