“Well, at least they’re paying lip service to democracy,” she said.
“Ukraine’s a plutocracy. No matter which side is in power, many things continue the same way they’ve gone on since before the time of the Cossacks. The corruption, the gangsterism never changes.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said.
He paused for a second. “I skipped one detail,” he said.
She waited.
“The Ukrainian underworld plays very dirty and they play for keeps. The acid bath and the decapitation that Gongadze received?”Cerny said. “They did it to him while he was still alive.”
She let it sink in for a moment, then, “If you want me to participate in a CIA operation,” she asked, “why didn’t you just tell me that? And why don’t you tell me what you really want to know about Yuri Federov instead of putting me through all this crap?”
“Everything will make sense eventually,” he said. “Any scrap of information you get out of him could prove very useful, particularly on the range of his businesses and foreign trade partners. And if everything goes well, you’ll never see me again afterward.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you disappeared right now for the rest of this evening,” she said. It was almost 6:00 p.m. She was beat.
“I’m about to,” he answered.
“You mean I can go home now?”
He laughed. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “The night is young.”
He stood and went to the door. He knocked.
A moment later, Olga entered with all the delicacy of a Panzer division. She had a one-liter bottle of Classic Coke in one hand and a large bag of pork rinds in the other, ready to continue well into the evening.
“Now,” Olga said. “You tell me personal stuff. Why you go to Ukraine. Who you are. Personal stuff. In Ukrainian, hey?”
“In Ukrainian?”
“Yes,” Olga said, sitting back. “Pork rind?” she offered. “They very good.”
Alex sighed and began.
TWENTY-ONE
On the first day of February, four evenings before her departure, Alex opted to go to the gym. She fell into her usual game of pick-up basketball. Robert went to the same gym to lift weights. As was his habit, as he cooled down, he watched Alex’s game.
Alex was the playmaker for her team, the point guard who handled the ball and set the tone. He liked to watch her compete, her body strong but feminine, quick and agile, with solid strategy behind each move.
This evening, the other team had added yet another new player, a young man with a University of Kentucky T-shirt. He had been a varsity reserve forward for a successful team in the SEC. The new kid was very good. The game was a struggle. Alex’s team kept fighting from behind. Ben and the Kentucky kid constantly battling under the hoop. Alex’s team stayed within three or four points the whole time.
With thirty seconds to go, Alex had scored a dozen points. Ben had twenty-six. But their team remained down by three. Alex sank a short jump shot with twelve seconds to go on the clock. Then, as the other side prepared to kill the clock, Alex faked going back down court, turned quickly and cut directly in front of the new player, figuring the in-bounds pass would be to him.
She had a clear shot from the outside, about ten feet from the basket, but she threw Ben a laserlike eye-high pass. Ben followed with a short jump shot, getting as high as he could on his one good leg, over the reach of the off-balance backpedaling Kentucky kid. Their team had its first lead of the night, 34-33. Three seconds later the opponents threw up a desperation shot that went off the offensive backboard, as time ran out.
The winning players mobbed each other in celebration. Ben, with big powerful arms, looked to Alex who had stolen the ball and fed him the great pass. He hoisted Alex up in jubilation, hugged her tightly, bussed her cheek, and swung her around before setting her down again and passing along hugs to other hot sweaty survivors of the game: Laura, Fred, Juan.
When Alex met Robert a few minutes later, he seemed distant. When they met in the gym’s lobby after showers, she asked what was bothering him and he explained.
“I didn’t care much for the way that big guy with the missing leg picked you up and swung you around,” he said.
“Who? Ben?”
“If that’s his name.”
“That’s his name, and he doesn’t have a
“You know what I mean.”
There was silence as they walked out of the gym to their cars.
At first she was miffed. Then she tried to explain it away.
“It wasn’t anything,” Alex said to him. “Ben is an Iraq war vet and he’s just getting his head straight again. He didn’t mean anything by it. After what he went through in that insane war, I’m happy to have him as a teammate. I’m happy to see he can still play basketball.”
“I just didn’t like it,” Robert repeated. “Him grabbing you like that. He doesn’t own you.”
“Do
“That’s not my point.”
They stopped just outside the door. The night was sharply cold, but dry.
“Then what
“Maybe. Yes.”
She thought about it. As was their habit, even if she didn’t agree with him, she wanted to see his side of things. His feelings.
“All right,” she said. “Look, when I see Ben next, I’ll tell him that my fiance saw the touchy stuff and didn’t like it.”
“Why don’t you tell him that you didn’t like it, either?”
She felt herself start to grow angry again, one of the first times there had ever been any contention between them.
“The truth is,” she said, “I didn’t mind. I didn’t think anything of it. Laura Chapman was in the game too. She hugged me afterwards too, and Ben hugged her and Laura has a boyfriend, too. It’s not like Laura and I are taking showers together with Ben handing us the soap.”
“It’s okay if Laura gives you a hug. It’s not okay if a guy does it.”
“You’re being crazy.” She turned and walked toward her car.
“I’m telling you about something that bothers me,” he said, following. “I would think that would be important to you.”
She thought about it. They arrived at her car. Now she just wanted to defuse the issue.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “When I see Ben I’ll tell him you didn’t like what you saw, and I didn’t like it either, and he should never do it again.”
“Thank you. You tell him that.”
“I promise,” she said. A pause. “Okay?”
A longer pause. “Okay,” he finally said.
He kissed her good night. They left separately.
The next morning her cell phone rang on the way to work. She was driving on Connecticut Avenue, a few blocks from Treasury.
She looked at the phone’s screen and recognized Robert’s number. She answered.
“Hello,” he said. “Me.”
“Hello, you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything to Ben.”
