All right. She would live a little on the edge. If this was what it took to get a deal out of Comrade Federov, full speed ahead. Then she'd save the dress, wear it for Robert and let him go crazy over it. He could have his fun removing it from her. That also reminded her. She found the bracelet Robert had given her just before she had departed. She put it on her wrist. Part of Robert would be with her.

Meanwhile, if this was what Federov wanted, she'd let him have it.

THIRTY-EIGHT.

It was not a Valentine's Day evening that Alex was looking forward to. In fact, she was downright unhappy with it.

Robert was already in transit with the Presidential Protection a.s.signment out of Washington. He would arrive with the president the next afternoon. She and her fiance had already made plans to meet in a restaurant near her hotel in the late afternoon, when his shift would be over. In the emba.s.sy, all other protective people had drawn a.s.signments as security tightened around the president.

Yet suddenly, what Alex was doing was secondary to the entire trip. The goals of the American president were to get to the cathedral the next day, lay a wreath, and exit the country as quickly as possible. And trouble continued to hang in the air.

For a moment, at a few minutes before nine that evening, Alex knelt quietly in a quick prayer in her hotel room. Then she inserted a loaded magazine into her gun and packed it into her purse along with her cell phone. She wore the new dress that Federov had sent over. Against the cold, she pulled on a pair of boots and a heavy wool overcoat.

Two minutes later she was in the lobby. A Mercedes limousine was already waiting. Federov stepped out and beckoned. She sighed and went forward to the vehicle.

"Get in," he said. "We'll have a great evening."

The things she would do for her country.

Dancing with the stars. Dancing with the gangsters. Well, this was part of the a.s.signment too. Find out as much about this thug as possible. Keep him in sight. Who knew? Maybe some tidbit she picked up could put him in jail for two hundred years. She could always hope.

They were alone in the back of the limousine, where it was warm. They spoke Russian. The vehicle began to move. There was much room in the backseat. Alex stretched out her legs, loosened her coat, and tried to get comfortable. After a moment Federov reached to her and opened the coat, pushing it aside. His eyes devoured her in her new dress.

"You are quite beautiful," Federov said.

She sighed. "I don't know where you're trying to go with all this, Federov-"

"Please call me Yuri," he interrupted.

"I don't know where you're trying to go with all this, but I explained to you, I'm engaged. I'm not interested in any relationship other than our professional one."

"I understand," he said.

"Do you?" She sounded skeptical.

"What am I doing wrong?" he said. "You are very safe. I'm making sure of that. And I am being a gentleman. We are conducting business, you and I. And so perhaps I like going out with a beautiful American woman seen on my arm? Is that so wrong?"

They came to a stoplight. The driver ignored the red and eased through with impunity.

"By itself, no," she answered.

"Then where's the problem?"

"We just need to understand each other."

"We do," he said. "So I need to understand something too?"

"What's that?"

"Why does your government want to kill me?" he asked. "And why do they use you as their instrument?"

"What?"

He repeated.

"I know of no plans to have you killed," she said.

"Of course. They would use you, not tell you."

"You're making me angry, Yuri. I'm not lying to you."

He studied her carefully and shifted gears. "Then maybe a kiss," he said. "One kiss."

"No."

"Maybe later."

"I doubt it," she said.

"Then you don't know the Russian system," he said. "If I can't get what I want the proper way, I steal it. When you're not looking, when you least expect it, I will have a kiss from you."

"I'll be on my guard," she said, trying to parry his advance and defuse it.

"I'm sure," he said with a laugh. "I'm sure."

He sat back and relaxed.

The driver took them through the snowy streets of Kiev and into a neighborhood that was lively with neon and flashing marquees. Alex tried to memorize the route but it was impossible. Federov kept her talking and she guessed that was the reason.

Clubs and bars were packed one next to another along a trendy urban strip. The car stopped in front of a place named Malikai's.

Federov's driver jumped out and opened the doors for them. Alex felt like a gun moll. A skin-headed bouncer guided them past a waiting line of people, and they entered the club. People seemed to know Yuri Federov. Everyone was quick to jump out of his way.

They walked down a flight of steps, through a dark corridor. Alex could barely hear above the blasting techno beat from the sound system.

"Is this a restaurant or a club?" she asked.

"Both," Federov answered.

But it wasn't that easy. Restaurant, Federov explained, meant bar in Ukraine, whereas nightclub meant restaurant and bar meant nightclub, which is where they were. And not to put too fine an edge on it, even though Malikai's was a nightclub, it also had a bar and restaurant.

"Very confusing, isn't it?" Alex said.

"Not as confusing as Russian-Ukrainian politics," he answered.

"Quite right," she agreed, still in Russian. "Politics works in strange ways," she said.

The noise in Malikai's was deafening. Federov had to incline his head so that Alex could shout into his ear. They moved past the line that stood waiting for a table. Federov obviously never waited to be seated.

"The owner, Malikai, is a friend," Yuri said. "His brother plays ice hockey in North America. We share a love for ice hockey. And beautiful Western women."

They obviously shared a love for something, because Malikai himself turned up a moment later and embraced Yuri. Then Malikai turned and bellowed over the music.

"Natalka!"

Natalka, a hostess, materialized out of nowhere. She got another tight hug from Yuri too, one that lifted her straight off the ground. She was a trim woman in a sleek black dress and a ruby on the left side of her nose. She looked as if she was used to getting manhandled in this place and took it in stride in exchange for a solid paycheck.

The crowd on the floor parted for them, and Natalka led them to a semicircular front row table in a corner that was midway between a bar and a stage. One of Federov's friends was at the table, a man named Sergei with his own friend, Annette. Annette wore a gold minidress that was as short as Alex's. In a good American touch, she seemed to be knocking back a Jack and ginger. She also looked as if she were quite plastered already. Sergei had a pistol on his belt that he was making no effort to conceal.

In terms of booze, Federov didn't even have to order.

An ice bucket appeared, as did caviar, blinis, and a tray of hors d'oeuvres, presented by a mustached man in a red tunic who a.s.sisted Natalka. He said nothing but no one would have heard him if he did.

Then, almost by magic, Natalka produced from nowhere a bottle of vodka that bore a blue and yellow Ukrainian label. She opened it with surgical precision, poured four generous shots, and plunged the bottle into the ice.

Alex scanned the room. Everything was all shined up. Lots of chrome and gla.s.s and glitter. The entire world looked as if it had been wiped down by a paper towel and a bottle of Armor All.

Federov proposed a toast to American-Ukrainian relations. Alex made sure that Federov drank first, then joined him. She was careful to eat along with the vodka. The liquor was powerful. It had a kick that could give liftoff to an aircraft. A buzz was setting in. Without even trying to, she was getting hammered.

"How do you mean that?" he asked. "What you said about politics being strange?"

After being exploited by the Russians for several generations, she explained, one would have thought the Ukrainians would be in a hundred percent agreement on getting rid of their old Soviet masters. Yet this was not so, as was already evident.

Federov met her comments with a shrug.

"Putin is a dictator and often seems like a gangster," she said. "Yet he has wide support."

"He has brought stability," he said.

"At the expense of freedom."

"You can't eat freedom and you can't spend it either."

"No," she said, "but to some degree the suppression of freedom is nothing more than a power grab. Putin has also turned the Russian Orthodox Church into an official state religion, hara.s.sing most of the other Christian denominations that flourished since glasnost. What's wrong with religious freedom?"

"Russia is not required to give freedom of religion," Federov answered with an indignant snort. "Russia is not the United States and neither is Ukraine. People here differ from Americans. Religious freedom is not a panacea. The Russian Orthodox Church was nearly destroyed during Stalin's rule and throughout the Soviet era. No Protestant churches would survive if ninety percent of their followers were annihilated. This is the main reason the Russian Church is worthy of respect and why Protestants must not preach in this country. And that's only for people who want their religion." He paused for a moment. "I am an atheist and most people I know are atheists. Atheism makes more sense."

"I don't agree with you at all."

"I don't expect you to."

"And I don't understand the Ukrainian relationship with Russia, either."

"Few Americans do."

"Then explain it to me," she challenged.

"Most Ukrainians accepted Communism as their fate or even believed in it," he said. "Most older people lived better under Communism. I know of a woman who was the conductor of a factory orchestra, one of many. The factory has long since been privatized, the orchestra dissolved, and the woman was demoted from a 'member of the intelligentsia' to someone living with her mother on the latter's tiny pension. Our friendship toward Russia is not a perversion of crazy people. It was an option that was attractive to people like the woman I've described, not to mention the Russian-speaking people in the eastern district oblasts and Crimea."

She had no response. She began to wonder if somehow she had been drugged.

Then he looked at her for a long second and appeared to be preparing to move the discussion to a new level. The noise in the joint was important as it allowed Federov to speak freely.

No listeners, no microphones.

He spoke Russian. "Have you ever heard of a pair of Americans named Peter Glick and Edythe Osuna?" he asked.

She asked him to repeat the names. He did. No recognition.

"New names to me," she said. "Should I know them?"

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. They are involved in this visit by your president."

"Part of the delegation?" she asked.

He laughed. "No. They're a pair of American spies," Yuri said. "They were recently retired."

For a moment she was taken aback, thinking his explanation was a joke of some sort. Then she realized it wasn't.

"I don't know them," she said. She wondered whatever other name they might be going by, but she let the opportunity slide by. "I'm afraid that's not my department. Spies," she said, slurring slightly. "I wouldn't know the first thing about them."

"Of course," he said without conviction.

THIRTY-NINE.

Yuri had big hands, big ideas, and big talk. All three were all over the place. But he also had unending charm when he wanted to, and a certain rough magnetism. The briefings in Washington had touched upon that, but hadn't conveyed it completely.

Alex worked her gaze around the club and took stock. Students, pretty girls, athletic looking young men, a few high-ranking soldiers in uniform, and some diplomats. More pretty girls, in fact, hordes of beautiful women, plus a batch of local wise guys. Conspicuously missing: Kaspar and Anatoli, Federov's presumed bodyguards. Alex asked where they were.

"Why do you ask about them?" he asked.

"I would think you would have them with you," she said.