"Smirnoff's one of these people I have to have contact with. Like a prison guard has to have contact with a certain number of child molesters."

"You'd put him in that category?"

"No, he's not crafty enough. He's just pissed off and very full of himself."

"Sounds familiar."

"Yeah, but I have a reason to be arrogant. He doesn't."

"Patti Bowen at NEST says..."

"Don't tell me. Smirnoff went to her and said, 'Hey, I'm putting a group together, a direct-action group, more hardhitting than GEE, and Sangamon Taylor is working with me."

"That's what Patti Bowen said."

"Yeah, well Smirnoff got ahold of me the other day-you understand, I just hung up on the bastard, because I don't want the FBI to even imagine him and me on the same line-so he tracked me down in the food co-op when I was cutting fish. And he said, 'Patti Bowen and me are working together on a hard-hitting direct-action group, nudge nudge wink wink.' So I waved my boning knife at him and said, 'Listen, pusswad, you are toxic, and if you ever call me, ever call GEE, ever come within ten feet of me again, I'll take this and gut you like a tuna.' Haven't heard from him since."

"Is that your position? That he's a terrorist?"

"Yeah."

Rebecca started writing that down, so I added slowly and distinctly, "And we're not."

"So he's the same as Hank Boone, in your opinion."

I had to squirm. "Morally, yes. But no one's really like Boone."

Boone had this thing about whaling ships. He liked to sink them. He was a founder of GEE and hero of the Soviet invasion, but he'd been kicked out seven years ago. Off the coast of South Africa he had filled a Zodiac full of C-4, lit the fuse, pointed it at a pirate whaler, and jumped off at the last minute. The whaler went to the bottom and he went to hide out in some weepy European social democracy. But he kept dropping out of sight and whaling ships kept digging craters on the floors of the seven seas.