The Rules of Silence Titus Cain is the founder and sole owner of CaiText, an Austin, Texas, company providing software for the biomedical engineering research world. In just twelve years, he brought his company to the forefront as the leading software provider to laser applications, specifically medical research, all over the world. He’s become quite wealthy, but runs the company well…all employees like his style and him (this is obviously fiction!). Cayetano Luquin Becerra (Tano for short) is a terrorist who has honed his skills very well. He’s into kidnapping CEOs from around the world to amass a fortunate to create some kind of havoc. He ‘kidnaps’ Titus (his fifth CEO), but doesn’t take him away. He’s to live life according to Tano’s specific rules while obtaining the ‘ransom’, a mere $64,000,000, about quarter of CaiText’s worth. The catch is that if Titus doesn’t follow each instruction explicitly, people (any relative, friend, associate or distant cousin) will start dieing. To prove his point, Tano shoots both of Titus’ dogs right in front of Titus. And, of course, Titus must never ever contact the police, FBI, or CIA. Even years down the road, Tano threatens to kill again to remind Titus of his indiscretion. The story proceeds to tell us who Titus contacts, the help he gets, and who gets killed after each alleged misstep by Titus. The twists and turns are numerous. You’re never quite sure what other new plot change the author could come up with next. It was hard to put this book down, but every so often I had to go exercise, eat or sleep. |