"The press says that I like to kill people. Well, of course I like to kill people! It's thrilling. It gives your life a heroic dimension. If it wasn't thrilling to kill people, people wouldn't buy tickets to movies where people are killed. But if I wanted to kill, I'd go to Chechnya, Georgia, Abkhazia. That's not the trick. Any idiot can become a warlord inside a war zone. The trick is to become a warlord where people are fat and soft and rich ! You want to become a warlord just outside a massive, disintegrating empire. This is the perfect spot! I know I've had my little setbacks in the past. But the ninties are the sixtiess upside down. This time, I'm going to win, and keep what I win! I'm going to seize these little islands. I'll declare martil law and rule by decree."

"What about your three-man provisional government?"

"I've decided those boys are not reliable. I didn't like the way they talked about me. So, I'll short-cut the process, and produce very quick and decisive results. I'll take twenty-five thousand people hostage."

"How do you manage that?"

"How? By claiming that I have a Russian low-yield nuke, which in fact I don't. But who would dare to try my bluff? I'm Raf the Jackal! I'm the famous Raf! They know I'm capable of that."

"Low yield nuke, huh? I guess the old terrie scenarios are the good ones... . "

"Of course I don't have any such nuke. But I do have ten kilos of cheap radioactive cesium. When they fly geiger counters over -- or whatever silly scientific thing those SWAT squads use -- that will look very convincing. The Finns won't dare risk another Chernobyl. They still glow in the dark from that last one. So I'm being very reasonable, don't you agree? I'm only asking for a few small islands and a few thousand people. I'll observe the proper niceties, if they allow me that. I'll make a nice flag and some coinage."

Starlitz rubbed his chin. "The coinage thing should be especially interesting given the electronic bank angle."

Raf opened a desk drawer and produced a shotglass and a duty-free bottle of Finnish cloudberry liqueur. The booze in the Alands was vastly cheaper than Finland's. "Singapore is only a little island," Raf said, squinting as he poured himself a shot. "Nobody ever complains about Singapore's nuclear weapon."

"I hadn't heard that, man."

"Of course they have one! They've had it for fifteen years. They bought the uranium from the South Africans during apartheid, when the Boers were desperate for money. And they built the trigger themselves. Singaporeans will take that kind of trouble. They are very industrious."

"Makes sense to me." Starlitz paused. "I'm still getting a general handle on your proposal. Give me the long-term vision, Raf. Let's say that you get what you want, and they somehow let you keep it. What then? Give me ten years down the road."

"People always asked me that question," Raf said, sipping. "You want one of these cloudberries? Little golden berries off the Finnish tundra, it surprises me how sweet they are."

"No thanks, but don't let me stop you, man."

"In the old days, people would ask me -- mostly these were hostage negotiators, all the talking would get old and we'd all get rather philosophical sometimes... . "Raf screwed the cap precisely onto the liqueur bottle. "They'd say to me, Raf, what about this Revolution of yours? What kind of world are you really trying to give us? I've had a long time to consider that question."

"And?"

"Did you ever hear the Jimi Hendrix rendition of 'The Star-Spangled Banner?'"

Starlitz blinked. "Are you kidding? That cut still moves major product off the back catalog."

"Next time, really listen to that piece of music. Try to imagine a country where that music truly was the national anthem. Not weird, not far-out, not hip, not a parody, not a protest against some war, not for young Yankees stoned on some stupid farm in New York. Where music like that was social reality. That is how I want people to live. People are sheep, and they don't have the guts to live that way. But if I get a chance, I can make them do it."

Starlitz liked speed launches. Piloting them was almost as much fun as driving.Raf's had stolen from Copen hagen and motored it across the Baltic at high speed. Since it was a classic dope-smuggler's vehicle, the Danish cops would assume it had been hijacked by dope people. They wouldn't be far wrong.

Starlitz examined the nautical map.

'I shot a cop today," Aino said.

Starlitz looked up. "Why do you say that?"

"I shot a cop dead. It was the constable in Mariehamm. I went into his little office. I told him someone stole the spare tire from my car. I took him around the back of his little office to see my car. I opened the trunk, and when he looked inside for the tire, I shot him. Three times. No, four times. He fell right into the trunk. So I threw him in the trunk and shut it. Then I drove away with him."

Starlitz folded the nautical map very carefully. "Did you phone in a credit ?"

"No. Raf says it's better if we disappear the cop. We'll say he that defected back to Finland with the secret police files. That will be a good propaganda coup."

"You really iced this guy? Where's the body?"

"It's in this boat," Aino said.

"Take the wheel," said Starlitz. He left the cockpit and looked into the launch's fiberglass hold. There was a very dead man in uniform in it.

Starlitz turned to her. "Raf sent you to ice him all by yourself?"

"No," said Aino proudly, "he sent Matti and Jorma with me, but I made them keep watch outside." She paused. "People lie when they say it's hard to kill. Killing is very simple. You move your finger three times. Or four times. You imagine doing it, and then you plan it, and then you do it. Then it's done."

"How do you plan to deal with the evidence here?"

"We wrap the body in chains that I bought in the hardware store. We drop him into the Baltic between here and the little old lady's island. Here, take the wheel."

Starlitz went back to piloting. Aino hauled the dead cop out of the hold. The corpse outweighed her considerably, but she was strong and determined, and only occasionally squeamish. She hauled the heavy steel chains around the corpse with a series of methodical rattles, stopping every few moments to click them tight with cheap padlocks.

Starlitz watched this procedure while managing the wheel. "Was it Raf's idea to send along a corpse with my negotiations?"

Aino looked up gravely. "This is the only boat we have. I had to use this boat. We don't seize the ferries until later."

"Raf likes to send a message."

"This is my message. I killed this cop. I put him in this boat. He's a uniformed agent from the occupying power. He's a legitimate hard target." Aino tossed back her braids, and sighed. "Take me seriously, Mister Starlitz. I'm a young woman, and I dress like a punk because I like to, and maybe I read too many books. But I mean what I say. I believe in my cause. I come from a small obscure country, and my group is a small obscure group. That doesn't matter, because we are committed. We truly are an armed revolutionary strike force. I'm going to overthrow the government here and take over this country. I killed an oppressor today. That is a duty of an armed revolutionary. "

"So you take the islands by force. Then what?"

"Then we'll be rid of these Aland ethnics. They'll be on their own. After that, we Finns can truly be Finns. We'll become a truly Finnish nation, on truly authentic Finnish principles."

"Then what?"

"Then we move into the Finno-Ugric lands that the Russians stole from us! We can take back Karelia. And Komi. And Kanti-Mansiysk." She looked at him and scowled. "You've never even heard of those places. Have you? They're sacred to us. They're in the Kalevala. But you, you've never even heard of them... . "