photo of the user. If they’re used anywhere else, they’re a distress signal and a squad of marines in civilian clothes will probably come looking for you and want to kill someone just to make their trip worthwhile. Understand?”
“Clever,” she said.
“It
He gave her a trio of pens, three different shades of ink.
“You might want to sign everything, the passport and the cards. Don’t use the same pen on any two cards. Use a ballpoint on the passport, and be sure when you sign to sign ‘Anna Tavares.’ Do it now right in front of me so I can see it, then give me one more Anna Tavares signature for your passport application so we have a record.”
She did what was asked. She looked up.
“So, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Anna Tavares.”
“When were you born, Anna?”
“May 10, 1979.”
“Really? Where?”
“In Los Angeles.”
“En espanol,” he pressed. “
“El diez de mayo, mil novecientos setenta y nueve a Los Angeles.”
“Muy bien,” he said. “Now in Ukrainian.”
She threw it back to him. He was pleased.
“I have your plane tickets too, Anna,” he said. “They’re e-tickets, but you need the invoices. You’re flying Air France to Paris, connecting to Kiev. You will depart on February sixth and arrive in Kiev on the seventh. That’s ten days in advance of the president’s arrival. Excited?”
“Completely overwhelmed.”
“Don’t be,” he said.
“I assume I’m in all the proper computers as Anna,” she said. “If anyone checks these?” Alex asked.
“Absolutely,” Cerny answered. “Which reminds me.” He opened a final envelope. “Commerce Department ID. It’s your cover. Plus some supporting nonsense. Library cards, health club membership. BS stuff, but the type of things a lady would have in her purse. Which reminds me again. Do you have an old purse you can use?”
She opened her mouth to answer. He answered his own question before she could.
“Well, you do now,” he said. He had a worn Couch purse, complete with attached change purse. A nice leather Couch billfold actually, but with the proper wear on it.
“Would you like a gun when you’re in Ukraine?”
“Why would someone from Commerce be carrying a gun?” she asked.
“Because it’s Ukraine,” he answered. “Don’t ask logical questions about an illogical place.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
“Have it your way,” he said. “If you want one when you get there, talk to Richard Friedman. He’s with the State Department there. He’ll also be meeting you at the airplane. He’ll know you as Anna, by the way. Don’t confuse anyone with the truth. The truth never does anyone any good for trips like this. Truth is confusing.”
“I know.”
He paused. “I’m told that you’ve been putting in your time at the firing range. Good scores too, from what I’ve seen.”
“Are you watching everything I do?”
“Just enough. You should be happy that we keep an eye on you. Think of us as guardian angels, all right? Anyway, congratulations on the good shooting. It’s a shame to have a fine skill and not use it. Are you sure you don’t want a gun in Ukraine? We can get you a Glock.”
“I said I’d think about it.”
“Okay. Any more questions for now?”
She looked at everything that had been given to her.
“No,” she said.
“Good.”
“Why? You got something more for me?” she asked.
“Don’t I always?”
“Then let’s have it,” she said.
“Ever heard of a man named Georgiy Gongadze?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Someone else I’m going to meet?”
“Not if you’re lucky,” he said. “Gongadze was a Ukrainian journalist. In April 2000, he founded a news website,
“Sounds like he went looking for trouble,” she said.
“He did. And in a place like Ukraine, trouble isn’t hard to find.”
In June 2000, Cerny continued, Gongadze complained that he had been forced into hiding because of harassment from the secret police. He said he and his family were being followed, that his staff were being harassed, and that the SBU, the successor of the KGB, was spreading a rumor that he was wanted on a murder charge.
“Gongadze disappeared in September of 2000,” Cerny said. “Opposition politicians reported that the disappearance had coincided with Gongadze receiving documents on corruption within the president’s own entourage. The Ukrainian parliament set up an inquiry run by a special commission. Neither investigation produced any results.
“Two months later,” Cerny continued, “a body was found in a forest in the Taraschanskyi Raion district, forty miles outside Kiev. The corpse had been decapitated and doused in acid to make identification more difficult.”
Alex cringed. She could never get over man’s limitless cruelty. “The corpse was Gongadze, I assume,” she said.
“Oh, yes,” Cerny said. “A group of journalists identified the remains. His wife confirmed the same a few weeks later. But the government didn’t officially acknowledge that the body was that of Gon-gadze until the following February and did not definitively confirm it until as late as March 2003.
“The affair became an international crisis for the Ukrainian government during 2001. There were rumors of Ukrainian suspension from the Council of Europe. Mass demonstrations erupted in Kiev. The protests were forcibly broken up by the police.
“In May 2001, Interior Minister Yuri Smirnov announced that the murder had been solved. Conveniently, both of the alleged killers were now dead. The claim was so outrageous that it was dismissed by the government’s own prosecutor-general. Mass protests again broke out in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities in September 2002 to mark the second anniversary of Gongadze’s death. The demonstrators again called for Kuchma’s resignation, but the protests again failed to achieve their goal, with police breaking up the protesters’ camp.
“The prosecutor of the Tarascha district, where Gongadze’s body was found, was convicted in May 2003 for abuse of office and falsification of evidence,” Cerny said. “He was found guilty of forging documents and negligence in the investigation and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. However, he was immediately released due to a provision of Ukraine’s amnesty laws.
“In June 2004, the government claimed that a gangster identified only as ‘K’ had confessed to Gongadze’s murder, although there was no independent confirmation of the claim. Then a key witness died of spinal injuries sustained while in police custody.
“Gongadze’s death became a major issue in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election,” said Cerny. “The opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, pledged to solve the case if he became president. Yushchenko did become president following the subsequent Orange Revolution and immediately launched a new investigation.”
“Are you trying to scare me off this trip?” Alex asked.
“Not at all. I’m reminding you what you’re getting into. Ukraine is a dangerous, wide-open place. Exciting and endlessly interesting, but dangerous and wide open. ‘Frontier,’ remember?”
