Behind the troll stood a tall, thin human. His skin seemed unnaturally white in the artificial lighting of the bunker and was shaded with blue where a tracery of veins lay close to the surface. With his frizzy, bright red hair and full beard, he looked more like a northern Euro than a mestizo. His pants were white and crisp enough to have been bleached and starched, and his shirt bore a richly colored, embroidered design in a complicated geometric pattern reminiscent of feathers or leaves. His fingernails were long and neatly tapered, as if they had been manicured. A neat freak, I decided. And clearly the leader of this rebel group, judging by his air of authority and command. He seemed unsurprised to see us—almost as if he had been expecting us. I could only guess that one of the rebels from the checkpoint had told him we were on our way here. Strangely, he seemed familiar to me—although I would swear a court oath that we had never met before.