Jun 20
Brandi and Dave watch season 1 episode 16 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Too Short a Season
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Brandi and Dave watch season 1 episode 16 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Too Short a Season
When I was 8 years old I used a 70 foot cliff to take myself and a couple other children hostage.
We'd arrived at camp to discover that our leader had decided to use our cookie fundraiser money to have a vacation with her sons. Her plan for the entire troop was for us to sit in the parking lot with no shade for the entire length of camp, while she spent our money.
6 hours in, I had a motive. As evening approached, I noticed there was some shade 50 feet up a near-ish 70 foot cliff, and suddenly I had the means. Then she returned from getting dinner at a restaurant with her sons and tried to tell us that cooking dinner was too much work, and we should just get ready for bed.
I grabbed my two hostages and started talking them through free climbing the cliff.
Once up there, I wasn't above chucking small bits of gravel to deter would-be rescue climbers with a pretty sizeable stone in my other hand. This helped negotiations.
During negotiations, I said that if things escalated, our parents would find out she had stolen all our money to fund activities for her son while leaving us behind in a gravel parking lot. The park rangers were surprised that instead of denying it, she tried to justify why our parents would be happy that we'd been left in a gravel parking lot instead of going on hikes or eating food or doing anything but getting badly sunburned. Since the park rangers seemed sympathetic, I helped the other girls down to about 15 feet above the ground before I scampered back up to about 30 feet to continue the negotiations.
This is the point where the park rangers quit being on her side. They asked what I wanted.
I demanded the 1 mile hike to the waterfall that the trip was planned around, an hour of (free) swimming in the lake, and lunch the next day made from the ingredients we'd been promised and paid for since we'd only been allowed breakfast that day and our leader had already said we weren't getting dinner that night.
The park rangers made sure we got everything on my list, plus dinner.
We had the ingredients. Our camp leader just didn't want to bother since she was tired from doing the hike with her sons without us and full from eating at a restaurant.
The park rangers weren't amused with her.
Looking back, I can see they were really disconcerted that (once fed) I was very mild mannered, compliant, and obeyed orders easily the next day when they led us on the promised hike. I didn't have any crazy behavior problems and wasn't a big trouble maker.
But... I was hangry and willing to throw rocks off a hill at a woman who had robbed me and my friends and was trying to deny us food when it was *right there.*
When we got back to town, the entire troop (except for me) quit or changed troops before our next meeting. All 28 of them. I know this, because my mother heard from the camp rangers that I led a revolt and demanded I show up to the meeting to apologize. She was certain my crazy story couldn't have actually happened.
And then the other parents confirmed their daughters' reports matched mine or were worse.
That was my first experience with camp. Amazingly, I attended multiple years of it. I really didn't expect anyone to want me to come back. Instead, they made a point to invite me.
That was nice.
negotiation tactics
BLA claims mass execution of 214 Pakistan train hijack hostages - The Times of India
NEW DELHI: The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has issued a statement in connection with the train hijack incident, claiming responsibility for executing 214 hostages, alleging that Pakistan’s refusal to negotiate led to their deaths. The BLA said the Pakistani forces ignored a 48-hour ultimatum for a prisoner exchange, resulting in the mass execution of only Pakistan security forces personnel. This…
My friend occasionally volunteers as a teacher's assistant in a small midwestern town, and in a sixth grade (11 year olds) class she was volunteering with, they did a career day, where they asked parents to come in and tell the class about their careers.
One parent they brought in was a hostage negotiator for (adult) US citizens kidnapped abroad, mostly in Latin America
Apparently, the US government has a list of entities that US citizens are not allowed to make payments to, including pretty much all foreign hostage takers, so when an American is taken hostage abroad, their family has to pay ransom through a foreign entity
They usually hire a hostage negotiator to talk to the kidnappers and arrange the ransom payments through the foreign entities, etc
So anyway this guy's talking about his job, the way different hostage-taking entities tend to demand different numbers of cash drops (somewhere between 4 and 10 usually), but a good hostage negotiator knows what to expect, since they've dealt with those entities before, and how to tell when things are going normally vs when something is going wrong, and how to respond when things feel weird, etc
At some point, to check if the kids are following, the guy asks
"so if someone you love has been kidnapped, what would you do?"
But the kids were apparently not following, because the only kid who raises her hand goes,
"call the police?"
And this guy's just standing there gobsmacked, and after a moment where nobody else has any better ideas, he's like,
"... okay, but what if the police are the ones who kidnapped your loved one?"
... the kids had a lot of trouble wrapping their heads around that one
Also, at some point, the guy played an audio file of a typical hostage negotiation, which started with an (adult) victim's mom on the phone with the kidnapper. the mom's crying, and the kidnapper chides her for being overly emotional and tells her she needs to have someone else speak for her if she can't calm down
then the negotiator handles the rest of the interactions, multiple cash drops, each for less money than the previous, with the kidnapper saying each time that this was definitely the last one and then they would let the victim go (this is par for the course, apparently)
The kids were fascinated, but the teacher (who was also a mom) said afterwards that she was never inviting a hostage negotiator for career day again
My door dasher threatened me today
It's been about three years since she’s heard from Christopher, from Wick. She still sees him though, sometimes, in the aisle of the grocery store, on the cover of Times and People and The Enquirer and fights back the sorrow she’s managed to lock away in the back of her mind. He hadn't wanted her, hadn't needed her, had chosen his husband over her despite how long she’d served him and kept him safe. She's a little bitter about it but mainly, she's sad.
She misses him.
She sees him on Thane's arm, crutchless and smiling and exhausted, surrounded by men in black suits who do nothing but ferry him from place to place. Knowing Wick, Christopher, she’s sure he would be trying to joke around with them if he had the energy, make them comfortable so they're comfortable when he’s not okay.
And he hasn’t been okay for a while. She hears about him on the news, listening to business radio, watching CNN, flipping through said magazines when she couldn't stop herself from missing him. He looks like he has the beautiful and perfect life with Thane in the pages but CNN business tells her a different story with report after report after report of hospitalizations of the Wickham heir, with the fluctuations of Medica's stocks. She can hear it in his voice when she listens to his interviews. She sees it when she does her job and escorts rich pricks to their functions, social functions she knows he would love to be at, and doesn't see him.
It's not her job to worry about him anymore but she always will. She knows how co-dependent that sounds. It's something she's working on.
Her phone goes off at 3am, a familiar, almost comforting ringtone that sends her muscles tensing and her heart racing as it chases the sleep away and pierces her mind. Damiel stays warm and fast asleep next to her. She envies their ability to sleep as she picks up the phone and answers. She'd promised him whenever he was ready. She hopes this is the time.
"Kestrel."
"Commander, this is the Van Buren Estate. Mx. Wickham has enacted the Atwell Protocol. Please give us your code so we can wire the funds to the appropriate parties."
She does it without thinking, sitting up and smacking Damiel awake. "625847."
The light flicks on and Kestrel stands, already smelling the coffee she's going to need before the call is over. She smacks Damiel awake again.
"Have there been any other demands?"
"No ma'am."
Her laptop flips open and it takes her a few moments to get into her email and shoot off an encrypted message to Damiel, Teddy, and Rho.
"Has there been a ransom video, note, or message?"
"Not that we've seen, ma'am."
The email is amended so Rhoda knows to scour the internet for a video. She hopes their hacker can intercept it before either families or the FBI sees it. She knows they'll be demanding more than the 20,000 the Atwell Protocol gives out. That money would only buy them a few hours. A few hours she's not sure Wick has. It would only create more of a mess if the families got involved.
Her hands shake hovering over the keys, vision blurring.
She never should've fucking left. She should've swallowed her pride and taken the fucking job Thane offered. This never would've happened if she'd been there.
Fuck.
There's that old panic building deep in her chest. The W's on her back heat up. Somewhere, there's the smell of burning flesh. She chokes out a thanks and hangs up.
"Hey," Damiel finally wakes up, sleepy voice banishing her guilt in the way only they can. Their hands rubbing over her shoulders, lips against her neck. Her shoulders loosen. Her eyes close. They remind her to be kind to herself. They remind her she's important too. "What's going on?"
"Check your email."
There's silence for a moment as they do and then, "Is it-?"
"Yes."
She doesn't have to say any more but she still feels their eyes on her, studying her, debating in that quiet way of theirs how much allowing Christopher Wickham back into her life will hurt them. How much they're willing to risk.
But it's Wick and Dami knows how much she hurts for him. They know she'll do it alone and come back worse for wear.
"Okay," they say, "Okay, on one condition."
"Dami," she clenches her fist, head cocked, "This is someone's life."
They nod, unblicking, fingers tapping on the crook of their arm, a low hum,
She grits her teeth, fighting back tears of relief. She doesn't deserve them. She'll spend the rest of her existence paying Damiel back for their love and understanding.
"Six hours, right?" They kiss her neck again when she nods and stand up, "I'll call Teddy. Pull the team together. Get Minha and a medevac standing by. You're not alone in this, Kes."
They squeeze her hand before disappearing into the kitchen, phone against their ear, ringing and waiting.
Waiting. That's all she can do right now until the note or call comes in. She hears the Keurig beep as it turns on. Coffee would go a long way today.
For Day 7 of @whumpawoman angstpril
Prompts Used: Hostage Negotiation, Restrained
~~~
She’s been awake for a long time.
The panic has faded to a strange numbness, hardly believing the situation she’s in. A simple arrest, that’s all it was supposed to be. And now she’s in some basement, hands chained tightly behind her back, ankles chained together as well. Her head hardly hurts now, which is the only positive. At the most, she has a mild concussion from her… capture.
