"The old boy must be getting on in years."
"No no. He's very much alive, and very charming. The truly dangerous are alwaysvery charming. It's how they survive."
"I like surviving" Starlitz said thoughtfully.
"Then you can learn a few much-needed lessons in charm, Lekhi. Since you're ourliaison."
Raf the Jackal arrived from across the Baltic in a sealed Fiat. It was a yellowtwo-door with Danish plates. His driver was a Finnish girl, maybe twenty. Herdyed-black hair was braided with long green extensions of tattered yam. She worea red blouse, cut-off jeans and striped cotton stockings.
Starlitz climbed into the passenger seat, slammed the door, and smiled. The girlwas sweating with heat, fear, and nervous tension. She had a battery ofear-piercings. A tattooed wolf's-head was stenciled up her clavicle and nosingat the base of her neck.
Starlitz twisted and looked behind him. The urban guerrilla was scrunched intothe Fiat's back seat, asleep, doped, or dead. Raf wore a denim jacket,relaxed-fit Levis and Ray-Bans. He'd taken his sneakers off and was sleeping inhis rumpled mustard-yellow socks.
"How's the old man?" Starlitz said, adjusting his seat belt.
"Ferries make him seasick." The girl headed up the Esplanade. "We'll wake him atthe safe-house." She shot him a quick sideways glance of kohllined eyes. "Youfound a good safe-house?"
"Sure, the place should do," said Starlitz. He was pleased that her English wasso good. After four years tending bar in Roppongi, the prospect of switchingJapanese for Finnish was dreadful. "What do they call you?"
"What did they tell you to call me?"
"Got no instructions on that."
The girl's pale knuckles whitened on the Fiat's steering-wheel. "They didn'tinform you of my role in this operation?"
"Why would they wanna do that?"
"Raf is our agent now," the girl said. "He's not your agent. Our operations