to apparent (i.e., observed) flux, taking into consideration an extra absorbing column that is estimated as the sum of two components: a uniform H[I]{} column density of $N_{H} \sim1.4 \times 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$ through the entire Galactic disk in the direction of Carina [@Dickey90][^1] and spatially variable absorption through the Carina molecular clouds. The cloud component is derived from the velocity-integrated maps of CO line emission obtained with the NANTEN telescope by @Yonekura05. The gas column density outside the dense molecular cores was estimated from the maps of $^{12}$CO emission intensity integrated over the velocity range of $-30$ to $-10$ km s$^{-1}$ ($I(^{12}$CO$)$ \[K km s$^{-1}$\]) using the relationship $N(H_2) = I(^{12}$CO$) \times 1.6 \times 10^{20}$ [@Yonekura05]. Adopting the gas-to-dust ratio of @Vuong03, these gas column densities correspond to visual extinctions up to $A_V \sim3$ mag in the molecular clouds. The dense core column densities are evaluated from the C$^{18}$O measurements and correspond to $A_V \sim5-10$ mag [Table 3 in @Yonekura05].

$Chandra$ source photon spectra were then simulated, and observed count rates and median energies were derived using the [*fakeit*]{} command of the XSPEC software package [@Arnaud96]. This program samples photons from the AGN spectrum, calculating the soft X-ray absorption by 