Scorpion Winter Read online

  “I don’t talk about missions.”

  “I don’t care mission. I care why you leave, okay?”

  Neither man spoke. The only sounds were the ship’s engines and the slap of the waves on the hull.

  “It was a termination. A street outside the target’s location. He was supposed to be just with bodyguards, but his little boy was with him. They told me to go ahead anyway.”

  “Did you?”

  Scorpion shook his head. “No. At that moment, I realized I was through. Tvajo zdorovy,” Scorpion toasted in Russian, and drank.

  Akhnetzov got up and poured himself a glass of Ukrainian Nemiroff vodka from a bottle on the bar. “Za vas!” he toasted back. He brought the vodka bottle over and put it on the table between them. “Listen, maybe you see on CNN. There is election for president in Ukraine.”

  “What of it?” Scorpion said. From Akhnetzov’s posture, he could tell Akhnetzov was at the moment, in CIA-speak, when the Joe drops his pants.

  “One of the candidates will be assassinated.”

  “I see,” Scorpion said, putting his drink down.

  “No, you don’t. It will mean war. Also end of Ukengaz. We must stop this. This is why I seek you out.”

  “We . . . ?” Scorpion raised his eyebrows.

  “Let me explain,” Akhnetzov said, freshening Scorpion’s drink with a splash of Nemiroff. “There are two candidates: Kozhanovskiy, a good man, a man of the West, favored by Europe and the Americans, darling of the students and the Kyiv intellihensia. He wants Ukraine to be partner in EU and NATO. The other is Cherkesov. A strong man, tough like bull. He is supported by ethnic Russians and people in eastern Ukraine. He is for close ties with Russia. Like this,” smacking his fist into his open hand and holding it.

  “Which one do you support?”

  “Me, I do business with the devil so long we make money. Russia fears if Kozhanovskiy wins, Ukraine joins NATO, and worse, terminates lease of Sevastopol as base for Russia’s Black Sea navy fleet. For Russia, this is casus belli. My sources tell me there is a plot to assassinate Cherkesov.”

  “Sources . . . ?”

  “The same sources that led me to you.”

  “SVR?” Scorpion asked.

  “I will tell you once we agree. These same sources assure me that if Cherkesov is killed, Russia will invade. Ukraine will call upon NATO. This will be most dangerous world crisis since Cuba.”

  “You want me to stop this supposed plot to assassinate Cherkesov?”

  “I want you to stop a war.”

  “Over killing a single person?”

  “Why not? World War One began with the assassination of a single person,” Akhnetzov said. Neither man spoke. There was a throb as the engines slowed. Through the salon windows, Scorpion could see the harbor and buildings of Monte Carlo piled against the backdrop of the Alpes Maritimes.

  “You’ve got the wrong guy,” Scorpion said, putting down his drink. “This is not my type of assignment. Besides, I’m not a bodyguard.”

  Akhnetzov shrugged. “Cherkesov has dozens of bodyguards. This is not what is needed. What I need is an operative, the right operative.”

  “It’s no good. What makes me effective is a certain unique combination of skills,” Scorpion said, leaning forward. “Languages, for one. I don’t speak Ukrainian and my Russian is pretty limited.”

  “But you speak some Russian, yes? Nearly all Ukrainians speak Rossiyu.”

  “Just basic Russian plus some of the dirty words.”

  “The best part of any language.” Akhnetzov smiled, but his eyes weren’t smiling. “But you are wrong. What makes you effective is your knowledge and ruthlessness. Like wolf, like me.”

  Akhnetzov leaned forward and wrote something on a piece of paper.

  “What’s that?” Scorpion asked.

  “A number,” still writing.

  “Six figures?”

  “Seven,” Akhnetzov said, turning the paper so Scorpion could see. It was a big number, enough for him to live comfortably for the rest of his life.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Scorpion said carefully.

  “BNP Paribas is private bank near the casino in Monte Carlo. Monaco has the same bank secrecy laws and discretion as Switzerland. You can have half this money in your own account within thirty minutes. So, Mister Whatever-your-new name and nationality is,” Akhnetzov said. “As the Americans say, we got a deal?”

  Forget the money, Scorpion told himself. That isn’t what this is about. Rabinowich wanted this to happen or he never would’ve told anyone about the back channel. And the only reason he would’ve done it was because something absolutely vital to American security was about to go down. Rabinowich was the smartest guy in the American intelligence community. There was more to this than just some Eastern European politician. A lot more. And it was a lot of money.

  “When’s the election?” he asked, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket.

  “In eight days. The assassination could happen any time.”

  Chapter Six

  Bucharest

  Romania

  The two men sat in the back of a café in Lipscani, Bucharest’s Old Town district. It was late and the café was almost empty. Through the window, Scorpion could see the wind blowing the falling snow, the occasional pedestrian holding onto his hat as he headed for home.

  “Akhnetzov. Who’s he fronting for?” Scorpion asked.

  “You mean is he a shill for the SBU?” Shaefer said, referring to the Ukrainian secret intelligence service. A big lanky man, African-American, with a clipped mustache and a fullback’s shoulders, Shaefer was the CIA core collector in Bucharest, a backwater to which he had been posted for being too outspoken inside Langley. He was also Scorpion’s best friend. Sometimes, Scorpion thought, his only friend. They had been in the Joint Special Operations Command’s Delta Force together; the only two survivors of an ambush by the Taliban at Forward Operating Base Echo in the Chaprai Valley in North Waziristan—where, officially, American troops didn’t exist. FOBE had forged a bond between them; in Scorpion’s mind, a blood bond. It was Shaefer who had originally recruited him for the CIA.

  “Or the SVR?” he asked, meaning the Russians.

  “Or the SVR,” Shaefer agreed.

  “Is he?”

  Shaefer nodded. “He swims in pretty oily waters. He’s bound to get dirty.”

  “He left messages for me at various marinas in Europe. Rabinowich was the only one who knew about that channel.”

  “What you’re really asking is, are you blown?”

  “Am I?” Scorpion said, his mouth suddenly too dry to swallow.

  Shaefer shook his head. “Dave provided a list of marinas to Akhnetzov.”

  Scorpion felt a flood of relief. “So I’m not blown?”

  “Not even your hair mussed. No one even knows which marina you picked the note up from, including me,” wiping beer foam from his mustache. “You have a boat?”

  “A sailing ketch. You get out at sea, it clears your mind.”

  “Bullshit. In this business, if you think you understand something, you probably got it wrong,” Shaefer said, and they both laughed. He motioned Scorpion closer, holding the bottle in front of his mouth to cover what he was saying. “This thing with Akhnetzov—the Company can’t go near it, but Langley’s desperate to see you in Kiev.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Above my pay grade, but—” Shaefer hesitated. “It’s hot.”

  “You wouldn’t be holding out on me, Top?”

  Shaefer looked at him sharply. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said, and Scorpion knew he was talking about FOBE. His friend studied his long fingers, which Scorpion had seen him bend coins with without even trying. “All I know is that Dave Rabinowich wanted you on it because somebody way high up is scared shitless.” He looked up. “That good enough for you, bro?”

  Scorpion took a deep breath. Now he understood why Rabinowich had pointed Akhnetzov toward the marinas—hi
s emergency back channel—instead of just giving Akhnetzov one of the dummy Gmail addresses that were his normal contact points. Rabinowich had done it to get his attention. Something was up all right. But why? Ukraine seemed out of the way, a minor regional dispute. Why would someone high up be so anxious for him to go in?

  “I could use a few things,” he said.

  Shaefer nodded. Scorpion told him what he wanted, and Shaefer nodded again.

  “One thing still bothers me. Why me?”

  “You have to remember, they’re Eastern Europeans.”

  “Meaning paranoid?”

  “Wait till you have to live here like I do. If they were a whole lot more trusting, they’d be paranoid.”

  “Sounds like they wanted someone independent,” Scorpion said. “Someone who could play both sides. Especially if the CIA is involved.” After a moment he added, “So are we?”

  “What a dirty little mind you have.” Shaefer grinned.

  “It’s a dirty little world.”

  A young Romanian couple got up and walked past their table. For a moment the two men fell silent. They waited till the couple went out into the night.

  “Akhnetzov says Russia will invade if anything happens to this politician, Cherkesov,” Scorpion said.

  “Does he?” Shaefer said. “Who’s feeding him this stuff?”

  “He says SVR.”

  “Did he tell you who his contact is?”

  “Somebody named Gabrilov, Oleg Gabrilov. Cultural attaché at—”

  “I know who he is.” Shaefer made a face. “Gabrilov is SVR, all right; Directorate S for Kiev.”

  “Akhnetzov says it could mean war. Lot of saber rattling going on.”

  “Rabinowich thinks so too.”

  “Christ. You really see us going in?”

  “Who the hell knows?” Shaefer shrugged. “Technically, Ukraine is a member of the NATO Membership Action Plan. They sent troops to support us in Afghanistan. If Russia were to invade, in theory we’d have to do something.” He hesitated, as if he knew what he was about to say wasn’t something he should ask as a friend. “When you get to Kiev, my bosses would appreciate anything you could toss our way.”

  “I can’t go near Kiev Station. Besides, there’s ELINT all over the place,” meaning heavy Russian and Ukrainian surveillance on electronic communications, and that he wouldn’t go near any CIA operatives or locations in Ukraine.

  “We’ll stay clear,” Shaefer agreed. “Have to. If anything goes south, they’ll blame the CIA bogeyman. Suppose you need to get hold of Rabinowich or me?”

  “Give me a dead-drop.”

  “Old school.” Shaefer nodded approvingly and gave him the details and how they would handle Scorpion’s cover.

  Scorpion glanced at the café window. It was still snowing; the street was empty. He wasn’t anxious to get back out in it and to the airport. They were the last ones in the café, and the waiter had glanced over at them more than once.

  “We should get going,” he said.

  Shaefer touched Scorpion’s forearm. “About Ukraine. How much time have you got? Did Akhnetzov say?”

  “The election’s in a week. Whatever is going on, it’s already running.”

  Shaefer whistled silently to himself. “You’ll have to force the issue. You watch your ass, bub. The difference between the SVR, the SBU, and the Ukrainian mafia, that’s a pretty thin line. Those are some very badass Mike Foxtrots,” Army slang for motherfuckers. “Makes Waziristan look like apple pie and motherhood. You Romeo that?”

  “Happy days,” Scorpion said, finishing his beer.

  Chapter Seven

  Maidan Nezalezhnosti

  Kyiv, Ukraine

  The giant television screen blasted the Plach Yeremiyahi rock band to tens of thousands of demonstrators clapping and moving to the beat in Kyiv’s Independence Square. The night was frigid and the crowd was dressed in heavy coats, wool caps, and Russian fur hats. Many were in their twenties, there more for the music and the noisy crowds than the politics. But scattered among them were older faces, some with orange scarves and flags. They looked around uncertainly, as though they had gotten lost on their way to a college rally. A giant banner on a Soviet-style building lit with floodlights proclaimed VSEUKRAYINSKE OBYEDNANNYA BATKIVSHCHYNA, the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland Party, and signs in the crowd read KOZHANOVSKIY FOR THE PEOPLE. On the towering white column in the center of the square, someone had taped a poster with a squint-eyed photo of Kozhanovskiy’s opponent, Cherkesov, that read: HET ZLODIY. Down with the Thief.

  “Podyvit’sya na nykh.” Look at them, a long-haired young man in a jacket standing in front of Scorpion said to his blond girlfriend, indicating a middle-aged couple waving orange T-shirts in time to the music. “You’d think it was the Orange Revolution all over,” he added, his breath like puffs of smoke in the cold. For Scorpion, trying to acclimatize to the winter here, it was so cold it hurt to breathe.

  “Well, I think they’re klevyy,” cool, his girlfriend said.

  Scorpion continued to move through the crowd. It had been a busy day for him. He had never been in Kyiv before, and flying into Boryspil Airport, looked out over the city dusted with snow. The gray Dnieper River divided Kyiv in two, the east or Left Bank an endless spread of apartment buildings and factories, the Right Bank a jumble of Soviet-style buildings, gold-domed churches, and, beside the river, a statue the size of the Statue of Liberty of a woman with a raised sword.

  He rented a fourth-floor apartment on Pushkinskaya on the Right Bank near vulytsya Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street. His cover was as a Canadian journalist named Michael Kilbane working out of London, in Kiev to cover the election for Reuters.

  Being a journalist was standard cover, good enough to explain why he’d be poking around and asking questions. Shaefer had provided him with authentic-looking press credentials and promised to have MI-6 backstop his cover with the Reuters office on Canary Wharf in London. It was good enough for a standard police check. If he needed deeper cover, he would already be in bigger trouble than any story or identity could protect him.

  The music in the square stopped to cheers and shouts for “Bolshe!” more, and “Prodolzhaite igrat’ muzyku!”—Keep on playing! A man on the giant TV screen announced something to more cheers and good-natured catcalls, and then a woman in a black leather overcoat and Russian fur hat suddenly appeared and began speaking. The crowd quieted down, not because of what she was saying—Scorpion caught only that she was apparently introducing a speaker—but because, even bundled up as she was and distorted on the large TV screen, her looks were extraordinary.

  “Kto ona?” Scorpion asked a man in a heavy jacket and wool cap standing next to him. Who is she?

  “You don’t know Iryna?” the man answered in Russian, pronouncing her name Ee-ree-na, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Scorpion shook his head. “Iryna Mikhailivna Shevchenko. Her father was the founder of the Rukh, the Independence movement.”

  “Spasiba,” Scorpion said, nodding thanks and moving on around the edge of the crowd as the woman began leading them in a chant.

  “Kozhanovskiy! . . . Kozhanovskiy! . . . Kozhanovskiy!” the crowd shouted in response, erupting into a roar of approval as the candidate himself replaced the woman at the podium.

  “Ukraintsi!” the older, barrel-chested man shouted, grinning widely. “The time has come to choose your future!” The crowd roared again. There were ripples of applause as Kozhanovskiy went on, and then, from the edge of the square, a jumble of shouting and women screaming.

  “Dopomozhit!” a woman screamed. Help! “Prypyny!” others shrieked. Stop it! “Militsiyu!” Security Police! And at the edge of the crowd, “Bandity!” as people began to surge away, shouting and running.

  Scorpion couldn’t see what was causing it. Someone banged into him and without looking, continued running. A gap opened in the melee and he finally saw what was happening.

  A mob of perhaps a hundred men, many armed with clubs, had waded
into the crowd. They were swinging wildly, smashing heads, shouting “Het Kozhanovskiy!” Down with Kozhanovskiy! As people trampled each other to get out of the way, Scorpion waited. The front wave of the attackers came toward him. They looked like thugs, and he saw what seemed to be criminal tattoos on many of their necks.

  Two burly men were coming at him, clubs upraised. One had a spiderweb tattoo on the side of his neck, a Russian prison tattoo signifying that he was a drug dealer. He swung his club, and Scorpion sidestepped him with a leg sweep, taking him down as he blocked a punch from the other thug, using an aikido ikkyo wrist lock to bring him to the ground. As the mob surged past them, Scorpion lay on top of the second, pressing hard on his elbow and wrist, causing him to cry out in pain. The drug dealer started to get up. Scorpion kicked him in the face and he collapsed, his nose spurting blood. Someone else kicked at Scorpion then, who kicked back and caught a knee, this third thug grunting and stumbling on.

  “Kto vas poslal?” Scorpion demanded of the man he still held to the ground. Who sent you? He could see a crucifix tattoo on the back of the man’s neck. Another blatnoi thug, he thought, applying sharp pressure to the man’s wrist and elbow.

  “Poshol na khui!” the man cursed at him, his breath smelling of onions. He managed to grab Scorpion’s neck with his free hand and try to choke him. Scorpion applied more pressure to the wrist, pried one of the man’s fingers from his neck and bent it back suddenly, breaking the finger. The man screamed.

  “Kto vas poslal?”

  “Yob tvoiyu mat’!” the man shouted, telling him to do something obscene with his mother.

  Scorpion grabbed another finger and bent it back till he felt the finger crack like a twig. The man screamed again. “Yesche vosem raz?” he shouted. Should I do this eight more times? Kto vas poslal?”

  “Yob! You are making a mistake— Aieee!” he screamed as Scorpion started bending the next finger. “Syndikat says do this, I do.”