“What I don’t get,” Laura Westerley said, “is why he was afraid of you. Something about Swedes and Danes?”

I gave her a very brief rundown of the aims of SKOAL and the grievances of the southern Swedes, and she seemed understandably incredulous. “It was never a movement with a whole lot of political credibility,” I said, “but neither was Slovenian separatism, for God’s sake, and they’ve got their own country now. My God, it just occurred to me. There wasn’t anything in the paper, not that I noticed, but it could have happened anytime in the past twenty-five years. But did it?”

“What?”

“Was there an armed revolt in Sweden? Did the Danish Swedes break away?”

“It’s been pretty peaceful there,” Fischbinder said.

“Well, maybe it’ll stay that way,” I said forcefully, “and maybe it won’t. We’ll have to see. Where are my clothes?”

“Your clothes?”

“My clothes. My striped shirt and khaki pants and whatever else I was wearing. I’m going home.”

Chapter 3

They weren’t crazy about the idea. They’d have liked to keep me a few days for observation, and tried to talk me into staying overnight at least. But I wasn’t having any. I had a lot of new reality to adjust to, and I didn’t even know what most of it was. Twenty-five years! I wanted to go home and start catching up.

So I had my first shower in twenty-five years, standing a long while in the hot spray and hoping it would warm my bones. Then I got dressed – the clothes still fit me, as why shouldn’t they? – and signed myself out of the hospital. That’s an expression – in actual fact there was nothing to sign, and no bill to pay. And there wouldn’t be anything in the papers, either, about Rip Van Tanner’s emergence from Time’s magical icebox. One of the good things about being a known security risk is that the government can ring down a curtain of secrecy when it wants to. This time around, I have to say I appreciated it.