Linda’s Reviews > Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team > Status Update

“I had listened to (David Koresh’s) religious ramblings and utter hypocrisy until they made me sick. Lying repeatedly in the name of epiphany looks bad on the son of God. Claiming exclusive husbandry over the wives of your disciples doesn’t look too good either. Having sex with twelve-year-old children on your record might be a real problem at the Pearly Gates.” False prophets always have life issues.

More proof that the published story doesn’t always offer the full story. The ‘simple herb farmers/“castaways who just wanted to live the good life” also had a shed full of guns and explosives, and wrapped their lives around meeting the afterlife while destroying as many of the ‘Zionist Occupational Government’ as possible.

Many false alarms and multiple enforcement teams later, turns out that BR-1s decision to fly an HRT helicopter over an echo chamber mountain was a bad miscalculation at Ruby Ridge. Also a bad miscalculation to sneer at snipers as less-than team members, compared to gallant assaulters knocking down doors.

The HRT commander (nicknamed BR-1/Big Red 1 for explosive temper and top dog status) is also headed for a fall. He has a bullet-proof ego and a success story gone viral (Talladega prison rescue). “He ruled like an emperor who had little time for pedantry such as the names of his operators” and the usually voluble HRT team (regularly threatened with banishment) offers no resistance to his plans.

So Mac (Steven McTavish) will fall from grace. Doesn’t matter that he has a string of accomplishments and can outwork/“outrun, outbench, and outshoot” any member of the team. At some point , this cop with Marine Corp background/FBI supervisor and HRT staff training officer will make an undeniable bad call, because of his ego. Pride goeth before the fall.

A year after moving to VA, “my perspective on the sniper trade changed forever.” The anticipation and excitement of preparing for a ‘job’, aka finding and solving trouble, is well described. “It’s the business of misery that no one wants to admit he enjoys.”

Interesting connection between fraternity pecking order and the Hostage Rescue Team. “When the top dog buys Oakley sunglasses, everyone else buys Oakley sunglasses. If one of the dominant personalities decides the team is going to a particular bar after training one night, everyone goes with him.” Clearly a foreshadowing of unquestioned bad decisions by top brass to come.

I’d disagree except for Ecclesiastes 3:18-22 and II Peter 2:12 that indicates some men act like irrational animals, whose function is to be caught and destroyed. “Billy and James Jenks are living proof that not all of humanity is descended from a common ancestor. From rap sheet to reputation, they showed lineage directly to the rodent genus…”

Best interview scenario ever. The fidgeter and the lime-green leisure suit candidates are a great intro, but it’s the immediate instinct to hide that’s intriguing. If an FBI clerk asks, “how many of you have taken this (exam) before” and only three raise their hands on the first round (15 on the second round)…how do the 12 truth avoiders hope to get picked?