Authors: Frederick Forsyth
The Negotiator
The Master of the Thriller Is Back!
“QUINN IS ONE OF FORSYTH’S MOST ENGAGING HEROES ... A COMPLETELY SATISFYING TANGLE.” —The Wall Street Journal
“FORSYTH
IS A SUPERB STORYTELLER AND ENTERTAINER ... THE NEGOTIATOR IS A TYPICALLY SEAMLESS PRESENTATION SET IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE, WILL NOT DISAPPOINT HIS MANY FANS.” —Toronto Star
“THROUGH EVERY ZIGZAG OF THE PLOT,
FORSYTH
IS DETERMINED TO DELIVER SUSPENSE ... AND HE ADMIRABLY SUCCEEDS. ... THERE IS REAL TENSION AS QUINN BEGINS TO ESTABLISH A TENTATIVE RAPPORT WITH THE KIDNAPPERS—AND IS THWARTED BY TRAITORS WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AND BY A REMARKABLY INCOMPETENT FBI. ...
FORSYTH
IS AS VIVID WITH THE SNOWBOUND LANDSCAPE OF NORTHERN VERMONT AS WITH THE SEAMY RED-LIGHT DISTRICT OF ANTWERP.” —Newsweek
“FREDERICK FORSYTH’S NEW NOVEL IS PROBABLY HIS MOST GRIPPING SINCE THE
DAY OF THE JACKAL
.” —The Ottawa Sun
“THIS IS THRILLER-WRITING OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY, A MASTERLY BLEND OF EXCITEMENT AND TENSION WHICH TAKES THE GENRE BY THE SCRUFF OF THE NECK AND PROPELS IT INTO THE NEXT DECADE.” —The Sunday Telegraph
“QUINN [IS] AN ACTION MAN TO MAKE JAMES BOND SEEM SHY AND FEARFUL. A PROBLEM SOLVER OF ... UNERRING EFFECTIVENESS.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A CLIFFHANGER OF A CONCLUSION ...
FORSYTH
KEEPS A FEW SURPRISES UP HIS SLEEVE AND WRITES ACTION SCENES MORE CRISPLY, AND WITH LESS GORE, THAN LUDLUM.” —Publishers Weekly
“FORSYTH
IS A MASTER OF HIS CRAFT.” —Winnipeg Free Press
Bantam Books by Frederick
Forsyth
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
THE ODESSA FILE
THE DOGS OF WAR
THE DEVIL’S ALTERNATIVE
NO COMEBACKS
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL
THE NEGOTIATOR
THE DECEIVER
THE FIST OF GOD
THE NEGOTIATOR
A Bantam Book
Bantam hardcover edition / May 1989
Bantam paperback edition /
April 1990
Bantam reissue / August 1995
All rights reserved.
Copyright
©
1989 by Frederick
Forsyth.
Cover art copyright
© 1995
by Bantam Books.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-43346.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
ISBN 0-553-28393-6
Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Double-day Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
Marca Registrada.
Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
OPM 17 16 15 14
Contents
Cast Of Characters
The Americans
JOHN J. CORMACK President of the United States
MICHAEL ODELL Vice President of the United States
JAMES DONALDSON Secretary of State
MORTON STANNARD Secretary of Defense
WILLIAM WALTERS Attorney General
HUBERT REED Secretary of the Treasury
BRAD JOHNSON National Security Adviser
DONALD EDMONDS Director, FBI
PHILIP KELLY Assistant Director, Criminal Investigations
Division, FBI
KEVIN BROWN Deputy Assistant Director,
CID,
FBI
LEE ALEXANDER Director, CIA
DAVID WEINTRAUB Deputy Director (Operations), CIA
QUINN The negotiator
DUNCAN MCCREA Junior field agent, CIA
IRVING MOSS Discharged CIA agent
SAM SOMERVILLE Field agent, FBI
CYRUS V. MILLER Oil tycoon
MELVILLE SCANLON Shipping tycoon
PETER COBB Armaments industrialist
BEN SALKIND Armaments industrialist
LIONEL MOIR Armaments industrialist
CREIGHTON BURBANK
Director, Secret Service
ROBERT EASTERHOUSE Free-lance security consultant and Saudi expert
ANDREW LAING Bank official, Saudi Arabian Investment Bank
SIMON American student at Balliol College, Oxford
PATRICK SEYMOUR Legal counselor and FBI agent,
American embassy, London
LOU COLLINS Liaison officer, CIA, London
The British
MARGARET THATCHER Prime Minister
SIR HARRY MARRIOTT Home Secretary
SIR PETER IMBERT Commissioner, Metropolitan Police
NIGEL CRAMER Deputy Assistant Commissioner,
Specialist Operations Department,
Metropolitan Police
JULIAN HAYMAN Free-lance security company chairman
COMMANDER
PETER WILLIAMS Investigation officer, Specialist Operations
Department, Metropolitan Police
The Russians
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV General Secretary, Communist Party
of the Soviet Union
GENERAL
VLADIMIR KRYUCHKOV Chairman, KGB
MAJOR
PAVEL KERKORIAN KGB
rezident
in Belgrade
GENERAL
VADIM KIRPICHENKO Deputy Head, First Chief Directorate, KGB
IVAN KOZLOV Marshal of the U.S.S.R.
MAJOR GENERAL
ZEMSKOV Chief planner, Soviet General Staff
ANDREI Field agent, KGB
The Europeans
KUYPER Belgian thug
BERTIE VAN EYCK Director, Walibi Theme Park, Belgium
DIETER LUTZ
Hamburg journalist
HANS
MORITZ
Dortmund brewer
HORST LENZLINGER
Oldenburg arms dealer
WERNER
BERNHARDT
Former Congo mercenary
PAPA
DE GROOT
Dutch provincial police chief
CHIEF INSPECTOR
DYKSTRA Dutch provincial detective
Prologue
The dream came again, just before the rain. He did not hear the rain. In his sleep the dream possessed him.
There was the clearing again, in the forest in Sicily, high above Taormina. He emerged from the forest and walked slowly toward the center of the space, as agreed. The attaché case was in his right hand. In the middle of the clearing he stopped, placed the case on the ground, went back six paces, and dropped to his knees. As agreed. The case contained a billion lire.
It had taken six weeks to negotiate the child’s release, quick by most precedents. Sometimes these cases went on for months. For six weeks he had sat beside the expert from the
carabinieri’s
Rome office—another Sicilian but on the side of the angels—and had advised on tactics. The
carabinieri
officer did all the talking. Finally the release of the daughter of the Milan jeweler, snatched from the family’s summer home near Cefalù beach, had been arranged. A ransom of close to a million U.S. dollars, after a start-off demand for five times that sum, but finally the Mafia had agreed.
From the other side of the clearing a man emerged, unshaven, rough-looking, masked, with a Lupara shotgun slung over his shoulder. He held the ten-year-old girl by one hand. She was barefoot, frightened, pale, but she looked unharmed. Physically, at least. The pair walked toward him; he could see the bandit’s eyes staring at him through the mask, then flickering across the forest behind him.