8

Boris Borisovich Popov called his office to say that
he was feeling under the weather. The doctor had
told him he would have to take it easy for a few days,
he explained. Some colleagues were surprised. Boris
Borisovich's slight build and adolescent features occasionally
resembled those of a sickly child, but he was probably
the most industrious and most disciplined man among
them. 'Working with him was a pleasure,' one of them
remarked later, 'you couldn't find anyone better in the
whole service.'

Despite crying off work, Popov did not take to his bed,
but - fit as a fiddle - walked out of his apartment, hailed
a cab and made his way to Kiev's Borispol airport, where
he checked in for a flight to Odessa. Originally from
Donetsk in eastern Ukraine and with Russian as his
mother-tongue, his presence down south would not arouse
suspicion provided he kept his wits about him.

On arrival in Odessa, he took a bus into town. It
was a hot July day. The temperature was in the low
eighties, but was made pleasant by a cheerful breeze
coming off the Black Sea. Before long, Popov had
found the private apartment he had rented. Within
hours his three teammates had turned up - Natasha
Obrizan and Messrs Grishko and Baranets. 'We
couldn't stay in a hotel,' explained Boris, 'because we
didn't trust the local police.' Only one other person
in the whole country knew they were in Odessa: the
Minister of the Interior.

Six months earlier Ukraine had undergone a dramatic
convulsion - the Orange Revolution. This exceptionally
fertile country, with the potential to provide the continent
of Europe with more or less all the food it needs, was
no stranger to drama. Twentieth-century regimes