TEN.

At first it was mostly issues of taxation, import fees and quotas and copyrights. Dull stuff, which she plowed through in the morning. Then she moved to the more incendiary stuff and started it during the afternoon.

A remorseless image of Ukraine came through: one of the most corrupt places on earth. Late in the day, one particular topic heading seized her, and the subsequent doc.u.ment seemed to sum up everything else she had read.

Partners in Extortion:

Criminals and Public Officials

The most pernicious element of organized crime in Ukraine is the alliance among former Communist Party elite, members of the law enforcement, security apparatuses, and gangs of professional criminals. Much crime in Ukraine combines government officials' access to information or goods with the use or threat of force by organized criminals.

Crime and corruption had soared in Ukraine over the past decade. Since gaining independence during the Gorbachev era, the corruption of the Soviet years had been replaced by energetic gangs of organized criminals.

In the summer of 2004, several American corporations had considered investing a total of two billion dollars in Ukraine, mostly in the appliance field. After investigating carefully, each of the corporations decided that the business environment there was fraught with both financial and physical danger.

Drug traffickers, particularly those involved with heroin, laundered money through casinos, exchange bureaus, and state banks.

The banks provided criminal groups with information about businesses' profitability and a.s.sets, which the gangsters used to extort money from them.

Criminals and public officials often colluded. The extortion was imaginative. Criminals, for example, extorted money from businesses by threatening to sell the information they illegally obtained from banks to the tax police. In turn, tax officials sold their information about businesses with crime groups in return for a share of the money the crime groups extorted from the same businesses.

Alex continued reading.

Infiltration by criminals into Ukrainian legislatures remains rampant. More than thirty members of the Parliament might be tried on criminal charges if they were to be stripped of their governmental immunity. Fifty-four legislators, at minimum, elected to local political bodies, also have criminal backgrounds. The problem of corruption extends to the highest levels of government in Ukraine. Ukraine's prime minister in 1996-97, reportedly made tens of millions of dollars annually through his company's license to import natural gas and oil.

[Case officer's note: The former prime minister is also suspected of having stolen $2 million in state funds and stashed some $4 million in a Swiss bank during his premiership. In February 1999 Ukraine's Supreme Council stripped the former premier of his parliamentary immunity, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He is currently incarcerated in the United States. See also, UK-2-356-2006.]

Alex moved along. There was a section on the growing narcotics problem in the newly independent state.

Ukraine has become a significant conduit for Afghani and Southwest Asian heroin bound for European and American markets....

A dismal feeling started to creep over her. Ukraine made Lagos look like Disneyworld. Why was she spending her life with such things?

She flipped to the final pages, absorbing quickly.

The main trafficking routes are (1) the seaports of Odessa and Sevastopol; (2) Transdniestria is often mentioned as a high-risk region for drug trafficking. The drug is stockpiled in this region for further trafficking to Ukraine and Romania. The drug continues by air from the military airport next to Tiraspol or by trucks toward the north of Moldova and then continues to Poland, Lithuania, or Latvia. The route continues in Transdniestria, reenters Ukraine at Chernivtsy to move westward to Hungary and Romania. (3) There is an important transit from the eastern border of Ukraine with Russia. The trucks from Northern Caucasus cross the border at Taganrog, Luhansk, and Kharkiv en route to Hungary and Slovakia. (4) Another transit route goes through the eastern border of Belarus with Russia since there is no control of this border with Russia....

Ukraine lacked adequate law enforcement and an independent judiciary which might be able to block the influence of organized crime. Alex's eye settled on a concluding sentence, a masterpiece of understatement.

Inst.i.tutionalized Ukrainian corruption is perceived as the worst in the world. This is no small accomplishment.

Nigeria, but worse. Oh, Lord ...

She finished the doc.u.ment. She closed the briefing book and settled back to think. A few moments later, the door opened and Michael Cerny reappeared.

He poured himself a fresh container of coffee and sat down. "Now I need to mention something else," he said. "Ask you, actually. Up until this moment in time, have you ever heard of something called 'The Caspian Group'?"

"No. Should I have?"

"Maybe, maybe not," he answered. "But that's why you're here. They're based in Kiev. They're a private equity firm. Almost all of their investments are related to government contracts in Ukraine and in the United States. They cozy up to the proper people in both governments, take a financial position in an industry, then move into the industry."

He took a long drink of coffee.

"Let me ill.u.s.trate to you how it's structured," he continued. "Picture a triangle with the three corners anch.o.r.ed by the politicians on one, the military on the second corner, and the oil and gas industries on the third. Then picture a second triangle, interconnected with the first. Concentric perhaps. Now a.s.sume that one triangle is an American one and the second is Ukrainian. Then figure that the two triangles, for financial purposes, are interlocked and service each other. Any corner can connect with any other corner. Follow?"

"Of course I do," she said. "But what's the big deal? The world runs on the oil and gas business. I'm sure the triangle is filled with venal overpaid self-serving people making their fortunes off the backs of ordinary folks. Deplorable, but nothing new."

He broke open a new file, which he pushed before her.

"I'm going to give you this to take away," he said. "An FBI dossier on Caspian Industries. Examine what Caspian Industries is doing. A lot of money and a lot of product disappear into thin air, escaping taxation completely. See the problem?"

"Yes," she said.

"When you go to Ukraine," he said, "you're going to meet this man." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture. He handed her the photograph. "Say h.e.l.lo to Yuri Federov."

Alex looked at an eight-by-ten surveillance shot of three men, all of whom had the Russian wise-guy look to them. They were seated at a table in a night club. There were women at the table who looked as if they were being paid to be there, one way or another. Everyone was smoking. The men had short haircuts, almost shaved heads, and wore silk suits with open collars. A Eurotrash night out. There was a stage show going on in the background. More women, but not much clothing.

Cerny leaned forward and pointed an index finger at the man in the center.

The man was a thick-browed thug with wide shoulders, a lantern jaw, and a hard dark pair of eyes. He wore some sort of a medallion at his open neck. Alex could see that it was no companion piece for the gold cross she wore around hers. She fingered her own neckwear for a moment.

"Yuri Federov is probably one of the most dangerous men in the world," Cerny said. "And certainly no friend of the United States."

"Where was the picture taken?" she asked.

"Paris. A night club somewhere near the Place Pigalle where he had interests."

"When?"

"Late last year. December."

"Who are the others in the picture?" Alex asked. "Are they important too?"

"Since you inquired," Cerny said, "the one on the left is Marko Marchenko. The one on the right, a man named Michael Kozlov. A couple of gangsters. You don't have to worry about either of them." He paused. "Former business partners of Federov. They disappeared, and now he owns full interest in the club. Draw your own conclusions."

"Thanks. I will. But I'm sure you have more details."

"Kozlov's remains were found in an industrial furnace in Toulon, in the south of France. Marchenko was found in the River Seine outside of Paris. He was in sixteen feet of water, but his feet had been wired to a diesel engine block. According to the autopsy, he had been alive when he was dumped from a bridge. Then again, apparently Marchenko had been alive when he was shoved into the furnace."

She handed the pictures back. Cerny placed them in the files he was giving her.

"Federov," Alex asked. "Is he Russian mob or Ukrainian?"

"He's a blend of both. Worst aspects of each. Ethnically he's Russian, socially he's a Uke. Maybe if you can get close enough you can ask him that question. We wouldn't mind knowing what he considers himself."

"How close am I going to get?"

"As close as you can," Cerny said. "And I should warn you. This guy knows how to turn on the charm. For whatever reason, a lot of women find Federov irresistible."

She laughed. "An over-steroided gangster isn't exactly my dream date."

If Cerny was amused or encouraged, he wasn't showing either.

"Yuri Federov owes the United States government about ten million dollars in personal taxes," Cerny said, "and that's just the beginning of it. Then there are the corporate taxes and a long list of criminal activities just since we last deported him."

"And?" she asked.

"He has agreed to meet with a representative of our government to discuss the issues," Cerny said. "That's where you come in. One of the most dangerous men in the world. Federov is your a.s.signment."

ELEVEN.

In Rome, an American couple known as Chuck and Susan were looking for a taxi. They had stumbled out of a late-night watering hole in the medieval neighborhood of Trastevere shortly after 3:00 a.m. on January 8.

It had been quite an evening, starting with "ladies night" at Sloppy Sam's, a popular pub on Campo dei Fiori. In front of the commemorative statue of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was condemned to death by the Catholic Church for heresy in 1600, beefy shirtless male bartenders had served up discounted shots of Sambucco. Susan loved to sit at the bar, knock back the Sambucco, and ogle the guys, while Chuck worked the room for single women. Then Susan and Chuck had moved on to the Zeta Lounge around the corner. There a reveler could have all one could drink for one low price, and usually did. The Zeta was also well known as a pick-up joint for couples looking for a special sort of excitement.

Giordano Bruno, the philosopher, would have had much to ponder if he could have seen his old neighborhood and the debauchery that took place there nightly. But there wasn't much old Giordano could do about it, other than roll in his grave for another few hundred years.

There was a taxi sitting down the block from the Zeta Lounge when Susan and Chuck emerged. The cab's meter was off, the driver with a mobile phone to his ear, talking furtively.

Secrets. Chuck and Susan had plenty of secrets.

First off, it was the secretive nature of their work and the European nightlife Susan and Chuck loved most. That and the risque thrills. The thump of the clubs late at night, the dancing, the drinking, living for the moment. The lasting friendships among those who worked in the clubs in London, Paris, and Rome. The casual a.s.signations when couples would pair off, including each of them without each other.

Then there was their professional life.

Their current a.s.signments would soon have them in one of the old Soviet republics again where it was even colder and nastier. Oh, well, they were making a good career out of their involvement in this international cloak-and-dagger stuff.

They had money stashed in Switzerland, New York, and the Bahamas. If they weren't doing it, they reasoned, someone else would be, just not as well. So they continued on. Across the street an American tourist was barking through a souvenir-shop megaphone asking a woman to hike up her skirt, eliciting laughs from his friends and, surprisingly, the woman herself, who was equally soused. Chuck was amused.

The sidewalk was terrible. Ice everywhere. Chuck checked the shadows in the doorways nearby. He was always on his guard. He never knew when someone would step out of such shadows and, from some grievance in a complex past, raise a weapon. He always had an eye out for anyone who might recognize them and know them by their real names. There would be no end to the inconvenience that would cause.

They were partners in a gray world, a world of the political underground, half-formed conspiracies, plots, and counterplots. They thought of themselves as warriors for a good cause. The truth was, they were closer to foot soldiers, and the validity of the cause was open to argument.

Their last work project, the one in Paris, had ended in complete disaster. So they weren't celebrating this evening. They were trying to forget.

Chuck led Susan to the single waiting cab. He and Susan had a local woman in tow, someone they had met at the club. The woman had called her roommate and left a message, or so she said. She was staying over with "a friend" that night. So as she dropped her own cell phone into her purse, she was at liberty.

Chuck approached the cab. The driver looked up. A face that could have belonged to one of Caesar's centurions. Drawn, unshaven, and tired.

"Le Grand Hotel," Chuck said. He spoke good Italian but an American accent was noticeable.

It made perfect sense. A hotel with a French name in the heart of Rome. Back in the 1890s when the hotel had been named, the French motif had suggested elegance, as if the Romans didn't have enough on their own. Yet the hotel was still the most luxurious in Rome. "Vittorio Orlando Strada, numero tre," he continued.

The driver replied with a grumble. He was still gabbing into his own cell phone. "Non in servizio," he answered, pointing to the roof of the cab. "Off duty."

"I'm never off duty, so why should you be?" Chuck said. "I'll make it worth your while."

The cabbie looked at him as if he didn't understand. The Italians were good at that. Chuck dug around his pocket and came up with something the driver would understand.

An American fifty-dollar bill. Nice and crisp. Ulysses S. Grant in one of his sober moments.

"This is yours on top of whatever's on the meter."

The cabbie hesitated. Then, "Va bene," he said.

The cabbie put his hand on the fifty. Chuck eyed the vehicle from end to end, trying to a.s.sess any potential danger.

Standard Roman cab. A white Mercedes with a fresh dent in the driver's side front door. Brand new and it had already collided with the rest of the city.

He dug deeply into the cabbie's eyes. Standard sorehead Roman cabbie.

"I'm getting cold," the second woman said, stamping her feet briskly, holding her legs tightly together against a sharp breeze. "Are we going somewhere or not?"

"Okay," Chuck concluded. He released the fifty. They huddled into the taxi, the three of them in the back seat, Chuck on the far end, Susan in the middle, their new friend on the end. The cabbie pulled away from the curb.

Chuck eyed the hack license that the driver displayed on the dashboard. More bad vibes: The name was Italian but the face was something more Eastern. Still, one saw just about everything these days in the capitals of Western Europe.

Maybe Chuck was growing too paranoid. Maybe he had spent too much time in the back alleys and out of the sunlight for his government. Maybe he was too old for this sort of thing. Sometimes he didn't even recall what name or ident.i.ty he was using.

From that point, the ride was over in a few seconds.

It was past 3:15 a.m. The streets that were busy by day were deserted now. On the wet asphalt of the via Piemonte, the driver suddenly took a sharp turn down a narrow dark side street. Chuck saw that there was a larger car a quarter of the way down the street, blocking pa.s.sage. The cabbie pulled up hard and brought the taxi to an unsteady jolting halt.

Then in the fraction of a second before anything happened, Chuck knew that he was a dead man and Susan wouldn't fare much better. Another car screeched up behind them. Chuck heard car doors open and slam shut. At the same time, his lateral vision caught the movement of a fourth man emerging from between two parked cars to the side.