Persuader

of him. But ideally he'll be awake and talking. In which case I think you need to show a little reluctance about getting yourself more and more involved. Ideally you need to let him talk you into driving him all the way home. But at the same time you need to be dominant. You need to keep events moving along so he doesn't have time to dwell on exactly what he's seeing."
    "OK," I said. "In which case I'm going to change my ammunition requisition. I'm going to make the second bullet in the second gun a real one. I'll tell him to get down on the floor and then I'll blow out the window behind him. He'll think it was the college cops shooting at us. Then I'll tell him to get up again. It'll increase his sense of danger and it'll get him used to doing what I tell him and it'll make him a little happier to watch the college cops get it in the neck. Because I don't want him fighting me, trying to stop me. I might wreck the van and kill both of us."
    "In fact you need to bond with him," she said. "He needs to speak well of you, later.
    Because I agree, getting hired on up there would hit the jackpot. It would give you access. So try to impress the kid. But keep it very subtle. You don't need him to like you.
    You just need to make him think you're a tough guy who knows what he's doing." I went to find Eliot and then the two guys playing the college cops came to find me. We arranged that they would fire blanks at me first, then I would fire one blank at them, then I would shoot out the van's rear window, and then I would fire another blank, and finally I would fire my last three blanks in a spaced group. On the final shot they would blow out their own windshield with a real bullet from one of their own guns and then they would go sliding off the road like they had lost a tire or been hit.
    "Don't get confused which load is which," one of them said.
    "You either," I said back.
    We had more pizza for lunch and then went out to cruise the target area. We parked a mile short and went over a couple of maps. Then we risked three separate passes in two cars right past the college gate. I would have preferred more time to study but we were worried about being conspicuous. We drove back to the motel in silence and regrouped in Eliot's room.
    "Looks OK," I said. "Which way will they turn?"
    "Maine is north of here," Duffy said. "We can assume he lives somewhere near Portland." I nodded. "But I think they'll go south. Look at the maps. You get to the highway faster that way. And standard security doctrine is to get on wide busy roads as soon as possible."
    "It's a gamble."
    "They'll go south," I said.
    "Anything else?" Eliot asked.
    "I'd be nuts to stick with the van," I said. "Old man Beck will figure if I was doing this for real I'd ditch it and steal a car."
    "Where?" Duffy asked.
    "The map shows a mall next to the highway."
    "OK, we'll stash one there."
    "Spare keys under the bumper?" Eliot asked.
    Duffy shook her head. "Too phony. We need this whole thing to be absolutely convincing. He'll have to steal it for real."
    "I don't know how," I said. "I've never stolen a car." The room went quiet.
    "All I know is what I learned in the army," I said. "Military vehicles are never locked.
    And they don't have ignition keys. They start off a button."
    "OK," Eliot said. "No problem is insuperable. We'll leave it unlocked. But you'll act like it is locked. You'll pretend to jimmy the door. We'll leave a load of wire and a bunch of coat hangers nearby. Maybe you could ask the kid to find something for you. Make him feel involved. It'll help the illusion. Then you screw around with it and, hey, the door pops open. We'll loosen the shroud on the steering column. We'll strip the right wires and only the right wires. You find them and touch them together and you're an instant bad guy."
    "Brilliant," Duffy said.
    Eliot smiled. "I do my best."
    "Let's take a break," Duffy said. "Start again after dinner." The final pieces fell into place after dinner. Two of the guys got back with the last of the equipment. They had a matched pair of Colt Anacondas for me. They were big brutal weapons. They looked expensive. I didn't ask where they got them from. They came with a box of real .44 Magnums and a box of .44 blanks. The blanks came from a hardware store. They were designed for a heavy-duty nail gun. The sort of thing that punches nails straight into concrete. I opened each Anaconda cylinder and scratched an X against one of the chambers with the tip of a