protects rich people and the police are corrupt. It is so easy to steal here! Even your big elections are stolen!”
Federov stayed in Tel Aviv for one month, then moved back to Ukraine. {Note: Surveillance conducted by French and Israeli intelligence partnerships. See CIA File No. 2006-SF-345-c.} He quickly became the guiding force behind The Caspian Group. He has survived several attempts on his life since 2003 from various competitors and other parties who might have a positive interest in his death. He has also always been known to strike back forcibly at those who have struck at him…
Through his normal tactics of terror, extortion, and intimidation, he has become wealthy again. The company (TCG) keeps no official records. Reputedly, Federov has a highly disciplined mind and a photographic memory. He keeps all financial records in his head…
The extent and degree of Yuri Federov’s influence in Ukraine, particularly in government circles, is unknown at this time but is also considered to be almost without limit…
Federov should be considered dangerous at all times. Under no circumstances should he be underestimated…
Attention should be paid to the fact that Federov, while on top of the Ukrainian underworld, has many competitors who would benefit with his demise and who might have an interest in his premature death…
SIXTEEN
When Constanza d’Amico awoke in Rome the morning of January 9, her head was pounding. She was trying hard not to think about the direction her life was taking. But she couldn’t help it.
She lay in bed with her eyes open. The sun penetrated the drawn blinds in her bedroom, spilling little slashes of sunlight across the room. The clock at her bedside said 9:12 a.m.
Her stomach churned. Her nerves wouldn’t settle. Her mouth tasted like cigarettes. Then, next to her in her bed, she was aware of light snoring.
Oh, yeah. She was married.
Beside her, Rocco, her husband, slept fitfully. She had arrived home before he did in the early morning hours, and he had crawled into bed next to her.
Not unusual. Rocco was a musician, a guitarist for a techno-pop band that had a modest following around the city. He often came poling in shortly before dawn, usually smelling of sweat, booze, and cigarettes, sometimes smelling of cheap perfume, but never smelling of nothing. He would set the clock radio in their bedroom for 2:00 p.m. the following afternoon. He would set it LOUD with a heavy metal American CD. The intense volume of music was the only thing that could rouse him.
Whatever. Constanza had given up caring and always made plans to be out of the apartment when the music blasted on. She and Rocco had been married for four years and had started to go their separate ways. He was particularly repulsive, she had come to learn, when he crawled out of bed in the early afternoon after his usual night of debauchery. So she arranged each day to miss those golden moments.
She edged up in bed and looked at him. How could she ever have made such a mistake? She could only see half his head since he was facing away from her. But that was enough. Dark, dirty hair. No shirt. Unshaven for a week.
She sighed. Her head pounded. What a life. There was a time when she had been philosophical about it. No matter where you are, there you are. Recently, however, she had become more proactive about her fate.
Her future: she decided she wanted to have one.
Extra work. Specialty jobs. Some significant income on the side. Like the previous night. Stash some money, put together enough to take off. Make sure she had a passport that was good to go on a moment’s notice-or more than one passport if she could work it right. Make sure no one could ever find her. She could start again under a new name. After all, some bad people might come looking for her.
Maybe she could even get to America. She had heard that in the cities of the United States a woman could pay off certain priests and get a marriage annulled. Well, she decided, she would do that and find a way to stay in America.
It would be a new life, and it would be all hers.
But first, that horrible headache, the one that threatened to define the new day.
The buzz in her head graduated to a full firestorm. Time to go proactive on that too.
She had some Vicodin stashed in her purse, thanks to an amateur pharmacist she knew from some of the clubs. The Vike and a Red Bull would get the day off to a good start.
Got to get up. Got to get moving.
A few more weeks and she’d be out of this nightmare.
She rose. Above her bed, a halfwit movie poster in Swedish, not even framed, just tacked to the wall to cover some cracks and peeling paint.
Cheech and Chong-de korsikanska broderna.
She eyed the poster in anger. Stuff like that had destroyed her life. Set her on the wrong path. Well, not much longer. Not much longer.
She stepped over her dress and shoes from the night before. She lurched uncomfortably into the bathroom, stared at herself in the mirror and winced. She looked awful and felt worse. But her life was a mess. She took her clothes off and turned on the shower.
She walked to the next room. She was in the habit of stashing her purse somewhere so that her husband wouldn’t filch money. Her head was hurting badly. Where had she hidden the purse this time? It took a moment to remember.
Then she found it. It had been under a pile of shoes in the front closet.
She found the Vicodin. She went to the refrigerator and found the Red Bull.
So far, so good.
On the kitchen counter, she found some bread. It was yesterday’s, half a loaf of good stuff from the corner
She had given up complaining. On the walls of the apartment were several pictures of her a few years earlier when her career as a model had been taking off. Print ads in glossy magazines. Her on the runways of Rome. For two years, everything had been crackling with excitement. Then it all crashed, about the time she met Rocco and started spending too much time out late. She started to look too tired and dissipated for morning shoots. The business went away to younger, thinner, fresher girls. It never came back. Now, as she stood in her apartment surrounded by the glossy ghosts of the recent past, all she wanted was to get out, which was what the income on the side was all about.
There was a soft knock on the apartment door. The sound startled her. Everything startled her these days. She kept still. Then the soft knocking came again, followed by a familiar voice in accented Italian.
“Constanza,
She recognized the voice. She moved to the door. The last thing she wanted was for one of her butch male friends to wake her husband. There would be explaining that she didn’t wish to do, plus arguments and sour recriminations. Fortunately, Rocco slept through early mornings as if he were hibernating.
She leaned to the door.
She peeked through the eyehole. Two male figures shifting nervously, an empty hallway behind them. One with a twitchy left eye, one in wraparound shades. They must have slipped by the old woman, Masiella, who kept guard downstairs. Masiella was deaf as a doorknob and not much smarter.
“Eccomi,” she answered. “I’m here.”
Twitchy Eye switched to English. “Open us the door. We have you the money,” he said. Twitchy was a good- looking guy, but he spoke no language perfectly.
“Let me get my robe,” she said, her voice very low.
She quickstepped into the bathroom where the warm water continued to run in the shower. She found a robe and pulled it on, tying the sash around her waist.
She returned to the door, turned the bolts, undid a chain, and unlocked it.
