Old Granite Hotel is the twelfth mission in SWAT 4 and the nineteenth mission in SWAT: Elite Force. The SWAT team is needed to rescue real estate heir James Betincourt Junior and his general contractor Lawrence Adams from the militia group America Now after the militia stormed the Old Granite Hotel and demanded twelve million dollars in ransom.
Mission Briefing[]
Ok, men, this one's a zoo, and it isn't going to get any better. The self declared militia group America Now has taken real estate heir James Betincourt Junior and Lawrence Adams, his general contractor, hostage. Apparently they were touring a current project, the Old Granite Hotel, and were taken while inspecting Adams' work. Now the suspects are holed up on the top two floors of the hotel, demanding twelve million dollars ransom by midnight. They claim that Betincourt Investments owes this as a ''downpayment on their debt to the American People.''
America Now is a small but active domestic militia group. They are fiercely isolationist, opposing immigration, free trade, and foreign owned interests. Most of their previous actions have been against foreign owned properties, either sabotaging them in the building stage or engaging in serious vandalism, making the properties too expensive to maintain. This is their first kidnapping, and it may indicate a shift in the group's tactics. Given the public nature of the incident, the group is clearly looking for publicity as well. We've spoken with the media, and received some co-operation; however, it's not clear how long that will last.
Expect the America Now suspects to be well equipped, and to act as a group, but their inexperience with hostages may make them even more dangerous to the civilians. Take extra care.
Now... on to the victims. James Betincourt Junior is the son of the CEO and majority owner of Betincourt Investments, a French based property development company. Six months ago, they purchased the Granite out of bankruptcy for twelve million dollars, and have been renovating it ever since. Junior has been in charge of the renovations, and was doing an inspection of the renovation work when he was captured. Lawrence Adams is the general contractor and the architect in charge of doing the renovation work.
The suspects are on the top two floors of the hotel, the sixth and the seventh. You'll find the blueprints on the board. We've cut power to the elevators, and one of them is trapped between the fifth and sixth floor. You can either go up the stairs, or down the elevator shaft. Recent gunshots were reported coming from the seventh floor, so it's time to go in.
Timeline[]
- 12:30: Arranged meeting - Arranged meeting: Betincourt and Adams meet at the hotel construction site.
- 14:17: Lost contact - Kevin Halskey, Betincourt's chauffeur, attempts to contact Betincourt via cellphone and fails.
- 14:40: Ransom demand - Charles Betincourt, owner and CEO of Betincourt Investments, contacted with a demand for 12 million dollars by midnight. Failure to comply will result in the death of the hostages. Dispatch notified; emergency services notified. SWAT responds.
- 14:53: SWAT arrives - SWAT arrives. Containment perimeter and high ground put in place.
- 15:12: Additional demands - CNT makes contact with the suspects. Demand for 12 milllion dollars repeated, along with midnight deadline. Additional 10 million dollars to be added to ransom for every hour after 21:00 it is late. CNT continues negotiations.
- 15:47: Additional demands - Suspects make another demand, that their ''New American Manifesto'' be published in a national newspaper. CNT requests release of a hostage in exchange; suspects refuse.
- 17:57: Negotiations fail - CNT reports that suspects appear to still be confident of getting their demands met. CNT says that no further progress can be expected through negotiations.
- 18:12: Tactical entry begun - Decision made to go tactical. Entry team assembled.
Entries and Snipers[]
The building offers two points of entry, one from the elevator shaft in the middle of the building and the stairwell on side 1. The stairwell entry provides the player with the choice of completely ignoring the lower floor and immediately continuing into the upper floor of the building where all of the map's time bombs are located.
There are two snipers on this mission. Sierra 1 covers one of the rooms (623) of the hotel on the side 3 of the sixth floor, while Sierra 2 covers an exposed portion of the building on the side 3 of the seventh floor. (See bugs for more information)
Map Layout[]
The intel provided on this mission gives a very accurate description of the building layout, although the player should be aware that some of the hotel room walls on the seventh floor do not exist due to the fact that it is under construction.
The Old Granite Hotel is a seven-story building that is currently under construction. As per mission briefing, the suspects are trapped on the sixth and the seventh floors, however the half of the sixth floor and whole seventh floor are currently being renovated. The floor plans for the sixth and the seventh floor are roughly identical, and they can be summed up as a looping hallway that surrounds the elevator in the center with the hotel rooms attached to the outside of the loop.
The sixth floor contains four hotel rooms, with numbers from 622 to 625 complete with typical items found in hotel rooms as well as a bathroom. Room 625 on side 4 is rather unfinished and is in a raw state however. There is also a room on side 2 designed for for hotel employees with washing machines, carts and towels, and it is attached to the inside of the hallway loop. The renovated part of the sixth floor is in a raw state. There are various items that are needed for repairs and construction items such as cement mixers, lumber piles and portable toilets provide ample covers for the suspects to hide. There is only one staircase on side 1 that leads to other levels and it is also unfinished. The whole seventh floor is under construction, meaning that there is an even bigger mess than on the sixth floor. Each of the rooms intended for hotel rooms contain something else, and the hotel rooms on side 2 and side 3 are connected on the outside of the building in addition to the looping hallway since the walls between them are incomplete. It is worth mentioning that some of the exterior walls are not built yet and the gaps are protected by nets and scaffloadings. There is also makeshift office in the incomplete hotel rooms on side 2.
Tactical Approach[]
The suspects are well-equipped with shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles and body armors but do not wear gas masks, hence making the use of CS Gas a feasible and efficient choice for carrying out tactical procedures. The suspects are also less inclined towards complying with the officers when ordered to do so.
The main twist on this map is that on the side 1 stairway between the two floors is the first of the four time bombs. Once the team encounters it, an additional objective to defuse rest of the bombs on the seventh floor is introduced and it must be completed within a time period of exactly nine minutes and thirteen seconds.
The layout of the map is astonishingly linear compared to many other preceding maps since most of the rooms do not interconnect with other areas and possesses only a single doorway for both entry and exit. This restricts the ease in mobility of the suspects to flee from rooms that are in the process of clearing. Yet, despite these favourable circumstances it still proves beneficial to wedge certain doors. Most of the unfurnished rooms in the upper floor of the building adjacent to the main hallway are relatively small and can be easily cleared with the help of a single grenade. CS Gas is the most effective less-lethal grenade since it occupies a large portion of the room and therefore successfully affects everyone in the room as long as they expose and position themselves in the effective radius of the grenade. On the other hand, in the SWAT: Elite Force, the stinger grenades may also prove equally competent in clearing such rooms since the effective radius and the strength of the grenade was significantly improved in the mod.
The area of the map is also relatively small compared with the amount of suspects that inhabits the area. When entering a new room or hallway, do expect suspects to be hiding behind in every corners, alcoves and hip high covers you can see. The most likely source of operator casualties would be breaching into the narrow stairway and hallways where multiple heavily armed suspects are packed into with no where left to escape. If passing the game at Elite diffculty is not a requirement, double tapping with C2 explosives on the door in addition to a grenade into the room is recommanded to both thin out suspect numbers via incapacitation and to induce massive morale drops on surviors due to the casualties and the double stun effect.
The plastic coverings that surrounds door frames in the constructions areas will allow suspects to see and shoot through, despite the facts that operators will need to stack up against them to start the clearing operation. It is prudent to cover such door ways with CS gas before asking your own team to stack up and clear a room.
If the player opts for the secondary entrance, they may choose to clear the upper floor entirely following the completion of the additional objective to defuse all the timed bombs present in the level. On succeeding, they may continue to clear the lower level of the building and proceed to complete the mission. The reverse of the above procedure to complete the mission may be followed as well.
Bugs[]
- The sniper teams for this mission appear to be positioned wrong. In the briefing text, they are labeled as Sierra 1 being on level 7, whereas Sierra 2 is on level 6. However, in the mission itself their positions are reversed. This is corrected in the SWAT: Elite Force.
- James Betincourt Junior's father is referred to as "Charles Betincourt" in the timeline section of the mission briefing, in contrast with the info from the notable civilians section of the mission briefing and the TV broadcast in game.
Changes in Elite Force[]
- Fixed the bug noted above with sniper teams being in the wrong spots.
- The suspects' loadouts have been streamlined. The suspects will either carry an AR-15 patterned rifle (Colt M4A1 Carbine, Colt M16A2 Assault Rifle) or a short pump action shotgun (Remington M870) as primiary weapons. As backups they will carry either a Colt M1911 or a XDM pistol.
- The suspects now wear medium armors that offers significantly better protection than the vanilla light armor worn by other suspects.
- The max morale value of the clerk (suit wearing) civilian type has been raised with a good chance of being stubborn once encountering officers. Also Lawrence Adams now has a 5% chance to experience Cardiac arrest.
- Two cut conversations were restored back into the game. They were - Jackson:"The bomb squad missed all the fun" and a few lines conversed when the player had successfully disabled a bomb.
- This mission unlocks the MP5KA4 Machine Pistol.
Trivia[]
- The stub page on this wiki uses a graphic based on the signs in this mission.
- A different voice actress plays the dispatch character in this mission, for unknown reasons.
- According to the comments in the game code, James Betincourt Junior's last name was originally called "Bettencourt".
Gallery[]
