We said nothing but “hello,” showing each other our cell phones with the text messages we had each sent. Formalities over, Anna, in the front passenger seat, turned and faced Timo. He held up her passport, carefully compared her smiling face to the photo, and asked a few personal questions that could only have originated in a database. Satisfied it was hers, Timo handed it forward. I watched the hotel driver through the windshield, his back to the car, nonchalantly smoking.
“There is more to passport than meets eye,” Timo started. “Yana Keitel made it too easy so I make a check at office. It not is good. Passport is tagged.”
“Of course, damn it! So, it’s no good?” I asked.
“Jess, so impatient, must let me finish. File says Anna is terrorist, dangerous, evade arrest in Kiev.”
“What! I’m a terrorist?” Anna shouted.
“Perhaps no, but that is what system says. Someone make charges against you maybe one week ago. You must not use passport in CIS.”
“Hoe-lee shit!” I said, knowing CIS was short for the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russian imposed designation that includes (or did at the time) a reluctant Ukraine. “Anna can’t leave Ukraine with that! What about other countries? She’ll be arrested almost anywhere.”
“Maybe, maybe no.” Timo explained. “Charges only there for one week now. CIS only, not time to, how you say in English, grow, like tree with many branch, leafs?”
“Propagate, you mean propagate through the police and immigration databases of other countries?”
“Jah, that is it. Maybe, maybe not. If someone in Moscow have lots of money and make charges, propagate very quickly. Nizhny Novgorod with not so much money, maybe not so fast. Maybe not get onto Interpol.”
“Mama takes my money from bank, takes stocks also.” Anna said. “Can that much money make trouble?”
“Possible. Anyhow, never use passport in Ukraine or Russia, no CIS! Maybe it be okay for in Bulgaria, Poland, Greece for two, three weeks — even Turkey, Israel, maybe. To tag passport not easy outside of CIS but possible with right people and much money.”
“Thanks Timo,” I sighed.
“Last time in Saratov you have plane ready to go. This time you don’t even have ticket. You must hurry, go.”
“Last time I had a job.”
“Yes. Terrible business.” Timo shook his head.
“You know about all that?”
He forced a grin.
“Whatever is done is done, I appreciate your doing this for me now.”
“I don’t always work for government and I maybe need favor some day. You two must go fast from this place. Be safe.” And with that he left the car, saluted the driver and disappeared into the terminal.
TWENTY
Flash! A brain piercing bolt of sunlight reflected from the terminal’s facade. I closed my eyes, begging the blind spot to fade.
“Back to the hotel?” The driver started the engine.
“No… I mean, okay, but wait just a minute.” Eyes still closed, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
A minute later the driver killed the engine. “Gasoline is expensive. Anytime you’re ready, let me know.”
Blink, blink, blink. I still had the shocked retinal after image, but no telltale jagged edges surrounded it. With luck I wasn’t getting a migraine. A genetic inheritance, or curse, that could incapacitate me with excruciating pain and loss of vision almost without warning. Something I’d lived with all my life. I popped the back door to get out.
“Jess, what are you doing?” It was Anna.
“Staying here. Just for a little while. I need to check on flights.”
Anna opened the front passenger door, stuck out a bright green Doc Marten clad foot.
“No, I want you to go back to the hotel with the driver. I won’t be long. I’ll take a taxi back.”
The driver started the engine obliterating Anna’s reply. I smiled and pressed my palm to the tinted window as the car pulled away.
Less-than-free countries’ propensity to decide on who can and who can’t leave, in conjunction with Anna’s passport being tagged, threw up serious roadblocks. I needed to scout the airport for a way of getting to the flight-side and onto a plane without going through Ukrainian passport control. In Saratov, chartering a passenger jet after befriending the airline’s chief pilot and loading the dazed passengers so early the previous night’s drunks still staggered on icy sidewalks, effectively eliminated the need for passport control. But in Odessa, I was on my own, facing commercial carriers with no contacts and no plan of action.
In the terminal, I watched passenger circulation, then used my credit card without incident to buy a one way ticket to Bucharest. So far, so good. The first real test came when the ticket agent examined my passport. A moment later she gave it back with a boarding pass allowing me to wait for departure on the other side of passport control.
Security was minimal. Ancient equipment, probably leaking enough x-ray radiation to cook a good size turkey, made for impressive optics. Bored looking personnel, decked out with assault weaponry, occupied various positions throughout the terminal. I thought they might be mannequins until one of them dug something out of his ear with a pinky finger. The crowd behaved, and things ran smoothly unless someone, convinced their suitcase wouldn’t survive without being mummified in layers of stretch wrap, was asked to open it.
The next step, passport control, was far more formidable than security. Personnel sat behind bullet proof glass, wearing Kevlar body armor. Their cubicles were equipped with modern workstations and scanning equipment. Of greatest interest to me were the thick fiber-optic network cables leading up into crudely hacked holes in the suspended ceiling. New toys for exceptionally well-equipped and officious agents. An officer, looking fresh out of boot-camp, took my passport and stared me down. I wondered what the chances were I’d be able to call the Canadian Vice Consul in Kiev if this went badly. He fed my passport to a scanner, stared at a screen I couldn’t see, and glared at me. I started to sweat.
“How you get here?” Kevlar man gave English his best shot.
“Through security. Here’s my boarding pass.” I answered in Russian.
“How did you get here, to Odessa? You arrived in Kiev. Why are you not leaving from Kiev?”
“Drove to Odessa with friends.”
He said nothing.
“In a car. I joined my friends in Kiev and we drove to Odessa in their car.”
Still nothing. I swear I could hear the air whistling in his nostrils.
“Nice drive?”
“What? Oh, the drive down. Yes, lovely. What a countryside.”
Then he asked me where I had stayed in Odessa and why I was going to Bucharest. I actually named the Windsor Arms before I could stop myself and suggested I’d do some hiking in Romania. I guess he was satisfied because he handed back my passport and boarding pass and waved me through.
In the vintage 1960’s lounge, I ordered some sort of cognac that tasted medicinal — they didn’t have decent whiskey — and planted myself by a glass wall overlooking the tarmac. Passengers deplaned into old trolley cars pulled by tractors. One of the smaller aircraft was being boarded by passengers walking the thirty meters or so from the terminal. As far as I could see, security was absent on the flight side, and ground crew in coveralls or jeans wandered around looking bored. I watched a blacked out sedan pull up to an isolated Airbus A320. The driver and an airline agent got out. The driver opened the back door for a bald man in a glossy business suit and long pointy shoes. Then the airline agent escorted the shiny suited man up the movable stairs and onto the plane. A few minutes later the car drove away and the hybrid tractor-trolley cars arrived at the jet with the regular passengers. At least I had gotten more than just cognac-fueled heartburn from my test run through the airport.