Benjamin Ripley and the gang are headed to a Montana dude ranch to flip a potential CIA asset. Along the way, they'll have to confront enemy operatives, angry wildlife - and their own feelings.
I feel like I need to say this, even though I probably don't: Eurosatory does use the expo hall I talk about in the chapter. But I'm not sure which halls they rent, what they use them for, or anything like that. Don't take this too seriously. I arranged it this way for the plot.
Enjoy!
-- Ben's POV -- Joshua Hallal's house Paris, France 2100 hours August 3 --
"This is the Paris Nord Villepinte," Catherine said.
We were huddled around a desktop in the office while Catherine showed off a 3D display of the Paris Nord, the largest exposition center in all of Europe.
"There are nine different halls at Paris Nord, and the Eurosatory is renting all of them for the five days," Catherine described. "They're using them as auditoriums, catering areas, national pavilions, and exposition halls," she explained. "Joshua could be planning to use any one of them to hold the hostages. I managed to find a manifest, showing who's working where, and slimmed it down. Now, I have a good estimate for which hall serves which purpose." She handed us each a printed copy of the map with notes she'd types onto it. Since it was Catherine who made it, everything was made to be as visually-pleasing as possible while still being informative.
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"Which ones do you think are likely candidates?" I asked.
"I was going to ask you that next," Catherine replied. "I think any of them have the capacity to hold everyone at the conference. We should go in order and list pros and cons of Joshua using each room, starting with hall one." Catherine pointed to the far-left hall on my map.
"I think one and two are possibilities," I declared.
"Why do you say that?" Erica asked.
"The security presence probably isn't very strong," I explained. "Since all they're used for is presentations and conferences, it's unlikely that even ten percent of the expo would be there at once. Security will focus on the more populated areas, like the national pavilions and the exposition halls."
"But that means it would be more difficult to get everyone in there without alerting security," Erica added. "And it's also plausible that, since the hall would be divided up into rooms, Joshua couldn't have eyes on everyone at once."
"Good point," I conceded. "Moving onto halls three and four. What are national pavilions?"
"They're where individual countries set up," Catherine explained. "From my research, they're typically a home base for those countries, where the military presence stays most of the time. It also seems to be where nations display their military advancements for other nations to see and where subcontracting deals are made."
"So that's a definite no," Mike chimed in. "There's a bunch of soldiers around. They're going to know exactly what to do and how to do it in that situation. They might even be able to force Joshua and his men into a standoff, if they're armed when they first see the hostages. Plus, the pavilions are going to be set up so that you can't see more than a few at one time, so there wouldn't be enough space to see all the hostages at once."
