# A meeting place... And a 'smoking gun'...



## hawky94 (Aug 5, 2013)

Hi all,

I'm having trouble with several aspects of my WIP.

This section of my novel centres around a British Security Services operation in Iran. I'll give you a bit of backstory.

My MC, Jack. Is a Special Air Service soldier who is facing legal action after a field operation goes wrong... He is thrown out of the Regiment and put into Royal Military Police custody until an investigation can begin.

He's in prison for less than ten hours when the Security Services come a-knocking. He assumes this is part of the RMP's Special Investigation Branch's investigation into his case, and they present all the correct paperwork to the Custody Sergeant at the desk. He's a free man for about ten minutes. And then, he's sedated and slammed into the back of a van.

He wakes up in an underground bunker - except it isn't your typical underground bunker. This bunker belongs to a super-secretive, deniable organisation called the "Covert Operations Group" (COG). And, you guessed it - they conduct covert and completely deniable operations on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. They give him an ultimatum - help them out on an operation, and COG could help reduce, or even expunge the charges against him.

He reluctantly agrees to help. He's put right into the thick of it. Sent out on a relatively routine operation.

The operation is to rendezvous with a fellow operative - together, they are to RV with an undercover asset and extract him.

Trouble is, there's a flaw in my plan for the operation... I had originally had set the RV point to be an oil refinery - he said the intelligence he possessed was to do with Iran's nuclear programme... But, there's more to it than meets the eye and this asset has evidence of that - a so-called 'smoking gun'.

I'm struggling with setting up a meeting place for the asset and John and Jack - I'm going to change the setting from the oil refinery... It just doesn't seem very right, not your typical meeting place for an asset and his handler(s). It would usually (judging by what I've seen on TV and read in novels, etc), it's usually a crowded place, somewhere inconspicuous. 

I'm also struggling on deciding what this 'smoking gun' could be? I know that I want it to be something bigger than simply a better/bigger nuclear weapon or advancement of the programme.

I would also like it to be something that links back to the British Government, or military - a super-secret weapons programme. Perhaps a chemical weapons development programme, started years ago that went wrong. But, the Iranian's somehow know about it, and perhaps have access to it...

Ideas? Thoughts? Questions?

Thanks for any and all help!

Cheers,

Hawky


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## Cran (Aug 6, 2013)

Meetings are just as commonly set in isolated locations; it usually depends upon whether secrecy (isolation - don't want to be seen or heard by outsiders) or security (crowds - don't want to be captured or killed without independent witnesses present) is more important to the one with the most influence. 

If the smoking gun is a) genuine, and b) linked to a nuclear weapons program, then it's not likely to involve chemical or biological weapons. The easiest sort of smoking gun to disguise and transport is IT software and/or hardware and/or raw data - from there, your options expand into all sorts of directions. 

If it is linked back/embarrassing to the British government or military, but has made its way to Iran, then it might have been something stolen, lost, or abandoned in one of the recent Middle East deployments, and might be anything from a file detailing a covert (and slightly illegal) operation to infiltrate and disrupt or destroy Iran's nuclear assets and ambitions, to the design plans for a cheaper and easier form of fuel enrichment (perhaps intended as a sweetener for Israel in exchange for not taking unilateral action). 

Or, if if military hardware is preferred, it might be a stolen, lost, or abandoned cache of covertly (and slightly illegally) deployed portable low yield nuclear warheads that were intended to be used as a last resort if the overt military operation(s) went badly wrong, or to provide the bullet (or even the planted evidence) for the disruption or destruction of Iran's nuclear assets and ambitions.


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## Nickleby (Aug 6, 2013)

I'd give Jack a cover story. He could be a businessman going to Iran to looking into opening a branch there. The type of business is almost irrelevant. Venture capital, investments, finance--those words can mean anything. At this point I think Iran would welcome almost any kind of capital infusion from the West. The meeting could take place in any office (once they sweep it for bugs, of course).

For the smoking gun, how about plans for a feasible fusion generator? The country that built them could name its own price. Iran has covered up that research by "secretly" developing fission weapons. Now Britain is going to steal the plans, make all the money, and leave the Middle East's oil reserves obsolete.


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## hawky94 (Aug 6, 2013)

Nickleby said:


> I'd give Jack a cover story. He could be a businessman going to Iran to looking into opening a branch there. The type of business is almost irrelevant. Venture capital, investments, finance--those words can mean anything. At this point I think Iran would welcome almost any kind of capital infusion from the West. The meeting could take place in any office (once they sweep it for bugs, of course).
> 
> For the smoking gun, how about plans for a feasible fusion generator? The country that built them could name its own price. Iran has covered up that research by "secretly" developing fission weapons. Now Britain is going to steal the plans, make all the money, and leave the Middle East's oil reserves obsolete.



Hi there, and thanks for the replies thus far.

I've given Jack a cover story... He's a Dutch oil contractor, but I'm not liking the look of my current oil refinery location - I might change it up, make him a businessman and some office somewhere the meeting point. Add an air of sophistication to the situation and to Jack and his partner.

As for the smoking gun... I'm not sure what it could be. I like the idea of the British government secretly planning to steal research documentation or a component in the fission weapon creation process. However, I'd like to keep it simple, or at least simple-er... fissioning as a whole is a rather... broad and complicated subject. Perhaps the 'smoking gun' is not a device, or a document - but a person? Perhaps the British government have been running an asset whose been keeping tabs on the Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Either that, or it's a combination of a person and a plan... a contingency, if you will.

In case things get... out of hand.

Thanks for the replies, again.

Cheers,

Jack.


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## DPVP (Aug 7, 2013)

does he need to go to Iran? A lot of business done in Iran is done in the UAE. it is easy to enter and like their authorities said when the Israelis wasted some guys their, intelligence games for the gulf are played their. Dubai or any of the other eminences give you plenty of offices and buildings to meet contacts in with the cover being ligament business.


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## hawky94 (Aug 9, 2013)

DPVP said:


> does he need to go to Iran? A lot of business done in Iran is done in the UAE. it is easy to enter and like their authorities said when the Israelis wasted some guys their, intelligence games for the gulf are played their. Dubai or any of the other eminences give you plenty of offices and buildings to meet contacts in with the cover being ligament business.



He doesn't need to go to Iran. It's just that at the time I saw Iran as being the potential main adversarial nation in the novel. However, it may be best if I save what I've written and just transition the writing that I've done to a later time in the novel. And begin again from a chapter or two ago... I like the idea of having Dubai as a setting - it offers a great opportunity to be very descriptive about the surroundings and buildings, etc.

As for the smoking gun... I was thinking about this earlier, and I had an idea for some type of software or programme which would allow an adversary to hack into the control system of any drone aircraft, and obtain control of it's navigation and weapon systems. However, I'm unsure of just how possible/plausible that would be. Again, the asset is simply providing the first intelligence of whatever the 'smoking gun' is.

Thanks,

Hawky.


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