Countdown to

Breaking Point

6/14/05

28 days (and counting to Breaking Point, in stores on July 12th)

Quote of the day:  "And then she could see him.  Max.  A distant, shadowy figure backlit by the lights from the terminal.  For the first time, he was more than just a disembodied voice.  He was a real man, and he was walking toward them.  Ready to trade himself for her.  She didn't know whether to laugh or cry."  -- Gina Vitagliano's point of view, from Over the Edge.

Note from Suz: I remember when I first met Max Bhagat.

I was preparing to write The Defiant Hero, and I needed an FBI team leader.  In fact, in my outline for this book, it says "On the transport plane back to Washington, John Nilsson (the hero of TDH) watches as info comes in in dribs and drabs about the hostage situation at the K-stan Embassy.  Lt. Tom Paoletti has already been advised that he and his men are going to provide assistance to the FBI team leader in DC."  

And so Max Bhagat came to be.  

His first appearance in The Defiant Hero was via a phone call to Meg Moore, as she sat with her hostages in the men's room at the K-stani Embassy.  

"Ms. Moore, my name is Max Bhagat and I'm--"

"Has John Nilsson been found?"  All those relentless sales calls from AT&T and MIC were finally paying off.  After years of practice, Meg didn't even feel compelled to wait until he took a breath before she cut him off.

"Ms. Moore, it would help a great deal if we knew--"

Meg hung up the phone.  She couldn't talk to him.  She couldn't listen.  Max Bhagat was an FBI negotiator.  A professional.  He had to be.  And she couldn't afford to let him distract or confuse her.  It had to be John she spoke to.  Only John.

I love the fact that Meg hangs up on him.  At the time, we really didn't know who Max was, so her action isn't that big of a deal.  But after four or five more books where he's prominently featured...

Max plays a relatively small role in The Defiant Hero.  It's not until Over the Edge that we find out more about him:

FBI Counterterrorist Team agent Alyssa Locke was coming out of the elevator and into the lobby of her apartment building as Jules's car pulled up out front.

She ran out to meet him, opening the door to put her carry-on luggage into the back seat.

"Go," she said as she climbed into the front, and he pulled away from the curb before she even shut the door.

The flight to Kazbekistan was leaving in forty-five minutes. No way was it going to be delayed because of them.

Despite the fact that the call had come in less than an hour ago, despite the fact that Jules had been out of the office at the time, and despite the fact that they'd both been running nonstop ever since, they were not going to be late.

"I can't believe this," Jules said, driving fast, with both hands on the wheel. "Can you believe this?"

"No," Alyssa said. She couldn't either.

FBI Negotiator Max Bhagat had asked for both of them by name, requesting that they join a small group of FBI agents accompanying him to Kazbekistan, to observe the negotiation and the actual take down of the hijacked World Airlines flight.

Okay, I can't resist stepping in here and talking about this particular scene from a writer's perspective.  

This scene takes place relatively early in Over the Edge.  Most of the scenes that come before it are character introduction scenes -- or scenes that deal either with the main internal conflict of the book (Stan and Teri's relationship, which begins to turn into a true friendship when Teri comes to Stan for help with an officer who is sexually harassing her) or the WWII subplot (the Danish rescue of their Jewish countrymen during the Holocaust).  

This scene right here, with Alyssa and Jules, does a number of things to move the story forward.  

First, it's an introduction scene -- it's our first look at Alyssa in this book.  She's mentioned earlier in a fantasy-dream-sequence from Sam Starrett's point of view, but this is the first time readers see her.  (This is important, since Alyssa and Sam are the main players in the major secondary romantic subplot for OTE!)

Jules is in this scene, too -- acting as Alyssa's sidekick, giving me-the-writer the opportunity to pass along information to you-the-readers via dialogue.  And there's a ton of information in this scene!  I reveal:

I could have sent Alyssa to K-stan on her own.  I could have delivered all the information in this scene to the reader via introspection -- through Alyssa's thoughts -- as she drives herself to the airport.

But I liked Jules and wanted to bring him back for this book.  (I'd already set in motion a story arc that had homophobic Sam getting to know Jules and becoming friends with him!  Jules's presence in OTE was vital for that!)  Also -- mixing dialogue with introspection helps break up the potential tedium of a scene that is filled with exposition.  (Exposition is explanation of what's happening regarding the plot.  It can be extremely tedious and/or silly -- especially when two characters tell each other something that both obviously know, simply to pass along that information to the reader!)

Okay, back to our excerpt from OTE:

Requesting. Sure. Bhagat's requests packed more power than a four-star's orders.

Oh, yeah -- As long as I'm talking about writing, I wanted to mention one of the rules of writing:  "Show, don't tell."  In the section way up above, I show Alyssa and Jules reacting to the fact that Max asked for them to come to K-stan as observers.  They are clearly excited.  Not being late for the plane is Very Important because they want to make a good impression -- because of Max.  So the reader knows that something's up with this Max that they're talking about, right?

And then here, in the sentence directly above, I tell.  I spell it out for the readers.  But even then, I don't merely say:  "Max Bhagat was a very powerful man."  

"Do you think he asked for us because he wants to sleep with you? And if so, are you going to do him?" Jules glanced at her, mischief lighting his eyes and too-pretty face, laughing at the dark look she shot him. "Aw, come on, I'd do him to boost your career. Of course, he is extremely hot."

And now there's some humor thrown in.  Jules just can't keep from teasing Alyssa.  He can't not make a joke -- despite the fact that his being asked to observe is a huge deal in terms of his career.  

And I'm also (subtext, subtext!) letting the readers know that Jules is very much aware that he's being given this opportunity because of his partnership with Alyssa.  He believes that Max asked for Alyssa, and Jules is just cruising along on her coat tales, so to speak.  

Also, up to this point in the series I've never told the readers what Max looks like.  Here, through this banter, I'm letting you know that Max is very attractive -- both to Alyssa and Jules!

"Please don't tell him that when we see him." Alyssa laughed at the thought of Jules Cassidy going up to the extremely straight Max Bhagat and... "He's so obviously not--" She stopped herself. Because not all gay men were as blatantly out as her partner. And there was a certain tidiness to Bhagat. A well-manicured polish to his dark good looks.  She looked at Jules. "I know it's none of my business, but... is he?"

"A member of the Barbra Streisand Fan Club?" Jules asked. "Definitely not. Limited eye contact last time we met. But a boy can dream, can't he?" He fluttered his eyelashes at her.

"Dream away," Alyssa told him. "After we get on the plane, okay?"

"ETA--airport--thirteen minutes," Jules told her.

"Good."

His voice turned serious. "Why do you think we've been asked to observe?"

Jules thinks that he knows something Alyssa doesn't -- and he's trying to figure out the best way to tell her...

Alyssa shook her head. She didn't know. "I hope it's because Bhagat's recognized that we're good at what we do."

Jules nodded. "That would be nice. But... what do you know about this situation?"

"Just what I told you on the phone."

Okay -- here comes that serious chunk of exposition -- lots of facts.  Important information for the reader.  I start with a paragraph of introspection -- we're inside of Alyssa's head -- and then switch to dialogue, in an attempt to break it up and make it easier to read!

Some of this is information that the reader knows from earlier scenes -- previously in the book, we see the actual hijacking from Gina's point of view.  But here, precise details thrown in.

World Airline Flight 232 took off from Athens shortly before 8:00 a.m., local time. An hour into the trip an unidentified gunman entered the cockpit, ordered the pilot to take him to Kazbekistan, ordered him to land at the airport in Kazabek where four additional unidentified gunmen entered the plane. At which time they sealed the plane, started making demands and identified themselves.

"Five terrorists claiming to be from a K-stan group called something that translates roughly to The People's Party, are aboard a 747 with 120 passengers," Alyssa summed it up, "an as yet unknown percentage of which are American citizens. They're demanding the release of two prisoners who are awaiting trial, charged with terrorism--one being held in a U.S. Federal prison, the other in a prison in Israel."

"Osman Razeen," Jules said.

She looked at him. "What?"

"The terrorist being held in the U.S. is Osman Razeen," Jules said.

Razeen was a GIK terrorist leader that Jules and Alyssa had helped apprehend less than six months ago.

The apprehension of Osman Razeen was the external conflict (plot!) of the previous book in this series, The Defiant Hero.  I used this character in this book not just to tie the series together, but because the mention of him would remind Alyssa of her one-night-stand with Sam.  This was all about torturing Alyssa.  <ggg>

Also note that after those great big paragraphs of exposition, I make a point to go into rapid-fire dialogue mode!

"How do you know that?" Alyssa asked.

"The boss called on my cell phone a few minutes before I got to your place. He also said..." He glanced at her.

Uh-oh. "What?"

"Two things. Senator Andrew Crawford's daughter is on that flight."

Oh, God. "Do the terrorists know it?

"Don't know."

"What else?" she asked him.

He hesitated again. "You're not going to like this."

"I didn't like the news about Crawford's daughter."

"This you're really not going to like."

"Just tell me."

"Okay." Jules glanced warily at her again.

How could a trained FBI agent who went up against crazed terrorists regularly in the line of duty be so afraid of her? What awful bomb was he going to drop?

He took a deep breath. "The K-stan government asked the U.S. for assistance in handling this crisis and a team of Navy SEALs are already on their way to Kazabek."

 Navy SEALs.

"Team Sixteen," Alyssa said with dread. It had to be. Just her luck.

"There's more. Lt. Sam Starrett's in charge of the actual take down of the plane. He and his squad are who we're going to be observing."

Like I said, with this subplot, it was all about torturing Alyssa! LOL!  

But back to Max...

It's not until the end of Over the Edge that we get a description of Max -- and it's through Gina's eyes:

Gina lay on the floor of the cockpit, aware of the door being forced open.

Someone came in. Someone in uniform who took one look at her and began shouting for the lieutenant, shouting for medical assistance.

And then another man came in. He was wearing a white button down shirt and a tie, and he had a blanket that he used to cover her.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "that we didn't get here sooner," and it was so strange to hear that voice, Max's voice, coming out of a real mouth, in a real face.

It was a good face. Blurry, but good. What she could see was older than she'd pictured, with deep lines of fatigue around his eyes.

He had tears in his eyes and she knew that seeing her like that, broken and bleeding, hurt him badly.

"At least you got here," she said. "I'm pleased to finally meet you, Max."

He laughed at that, but then started to cry. As she watched, he composed himself, wiping his eyes and even managing to give her a smile. "I'm going to get you off the plane now."

He was ready to pick her up in his arms, but she didn't want him to remember her that way forever. First impressions were important, after all, and she was already at a serious disadvantage.

And damnit, she wanted to see something besides pity in his eyes.

"No," she told him. "I want to walk." And as she said it, she realized it was true. She did. She wanted to walk off that plane. "Will you help me walk out of here?"

"Yeah." He nodded and helped her to her feet, the muscle jumping in his jaw as his repositioning the blanket around her forced him to get another glimpse of her battered body.

He stood on the side of her unbroken wrist, slipping her arm over his shoulders, his arm around her waist, supporting her.

And she walked. Out of the cockpit. Out of the plane. One step at a time.

That's all for now!  Be sure to come back for tomorrow's installment in the Countdown to Breaking Point!

(Note from Suz:  I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before 10:00 a.m. eastern time.  Please be patient if I'm a little late...)

See you tomorrow!