Scorpion Winter s-2 Read online

  “You will like me better,” Scorpion said, showing her a stack of large hryven notes.

  Svetlana took his hand and started to pull him up.

  “Forget champanskogo and fuck me now,” she said.

  Scorpion pulled her back down.

  “What about your droog?” Your boyfriend.

  “What boyfriend?” looking at him suspiciously.

  “Your Chinese droog, Li Qiang.”

  “What is this?” she said, exhaling smoke.

  “I need to talk to Li Qiang. No trouble, just business.”

  “So go his office. Don’t come sex me. Make trouble,” she said, staring glumly at the stage, where a drag queen pulled up her plaid schoolgirl-style skirt and wiggled her behind at the audience to laughs and scattered applause.

  “I need to see him alone. Without his bodyguard,” Scorpion said.

  “Why?”

  “You don’t understand. He doesn’t have to be afraid of me. I am afraid of his bodyguard, Yang.”

  “Ne svisti.” Don’t lie. “You not type guy who is afraid,” she said, putting the cigarettes back in her purse and starting to get up. “I not like.”

  Scorpion grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. He put a stack of money on the sofa and held her hand on top so she could feel it.

  “You really like him that much?” he asked.

  “He okay,” she shrugged. “To tell truth,” looking at Scorpion, “he kind of lokh, understand?” Russian slang for a mark, a sucker. She wrinkled her nose as if smelling something bad. “I get bored. China men not so big where is important, understand?”

  “Help me tonight, I’ll give you ten thousand. Half now,” Scorpion said, removing her hand and counting it out. “No trouble, I promise.”

  She took the money and smiled.

  “You look big enough,” she said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke at him.

  “Not for you,” he said, putting the rest of the money away. “Like I said, this is business, rodimy.”

  He waited while Ruslan went back and changed. When Ruslan came out looking like a man, they took a taxi to the massage parlor on Berezhanskaya. Without the makeup and the wig, Ruslan was a young man, handsome enough to be a model, and it was easy to see how he made such a good-looking woman.

  They drove down the hill toward the Shulyavska neighborhood, the streets wet with slush, overhead power lines sagging with snow. On the way, Ruslan called Li Qiang on his cell phone. Following Scorpion’s instructions, Ruslan insisted they have one night that was just the two of them, without having Yang Hao waiting outside the door.

  “Ya hochu tebya, moi dorogoi,” Ruslan told him. I want you, my darling. “For once, the whole night, just the two of us.”

  After hanging up, he said, “He’s coming.”

  “What about the bodyguard?”

  “Yang is staying in car. He promise not come inside.” Ruslan held out his hand. “You give rest of money, kharasho?”

  “Inside,” Scorpion said.

  The taxi pulled up to the massage parlor with its blue neon sign that read CONGO MASSAGE SPA in the curtained window. Scorpion paid the driver and he and Ruslan went in separately, acting as if they didn’t know each other. Ruslan got the deluxe room, number 4. He slipped the man behind the counter fifty hryvnia to let Li Qiang know where he was.

  Scorpion got the key to Room 16 and went through the main lounge, where a dozen or so naked men lounging on benches and in the steaming Jacuzzi pool checked him out. He found his way to Room 4, knocked and went in. Ruslan was lounging on a waterbed. He jumped up when Scorpion came in.

  “You want I wait?” he asked.

  Scorpion shook his head and gave him the rest of the money. Ruslan started for the door, then stopped.

  “No trouble, da?”

  “No trouble,” Scorpion said.

  “You want, I wait in other room. After, we make sex. No money. Best zhopa in world,” Ruslan said, slapping his ass and wiggling it suggestively.

  “I like women,” Scorpion said.

  “I am better. The woman always she make trouble.”

  “Well, we’re no bargain either,” Scorpion said. “Go out the back way and don’t let anyone see you,”

  “Buvay, rodimy,” Ruslan said-So long, sweetheart-and left.

  Scorpion waited behind the door. It was after midnight when he heard a knock. A moment later the Chinese man from the photo walked in.

  Stepping out, Scorpion motioned with the SR-1 Gyurza for Li Qiang to sit on the waterbed.

  “De Ruslan?” Li Qiang asked in Ukrainian.

  “He’s not here. Speak English,” Scorpion said.

  “Na zhal, ya ne hovoryu po angliyski.” Sorry, I don’t speak English.

  “You went to USC, you son of a bitch. Don’t bullshit me,” Scorpion said, sitting on the only chair in the room, just out of range if Li Qiang made a move.

  “What’s your problem? You go to UCLA?” Li Qiang said in perfect English, studying the man in front of him.

  He’s good, Scorpion thought. Li Qiang was sizing him up so he could provide a description in case he survived. He approved, one professional to another.

  Li Qiang looked at the gun pointed at him. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “That depends on our conversation.”

  “I have a man outside.”

  “Yang Hao. In the car. For the time being, he lives. Like you,” Scorpion said.

  “Who are you? CIA? MI-6?”

  “The goddamn Boy Scouts! What difference does it make? You’re running the Russian, Oleg Gabrilov.”

  “Am I? And how did you come across that particular piece of disinformation?” Li Qiang said, sliding back on the waterbed so he could rest his back against the wall. He folded his arms across his chest and bobbed up and down on the bed, sitting perfectly straight, like a yogi riding the waves into nirvana. He’s good, Scorpion thought again. The fact that his most important Joe was blown should’ve rocked Li Qiang down to his socks, but he looked unfazed.

  “Bank transfers from CCB to Gabrilov’s Pravex account,” he replied.

  Li Qiang shrugged. “Second-rate hacker stuff. You’ll have to do better.”

  “Not sure the folks in Yasenevo will see it that way. Or Zhongnanhai, come to that,” Scorpion said, referring to the Moscow suburb where the SVR was headquartered and the Beijing headquarters of the Guoanbu. It effectively told Li that he knew Gabrilov was SVR and that he headed Guoanbu operations in Kyiv.

  “That is better. Much better,” Li agreed. “So is this about money, Mister…?”

  “Vasja Pupkin.” Russian slang for John Doe.

  “Cute,” Li smirked. “What do you want Pane Pupkin?”

  “Who killed Cherkesov?”

  “Don’t you watch TV? The authorities suspect Iryna Shevchenko and a foreign journalist, name of… I forget.”

  “Kilbane,” Scorpion said.

  “That’s it. I believe they’re after you, Pane Pupkin-or is it Kilbane?” looking directly at Scorpion. So the son of a bitch recognized him, Scorpion thought.

  “Now who’s being cute?” he replied. “Especially since we both know Iryna and I didn’t do it.”

  “No, but that won’t stop them from executing you. Bullet in the back of the head seems to be their style. Do you like travka?” Li asked, using the Russian slang word for marijuana.

  Scorpion shook his head. “Not while I’m working.”

  “Of course. Mind if I light up?”

  “Mne po figu,” meaning he didn’t give a damn. “And you didn’t answer me. Who killed Cherkesov?”

  “What makes you think I would know?” Li had pulled a joint out of his pocket and was now lighting it, filling the air with the scent of marijuana.

  “You and Gabrilov hired Sirhiy Pyatov as a decoy to lure someone from the Kozhanovskiy campaign as the fall guy. Plus you had a motive to get rid of Cherkesov.”

  “Which is?” Li said in a choked voice from holding the smoke in, then exhaling.
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  “The new gas pipeline from Kazakhstan. Cherkesov was going to throw the deal to the Russians.”

  “Nanyi zhi xin!” Li exclaimed in Chinese, shaking his head. “This is a CIA fantasy! You can’t seriously believe that we’re stupid enough to jeopardize everything we’re trying to do in Europe over a Ukrainian gas pipeline?”

  “Why not? It’s billions of dollars,” Scorpion said, having expected Li Qiang to deny involvement, but this was something else.

  “First of all,” Li said, “it isn’t the pipeline we care about; it’s the gas. And we want it to go the other way, to China. Killing a hundred Cherkesovs wouldn’t make that happen. Second, to get to Ukraine the pipeline has to go through southern Russia near Astrakhan anyway, so the Russians were always going to be part of the deal.”

  “You bid on it.”

  “Of course we bid on it. Better that than to have them focus on something important. You should learn from Sun Tzu.”

  “ ‘All war is deception,’ ” Scorpion quoted.

  “So…” Li Qiang looked at Scorpion speculatively. “Not entirely stupid.” He shrugged. “In the end, we’ll do business with Kozhanovskiy or whoever Svoboda gets to replace Cherkesov-or Vasja Pupkin, for all we give a damn.” He coolly exhaled a long stream of marijuana smoke. “This is good shit. Sure you don’t want some?” holding the joint out to Scorpion, who shook his head.

  “Let’s assume for a second I believe you,” Scorpion said. “If you didn’t kill Cherkesov and no one in the Kozhanovskiy campaign did, who did? It couldn’t be the SVR. The Russians wanted him to win.”

  “Can’t you guess, bratan?” Li said, grinning like the Cheshire cat, his eyes glassy with the marijuana. Now they were brothers, Scorpion thought. A little more grass and maybe he’d get some truth out of the son of a bitch. “Think. Who stood to gain from Cherkesov’s death? Who did he threaten?” All at once, Scorpion realized what Li Qiang was trying to tell him.

  “You’re saying it’s a CIA operation?”

  “They have the most to gain.” Li shrugged. “You know you’re an attractive man. Not so handsome as that lying bljad whore Ruslan, but not bad.”

  “It’s not a CIA op,” Scorpion said. But was it? he wondered, then thought about some of the ops-within-ops Bob Harris, the Deputy DCIA, had pulled. But why would they want him and Iryna as the fall guys? It would ensure that Kozhanovskiy would lose. It didn’t add up.

  “Then it’s a mystery,” Li said. “You’re not going to kill me for that, are you?”

  “I’m going to give you one chance to live,” Scorpion said. No matter how you turned this thing, he thought, Gabrilov was the key. He had set up Pyatov as a decoy to cover the real assassination. If he didn’t do it for the Guoanbu, he sure as hell did it for someone. “Set up a meeting. Private. Just you and Gabrilov. Only I’ll be there instead of you. I’ll call and tell you where and when.”

  “Suppose I don’t cooperate? Or suppose I decide to send my bodyguard, Yang Hao, instead, or maybe just turn you in to the politsiy or the SBU?”

  “You know, I thought we were getting along. Now I’m beginning to think you don’t understand me, bratan,” Scorpion said quietly. For a moment the only sounds were the rhythmic sexual groans coming from the room next door. Li looked at him with glassy eyes, then shook his head as if to clear it. “You think I haven’t arranged backup? If anything happens to me, you and Gabrilov will be blown all over the Internet. Even if I’m dead, Yasenevo and Zhongnanhai will know exactly who to blame.”

  “And if I agree to make the call?” Li said. “Consider it professional courtesy. I’m curious myself, especially since I pay the son of a bitch.”

  “Then have a nice day,” Scorpion replied, getting up.

  “You’ll call me?” Li said.

  “If anyone shows up except Gabrilov, Yang Hao won’t protect you.”

  “He always has,” Li said.

  “Wait ten minutes, then leave,” Scorpion said, and left.

  Li’s last remark had forced his hand. He went out to the Jacuzzi area and found his way to the rear exit, first checking Room 16 to make sure Ruslan had gone. It was empty.

  He stepped outside into an alley, heaped with snow, crunched through it and peeked around the corner, looking for Li Qiang’s car. He spotted an Audi parked down the street, smoke coming from its tailpipe. It had to be Yang Hao, he thought, with the engine running to keep himself from freezing in the bitter cold.

  He figured Yang Hao would be watching the spa’s front door and, if he was good, the side mirror as well for anyone coming up behind the car. He wouldn’t be looking for anyone coming on the passenger side from across the street. Scorpion stepped out of the alley, pulled up his overcoat collar and adjusted a scarf across the lower part of his face. Keeping to the shadows, he walked in the opposite direction, away from the Audi, till he was out of sight. Then he crossed the icy street and headed back. This late, after midnight on a weeknight in the dead of winter, there was no traffic.

  He checked the Gyurza pistol with the silencer, to make sure the safety was off and ready to fire, and approached the Audi from behind on the opposite side of the street, keeping the gun shielded by his body from anyone in the car. When he was almost parallel with the car, he cut across the icy street. He saw the silhouette of a man sitting behind the wheel. The man was watching the Congo spa’s front door, the sound of the radio playing Russian hip hop coming from inside the car.

  Stepping up to the passenger side, Scorpion fired three times through the window.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Babi Yar

  Kyiv, Ukraine

  The hotel was out from the center of the city, near the Dorohozhichi Metro station. It was across the street from a wooded park, covered with bare trees and snow and dominated by a giant TV tower as tall as the Empire State Building. Coming out of the Metro, Scorpion saw a strange bronze statue at the edge of the park. It was of a child standing beside a seated child with the head of a bird. Another statue, a massive sculpture of twisted figures, stood farther back in the snow closer to the woods. The park was dark, silent in the night, and looming above it was the TV tower. When Scorpion checked in, he asked the hotel clerk about it.

  “Is Babi Yar,” said the clerk, who acted like he had been asked about it many times and was in any case more interested in the two hundred hryvnia Scorpion gave him to not ask for ID.

  “What’s Babi Yar?”

  “Place where Germans kill Jews in Great Patriotic War.”

  “Were many killed?”

  “I don’t know.” The clerk shrugged. “Many thousands. All Jews in Kyiv,” drawing a finger across his throat. “Nazis kill Ukraintsi too, but all anyone care about is Jews,” slapping the room key on the counter and turning away.

  Scorpion went up to the seventh floor in the elevator, then walked down the stairs to the sixth, where his room was. He peered out at the empty hallway and went quickly to his room. He had booked adjacent rooms in case Gabrilov didn’t come alone. Always a possibility with the SVR, especially after what he had done to Yang Hao. He’d had no choice, he thought. It was essential that he, not Li Qiang, was driving things, and that Li Qiang understood that.

  Walking by the park on the way to the hotel he had heard from Iryna. A text message on the cell phone he had in sync with hers telling him it was urgent she see him. It was followed by a second text indicating an address, with, as he had instructed her, the numbers transposed by one, so 2 became 3, 3 became 4, and so on. Things were coming to a head. He had texted back: c u. late.

  He checked that both hotel rooms were empty. In the room he’d had Li Qiang arrange for the RDV, he unlocked the window, checking the distance to the window of the room next door. There was no ledge, but it was only about a meter away. He looked around to get the lay of the room, knocking on the wall for the best spot to listen. He left, then, locking the door behind him, and went into the room next door.

  He opened his pack and got ready. He readied plastic
ties that he kept coiled inside a Band-Aid kit and a roll of duct tape he never went anywhere without. He got a glass out of the bathroom and put it next to the wall, then took out his Glock, attached the sound suppresser and snapped off the safety. He had already gotten rid of the Gyurza pistol after terminating Yang Hao, taking it apart and wiping each part clean of fingerprints before dropping pieces of it in various sewer openings on the way to the Metro. Having used the Gyurza in the Mercedes in Kyiv and on Yang Hao; it was past time to get rid of it. The Glock tied him to the shoot-out at Stadion Dnipro, but once he found the real assassin, he would get rid of that too. He got ready by the door, peering through the peephole.

  Then, before he saw them, he heard them coming, men speaking Russian. Gabrilov appeared with two men in black jackets, both carrying guns. Even though Li Qiang was supposed to have told him to come alone, the meeting was enough out of the ordinary that Gabrilov was afraid to take chances. Unless they were there because Gabrilov had found out about Yang Hao.

  Gabrilov knocked on the door of the room where the RDV with Li Qiang was supposed to take place, then flattened himself out of the way against the wall, while his SVR bodyguards aimed at the door. When there was no response, he handed them the key and they went inside with a show of force, aiming their guns. A minute later, having found it empty, the two men came out of the room. One positioned himself in the hallway by the elevator; the other peered out from behind the staircase door.

  Scorpion put the glass to the wall and listened. There was nothing, only the sounds of Gabrilov moving around, sitting down. Time to go, he thought, slinging his pack over one shoulder, going to the window and opening it. Icy air instantly poured into the room.

  He stepped out, squatting onto the windowsill, fingers gripping the lintel. He tried not to look down at the street, six stories below. Pressing against the side of the building, he reached the toes of his left foot to the next door windowsill. It was longer than he had thought. He was about three inches short, would have to push off with a small leap and grab onto the next window’s lintel, hoping he didn’t make any noise. It was freezing cold. The alternative, he thought, was to have a shoot-out with the SVR guns in the hallway. Not for the first time, he thought about getting into a different line of work. Then he thought about what might happen if he didn’t stop the Russian invasion.