Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

The two women introduced themselves as Luda and Galina, both Ukrainians in the same line of work as I, but with different and complementary specialties. Our respective employers had briefed us about each other long before the wheels of my flight from Frankfurt kissed the frozen runway south of Kiev. Nonetheless, it was an uneasy meeting — they always are. The driver was Yevgeniy, a solidly built man who, when not behind the wheel, served as a bodyguard and general fixer of problems should they arise. Experience in the former East block had taught me that it was best to keep guys like that on your side.

It was three in the afternoon and I swear twilight was setting in. Yevgeniy brought the car to a sliding stop opposite an imposing building. Across a quiet ice entombed street the monolithic building presented a phalanx of massive wooden doors. Above the doors, in gold Cyrillic lettering, PROKURATURA was carved into black granite. Prokuratura means prosecutor and the building with the ominous moniker held the offices of The General Prosecutor of Ukraine , equivalent to the Attorney General. It was with the people in that building that the buck stopped, or the hryvnya , or the gold, or the Scotch, or the bullet — as the case may be. Activity in and around that building was what interested my employer, especially when it included the movements of one individual known as The Skater .

Across the street from the Prokuratura, we entered a typical nine story Soviet panel building. An apartment on the fourth floor had been rented for me. It offered a clear and useful view of the Prokuratura’s entrance, the polished black granite security stations, and the facade with its shuttered office windows. Most importantly, the street, the sidewalks, and the apartment’s own parking lot were all visible. It was outside the Prokuratura, in these innocuous places, that life and death were bought and sold and the future of Ukraine was frequently shaped.

Yevgeniy carried up the bags. A quick walkthrough satisfied him with the apartment’s security, and he silently left me with the two Ukrainians. I watched him from the window four stories up, driving off in a controlled skid. It’s a normal winter driving technique in parts of the world where glacial layers of ice are allowed to accumulate on the roads. The apartment was Spartan, cold and predominantly white. I was already looking forward to getting finished and getting out.

I watched Galina, one of the two Ukrainians, plug a hand-held device into a phone jack then monitor the results on her mobile phone. What took me by surprise was that she was easily seven months pregnant, yet it didn’t seem to matter. She just carried on with military precision and zeal. I wasn’t sure what she did in real life, but I think it involved heavy construction. Everything about Galina was no-nonsense and no bull-shit. She was definitely the one in charge.

Luda, on the other hand, was a curvaceous older woman. She went through the apartment worrying about my comfort as though I were a guest at a bed and breakfast. While Galina worried about sight-lines, listening devices, and egress, Luda fretted over the fridge having been stocked with ham and sausage.

“Oh Lord, you do not eat meat. How many times I have told them and still they fill the fridge with ham and kielbasa.” Luda said in Russian. “You do not eat ham, yes?”

“Don’t worry about it. And no, I don’t eat ham, but please take it. Don’t waste it.”

“No, this is not right. You are a guest in this country. I am so sorry.”

“Luda!” Galina interrupted.

“What?”

“Go shopping.”

“Shopping?” Luda asked.

“Go shopping. Go buy food down the street. Bring it back. Put it in the fridge. Take the meat. Give it to your grandmother. Problem solved!”

At that point I jumped in. “ Nyet problem — no problem. I can shop for myself.”

“Nyet! Luda is going shopping now.” After a hurried conference referencing beans and rice, cheese, eggs, noodles and appropriate sauces, Luda headed out the door.

Galina had finished her sweep of the apartment by the time I was unpacking the specialized hardware Gavin provided me for this trip. She feigned disinterest without success. “Mobile scanner. Direction finding? Built-in packet sniffer or do you jack it into your notebook?”

“It’s faster with processor support.” I smiled, knowing Gavin would be pleased by the interest in his handiwork.

“She is really not so bad” Galina changed topic.

“Huh, who?”

“Luda. She is having a hard time now. She has been living with her grandmother since her apartment was destroyed. Sometimes she is like a big grown-up kid. Those fancy clothes cost her far too much. Those ridiculous high boots,” she shook her head, “Cannot even run in those.”

I noticed Galina was wearing combat boots. “Her Apartment was destroyed ? What happened?”

“I never saw, I only heard, but it was pretty bad. A flood, her dog nearly drowned, everything else, she lost. The building was crushed by ice. She is living with her grandmother quite near here. Do not worry. She is a good resource, works hard and knows many people. She will do very helpful things.”

“Like getting groceries?” I snorted. “By the way, what is her job in real life?”

“I am not sure. I think in the mornings she is a kindergarten teacher. For us she can reach the right people, make connections and liaise with them.”

A couple of high-pitched electronic pops and squeals heralded the beginning of a megaphone diatribe on the street below. An elderly woman wrapped in an army surplus greatcoat was positioned across from the huge doors of the Prokuratura. Her wails of despair and shouted acrimony, made almost indecipherable by the over-driven magnetic coil of her hand-held megaphone, started ricocheting off the Prokuratura, and right into my apartment.

“Shit! This won’t be good for the jet lag.” I moaned.

“Get used to it. This is nothing.” Galina said. “You think we are the only ones who know about the corruption going on over there?” She reached into her military issue canvas bag and withdrew a bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey. “Maybe this will help.”

“Not vodka! This is my favorite. How did you know, lucky guess?” I grabbed a couple of glasses.

“A lucky guess, sure,” Sarcasm’s international. Then she got serious. “Just one glass, only for you. He is too young to drink.” Galina pointed at her belly.

“You know it’s a boy?”

“No, it is only a feeling. I stay away from clinics. Too many questions.”

The woman on the street with the megaphone was working her way into a virtuosic cadenza ornamented with curses, accusations and the wrath of God, when Luda arrived with groceries. Putting the bags down on the counter, she spoke to me, almost apologetically, “Also you need hryvnya, the Ukrainian currency, yes? I took the liberty of exchanging twenty dollars for one hundred hryvnya.”

“Twenty dollars isn’t very much. Shouldn’t I have more than that?”

Galina looked at me with a big grin. “This is Ukraine; things are cheaper here.”

The next morning I awoke to a chorus of shouting and chanting. A soprano obbligato of distant sirens was working into a long crescendo. It was going to be a long day. My jet lagged body insisted it was bedtime. The bargain-store clock radio showed it just past 9 am. Looking out the window, I saw the street below filled with color coordinated demonstrators waving flags and banners, swarming toward the Prokuratura.

I didn’t know whether to duck and cover or scramble for my camera. Two armies of exuberant youth approached from opposite directions, one in matching red vests waving the Soviet hammer and sickle, and the other wearing blue, flying the banners of a Kremlin supported party. I was in pajamas and it was cold enough in the apartment to see my breath. I was mesmerized, watching the red front approach the blue front. Would they merge and become purple? Color! It’s all about color! I slapped a roll of Kodachrome 64 into the Leicaflex and started shooting.