Adam Osmayev—his hand on the wheel, his gaze out the window—was trying hard to make sense of where he was headed. As he nosed his car down a quiet street on the industrial outskirts of Kiev, he noted the tableau of blight: grim warehouses, hulking Soviet-era apartments. In recent weeks, he'd begun adjusting to life in the city, to life far from the battlefield. But he still carried a soldier's sense of unease. Something out here felt strange. Of course, in Kiev, nothing ever feels quite right.

In the backseat, his wife, Amina Okuyeva, studied the hardscrabble neighborhood too. Like Adam, she wasn't expecting trouble, though she'd been trained to stay alert to its potential. The couple was due soon at an appointment at the French Embassy, but they couldn't possibly be headed in the right direction, she thought. Why would an embassy be way out here?

Up front sat Alex Werner, a French journalist for Le Monde, the Parisian daily, providing directions and sounding reassuring. Don't worry, he told the couple, he knew the way. In fact, he told them, they were running a bit early. And so, Werner asked Adam to pull the car over. They could wait for a bit, Werner explained, as the car rolled to a stop on a patch of grass beside a bus stop.

Usually, it was Adam who took charge; Adam who made the plans and plotted the routes. As a commander in the Ukrainian army, he'd spent the past couple of years fighting pro-Russian troops in the east. His wife, Amina, had too, becoming famous as a sniper in a guerrilla outfit. But they were putting the war behind them now. They'd moved to Kiev and were starting over, as best they could. Of course, they knew the exploits of their past would follow them. After all, that's what had lured Werner, the journalist.

The couple had been meeting with him for the past ten days, sharing the tales of adventure and daring they'd acquired in their years fighting Russia. Their saga of love and violence, Werner told them, sounded just like a movie. He wanted to help make a documentary, he said, and before they could think twice about the idea, he'd pulled a film project together. Now only a few details remained, including a trip to the French Embassy, where, Werner had explained, the couple needed to deal with a contract.

On that languid afternoon last June, as the trio sat waiting in the car, Werner seemed grateful for some time alone with Adam and Amina. He'd grown to like the couple, he told them, and—while they waited—he had a gift for Amina. He wanted them to open it together and asked Adam to join his wife in the backseat. The ceremony of the moment seemed strange to Adam, but he'd gotten used to the journalist's eccentricities and he was curious about the present.

With the couple seated together, the journalist plopped a bag onto his lap and pulled out an ornate red box with lush gold lettering. As he did, Adam noticed something unsettling: beads of perspiration on Werner's cheeks. Facing the couple now, Werner opened the red box, revealing a black Glock semiautomatic pistol glinting on a bed of white tissue paper.

In an instant, with his eye on the gun, everything became clear to Adam. He lunged forward and grabbed it by the barrel, thrusting the weapon upward. But Werner had taken the pistol firmly by the stock and as he jerked it down, he squeezed the trigger. A bullet tore into Adam's chest. He felt himself going numb, but he grabbed for the gun again.