I knew what was going through his mind. He and his crew had been hired for a standard lift-out, which this no longer resembled even faintly. His first inclination was to bail, to bug out and take his team with him, leaving me and the rest to rot. The only thing holding him back was his professionalism. He had accepted my contract-verbally only, of course, because shadow agreements never make it to paper-but that was binding enough. (If he didn't believe that this was as much a surprise to me as to him, he'd have geeked me on the spot.) So now he was offering me a graceful way of releasing him and his people from the contract, with no ill will or loss of face on either side. All I had to do was say we were hosed, and he'd lead us back out of there, doing everything in his power to make sure we all made it safely to the outside world.