The European Enigma (LSD, #9)

42. The Ukrainian Undercover

The Ukrainian Undercover

"I'm in trouble, Boss. Help me."

"Number Three! (read: #3!) You're supposed to be in a top-secret undercover operation in a foreign country. All the rules in our book prohibit you from contacting me via a direct call on an open line. I'm going to hang up now and you can send your request via the proper channels."

"NO! Don't hang up! I'm arrested. I'm allowed one phone call. After that, I'm condemned to remain silent for the rest of my life about this. I'm in the Ukraine, Boss. Laws are different here. I don't even have the right to a lawyer, or, more precisely, I do have the right to a lawyer, but they can't find anyone who studied long enough to become one."

The Boss hesitated: "Are you alone? Can you talk without being overheard?"

"I have 123 armed guards standing around me, all pointing their weapons at me. This phone is probably bugged, and the call is almost certainly taped, but as long as we talk Letzeburgesch together, they can't find anyone who's able to translate what we're saying. So just mind your words and keep your tongue away from sentences like your answer to my request for help. Okay?"

The Boss rewound his photographic memory vlog and felt a shiver run down his spine when he remembered how he broke every rule in the book that prohibited him to talk about top-secret undercover operations in foreign countries via an open phone line that was probably bugged and almost certainly taped, but as he had written that book all by himself, he didn't pay much attention to the consequences, and continued with the conversation: "Tell me about the trouble."

"I'm at Donetsk International Airport. After leaving the plane, I had to pass through one of these gates, you know, like the ones they use before you board the plane to make sure you don't have mortal weapons of mass destruction on you, killer tools like a bottle of water or a nail file."

The Boss interrupted: "If there's a law in Ukraine that tells passengers to pass such a gate before entering the country, there's nothing I can do. Follow the law."

"I've passed such a gate before my take off in Milan, and there was nothing wrong. And now I pass this gate here and all the alarm bells go off. In less than a second, ten armed guards surrounded me. They ordered me to take off my shoes and pass the gate again."

"That's just normal procedure. I don't see any problem."

"I didn't see any problem either. I took off my shoes and passed the gate. This time, not only the alarm bells went off, but I also started a complete laser show. The ten armed guards asked for backup and instructed me to take off my belt, my watch, and my jewellery, take out my gold teeth, remove my metal limbs, and then pass the gate again. And what do you think?"

"I think it went smooth and clean this time. Is it important what I think? Tell me what happened!"

"Of course, the bells went off, the laser show illuminated the entire building, authorities evacuated all the other passengers and personnel from the entrance hall, and the armed forces doubled once again, forming a double circle around me and the gate. They instructed me to take off my socks, but I didn't wear any. They instructed me to take off my wig, but I don't have one. The only thing left to take off was my dress."

"And you refused, of course. And they started a fight. But you are a trained professional, so you killed them all and now you call me to ask me what to do with the bodies?"

"BOSS! I took off my dress, of course, and I passed the gate again, and it kept ringing like your phone during dinner, when all those tele-sell-companies call to convince you it's time to buy their products. I was in my underwear and their stupid alarm kept ringing."

"Tell me about your underwear. Is it that red leather set you bought in Rome? Or is it the one with the leopard print you bought in Paris? Or is it that black tiny set of lace with so little cloth that I wonder why it cost so much?"

"BOSS! It's the silk pink set with the butterflies that my husband bought for me to wear during our honeymoon."

"Your husband?"

Oops. Even a Secret Service agent has one or two sneaky secrets she didn't tell her boss.

"I'm making this up, right? There are probably people listening here to what you and I have to tell each other. And I'm not calling you to inform you about my love life; I'm calling you because you're my last hope. The clip on the back of my bra is made of metal. It's just a tiny clip. It didn't ring any bells in any other airport in Europe, but those 123 armed guards order me to take it off and pass the gate again. They are terribly afraid I'm having two arms of mass destruction in my bra. They want to see it, touch it, feel it, smell it, taste it, and make sure it's all natural what I have there. No ticking silicone implants I might try to smuggle into the country. They've had a war here, they say, and they changed the law to make sure, double sure, triple sure, no weapons enter anymore. They want me to uncover my final cover to verify that my female beauty is not the result of an operation. That's not the plan at all for our planned undercover operation."

"I see... I mean... I understand your problem. But this is all a matter of national security. If the law is like that, there isn't much I can do about it. You need to follow their instructions. And if the law tells you to remain silent, you don't write a #metoo-story about it, either. Do you understand your rights? Don't worry. You're doing this for your country. Nobody will get hurt. Those are not guns these guards have in their trousers; they're just happy to take care of you. It's for your own security."

"No help?"

"It's the law. There's nothing I can do. But I have a plan, something I can't tell you on the phone, something that might need a bit of time. You need to give me a hand and buy me that time. Can you do that?"

"How?"

"Don't take your bra off just like that; make a show out of it. Turn on the speakers of your spiPhone and play «Wild Thing» by The Troggs, make everything groovy, move your hips, dance to the beat, touch your ankles and move your hands up your legs slowly, show them what you've got, what those 123 armed guards don't have at home, make their heart sing, grab your breasts, push them up and show them your centrefold, play with your hair, play with the metal clip, turn around, let them rule and let them drool, release the fastener but hold the bra in your hands, don't give away your secret treasures too easy... You know the drill. Make a show out of it. Buy me the time to take measures. Okay? Can you do that? I'm going to hang up now. Don't worry. I'll do what I can."

The Boss hung up and immediately made an encrypted phone call over a secure line to #2, The Nerd: "I want you to drop everything, now, and hack the video recording system on Donetsk International Airport. I want every available image from the entrance hall on every terminal on my desk, and I want them NOW!"

The Nerd hesitated: "Isn't that against almost every European law?"

The Boss didn't care: "I don't care. I don't have time to waste on discussions about laws. If you want to talk about laws, I'll make sure you'll need a lawyer. You have the right to remain silent and you have the right to do your job or be fired by the firing squad. There's an emergency going on there. All alarms went off and 123 armed guards were called to handle the situation. I need to see it and hear the sound too. I want those images, NOW!"

"Images coming up, Boss, on terminals 1, 3, 7 and 32."