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This is all new to me. . I don’t know how to behave. ” GOOD BLOOD 43 “Thank you, signore. ” De Grazia nodded and looked out at the huffing earthmoving machines for a while. “How strange,” he said dreamily. “Half an hour ago, I had nothing worse to worry about than drainage schemes. Now . ” He let the sentence die away. ” “You said that first I should decide whether or not to co­ operate with you. All right, I’ve agreed to cooperate. ” “Next, I would strongly advise you to employ a profes­ sional negotiator to deal with them.

A day and a night on our own in Stresa to get over the jet lag, and the next morn­ ing we go on back down to Milan to meet our flock at the airport. ” The “flock” were the eighteen venturesome, pennywise travelers who had signed up for the “Italian Lakes Country Pedal and Paddle Adventure,” the week-long kayak-and­ bicycle tour of Lake Maggiore and Lake Orta that was be­ ing put on by Travel on the Cheap, the thriving tour and guidebook company headquartered in Seattle. Phil, a fre­ quent tour leader for On the Cheap, would lead it.

Policemen and negotiators had different goals, conflicting priorities. A negotiator was a middleman, a facilitator, a neutral. He wasn’t an adver­ sary of the kidnappers any more than he was an ally of the police. His overriding objective was to bring the situation to an end without harm coming to the abductee or to any­ one else. If the prisoner was released without anyone’s get­ ting hurt, he had successfully done his job, and whether or not the kidnappers got the money or got away were distant, secondary concerns.