“We got plenty,” Hawk said.
I nodded and shut off the tape. Hawk reached for the radio switch.
“Shall we have a drink while we talk about what you know?”
Perry said.
Hawk’s hand stopped. He looked at me.
“Postcoital?” he said to me.
“Let me get my body covered,” Jordan’s voice said.
“I like your body the way it is,” Perry said. “Stay here. I’ll get us a drink and we can talk in bed.”
“Perfect,” Jordan said. “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from Dennis.”
I turned the tape recorder back on.
8.
We listened. Our street opened at the far end onto the river. Compressed by the high buildings on either side, the wet wind made the car tremble when it gusted. Inside it was just us and the two voices.
“Dennis says that the bureau knows that there is some sort of antigovernment activity associated with Concord,” Jordan said.
“But as far as I can tell it is no more interesting to them than half a dozen other groups.”
“My name ever come up?” Perry said.
“Only in my dreams,” Jordan said.
Hawk grunted.
The heavy rain flooded down the windshield, distorting what little we could see, making us seem alone in oceans of dark space, listening to disembodied words through the radio speaker.
“I hope you don’t talk in your sleep,” Perry said.
“Even if I did,” Jordan said, “poor Dennis wouldn’t make anything of it. He doesn’t know what to make of me, for God’s sake, or what to do with me. He has pulled his ignorance up around himself and hides.”
“How do they know about Last Hope?” Perry said.
“Nothing that I know of.”
“You ever mention it to him?”
“No, of course not. For obvious reasons.”
“Of course,” Perry said.
“According to Dennis, the bureau’s attention is focused at the moment on a group called FFL. I don’t know what the initials stand for.”
“Freedom’s Front Line,” Perry said.
“Are they violent?” Jordan said.
“The philosophy is purgative,” Perry said.
“By violence?”
“Yes.”
There was silence, then Jordan said, “Sometimes it almost seems the only way.”
“I know,” Perry said.
“I wonder if I could do it?” Jordan said.
“Fight?”
“Kill,” Jordan said, “for a cause I believed in.”
“Fortunately you probably won’t have to make that decision,”
Perry said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “This country. The way this country is going . . .”
“I know,” Perry said.
He sounded very soothing.
“Does Dennis talk about the bureau’s anti-terrorism operations?” Perry said.
“There’s something called Operation Blue Squall,” she said.
“But I don’t know much about it.”
“It would help us in our mission,” Perry said, “if we knew more.”
“I know. I’ll try. But Dennis and I don’t talk so much anymore.”
