Persuader

town? What kind of bodyguards don't notice a thing like that? They never heard of threat assessment?"
    "You saying you noticed?"
    "I noticed."
    "Not bad for a van driver."
    "I was in the army. I was a military cop. I understand bodyguarding. And I understand collateral damage." The kid nodded, uncertainly.
    "You got a name yet?" he asked.
    "Depends," I said. "I need to understand your point of view. I could be in all kinds of trouble. At least one cop is dead and now I just stole a car." He went quiet again. I matched him, mile for mile. Gave him time to think. We were almost out of Massachusetts.
    "My family appreciates loyalty," he said. "You did their son a service. And you did them a service. Saved them some money, at least. They'll show their gratitude. I'm sure the last thing they'll do is rat you out."
    "You need to call them?" He shook his head. "They're expecting me. As long as I show up there's no need to call them."
    "The cops will call them. They think you're in big trouble."
    "They don't have the number. Nobody does."
    "The college must have your address. They can find your number." He shook his head again. "The college doesn't have the address. Nobody does. We're very careful about stuff like that." I shrugged and kept quiet and drove another mile.
    "So what about you?" I said. "You going to rat me out?" I saw him touch his right ear. The one that was still there. It was clearly a completely subconscious gesture.
    "You saved my ass," he said. "I'm not going to rat you out."
    "OK," I said. "My name is Reacher." We spent a few minutes cutting across a tiny corner of Vermont and then struck out north and east across New Hampshire. Settled in for the long, long drive. The adrenaline drained away and the kid got over his state of shock and we both ended up a little down and sleepy. I cracked the window to get some air in and some perfume out. It made the car noisy but it kept me awake. We talked a little. Richard Beck told me he was twenty years old. He was in his junior year. He was majoring in some kind of contemporary art expression thing that sounded a lot like finger painting to me. He wasn't good at relationships. He was an only child. There was a lot of ambivalence about his family.
    They were clearly some kind of tight close-knit clan and half of him wanted out and the other half needed to be in. He was clearly very traumatized by the previous kidnap. It made me wonder whether something had been done to him, apart from the ear thing.
    Maybe something much worse.
    I told him about the army. I laid it on pretty thick about my bodyguarding qualifications. I wanted him to feel he was in good hands, at least temporarily. I drove fast and steady.
    The Maxima had just been filled. We didn't need to stop for gas. He didn't want lunch. I stopped once to use a men's room. Left the engine running so I wouldn't have to fiddle with the ignition wires again. Came back to the car and found him inert inside it. We got back on the road and passed by Concord in New Hampshire and headed toward Portland in Maine. Time passed. He got more relaxed, the closer we got to home. But he got quieter, too. Ambivalence.
    We crossed the state line and then about twenty miles short of Portland he squirmed around and checked the view out of the back very carefully and told me to take the next exit. We turned onto a narrow road heading due east toward the Atlantic. It passed under I-95 and then ran more than fifteen miles across granite headlands to the sea. It was the kind of landscape that would have looked great in summer. But it was still cold and raw.
    There were trees stunted by salt winds and exposed rock outcrops where gales and storm tides had scoured the dirt away. The road twisted and turned like it was trying to fight its way as far east as it could get. I glimpsed the ocean ahead. It was as gray as iron. The road pushed on past inlets to the left and right. I saw small beaches made of gritty sand.
    Then the road curved left and immediately right and rose up onto a headland shaped like the palm of a hand. The palm narrowed abruptly into a single finger jutting directly out to sea. It was a rock peninsula maybe a hundred yards wide and half a mile long. I could feel the wind buffeting the car. I drove out onto the peninsula and saw a line of bent and stunted evergreen trees that were trying to hide a high granite wall but weren't quite tall enough or thick enough to succeed. The wall was maybe eight feet tall. It was