"Oh ..."

Her insides completely unraveled.

"Have a good stay, Anna Tavares," he said, returning to English and giving her a smile. He opened her pa.s.sport, stamped her entry, and pushed it back in her direction. Then he winked at her. "American women are always so beautiful," he said.

"Thank you," she answered.

Her jaw closed tight. She took back her pa.s.sport. The two security people then, with the utmost politeness, bypa.s.sed a hundred other travelers, led her through an official portal, and guided her into the reception area.

There she found herself face-to-face with a young man holding a piece of paper with US Commerce on it. She approached him and smiled.

"Anna Tavares?" he said.

"That's me. A bit frazzled. But me."

"I'm Richard Friedman. I'm with the commercial attache's office. I'm also your control officer while you're here. Welcome to Kiev."

"Thank you."

They shook hands. He grabbed her bags.

Friedman was about her age, maybe a shade older, likeable, with a round face, gla.s.ses, and a smart look through the eyes. He wore a suit and tie beneath an open overcoat.

He carried her luggage and guided her to a waiting car and driver.

The car was French, a Peugeot, perky, deep green, and brand new. In contrast, the driver, Stosh, was a brooding Ukrainian in his fifties with a short gray beard and a three-inch scar across his left temple.

"Everything go well at immigration?" Friedman asked.

"Perfectly."

"Glad to hear it, Anna. It doesn't always. They're usually a pretty sour bunch. Still paranoid from the Soviet era. Always looking for spies."

"Imagine that," she said. "Well, if I see any I'll let them know."

They both laughed.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

Soon they were rolling toward Kiev. Alex was in the back seat with Friedman, a pair of attache cases on the seat between them.

She peered out the window, missing nothing, taking in a city she had never seen before today. The road was straight as an arrow and flat as an ironing board, with pine trees interspersed with surprisingly large houses and entrances to gated developments.

"The new rich," Friedman said, noticing her interest in what was beyond the car windows. "The FSNs tell me this all used to be forest up until independence. Now a lot of locals have gotten rich and foreign money has moved in."

"FSNs?" she asked.

"Foreign Service Nationals," he said. "Local people employed by the emba.s.sy."

She nodded. "How long have you been here?" she asked.

"Me?" Friedman answered, "Two years. The department just extended me, so I'll be here three more. I don't mind. My last posting was Yemen. At least this is in Europe."

Her nerves were still returning to earth from the immigration incident. And she was worn out by two long back-to-back flights.

The road led to a long bridge that it shared with a metro line and then climbed up onto a bluff. There sat most of Kiev, largely separate from its river.

They were in a surprisingly picturesque city, the city she had glimpsed from her airplane, with intricately styled old buildings from before the Russian Revolution of 1917. The ancient was mixed with a smattering of small stores and new structures.

Then the older buildings ended. Alex, Friedman, and their driver were in the middle of Stalinist "wedding cake" architecture, a style characterized by ma.s.sive buildings as expressions of Communist state power, intimidation of the ma.s.ses via steel, concrete, and gla.s.s. The combination of overwhelming size, patriotic decoration as mural decoration, and traditional motifs had always been the most vivid examples of Soviet architecture.

"This is Khreshchatyk," Friedman said. "Just Khreschatyk, not Khreschatyk Avenue or Street or Boulevard. It's like Broadway in New York."

"It's unreal," Alex said. She felt as if she were seeing a city from another era, another world. In a way, she was.

"Most of Kiev was spared in the big war because the Germans crossed the river elsewhere," Friedman said. "But the Russian NKVD, the KGB's predecessor, b.o.o.by-trapped the buildings on Khreshchatyk with dynamite. They figured the Germans would use them. Then they blew them all up with the German soldiers in them. Wicked, huh? After the war the street was rebuilt to Stalin's taste." He pointed to a ma.s.sive, ornate building with terra cotta tiles. "See how high the portal is, the square columns, the windows suggesting twenty-five foot ceilings? Architecture designed to intimidate."

Strangely enough, the buildings today looked harmless to Alex, with people strolling peacefully beside them. Time had exorcised some of the political demons.

Stalin was gone. So was Lenin, so were Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. The curtain had been pulled away, and the Soviet wizards of yore were no longer objects of fear. The current day people, she knew, were a different story.

Friedman lifted his eyes to the driver. "No one misses the Russians, right, Stosh?"

The comment elicited an amused sneer out of Stosh, the driver, who didn't answer further, but studied the rearview mirror as he listened in.

"Oh, by the way," Friedman said, reaching, into his overcoat pocket. He found a new cell phone and gave it to her. "This will work here. It's programmed with all the numbers you need, and there's a Ukrainian SIM card in it. Keep it with you."

She took it and riffled through the numbers index. She dropped it in her own overcoat pocket. "Thanks," she said.

Their car pulled up in front of one of the old Stalinist buildings. They were on a plaza at the very end of the street before the street disappeared down a steep hill. The rectangular building had an active revolving front door and a galaxy of foreign flags above the door.

"Your hotel, the Dnipro," Friedman said, stressing the final syllable, saying Dnipro. "Same name as the river, which in Russian is the Dnieper."

Dusk was settling in and the hotel had lit its blue and red neon sign. Stosh jumped out. So did Friedman. The driver's eyes were still checking out something back on the road.

"The place used to be a typical Communist 'prestige hotel,' which is to say it used to be a total dump," Friedman said. "Foreign money has fixed it up though, from what I hear. If you don't like it, we can move you. Let me know."

"I will."

The driver picked Alex's two pieces of luggage out of the trunk and waited while Friedman's conversation ensued with Alex. The cold was biting. Alex pulled on a pair of gloves from her pocket.

"You're right next to a park with a very interesting monument," Friedman said to her. "Take a look."

She glanced. More gross Soviet Commie artwork. Two muscular bare-chested men, oversized, sixteen feet high each, crossing a hammer and a sickle, one holding each. Compared to this, the Rocky statue in Philadelphia was an exercise in delicacy and subtlety. In a perverse kind of way, the bad sculpture in front of her made her think of Robert and his liking for the sensitive bronzes of Rodin and the canvases of Renoir.

"Monstrous, huh?" Friedman mused. "It was put there by Khrushchev on the four hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav. The Ukrainians thought they were allying themselves to Russia, and Russia thought the Ukrainians were giving themselves over to the Russians. I don't have to tell you who got the dirty end of the stick. That's how it goes in this part of the world. Even when you're not screwed, you are."

"I'm surprised the sculpture hasn't been removed, now that Ukraine is independent," Alex said, giving it a final glance and turning away.

"This is a complicated country," Friedman replied.

"I understand there could be trouble when the president visits,"she said.

He snorted slightly. "If it happens, it happens. We take every safeguard we can, but you can't be on Red Alert twenty-four hours every day of your life. Know what I mean?"

"I know," she said. "Is there anything on my schedule yet for tomorrow?"

"I do know the answer to that," Friedman said. "The amba.s.sador wishes to greet you himself. We're enormously busy with the preparations for the presidential visit, but I know he has some time scheduled for you."

"I look forward to meeting him."

"We'll pick you up at nine," he said. "Same car. Stosh is my normal driver."

"Perfect."

Stosh gave her a low quiet bow.

"Tomorrow you'll be in briefings all day," Friedman said. "There's a reception at the amba.s.sador's residence in the evening. You'll find an invitation in your welcome kit here," he said, handing over a folder he had brought with him.

She knew from her visit to Nigeria that every US emba.s.sy provided guests with such kits, including maps of the city and little phrase-books. "The day afterward, you'll have more briefings in the morning. Then there's a 'Ukrainian businessman' on your schedule for the afternoon and evening," Friedman continued. "Yuri Federov."

They started to move toward the front door of the hotel.

A doorman intercepted them to help with the bags.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the name," Friedman said.

A hesitation, then she said. "I know who he is. Back in Washington, they enrolled me in a 'Thug of the Month' club. He's my thug this month."

Friedman laughed slightly and had a knowing look in his eye.

"Impossible not to know that name," he said. "Well, an a.s.signment's an a.s.signment. You've even got a number for him in your cell phone. Good luck."

Stosh pulled on Friedman's sleeve. Friedman stopped as the door man went ahead with the bags. In a low voice, Stosh spoke to Friedman in Ukrainian.

Alex listened. Friedman answered in Ukrainian, not terribly alarmed.

"What was that all about?" Alex asked after they had pa.s.sed into the lobby.

"Stosh says we were followed over here. Two men in a Mercedes. I didn't see them, but he was watching. He says they're gangsters. Whoop-dee-do." He paused. "Don't worry, it happens all the time. I can't go to the airport without a tail. No big deal. And don't be put off by something like that. The Ukrainians like Americans. They want to do business with us, most of them. Of course, after the Russians, we'd look good to anyone."

"Thanks," Alex said.

"For what?"

"For telling me honestly what your driver said. I listened in. I understood."

"Very good," Friedman said with a raised eyebrow. "Smart. Don't trust anyone. You'll do well here." He handed her the attache case. "Open this when you have a chance," he said.

She hefted it in her hand. It was heavy.

"Vodka," he said.

"Vodka," she repeated with a smile. "Or maybe something even better."

Fifteen minutes later, having checked in, she opened the attache case. Within it, was a box, the wrong shape for a vodka bottle, but wrapped in bright red paper, the color of blood.

She worked away the wrapping. The contents of the box were nothing she could drink; the box came unhinged and clicked open. There was a small pistol within.

Welcome to Ukraine. The piece was a Walther PPK 9 mm short. She checked it to make sure it wasn't loaded. It wasn't. She hefted it in her hand. It was slim and sleek and would carry well beneath a jacket or coat. And she knew it could pack a lethal wallop if necessary.

The PPK commonly chambered 7.65 mm auto rounds. It could carry seven in the magazine plus one chambered if one wanted to live-or die-with the notion of it accidentally going off. For security services, this version, the 9 mm short was a better choice. It could hit harder than the 7.65 mm. Because the cartridges were fatter, however, only six 9 mm short bullets could be carried in the magazine, plus one in the chamber if desired. Like its larger counterpart, the Walther P38, the PPK also had a double-action trigger to permit a fast first shot.

The gun was favored by many armed agencies, including the fictional ones of James Bond. But in the real world the weapon was known to suffer metal fatigue and malfunction. Thirty years earlier, this had nearly ended in disaster for Britain's Princess Anne when her bodyguard's PPK jammed during a hijack attempt in 1974. He took three bullets himself but lived to tell about it.

But at least it was compact. With it, a dozen bullets and a nylon holster, the type a woman can attach to a belt and wear under a jacket.

Someone somewhere was thinking of everything.

That, or someone somewhere expected some serious trouble.

TWENTY-EIGHT.

In the evening, Alex had dinner by herself in the hotel restaurant. The food was ordinary but wasn't bad either; the ex-Soviet states still had a ways to go for business travelers and tourists. The restaurant was on the top floor of the hotel. Though night had fallen she could see the lights of part of the city below.

Afterward she asked the desk staff if the neighborhood was safe for a single woman. "Most times, but not always," a girl at the front desk advised. A man at the desk advised Alex to stay visible in the park.

She took her cell phone and, just in case, tucked the loaded Walther into the pocket of the heavy coat she had brought. American women were always targets in places like this. Fortunately, she had also brought a pair of durable boots that looked good yet were warm. She walked out into a freezing night for air. There was ice all over the sidewalks and public square.

She could see floodlights and a monument in nearby Khreschatyk Park. She walked toward it, stepping carefully through the ice and encrusted snow. There was little traffic; compared to an American city, Kiev was eerily quiet.

Before her, growing larger as she approached, was a rainbow-shaped arch, reminiscent of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, but smaller. She arrived there and put her knowledge of Ukrainian language to good use. More pre-glasnost propaganda in granite and steel. The sculptures had gone up in 1982.