“Sorry, no, you’re on your own there. I inquired, but as things stand there’s nothing to be done. She’s on her own until she reaches Canada, and with her or without her, you need to leave here now! There was an inquiry at the Embassy yesterday after you left. Police were at the Embassy yesterday after you left. They have photos and a bulletin out for you and the Russian.”
“A bulletin for what? When did that happen?” I was stalling for time, trying to think through and assess the new data.
“Yesterday, I’d assume. It doesn’t take them long when someone’s looking for you with deep pockets. But Ms. Ducat, it doesn’t matter. It’s what they think or what they’ve been paid to think. You know how it works. It is a good thing that you’ve moved to alter your appearances somewhat, at least. You have to get out — now — and don’t use transport that requires identification. That means any, and I mean any, public bus, train, plane or donkey cart that leaves the city.”
I nodded, took a long sip of steaming coffee — Tim Horton’s, no doubt — and looked at the Michelin road map of Ukraine masking taped to the wall.
“If you insist on taking the girl, which I must emphasize that I do not recommend, then you might consider Odessa. It’s on the coast, not too far, has an airport and a seaport… worth a thought, anyhow. I can offer you the use of a room here in the Embassy to shower and rest up, and I would ask you to keep in touch whatever you decide to do, but aside from that, you are on your own.”
“Well, thanks. ‘On my own,’ happens to be the story of my life nowadays.”
We took advantage of the Embassy’s offer of a shower and a proper meal. I found Anna’s incredulity at the kindness of the Embassy personnel vaguely amusing, kind of endearing, but ultimately unsettling. Canada might be paradise, but for the moment it was pretty much out of reach.
FOURTEEN
Riding back to Mandarin Plaza, in a death-trap taxi, I mentally went over our options and their ramifications. I had been to Odessa and was reasonably familiar with it. It seemed as good a place as any to hide out and buy time.
A throng of cars choked the passenger drop-off area just outside the plaza’s ultra-modern glass foyer. Among the metallic herd of expensive, blacked out sedans disgorging businessmen, were at least a few regular looking passenger vehicles. In the former USSR, and much of the world for that matter, there are official taxis with a little sign affixed to the roof of a usually seriously decrepit car — like the one we’d just gotten out of — and there are regular private vehicles with drivers eager to offset their costs by driving for hire. Virtually any semi-serviceable vehicle with a driver is a potential taxi. I spotted a sound looking, nondescript light blue Opel by the curb, engine idling. The driver sat behind the wheel reading a paper.
“Screw it!” I started toward the Opel.
“Jess?”
“Time to get the hell out of here. You coming?”
“You mean now? To Odessa, by car?”
“Don’t see an alternative. It’s too far to walk and we can’t take the train.” I knocked on the passenger window. The driver signaled us into the car. I eased myself onto the front passenger seat and Anna got in the back.
“Where to?” The curly blonde driver, thirtyish, conservatively dressed in a shirt and tie, and still focused on his paper, asked.
“Odessa.”
“Train station or airport?”
“Just downtown. Near the Odessa Opera House.” It would put us in the hotel district.
“All right, wherever. Are you going by train or plane?” He folded the paper, slapped it on the dash and glared at me.
“No, you misunderstand.” I said. “We need to get to Odessa and we would like to get there by car. Can you drive us, and if so, for how much?”
He put the car in gear and pulled around the corner. “Odessa is very far. A thousand kilometers, certainly. Very expensive to drive there.” He spoke to me in simple Russian, recognizing my foreign accent.
“It’s about six hundred kilometers. How about two hundred dollars, cash.” I said.
Anna, in the backseat, was silent.
“You crazy? That won’t buy gas! I need to drive back from Odessa and the car belongs to my brother-in-law.” He’d reverted to completely colloquial Russian.
“Fine, two fifty, cash, no names, and we go now.”
“Blyad, you are on the run or you would take the train. Maybe you murdered someone. Maybe drugs. I don’t care, but I need something for my risk.”
I upped the offer. “Three hundred — take it or we get out and find another car.”
Anna popped the back door, stuck a leg out.
“Okay, okay, okay, three hundred in American dollars and I want to see it. We get pulled over and it is everyone for himself. All I know is you missed your tour bus or something.” He handed me a card. “My name is Dmitri.”
Anna got back in.
Keeping the cash concealed, I thumbed fifteen twenties from the wad in my pocket, pulled it out, showed it to him, and off we went. Our first stop was a couple hours south of Kiev: a seedy truck-stop with hookers trolling the idling rigs. A crumbling building, once a Soviet stalovaya — cafeteria — made up to look like a Swiss mountain chalet, was surrounded by rusting car and truck hulks. Dmitri needed a payphone. He claimed his cell phone didn’t work outside Kiev. Waiting, we leaned against the car, matching the suspicious stares of working girls, one for one.
“Jess, how can you know they are prostitutes?”
“Know anyone who isn’t that wears short-shorts, fishnets, spike heels and bares their midriff in winter?” Honestly, I was starting to wonder if Anna was actually Russian and just how sheltered an existence she had endured.
Dmitri swaggered toward us, hitching up his trousers. “Oye, I forgot, it’s a long trip. I need junk food and pop.” He stuck his hand out.
“What?”
“Money. I’m not driving all the way there hungry.”
I pulled some Ukrainian bills from my wallet.
“Dollars, give me dollars. They work better.” He snatched a twenty from my hand. “You ladies want something?”
“Can’t afford it. Just bring me the change and let’s get going.”
Laughing, he headed for the chalet.
On the road again, Dmitri sucked back can after can of some kind of highly caffeinated energy drink. Anna slept blissfully in the backseat while the Ukrainian steppe passed hypnotically by. An endlessly undulating prairie of snow and stubble accented occasionally with clumps of brush, rusting machinery, and lonely decaying buildings. I dozed off with my head wedged between the seat and the doorpost. Until I was jerked awake from the depths of a nightmare involving swerving, honking and revving engines, to find Dmitri in the heat of a caffeine fueled highway duel with a delivery van. I didn’t even know a delivery van could actually go 180 km/h! It took threatening to chuck his three hundred out the window to get him to finally break it off.
At first he’d come across as a decent enough guy. On the highway, however, he morphed into a total jerk. I was counting the kilometers to Odessa, when a police roadblock appeared over a rise. Of course, we were signaled over. I groaned, surreptitiously peeling a couple of twenties from the wad in my pocket. I slipped them to Dmitri.
“You’ve done this before.” He sneered, getting out to meet the officer walking toward us.
They chatted on the shoulder a couple of meters ahead of the car. I scanned the ditch and the frozen field beyond, running the odds Dmitri would kiss off the three hundred for a chance to sell us out. I noticed he’d taken the keys. Eventually, though, Dmitri and the officer shook hands, he got back in and I breathed a sigh of relief. “That forty does not come out of my three hundred,” Dmitri said, pulling away from the shoulder and waving genially to the officer.