I liked the scene with CSFB! vs the Westminster guys in the Dead Zone, and the bit with Hatman strongarming Shrike was necessary, but the bit with Vizh encountering and hoodwinking the other villains didn't really work for me, and the bit with the hostage being in fact part of scam just complicated things (and really, didn't make much sense: the WNC picked a hostage supposedly at random, and it just happened to be Champagne and Silicon Sally). The last bit seemed like an attempt to include everybody in the story.