by Noel Hynd
Alex was reflexively fingering the little gold cross around her neck. Could her dad ever have imagined that the little cross would trek all the way to Kiev from Southern California? What would he have thought if he could have known?
Federov caught the gesture. “You’re a Catholic?” he asked in English.
“I’m a Christian, yes,” she said. “But I’m not a Catholic.”
“You seem intelligent,” he said. “How can you believe all that superstitious religious stuff?”
She moved her hand away from the cross.
“Maybe I have faith because I am intelligent,” she said. “Ever thought of that?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then maybe you should,” she answered. “There’s a Christian remembrance service at the cathedral in two days. For the victims of the Holodomor. Come with me.”
“Why should I?”
“It might do you some good.”
“Business isn’t done in Ukraine without bribes,” he said. “Bribe me to go to church with you.”
“Bribe you how?
He shrugged. “With a kiss,” he said.
She laughed. “You never give up, do you?” she said.
Federov gave some thought to something, it appeared. A full minute passed.
Then he spoke Russian again, like most of the crowd in the restaurant. She listened carefully.
“I’m going to do you a favor, anyway,” he said finally. “I was going to do it later. After you had given me some pleasure. Instead, I’ll do it now. I will give you two pieces of information. In return, perhaps you can be my honest broker on US taxes. If I have a problem, I will contact you for advice.”
“I can’t give you advice. I can only tell you what the law is.”
“Understood,” he said. And for the first time, it occurred to her that he wanted something. Or perhaps he even needed something.
“So what’s this information?” she asked.
“When your president visits, there will be major trouble,” he said.
“We’ve heard those rumors already.”
“No,” he said. “It is assured.”
“Then what can we do to stop it?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Terrible things have always happened in Ukraine. There is little control. There is a group of young men. Complete troublemakers. Terrorists. The pro-Russian Ukrainians, the filorusski. They will make trouble.”
“Where can we find them?”
“I don’t know. They are not my people or I would have them shot. I don’t look for trouble from America. I seek to avoid it.”
She considered it. “What’s the other bit of information?” she asked.
“The two spies,” he said. “The Americans named Peter Glick and Edythe Osuna?”
“I told you I don’t know those names.”
But he forged ahead. “Castel Fusano,” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“That’s where they are buried,” he said, “in Italy. They tried to kill me, these two American hoodlum assassins. They failed and they were going to try again. So I had them killed first. My people in Rome took care of it.”
In a flash, she knew he was telling her something significant.
Annette and Sergei were still pawing each other. Federov looked away, as casually as if it had just given a football score. He had nothing else to volunteer on the subject, and she had nothing else to ask. Then he looked back at her and smiled. His eyes danced. And in that moment, in that good hard look that she had of his eyes, she knew something else.
He had been the man in the square the first night, the one who quietly moved up on her at the monument. She was nonplussed.
“That’s all I have to tell you, my friend. Other than the fact that by the time you return to America, you will know I have done you a great favor.”
She looked away for a moment. Federov grabbed the opportunity. He reached to her and turned her face toward him. Too much vodka.
She didn’t resist fast enough. He leaned over and, as he held her jaw gently with his strong hand, he gave her a long kiss on the lips.
She was so shocked, that for several seconds she didn’t react.
Federov smiled. “See what happens when you drop your guard?” he asked. “Let that be a lesson.”
She gathered her bearings. “I think,” she said, “the evening is over.”
“You gave me a kiss,” he said. “Now I have to go to the church with you.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “But for now, get me out of here.”
“As you wish, Alexandra LaDuca,” Federov said. “As you wish.” And for the second time within a minute, she was too stunned to react. There was no way he should have known her real name. No way! Federov, meanwhile, signaled for his driver.
FORTY
E arly the next morning, Alex reported to the CIA station chief at the embassy and reported on her conversation with Federov the previous night, particularly pertaining to his discussion of a threat against the president.
The station chief listened politely, asked her a few questions, and made some handwritten notes.
“These stories are all over the city,” he finally said. “We’re doing everything we can, but at this point, the White House won’t alter any part of the visit. There’s nothing we can do except ramp up the security as tightly as possible.”
“Isn’t the White House being a bit foolish?” Alex asked.
“What else is new?” the station chief answered. “We’ll let the president have the right photo-ops and get in and out of here as fast as possible.”
“I just wanted to report what I’d heard,” Alex said.
“That was the right thing to do. Thanks.”
Air Force One arrived in Kiev from London at three eleven that same afternoon, the fifteenth. The trailing plane that carried the rest of the entourage including the “traveling press” arrived nineteen minutes later.
The American president was received at the airport by the president of Ukraine. There were plenty of smiles for the cameras. Ukrainian troops and police had secured the airport. The US Secret Service provided the inner ring of protection around the president.
A twenty-two vehicle motorcade took the president of the United States into Kiev. Thousands of onlookers lined the streets in subfreezing weather, some waving flags, some holding signs, most applauding with enthusiasm as snow flurries continued. The presidential limousine, which had been flown in two days earlier, moved at speeds close to fifty miles an hour. The route all the way to the hotel was cleared of other traffic.
Within an hour of arrival, the president was ensconced at the most secure hotel in the city, the Sebastopol. It was a time to relax in the suite with the White House advisers. The Secret Service advance team coordinated their protective details with the White House units that had arrived with the president.
Everything went smoothly in the first hours of the presidential visit. Not one detail had verged from the detailed prearranged plan. Yet rumors of potential trouble continued to sweep the frigid city.
Later that same day, Alex stood in the center of Mikhaeylevski Place and waited. Then, toward 6:15 in the evening, she saw two figures emerge from the heavily guarded Sebastopol Hotel.
She recognized Robert by his walk. She didn’t know the other man with him, but she assumed he was Secret Service as well. On their breaks in foreign countries, the agents were never to be alone.
Robert waved to her. She walked toward him and they embraced.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said.
“How’s the Commie gangster you’re babysitting?” he asked. “Has he tried to hit on you yet?” he went on, trying to make a joke out of a trace of jealousy. “Let me know if I need to come over and shoot him.”
“I’ve got him under control,” she said, “but I don’t know what State or Treasury thinks I can find out in two days that they don’t know already.”
“W
ho knows what they’re up to?” he said with a shrug. “Half the time they don’t know what they’re doing. So how should we know? I’ll be happy when we’re out of this place.”
“That makes two of us,” she said.
“Make it three,” said the other man said.
Robert introduced his friend, Agent Reynolds Martin, who was partnering on this trip. Martin was the southerner who had recently been added to the Presidential Protection Detail at the White House. He was also the ballistics expert who had come along as part of the foreign security detail.
“My fiancee,” Robert said of Alex. “ ‘Anna’ we call her here, if you know what I mean. Next time you see her, she’ll have another name.”
“I know how the game works,” Martin said, nodding. “They call me ‘Jimmy Neutron’ behind my back because they think I’m obnoxious. I’m not supposed to know.”
They all laughed.
Robert placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Reynolds-I mean, Jimmy-is working out pretty well on the trip, after all,” Robert said.
Martin laughed again.
“This guy keeps me calm,” Special Agent Martin said, thrusting a thumb at Robert. “You caught yourself a good man.”
Alex smiled. “Thank you. I know,” she said.
“Anna is working for Commerce here. Or is it Treasury. Or is it State?” Robert said. “She’s my future wife and even I can’t keep the facts straight, much less the cover stories.”
“Get used to it, brother,” Martin said.
“Robert even got me the first half of a handcuff,” she said, holding up the Tiffany bracelet.
“It’s nice,” Martin said. “And what you guys do with handcuffs on your own time is none of my business.”
“The cuffs will match the ball and chain Robert gets,” she said.
“Hey, speaking of families, let me show you something,” Martin said. He reached into his pocket. “I just got this at the hotel souvenir stand,” he said.
He pulled out, in brown wrapping paper, a set of nesting dolls. He showed how it worked. The outer doll was shaped like a small bowling pin with a painting of a smiling blond woman on it. Martin unscrewed the top part and showed an identical but smaller doll inside. And so it went until he got to a two-inch-tall figure of the same design which was solid and didn’t unscrew.
“Clever, huh?” he asked. “Tina, that’s my daughter, is going to love this.”
“It’s a matryoshka doll,” Alex said.
“Yeah!” Jimmy Neutron said. “That’s what the girl in the store called it. How do you say it?”
“ Matryoshka,” Alex repeated. “It’s a traditional Russian doll. The symbol is that of all Russian women. They make them with the Russian leaders now too. The big outer doll looks like Gorbachev. You unscrew the interior ones and you work your way down through Khrushchev and Stalin to Lenin.”
“Right,” Martin said, catching on. “They should make an American one. It could start off with Madonna and Brittney Spears and work down to Michael Jackson.”
He was already putting the doll back together and into its wrapping. And something else had taken Martin’s attention. He was scanning the area and not with approval. “This square is a logistical nightmare,” he said. “I have bad dreams about places like this.”
“Who doesn’t?” Robert asked.
“Tomorrow we have to get the president from St. Sophia’s Cathedral to the wreath laying and then to the airport. Just look around,” Martin said. “If there’s an incident, here’s where the problem will come. The advance team, the Secret Service, the ambassador, everybody’s sweating bricks over this place.”
He nodded to the buildings and structures in every direction, a rambling collection of windows, rooftops, and alleys. “See what I mean?”
She saw and understood. Where others saw quaint and architecturally fascinating old buildings, a professional bodyguard saw only the potential for trouble. Every angle for attack had to be blocked, every window closed, every rooftop covered, every manhole bolted down.
As they stood in the square together, savoring their few moments, Robert put an arm around Alex and held her tightly.
Martin was still looking around at the buildings again.
“With modern weaponry,” he said slowly, “the official Secret Service Red Zone is four fifths of a mile. That’s fourteen hundred yards, fourteen football fields lined up back to back. Sounds like a long way, but it isn’t. A bullet from a modern high-velocity rifle can travel that distance in less than a second. That means, if the target is stationery, with a head bowed in prayer. Giving a speech, shaking a hand…”
His voice trailed off.
“God protect us,” he said. “We need all the help we can get.”
“We’re going to need to have our own people on every rooftop,” Robert said. “Helicopters overhead, security checkpoints, not a single window open anywhere that you can see from here.”
“Almost impossible,” said Martin.
“Think the president will cancel the appearance?” Alex asked.
Martin and Robert shook their heads.
“Einstein, that’s the president,” Martin said, “hasn’t come this far just to have a couple of lousy pictures taken with a bunch of Bulgarian farmers and washerwomen. No way there’s a cancellation now.”
“We’re not in Bulgaria. We’re in Ukraine,” Robert said, holding back his amusement.
“Yeah, right. You can tell the difference?” he asked.
“Not from the inside of a hotel,” Robert allowed.
“We’ve tried to talk Einstein into wearing a bulletproof vest,” Martin said, “but the boss won’t listen. Like Kennedy ordering that the bulletproof bubble not be used on his limousine. Stubborn and egotistical. They all are, but I knew that already.”
“And Reagan, Truman, and Ford,” Robert continued. “The joker in the deck is always the president’s desire, any politician’s desire, to be in the center of all the attention.”
Alex stifled a shiver. Martin caught it.
“The weather helps,” Martin said. “Frigid weather makes a gun stock more rigid. The cold changes the vibratory patterns of the wood, the stock, the metal, and the finger on the trigger. Makes it more difficult.”
“But who wants to even risk a lucky shot with a subsonic round?” Robert mused. “Two thousand feet per second at a weight of maybe 175 grains. Location, time, distance, temperature, weapon, mental stability of the shooter. Everything factors in.”
“Someone could use a. 50-caliber sniping rifle,” Martin said. “Those are coin of the realm around here. Same type of weaponry the Soviets used in Afghanistan and the Americans used in Iraq.”
“Actually, this country isn’t as bad as a lot of them,” Robert allowed.
Martin lit a cigarette and shivered.
“Did I ever tell you?” Martin asked, looking at both of them. “Two years ago I was on a special assignment with the Bureau of ATF. We were tracking some Serbs from New York City who were shipping rifles from the United States to the Balkans,” he said. “They were buying the weapons in Ohio. I was undercover, and I went with one of their guys named Milo to a gun show in suburban Cincinnati. Milo had this Ford Explorer with a Sportsmen for Bush bumper sticker, and he could barely speak English. Of course I worked for Bush, and Bush couldn’t speak English either,” Martin said.
Robert grinned. He had worked for the last three presidents too but was always too politic to criticize any of them, even when they deserved it.
“Anyway, inside this auditorium in Covington, Kentucky, jeez, they had everything. AK-47s, M-16 assault rifles, sniper rifles, handguns, flat and round bullets, silencers, night scopes, knives, Japanese swords, muskets. Totally illegal but right out there in the open. Daggers, even a couple of antiaircraft guns, and some old junk from World War II. The most impressive gun, however, was the. 50-caliber high-powered Barrett sniper rifle. That’s the one the Serbs wanted.”
“Did they get them?” Al
ex asked.
“The Barretts were going for six grand each,” Martin said, “and Milo said this was just what his pals needed to take potshots at the Croatians and Albanians in Kosovo. But there’s this other stand where a guy in a wheelchair and Cincinnati Bengals jersey was selling Chinese-made Barrett knock-offs for just $2,200. Milo asks how many he could get. The guys says, ‘As long as you don’t have a criminal record or live in the People’s Republic of New York City, I can sell you as many as you can carry away.’ Well, Milo did have a criminal record. Double homicide. But it was in Spain. So he was ‘clean’ in the US. He takes out thirty thousand dollars in cash and buys twenty rifles. He drives away and ships them out from Detroit by private courier the next day.”
“You couldn’t arrest him?” Alex asked.
“For what? It was all legal. We were just keeping an eye on it, figuring out their routes, who their players were. With those knock-off Barrettsan amateur could probably hit a target from a mile away. He said he had armor-piercing, tracer, and incendiary. 50-caliber bullets available too. So Milo buys a few boxes of those as well.”
“That stuff could bring down a helicopter,” Robert said.
“The weapons got shipped to Macedonia,” Martin said. “But here’s the wicked part. Know where three of those rifles eventually turned up? At an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan. Those rag-head terrorists are going to shoot at our marines, and it was a guy with a Carson Palmer jersey who helped get the firepower to them. What a world!”
Robert shook his head.
“Shows you what we got to look out for in this square tomorrow,” Martin said. “Everything coming from everywhere. There’s no way to handle an exposure like this perfectly; there’s always something that can go wrong.”
“We just try to get in and out fast,” Robert said. “We can’t be perfect but we can be speedy.”
“Good luck,” Alex said with a sigh.