Civilian Girl Trapped Behind Enemy Lines

This is an idea that has been brewing in my head for a fairly long time. The premise is that a young woman finds herself in a hostile zone during a terrorist take-over of some place or another. She manages to find an American radio and calls for help. Unfortunately, the military personnel stationed there can't spare any troops to go save her (this is a major attack being led by the terrorist leader himself) and she is pretty much forced to save herself. All the other civilians have been taken hostage but the young woman was missed some how.

At one point, the girl comes across a briefcase that was dropped by one of the head terrorist's lieutenants and it contains vital information and other important stuff. And its information that both the good and bad guys want. So the girl must meet up with some American soldiers at a given point so she and the information she is carrying can to taken to safety.

My question: How do I set something like this up to be believable?

Well I've written a subplot about a civilian girl behind enemy lines, but this was a differing circumstance. (Mine was sudden invasion, yours is terrorist occupied areas.)

It's not unbelievable to find the briefcase while trying to get out, in fact the only thing that really could potentially strain suspension of disbelief I can think of is the terrorist act itself. If it's large enough to force the Army to intervene it's the kind of thing that when it's over some serious heads are going to roll in the CIA, FBI and other organizations. And that's something that has not been done successfully before in this country. (The standoff at Wounded Knee in the 1970s was National Guard.)

However I do not know enough about the operation to say it's completely implausible.

You want her to have some experience in stressful situations so that she doesn't flip out. You want her to have some skills that make it somewhat believable for her to work through this scenario (rather than hide in a closet). You may want her to have some training with guns and/or other weapons.

That narrows it down significantly: military, law enforcement, or private versions of these. Other possibilities are rancher, extreme athlete, or journalist (which could explain her presence there in the first place).

Does she stumble across the briefcase with the body or does she kill the lieutenant? Either way, she needs to be able to recognize that the information is significant, if it's not blindingly obvious. Or ... the briefcase contains something else she recognizes as valuable, and the information is incidental.

edited 25th Jan '11 7:44:09 AM by RalphCrown

I am leaning heavily towards her being a journalist and having her be there because she found some leads regarding a certain underground group which is probably how she would be able to recognize that the briefcase was of significant importance. As to how she obtains it I was either going to go for her coming across the lieutenant's dead body after he is killed from an air attack or having her being taken prisoner at one point and taking a heroic chance when she suddenly sees the briefcase and an open window. I'm not sure yet as to where this city is located but I was thinking that it be in another country.

I did originally want her to be a normal civilian girl who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time but had a good survivalist instinct but that doesn't seem very likely now.

edited 25th Jan '11 9:58:04 AM by SandJosieph