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?”
She saw and understood. Where others saw quaint and architecturally fascinating old buildings, a professional bodyguard saw only the potential for trouble. Every angle for attack had to be blocked, every window closed, every rooftop covered, every manhole bolted down.
As they stood in the square together, savoring their few moments, Robert put an arm around Alex and held her tightly.
Martin was still looking around at the buildings again.
“With modern weaponry,” he said slowly, “the official Secret Service Red Zone is four fifths of a mile. That’s fourteen hundred yards, fourteen football fields lined up back to back. Sounds like a long way, but it isn’t. A bullet from a modern high-velocity rifle can travel that distance in less than a second. That means, if the target is stationery, with a head bowed in prayer. Giving a speech, shaking a hand…”
His voice trailed off.
“God protect us,” he said. “We need all the help we can get.”
“We’re going to need to have our own people on every rooftop,” Robert said. “Helicopters overhead, security checkpoints, not a single window open anywhere that you can see from here.”
“Almost impossible,” said Martin.
“Think the president will cancel the appearance?” Alex asked.
Martin and Robert shook their heads.
“Einstein, that’s the president,” Martin said, “hasn’t come this far just to have a couple of lousy pictures taken with a bunch of Bulgarian farmers and washerwomen. No way there’s a cancellation now.”
“We’re not in Bulgaria. We’re in Ukraine,” Robert said, holding back his amusement.
“Yeah, right. You can tell the difference?” he asked.
“Not from the inside of a hotel,” Robert allowed.
“We’ve tried to talk Einstein into wearing a bulletproof vest,” Martin said, “but the boss won’t listen. Like Kennedy ordering that the bulletproof bubble not be used on his limousine. Stubborn and egotistical. They all are, but I knew that already.”
“And Reagan, Truman, and Ford,” Robert continued. “The joker in the deck is always the president’s desire, any politician’s desire, to be in the center of all the attention.”
Alex stifled a shiver. Martin caught it.