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
Early 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.”
“Who 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 fiancée,” 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?”