Alejandro raised his hands, making puppets of the black socks. "‘I am an old man who once kept secrets for the government here,’" he said for the sock on the left, "‘but I detest certain policies, certain figures in the government whom I believe guilty of crimes. I am mad perhaps, obsessed, but clever. I have friends of a similar tendency, less mad perhaps and with more to lose. I find out secrets with their help, and plot to—’"