No Way Out by Franklin W. Dixon

followed the fire-eater when he was on-screen. Joe concentrated solely on finding the man he had seen running into the woods. Neither boy spoke for the first half hour. Then Frank broke the silence. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Stop the film.”
    Joe hit the pause button on the console in front of his chair.
    â€œLook,” Frank said. “There’s the fire-eater behind the stands. Who’s he talking to?” The fire-eater was head-to-head with someone whose back was to the camera. Joe zoomed in and hit the slow-forward button.
    The fire-eater was listening intently and nodding as the other man talked. Then the other man turned his head slightly to the left, and Joe paused on the man’s profile.
    â€œAre you thinking what I’m thinking?” Frank asked.
    â€œIt could be. It
definitely
could be—”
    â€œVincenzo Blackstone!”
    Frank made a quick note of the location of that shot on the video. The next image was taken at a totally different location, so Joe played the film again at regular speed.
    They were able to fast-forward through some of it—close-ups of spectators, children playing, Alan giving speeches. They kept their eyes open, but neither saw any glimpses of their three targets: Blackstone, Fire-Eater, or Running Guy.
    Then finally, after an hour and twenty minutes, Joe spotted his man. “There! That’s him! That’s the guy I saw. I’m sure of it.” He zoomed in on a large, stocky man in a silver-colored armor chestplate and belted peplum, chain mail sleeves and leggings, and knee-high cuffed black boots.
    â€œNo bow,” Frank pointed out. “No arrows. And that helmet completely shields his face.” The man walked around the back of the empty stands. The timer said it was 6:22 Friday evening.
    â€œEveryone else was at the maze at that time,” Joe said. “And the arrow hadn’t been shot yet.”
    The man hurried to the end of the stands, and then turned in toward the stadium and disappeared.
    The next shots were of the burning hedge. Joe switched to slow-forward and scanned every part of the screen as the images crept along. “Hold it,” he said. “Look at that.” He zoomed in on the edge of the picture. Barely visible in the surrounding darkness,a man walked forward from behind the maze.
    â€œIt’s the fire-eater,” Frank said, almost whispering. “That must have been when he joined in to help put out the fire.”
    â€œRight. But what was he doing behind the maze before that? No one was supposed to be back there.”
    Frank made another note about the location of that shot on the film. They watched until the end of Friday’s shoot, went back to view a few places a second time, and then turned off the machine.
    â€œThere’s still all of yesterday’s film to see,” Joe said, without much enthusiasm.
    â€œI know, and we might want to check it out eventually,” Frank said. “But if that was Blackstone talking to the fire-eater, and if the fire-eater was off-limits behind the maze …”
    â€œYou’re right. We need to find that guy.”
    â€œYour woods-runner was so disguised that we can’t really tell who he might be. And if he’s out of disguise, we still won’t recognize him.”
    â€œRight again,” Joe said. “I have an idea, though.” He led Frank out of the screening room and found Skip. Then he gave the filmmaker the location numbers for the images they wanted.
    Skip printed still shots of the fire-eater walking from behind the maze and talking to the man behind the stadium stands. Then he blew up the shot of the other man’s profile and compared it to the mug shot Frank showed him of Blackstone.
    Skip scanned the mug shot into a computer and pulled up the two heads together on a monitor screen. “This design software is great,” he explained. “I can take your photo and the software