Writing Prompt #65--The Hopeless

You’re a police negotiator on psych leave after a case-gone-bloody, during which a young child dies. As you mope in your apartment, you get a call from the FBI, begging you to show up at a crime scene. Apparently, a terrorist is demanding that you step in because it was his grandson you failed to save in that case. The terrorist is a bioweapons designer, who retired when his grandson was born. The little nipper gave him hope that the world could be a better place. Now, that hope is gone. The terrorist jump-started his old network and planted nerve gas bombs throughout L.A. There are 6 bombs. He’ll give you their location, one bomb at a time. Each bomb will literally arm the second you arrive on scene, with a one-hour countdown. But here’s the odd: he leaves them with pre-selected people who don’t wanna live and HATE society (for various reasons). The bombs are too complex to disarm in under an hour--period. But, each of his “bomb handlers” knows the abort code to their particular bomb. They’ll only talk to you and no one else. If you can’t talk each handler into giving you the code, in under an hour, a nerve gas bomb will go off with a six-figure body count.
What happens next?


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