The negotiator

The Negotiator is a 1989 novel by Frederick Forsyth .

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In November 1989 the Soviet Army General Ivan K. Koslov and the American oil industrialist Cyrus V. Miller read reports written by subordinates with future projections about the world's oil reserves. Both reports have the same conclusion: the superpowers will be dependent on expensive imports from the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Both Koslov and Miller want to solve this problem militarily. Miller is preparing the American annexation of the Saudi oil fields with Middle East expert Colonel Easterhouse , and the brutal former CIA agent Irving Moss is supposed to create the appropriate political mood in America.

At the same time, global politics eased during the Cold War. American President John Cormack and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev visit each other in their home countries and negotiate a comprehensive disarmament treaty in order to use the money saved for their countries' economic problems.

Under the direction of Moss, Simon Cormack, the son of the American President, who is studying there in Oxford, is kidnapped in Great Britain . The investigations by the English police are immediately in full swing, but the kidnappers cannot be found that quickly and the authorities are preparing to negotiate with the kidnappers. Finally, at the request of the Americans, the unconventional negotiator Quinn can be engaged. He had actually retired after an unsuccessful hostage release. The kidnappers do call in, and during the lengthy negotiation process with Zack, the kidnapper's leader, Quinn is assisted by FBI agent Sam Somerville and CIA agent Duncan McCrea. Shortly before the kidnappers want to exchange Simon for diamonds, Quinn goes into hiding so as not to endanger the handover by the shadow of western secret services . The kidnappers take Quinn to their hiding place to first check the diamonds for authenticity, and then release him. Shortly afterwards, Simon is also released unharmed, but is then killed by a hidden bomb in his belt before the police reach him. A small Russian special detonator is found during the autopsy of the corpse, and suspicion of the wire-puller falls on the Soviet Union. This is intended to promote an anti-Russian mood in America. President Cormack is having a hard time coping with the death of his only son and is likely to be replaced by a more aggressive foreign policy successor before the end of his term in office - the disarmament treaty no longer seems tenable.

Because of Quinn's sudden disappearance before his release, the authorities distrust him but cannot prove him and eventually release him at the urging of Sam Somerville. Both are given permission to search for the kidnappers in Europe independently of the police. A tattoo of the kidnappers, which Quinn could see, leads him on the trail of former African mercenaries. Quinn and Somerville do an investigation and finally they find the first kidnapper in an amusement park in southern Belgium, but shortly before they arrive he is shot. A little later they find the second perpetrator in the Netherlands in his own pub, also shot. Then the track is lost, but then Zack answers and wants to get in touch. They meet in a Paris bar, where Zack says that it was not the kidnappers who killed Simon and that an American gave him the job of kidnapping. The fourth and last criminal was a Corsican named Orsini. Quinn believes him, when they leave the bar they are shot at and Zack dies in the hail of bullets. Quinn sends Sam to safety in Spain and goes to Corsica himself. He can find Orsini in a mountain village, but is attacked by him. After a duel in the surrounding mountains, Quinn can fatally wound the Corsican, but does not receive any new information from him. So the trail is cold, the last kidnapper dead and there is no indication of who was actually behind it.

Quinn tells Sam it's all over and returns to London. There he is kidnapped by the KGB and questioned. They give him a Canadian identity so that he can still find the backers in America and thus prove that, despite the Soviet detonator, the Soviet Union was not behind the kidnapping. With a bogus letter to the United States government, he lures Moss out of a hiding place that can almost kill him. It turns out that Duncan McCrea also worked for Moss and detonated the bomb in the belt remotely when Simons was released. Quinn poses as Moss and demands a meeting with Moss' client. It is the American Treasury Secretary Hubert Reed who is afraid for his funds in the arms industry because of the disarmament agreement. He dies when his limousine crashes into the Potomac. Evidence suggests that Quinn was involved in the accident.

At the same time, Miller and other large industrial supporters are arrested. The attempted coup under Colonel Easterhouse is exposed in Saudi Arabia and General Koslov is arrested in Russia. He had delivered the special fuse.

Quinn and Sam Somerville already had a more than professional relationship during the negotiations in London, now she accompanies him back to his winery in Spain to marry him there.