The driver pulled up to the arched driveway of a white six-story apartment building built in the anonymously ornate style dictated by Moscow in the 1950s. He honked once. Moments later the iron-framed wooden gate swung open and he drove through the courtyard into a two-car garage on the opposite side. Once the garage door was closed, Slava heaved himself out of the car. Gage stepped out behind him.
“You should think about losing a few pounds,” Gage said.
“Few not do it.”
Gage followed Slava into an elevator that took them to the top floor.
“Okay?” Slava said after his bodyguard opened the apartment door.
Gage walked into an Italianate living room, gilded to the barest limits of good taste.
“Sveta do,” Slava said.
“I didn’t realize your wife was an interior decorator.”
“She not. She like to spend money. When she get enough things we hire somebody to do something with them. Some of it match.”
Slava ran a finger along the back of one of two aqua and gold Louis IX armchairs. His eyes blurred for a moment.
“When I was boy, ten families live ten years on what this cost.”
As soon as Slava left, Gage removed a debugger from his briefcase and checked the apartment. He disabled four bugs, but left them in place. He then set up a local Internet connection and checked his e-mails. Boss: Mr. Burch called. Chuck Verona said he forwarded Matson’s FedExed boxes from Checker Trading to New York. He couldn’t remember the name of the company, but will find out. Everything is in order as far as Matson’s new account is concerned. Mr. Burch is still wondering why you chose the name KTMG Limited. He thinks “TMG” is The Matson Group, but he can’t understand what the “K” means. I think I do. Cute. Blanchard called. He reviewed the list of what was missing and said the most valuable were the monolithic microwave circuits. He suspects that a competitor is using gray market SatTek components to make their own devices. He’ll put together a list of possible companies and I’ll research them. Alex Z
Gage looked at his watch. It was 5 A. M. in California. He didn’t want to wake up Faith by calling her on their home phone, so he decided to leave a message on her cell.
Faith answered on the first ring. “Did you make it there okay?”
“I just got in. Why are you awake so early?”
“I was watching the news last night and saw how tense things have become in Kiev. The chaos reminded me of when you and Jack were in Karachi.”
“That’s why I called. I thought you might be worried.”
Gage walked to an east-facing living room window with a view of Independence Square. Through the now freezing rain, he saw thousands of yellow flags bearing images of wheat stalks, the symbol of the Bread and Freedom Revolution, and the tent city in which the demonstrators spent the subzero nights.
“I can see it out of my window. Listen to this.”
Gage cracked open the window and faced his phone toward the crowd cheering the opposition leaders as they condemned the president and his corrupt administration.
When he put the phone back to his ear, he heard an echo of the demonstration.
“I just turned on CNN,” Faith said. “They’re panning the streets leading to the square. Can you see the troops?”
On a side street leading to the square, Gage spotted police clad in blue and soldiers in green waiting for orders, running their numbing hands over the barrels and trigger guards of their AK-47s to keep them from icing up.
“The cheers sounded heroic, almost triumphant as we were driving in,” Gage said. “Now they just sound naive. These people think they’re marching toward the promised land, but they’re really just backing toward the edge of the abyss.”
Gage didn’t wait for Faith’s next question before answering it.
“I’ll try to get out of here before that happens.”
CHAPTER 62
W hen Gage walked into Kiev’s Pechersk Restaurant, he found that it possessed no dining room and no windows. It was nothing more than six private rooms spread along a narrow Siberian birch-paneled hallway. There was no cashier, not even a cash register. The china was gilded, the utensils were silver, and the glasses were crystal.
The dozen armored Mercedes in the parking lot, along with the gauntlet of bodyguards he passed, told Gage that a properly aimed and timed missile would reduce the Ukrainian crime rate by half-and Slava acted like he owned the place.
“Gage,” Slava said, as Gage walked into the last room, “this is Ninchenko.”
Ninchenko rose stiffly, shook Gage’s hand across the table, and introduced himself by his first name and patronymic: Mykola Ivanovich. Gage sat opposite Slava. Ninchenko to Slava’s left. Six feet, one-eighty, mid-forties, slightly receding black hair, high cheekbones supporting skin reddened by the icy December wind.
The spaces between the three place settings were filled with plates of smoked sturgeon and salmon, red and black caviar, and fresh and pickled vegetables. Two vodka bottles stood in the center of the table.
“Major Ninchenko retired from SBU last month,” Slava said, popping a pickle into his mouth. “Twenty years.”
“I served for two years,” Ninchenko said, “then left to attend law school and returned for another eighteen.”
Ninchenko spoke with only a faint accent, which Gage recognized was a rarity for someone who grew up when Ukraine was still a Russian satellite.
“Where’d you learn English?” Gage asked. “You speak it better than most Americans.”
Ninchenko smiled at the compliment. “Kiev State University, and my parents. They worked in the Foreign Ministry in Soviet times.”
“And since then?”
Ninchenko shrugged. “Business, like everyone else.”
“What about you?” Gage raised an eyebrow toward Slava, who laughed through his smoked sturgeon-filled mouth.
Ninchenko glanced at Slava. “My division formed a private company to provide security during our off hours. Zherebec. It means stallion. Stallion Security Services. Marx was wrong, except about one thing, the withering away of the state. The state in Ukraine is nothing, just a way for the rich to make money. Business needs protection and predictability. Stallion provides it. The state can’t.”
“What is government anyway,” Slava interjected, “except protection racket? Protect some rich people from other rich people and all rich people from poor people. State always krysha for rich and when state not roof, we roof.”
“What about the Bread and Freedom Revolution?” Gage asked.
“At this point it’s only a protest,” Ninchenko said. “We’ll see if it becomes a revolution. And remember, revolutions in this part of the world tend not to overturn as much as fully revolve.”
“So Ukraine will end up where it started.”
“That’s what happened in Russia. They started with Brezhnev, toyed with Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and then ended up with Putin, the velvet glove on the iron fist. There won’t be truly free elections there for another generation.”
Gage looked over at Slava and watched him shove a buttered slice of baguette piled high with black caviar into his mouth. In his nonchalance, Gage recognized that Slava believed that despite how violently Ukraine was wrenched about, he’d stay on his feet.
“Tell me about Gravilov,” Gage said. “I’m wondering whether Matson is counting on him to provide the nest for him to land in.”
