Free Conspiracy in Kiev by Noel Hynd Page A

match. A mini-inferno followed; lights started to go on around the block and the team of killers fled the scene of the executions.

TWELVE
     
    A few hours after the sun rose in Washington, Alex sat in her office at Treasury and received the official word from her boss, Mike Gamburian. She was to reassign every other case on her docket and immerse herself in Ukrainian language and background immediately. She would have two days to wrap up current operations and complete their reassignment to others. Half the cases she was happy to be rid of. And strangely enough, she was quickly coming around on the idea of getting back out into the field.
    “As a precaution, you should visit the firing range again,” Michael Cerny had also said, walking Alex to her car earlier in the day. “Colosimo’s. You know the place, right?”
    “I know it.”
    “Do you still have a weapon in good working order, or should we requisition a new one for you?”She had grown up around long weapons and had trained meticulously with handguns during her years with the FBI. But since she had come over to FinCen, target practice had been an extracurricular that she hadn’t had much time for. Frankly, she had always enjoyed it and had missed not doing it. She was good at it.
    “I have a Glock 9,” she said. “It’s only two years old.”
    “Excellent. I suppose you use it to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder in your off hours.”
    “How did you know?”
    “We know everything. Federal permit still valid?”
    “If you know everything, you should know that.”
    “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.
    “Good idea.”
    “Then you’re in business. I doubt that you’ll see anything other than a few ceremonial cannons going off in Kiev,” Cerny said, “but one can never be too cautious. Keep in mind, you won’t be able to travel with your Glock. So if you need one in Ukraine, your control officer will need to deliver it to you.”
    “I understand,” Alex answered.
    “I do admire your attitude,” he said.
    And in truth, with recurring images of the chainsawed auto in Lagos still in her mind, the opportunity to hit the firing range again could do no harm. Might as well pack some heat if she was going to a dangerous place. And during a presidential visit, the more friendly weapons in the area, the safer the president would be. At least, that was the theory.
    To end the same day, Michael Cerny took Alex to another room in the State Department. There he introduced Alex to the woman who was to be her Ukrainian language instructor over the next two weeks.
    Her name was Olga Liashko, and she was built like one of those Soviet tractors from the mid-1950s. She was a large thick woman, taller than Alex by half a head, wider by the same amount. She was somewhere in her sixties and had grown up during the Soviet era. It stood to reason that she hadn’t led the easiest or happiest of lives. She had been raised in a military family from Odessa and spoke Ukrainian natively.
    A mass of gray hair framed Olga’s bulky face. The whites of her eyes were more pinkish than white, and she had heavy bags beneath both. She wore a work shirt like a blazer and had on a pair of men’s painter’s pants. Her stomach was low and chunky like an old man’s. An idle but amusing thought shot back to Alex. A girlfriend in college used to call the condition Dunlap’s disease. Her belly “done lapped”over her belt.
    “Olga has been with us since emigrating in 1982,” Cerny said helpfully. “She’s FSI’s top Ukrainian gal,” he said, referring to the Foreign Service Institute. “None better. Knows the language forward and back. Her dad was in the military in the big war. Olga will be your tutor. You start tomorrow afternoon.”
    Olga said nothing. Instead, she stared disapprovingly at the younger woman, running her gaze up and down. Alex was six inches shorter, and half her weight.
    “Very nice to meet you,” Alex said.
    “Be prepared yourself to work