The Negotiator

This is a long but interesting conspiracy tale. The Soviet Union is facing an energy crisis, with dwindling oil reserves and production. They will have to import more from abroad, and to finance the imports less funding will have to go to military spending. Their military chief personally would rather invade Iran for their oil. But Gorbachev is in power and it is the era of perestroika and glasnost, so the military leader’s plan for invasion had to be kept in the cooler.

Following the visits of their leaders to each other, an arms reduction treaty is hammered out between the US and USSR. When in effect, it would lead to reduction in military spending with savings amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. Due to following reduction in military budgets, it will also lead to the bankruptcy of some defense industries, especially in the US where investments had been tied up in the manufacture of advanced weapons. A group of five Americans conspired to force the American President Cormack to resign, by kidnapping and murdering his only son, but making it look like the Soviets were responsible. This would prevent the arms reduction treaty from coming into effect. With the cooperation of some highly placed military men in the Soviet Union who also did not want the treaty to be ratified, the kidnap plan was effected.

In comes Quinn as the negotiator, charged with securing the release of the president’s son from the kidnappers. Relying on skills and experience from negotiating release of kidnap victims in the past, he manages to effect the release of the US President’s son, Simon. But unknown to Quinn the US cabinet and even the CIA people working with him had been compromised by the conspirators, who did all they could to increase the president’s pain over the kidnap and render him unfit to govern. A belt concealing a bomb had been planted on Simon and after he was released, the compromised CIA agent used remote control to trigger the bomb.

The death of Simon nearly led the president to resign as the conspirators wanted. So they were feeling happy about the execution of their plan. Until Quinn, aided by the new intelligence leadership in Russia, managed to checkmate and expose them at the last minute.

The author unfolds the plot without emotion, leaving gaps here and there for the reader’s imagination. He mentions Biafra in the discussion of European and South African mercenaries.

August 11, 2015. Review initially written in 1991. Novel first published in 1989 by Bantam Press (Transworld), this Abiola Bookshop Press edition being published also in 1989; ISBN 978-014-000-X.