Scorpion Winter (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Centralny Vokzal

Kyiv, Ukraine

T
hey spent the night in a first-class sleeper compartment on the overnight train to Dnipropetrovsk. Two beds narrow as coffins and facing benches so close, if they both sat at the same time, their knees were touching. The curtains were drawn over a window caked with ice as the train rocked across the countryside in the darkness.

Iryna had changed into wool clothes, a synthetic down overcoat, and a woolen hat pulled down over a curly blond wig. When she met him on the freezing platform of the Central Station, he had barely recognized her. She gave him a start because in the blond wig, she looked like Alyona in the pouty photo. She could have been any pretty Ukrainian blonde. Scorpion had changed his image too. Instead of a suit and overcoat, he wore a heavy sweater, jeans, ski jacket, and a wool cap. Designed so no one would give him a second glance.

Back at the apartment over the pub she had asked him: “Who the bloody hell are you?”

“I'm exactly who you think I am,” he'd told her.

“Are you CIA?”

He shook his head.

“How do I know you're not working for the other side?”

“Anyone who speaks Russian as badly as I do couldn't possibly be working for the other side.” He paused. “Why didn't you tell Kozhanovskiy?”

“You know why.”

“To protect the campaign? Is that what this is?” he asked. “Trying to live up to Daddy?”

“Self-preservation,” she replied, shaking her head. “You said it yourself when you first came to see me. The trail leads back to me.”

Now, settled in the compartment, they didn't talk about what happened on the train platform.

A crowd of about twenty tough-looking men wearing black armbands began grabbing people. They let some alone and shouted at others. Then all at once fighting broke out. A group of the men with armbands surrounded a man with his wife. They manhandled the woman aside and began beating the man with their fists. He fell to the platform. One of the men took out a workman's hammer, and the man screamed as his hands and knees were smashed with the hammer. The assailant continued to hit him in the face with the hammer, while the other men crowded around and kicked him as he lay on the platform.

Three of the men with armbands had come up to Scorpion and Iryna.

“Cherkesov abo Kozhanovskiy?”
one of them asked.

Scorpion grabbed Iryna's arm.

“My z Kanady,”
Scorpion had said—We're from Canada—meanwhile staring at the men savagely kicking the fallen man on the platform whose face was bleeding and who could no longer protect himself.

The man questioning Scorpion had followed his glance.

“Ne khvylyuy tesya,”
he said.
“Vin prosto Zhid.
” Don't concern yourself, he's just a Jew, waving it off. Scorpion felt Iryna start to move forward and tightened his grip on her arm.

“Remember why we're here,” he whispered to her, turning them away from the beating.

I
n the train, the female
suputnikh
brought them tea and biscuits. Iryna lit a Dunhill cigarette, her fingers trembling. For a long time neither of them spoke. It was warm inside the car, and Scorpion took off his heavy sweater.

“Maybe we're on a fool's errand. We should let him kill Cherkesov,” Iryna said finally, meaning Pyatov.

“Is war better?”

“I don't know,” she said, looking away. “He hasn't been elected yet and look what he's doing. I'm watching my country commit suicide.”

“It isn't pretty,” he said.

They sipped tea and listened to the rhythm of the wheels on the track.

“What will you do when we get to Dnipropetrovsk?” she asked.

“I assume you have someone undercover with the Cherkesov campaign?”

She nodded. “You won't tell me anything about yourself?”

“What about you? Are you married?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. He was older. Like my father.”

“What happened?”

“He wanted a pretty ornament. I outgrew it—him. I'm nobody's anything,” she said, tossing her hair. “Your father? What was he like?” she asked.

“I hardly knew him,” Scorpion said.
“
We'd only been together about a week, then he died. I was four.” He was surprised to find himself telling her the truth. She had that effect on him, or perhaps it was the compartment, the intimacy of it: the one overhead light, the darkness outside, the rocking of the train detached from the rest of the world.

“What about your mother?” she asked.

“She was already dead. They'd been separated.”

“So who raised you?”

He thought about Arabia. The hot days and starry nights and Sheikh Zaid, the closest thing to a father he'd ever had. He thought about the Mutayr, the Bedouin tribe that saved him from the Saar and took him in, and his strange Arabian Huck Finn childhood and the paths it had taken had somehow brought him to Ukraine in the dead of winter.

“It's a long story,” he said.

“It's four hundred kilometers to Dnipropetrovsk,” Iryna replied, folding her arms.

He looked at his watch. It was past one in the morning. The train would be arriving in five hours.

“We should sleep,” he said, pulling off his T-shirt.

Her eyes widened at the sight of his lean, muscled torso. The scars on his arms and ribs.

“How'd you get those?” she asked.

“I tripped,” he said. He got into the narrow bunk and put his forearm over his eyes to block the overhead light. He heard the swish of her clothes as she undressed. He couldn't help thinking about that. She shut the light and he heard her get into her bunk. All he could see in the darkness was the glowing tip of her cigarette. For a time neither of them spoke.

“Whoever you are, I'm glad you're on our side,” she said. It sounded like she had rolled on her side toward him. It was strange, talking like this in the darkness. He could almost feel the warmth of her body pulling at him from across the narrow space between them, and more viscerally, the tingle in his groin.

“I'm on no one's side,” he said. “Our interests coincide, that's all.”

“
Gospadi
, you're cold.”

“No,” he said after a moment.

“What then?”

“Honest. Or as honest as someone who lies for a living can be.”

“What's going to happen when we get to Dnipropetrovsk?”

“Someone's going to die.”

A few minutes later, “You're not what I expected. Michael . . . ?” she whispered.

There was no answer.

Scorpion was asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Dnipropetrovsk

Ukraine

D
nipropetrovsk was hidden when they pulled in. A thick frost covered the window, and when they stepped off the train, a yellowish smog obscured the skyline. The platform was icy cold after the warmth of the train.

“It's from the smokestacks,” Iryna explained as they pulled their luggage toward the station building, their breaths visible puffs in the icy air. “Dnipropetrovsk is a big industrial city.”

Scorpion's stomach tightened at the sight of three
militsiyu
police standing by the entrance to the station. Nearby, he saw a half-dozen men wearing the black armbands they had seen at the station in Kyiv. These armbands had a yellow Ukrainian cross: a double crossbar on top and a slanted crossbar near the bottom, where Christ's feet would have been nailed. It gave them the appearance of a religious order. They were passing out leaflets, shoving anyone who didn't take one. The police did not appear concerned about the men with the armbands.

As they passed, Scorpion took one of the handouts, a crude leaflet that Iryna translated for him. It accused Kozhanovskiy of theft of the national treasury and of being a tool of the United States and the Zionists. The other side was an invitation to the Cherkesov rally that night at Stadion Dnipro, the soccer stadium. The eyes of the man who handed him the leaflet lingered on Iryna, and Scorpion felt a chill at the thought that he might have recognized her. He watched them as Scorpion hustled her through the station hall and into a taxi outside.

“Grand Hotel Ukraina,” she told the driver, and in response to Scorpion's look, whispered to him in English, “I know. That Black Armband recognized me.”

The taxi made a turn into a broad avenue lined with trees, their limbs bare. The street snow had turned to slush from the traffic; the sidewalks were still under snow.

“Pyatov has only two choices,” Scorpion whispered back, his lips brushing her ear. “Either he'll try to work his way into the campaign to get close, or use a Syndikat contact. Also, how is he going to kill him? Using a gun at close range is the equivalent of committing suicide. He doesn't strike me as the type.”

“Me either.”

“So it's either a long range rifle, which requires a certain preparation and expertise, or explosives, or something else. I'm betting something else.”

“What do we do?” she asked.

“You contact your campaign mole. I'll work other angles. Here,” he said, handing her one of their new prepaid cell phones and turning his on. He had gotten rid of their previous phones and SIM cards on the train by flushing them down the filthy toilet at the end of the sleeping car, and put in contact numbers so they could call each other. “Only use once and then discard,” he cautioned.

“Look,” she whispered. They were passing an office building with a giant banner sign that announced:
ЧЕРКЕСОВ ДЛЯ ПРЕЗИДЕНТА КАМПАНІÏ ОФІСУ.
Scorpion laboriously spelled out the Cyrillic lettering: Cherkesov for President Campaign Office. Two men in the black armbands with the yellow crosses were passing out leaflets in the street.

“Chort bandytiv!”
the taxi driver said, meaning the Black Armbands.

“What did he say?” Scorpion asked her.

“He called them filthy thugs! This has to stop,” she said, half to herself.

“Astanavityes,”
he told the taxi driver in Russian. Stop here. The cab pulled over, double parking. Horns immediately started honking behind them.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To find Pyatov,” he whispered.

“We'll meet later?”

Scorpion nodded. “Don't do anything stupid—that means heroic. I'll call,” he told her as he got out.

“Yid' te dali,”
she said to the driver, motioning him to go on.

Scorpion watched the taxi pull away, the wheels skidding in the slush. He climbed over snow, its surface black with soot between parked cars, and walked through the snow to the campaign office. One of the Black Armbands in front of the office handed him a leaflet, but then blocked his way as he tried to go in.

The Black Armband said something to him in Ukrainian. Scorpion showed him his Reuters ID.

“Ya zhurnalist iz Anglii,”
he explained in Russian. I'm a journalist from England.
“
I must to speak to the
nachalnik
,” the boss.

The Black Armband squinted at his ID, clearly unable to read the Latin lettering. He jerked his head for Scorpion to go inside.

The office was crowded with people talking, working at computers, on the phones. It could have been a campaign office anywhere. Scorpion spoke to four people before someone handed him off to a young woman who took him up the stairs to a tiny second-floor office.

“You are from England!
Laskavo prosymo!
” Welcome, a burly man in a shirt and tie called out. A cardboard sign in Cyrillic lettering on his desk spelled out his name:
IHOR OLIYNYK.
Although it was only eight-thirty in the morning, the man put a bottle of Khortytsya
horilka
and two glasses on the desk. He too wore one of the black armbands. He poured the vodka and they raised their glasses.

“Za zdorowya!”
Oliynyk toasted.

“Bod'mo!”
Scorpion toasted back, and they drank.

As Oliynyk refilled their glasses, Scorpion handed him his business card.

“What can I do for a friend from the Reuters agency of England?” Oliynyk asked, glancing at the card and putting it in his pocket.

“I'm looking for someone,” Scorpion said, fishing out a photo of Pyatov that Iryna had had Photoshopped from a group picture. He handed it to Oliynyk.

“I never see him before.” Oliynyk shrugged, tossing the photo on the desk.

“I need to talk to Pan Cherkesov.”

“This close to the election. Impossible!”

“I need to speak to him now, today. Can you arrange it?”

“What is this about?”

“I'm a reporter. I have a story that could change the election. Before I print it, I need to talk to Cherkesov.”

“Talk to me,” Oliynyk said. “I'll pass it on to him.”

Scorpion shook his head. “There isn't time. Come with me if you like, but I have to see him at once.”

“What is this?” Oliynyk stared at Scorpion. “You want money? Is that what this is?”

Scorpion stood. “I'm obviously wasting your time. This is how elections are lost,” he said, taking back the photo and starting to leave.

“Wait!” Oliynyk called. “What is this story?”

“Come with me and find out,” Scorpion said, stopping at the door.

“Let me see the photograph again,” Oliynyk said, motioning. Scorpion handed it back. “This man?” He looked at Scorpion. “Is he dangerous?”

“What do you think?”

“Hivno,”
Oliynyk cursed. He got up and grabbed his scarf, hat, and overcoat. “Come with me,” he said, taking Scorpion's arm. “But if this is not legitimate, believe me, I would not want to be you if Gorobets gets his hands on you.”

“Who's Gorobets?” Scorpion asked as they pulled on their outerwear. Oliynyk nodded to two Black Armbands who came with them, both obviously armed, their hands in their overcoat pockets. They waited in the street in front of the office, the wind whipping at their clothes. A red and white tram whirred by, its roof covered with snow.

“He's a power in the party,” Oliynyk said. “Close to Cherkesov. Among other things, he's the father of the Chorni Povyazky.” The Black Armbands.

A black Audi A8 pulled over. Scorpion took a deep breath before he got in. For the second time in barely thirty hours he was getting into a car with men who might try to kill him.

“So who is this man?” Oliynyk asked in the car, handing the photo back to Scorpion.

“His name is Sirhiy Pyatov.”

“And why should he concern us?”

“Not here,” Scorpion said, indicating the other men. They drove in silence. There was a sense of menace in the car. These were violent men, Scorpion thought. They longed for violence the way other men longed for a woman.

“You want see Gorobets?” The Black Armband in the front passenger seat asked him in English.

“Da,”
Scorpion said.

The Black Armband who was driving said something in Ukrainian, and the one next to him in the passenger seat laughed.

“What did he say?” Scorpion asked Oliynyk.

Oliynyk smirked. “He say Gorobets don't like what you say, you dancing with Shelayev.”

“Who's he?” Scorpion asked.

“He is Gorobets's protector man. How you say in Angliskiy?”

“Bodyguard.”

“Da,”
Oliynyk nodded. “One time man with cane attack Gorobets in Verkhovna Rada. Shelayev could stop easy, but
nyet
. He take man's skull one hand and squeeze,” making a squeezing motion with his fingers. “Break skull like egg.”

“Kak khorosho,”
Scorpion murmured. How nice. He looked out the window. The day was dark, the sky slate gray, and even though it was morning, shop and office windows were already lit. He wondered what in hell he was doing, trying to save this Cherkesov son of a bitch.
Rabinowich and Shaefer. They want me here,
he told himself. There was more to this than a Ukrainian election.

They pulled up in front of a modern-style hotel just off Karl Marx Prospekt, the city's main street, got out and went inside in a group. There were at least a dozen Black Armbands armed to the teeth in the lobby. They took an elevator to the top floor, where a group of Black Armbands stood guard outside a suite. The guards started to frisk everyone, and Scorpion took out his Glock. He removed the ammunition clip and handed the gun to Oliynyk.

“What's this for?” Oliynyk asked him.

“Protection. Even in England, we've heard of the Cassette Scandal,” Scorpion said, referring to a notorious case from 2000 when the then Ukrainian president, Kuchma, was accused of arranging the kidnapping of a journalist whose body was later found beheaded. “I'll want it back when we leave.”

A Black Armband frisked Scorpion, and Oliynyk knocked at the door. When it opened, they went inside.

The hotel suite had been turned into an office, with desks, telephones, and computers jammed in. There were more than a dozen men and women working. A bank of TVs mounted on the wall showed every Ukrainian channel plus Russian ORT and CNN.

A heavyset bald man in shirtsleeves and wearing horn-rim glasses stood in the center of the room talking to a young woman, who nodded and went to her desk. He looked like the uncle who tells a dirty joke at a family gathering, Scorpion thought, and could see that the way the others treated him, he was clearly the
nachalnik—
the boss.

“This is Gorobets,” Oliynyk said to Scorpion, and began talking rapid-fire in Ukrainian to the heavyset man, who didn't respond. Oliynyk paused, began again, and Gorobets made a slight gesture, waving him away.

“You are from England?” Gorobets said in English to Scorpion. Although accented, his voice was soft and very clear. A whisperer's voice, Scorpion thought.

“Canadian,” Scorpion said. “I work out of the Reuters office in London.”

“You have ID?” Gorobets asked.

Scorpion showed him his press pass. Gorobets peered nearsightedly at it. His eyes, magnified behind the glasses, were strange, like blue glacier ice.

“What is this about?”

“I need to talk to Cherkesov. It's urgent.”

“It always is.” Gorobets allowed himself a thin smile. “Yuriy Dmytrovych is not available. You will have to talk to me or—” He hesitated.

“Or?”

“Nothing. You will have to talk to me.”

Scorpion glanced around. “Not in all this crowd,” he said.

Gorobets glanced at one of his aides, a tall man with thick sandy hair, who shouted something. Within seconds the room was cleared of everyone except two Black Armbands. One of them was a heavily muscled type over six-three, with long blond rocker hair. By the way he held himself, Scorpion would've bet that he was Spetsnaz-trained. Shelayev. The guy who crushed heads like eggshells.

More impressive than that was the way everyone had obeyed, without Gorobets having to say a word. It was unmistakable, Scorpion thought. Gorobets was feared.

“You have thirty seconds,” Gorobets said, looking at his watch. “After that, you can talk to Shelayev,” indicating the Spetsnaz type.

“May I?” Scorpion said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Pyatov's photo. “I've been tracking this story since I got to Ukraine. This man,” tapping the photo, “plans to kill Cherkesov.”

“So?” Gorobets shrugged.

“You're not impressed? Suit yourself,” he said, starting to turn away.

“We get one or two of these threats a week, Mr. Kilbane. Why should I take this one more seriously than the others?”

“Because it is. This man,” indicating the photograph, “his name is Sirhiy Pyatov, may have already killed his girlfriend to cover it up. He worked for the Kozhanovskiy campaign.”

“So!” Gorobets's eyebrows went up a notch. “That's more interesting.”

“Not really. You'd blame anything on Kozhanovskiy. If something happens, you need me, a Reuters independent, to make it credible.”

“Perhaps.” Gorobets shrugged. “When is this ‘assassination' supposed to take place?”

“Tonight.”

“At the rally?”

Scorpion nodded. “Have any of your people seen this man?”

“And you are helping us because . . . you have sympathy for our cause or some great love for the Ukrainian people?”

“You know perfectly well I don't give a
govno
shit about your cause or the Ukrainian people. Whether Pyatov kills Cherkesov or you kill Pyatov, I just want the story,” Scorpion said.