Raf emerged from the bathroom. He'd shaved and had caught his thinning wet hair in a ponytail clip. He wore his jeans; his waistline sagged but there was muscle in his hairy shoulders.
Raf unzipped one of the sports bags. He tunneled into a baggy black T-shirt.
Starlitz logged off.
Raf yawned. "Dramamine never works. Sorry."
"No problem, Raf."
Raf gazed around the apartment. The pupils of his dark eyes were two shrunken pinpoints. "Where's the girl?"
Starlitz shrugged. "Maybe she went out to cop some Chinese."
Raf found his shades and a packet of Gauloise. Raf might have been Italian. The accent made this seem plausible. "The boot of the car," he said. "Could you help?"
They hauled a big wrapped tarpaulin from the trunk of the Fiat and into the safe-house. Raf deftly untied the tarp and spread its contents across the chill linoleum of the kitchenette.
Rifles. Pistols. Amino. Grenades. Plastique. Fuse wire. Detonator: Startitz examined the arsenal skeptically. The hardware looked rather dated.
Raf deftly reassembled a stripped and greased AK-47. The rifle looked like it had been buried for several years, but buried by someone who knew how to bury weapons properly. Raf slotted the curved magazine and patted the tarnished wooden butt.
"Ever seen a Pancor Jackhammer?" asked Starlitz. "Modern gas-powered combat shotgun, all-plastic, bullpup design? Does four twelve-gauge rounds a second. The ammo drums double as landmines."
Raf nodded. "Yes, I do the trade shows. But you know -- as a practical matter -- you have to let people know that you can kill them."
"Yeah? Why is-that?"
"Everyone knows the classic AK silhouette. You show civilians the AK --" Raf brandished the rifle expertly -- "they throw themselves on the floor. You bring in your modem plastic auto-shotgun, they think it's a vacuum cleaner."
"I take your point."
Raf lifted a bomb-clustered khaki webbing belt. "See these pineapples? Grenades like these, they have inferior killing radius, but they truly look like grenades. What was your name again, my friend?"
"Starlitz."
"Starlet, you carry these pineapples on your belt into a bank or a hotel lobby, you will never have to use them. Because people know pineapples. Of course, when you use grenades, you don't want to use these silly things. You want these rifle-mounted BG-15s, with the rocket propellant."
Starlitz examined the scraped and greasy rifle-grenades. The cylindrical explosive tubes looked very much like welding equipment, except for the stenciled military Cyrillic. "Those been kicking around a while?"
"The Basques swear by them. They work a charm against armored limos."
"Basque. I hear that language is even weirder than Finnish."
"You carry a gun, Starlet?"
"Not at the mo'."
"Take one little gun," said Raf generously. "Take that Makarov nine-millimeter. Nice combat handgun. Vintage Czech ammo. Very powerful."
"Maybe later," Starlitz said. "I might appropriate a key or so of that plastique. If you don't mind."
Raf smiled. "Why?"
"It's really hard finding good Semtex since Havel shut down the factories," Starlitz said moodily. "I might feel the need 'cause ... I got this certain personal problem with video installations."
"Have a cigarette," said Raf sympathetically, shaking his pack. "I can see that you need one."
"Thanks." Starlitz lit a Gauloise. "Video's all over the place nowadays. Banks got videos ... hotels got videos ... groceries ... cash machines ... cop cars ... Man, I hate video. I always hated video. Nowadays, video is really getting on my nerves."
"It's panoptic surveillance," said Raf. "It's the Spectacle."
Starlitz blew smoke and grunted.
"We should discuss this matter further," Raf said intently. "Work in the Struggle requires a solid theoretical 'grounding. Then you can focus this instinctive proletarian resentment into a coherent revolutionary response." He began sawing through a wrapped brick of Semtex with a butterknife from the kitchen drawer.
Starlitz ripped the plastique to chunks and stuffed them into his baggy pockets.
The door opened. Aino had returned. She had a companion: a very tall and spectrally pale young Finn with an enormous cotton-candy wad of steely purple hair. He wore a pearl-buttoned cowboy shirt and leather jeans. A large gold ring pierced his nasal septum and hung over his upper lip.
"Who is this?" smiled Raf, swiftly tucking the Makarov into the back of his belt.
"This is Eero," said Aino. "He programs. For the movement."
Eero gazed at the floor with a diffident shrug. "Many people are better hackers than myself." His eyes widened suddenly. "Oh. Nice guns!"
"This is our safe house," said Raf.
Eero nodded. The tip of his tongue stole out and played nervously with the dangling gold ring.
"Eero came quickly so we could get started at once," Aino said. She looked at the greasy arsenal with mild disdain, the way one might look at a large set of unattractive wedding china. "Now where is the money?"
Starlitz and Raf exchanged glances.
"I think what Raf is trying to say," said Starlitz gently, "is that traditionally you don't bring a contact to the safehouse. Safehouses are for storing weapons and sleeping. You meet contacts in open-air situations or public locales. It's just a standard way of doing business."
Aino was wounded. "Eero's okay! We can trust him. Eero's in my sociology class."
"I'm sure Eero is fine," said Raf serenely.
"He brought a cell-phone," Starlitz said, glancing at the holster on Eero's chrome-studded leather belt. "Cops and spooks can track people's movements through mobile cellphones."
"It's all right," Raf said gallantly. "Eero is your friend, my dear, so we trust him. Next time we are a bit more careful with our operational technique. Okay?" Raf spread his hands, judiciously. "Comrade Eero, since you're here, take a little something. Have a grenade."
"Truly?" said Eero, with a self-effacing smile. "Thank you." He tried stuffing a pineapple, without success, into the tight leather pocket of his jeans.
"Where is the money?" Arno repeated.
Raf shook his head gently. "I'm sure Mister Starlet is not so foolish to bring so much cash to our first meeting."
"The cash is at a dead drop," Starlitz said. "That's a standard method of transferral. That way, if you're surveilled, the oppo can't make out your contacts."
"The tactical teachings of good old Patrice Lumumba University," said Raf cheerfully. "You were an alumnus, Starlet?"
"Nope," said Starlitz. "Never was the Joe College type. But the Russian mob's chock-full of Lumumba grads."
"I understand this money transfer tactic," murmured Eero, swinging the grenade awkwardly at the end of one bony wrist. "It's like an anonymous remailer at an Internet site. Removing accountability."
"Is the money in US dollars?" said Aino.
Raf pursed his lips. "We don't accept any so-called dollars that come from Russia, remember? Too much fresh ink."
"It's in yen," said Starlitz. "Three point two million US."
Raf brightened. "Point two?"
"It was three mill when we finalized the deal, but the yen had another uptick. Consider it a little gift from our Tokyo contacts. Don't launder it all in one place."