Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Betrayal

“I could use one of those,” Scorpion said.

“Ladno.” Sure. “I’ll see that you get it before you leave. Just don’t use it on one of my people.”

“Tell your people to stay the hell out of my way.”

“Izvinitye, but you aroused our curiosity. Come,” Ivanov said, leading him away from the one-way glass. They walked down a concrete corridor to a steel prison door. Ivanov tapped on the thick door glass and a guard opened it and they stepped into a tiled corridor. They climbed a steel staircase and Ivanov led him to an office with a window that looked out over the Neva River. It was a cool, gray day. Dark clouds were bundled over the buildings along the river, the water dark as the clouds. Ivanov sat down behind the desk wearing the well-tailored suit of a senior apparatchik in the New Russia. He had cold intelligent eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses, his hair iron-gray, and he looked fit for a man in his sixties.

“I’m borrowing this office while I’m in Saint Petersburg. Pozhalsta,” please, he said, gesturing for Scorpion to sit down as an aide came in and put a bottle of vodka and two glasses on the desk. Ivanov filled both glasses to the brim. “This is Stolichnaya Elit. The best. The other Stolichnayas are govno shit. Na sdarovy,” he toasted, raising his glass.

“Budem zdorovy,” Scorpion toasted back. “I’m flattered at the attention.”

This wasn’t the reception he’d expected when they picked him up outside the Astoria Hotel, the black Mercedes sedan swerving to cut off the taxi he just got into, the four tough-looking types who surrounded the taxi, showing him and the driver their guns. He’d gotten into the backseat, sandwiched between two beefy men with the universal look of cops, without any idea who they were or how they’d ID’d him. At first he wasn’t sure if they were FSB or Russian mafia. When he saw the grim red brick prison, he’d expected to be treated more like the poor Chechen bastard whose gonads were being used to complete an electrical circuit. It never occurred to him that Checkmate, Vladimir Ivanov himself, would have come all the way from Moscow just to see him.

“You are too modest, Scorpion. We heard about the Palestinian. My congratulations. As I told your Mr. Harris, we have an interest in this matter.”

“He’s not my Gospodin Harris.”

“So. That is interesting,” Ivanov said, studying him intently. “But I don’t believe you as a double. That would take more than electrodes on your testicles to convince me. I understand New York, but why did the Palestinian also choose Rome?”

“The EU Conference and the Israelis. Cradle of Western civilization. The Vatican, home of Christianity. Take your pick. Maybe they don’t like pasta.”

“Maybe they don’t. So the operation is over. Backs are slapped, champagne corks are popped, politicians and senior officials like myself who had nothing to do with it take the credit. As Voltaire says, all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. So what is the Scorpion doing in Saint Petersburg?”

“How’d you find me?”

“You’re concerned there’s a mole in the Company? You wouldn’t expect the truth from me on something like that?”

“I wouldn’t expect the truth from you on anything,” Scorpion said, suspecting Ivanov was just fishing with his talk of a mole. The only people on earth who knew he was coming to Russia were him, the Italians, and Rabinowich. It could have been Moretti or one of the Carabinieri, but he didn’t think so, and he knew Dave wouldn’t have betrayed him. How’d they find him?

“Can’t you guess?” Ivanov teased.

It had to be something obvious, Scorpion thought. To get a Russian visa, he’d provided a photograph, and as they required a local address in Saint Petersburg, he’d made reservations at the Astoria Hotel in the center of town, so if they knew who he was, it would have been easy for them to pick him up. But how did they know who he was and what he looked like? Who could have seen him and taken a photograph without him knowing? Unbidden, an image floated up of a man in shorts and a gaudy shirt watering flowers in a rented villa. Harris! That son of a bitch! Either Harris had sold him out or the safe house in Castelnuovo wasn’t safe.

“You were looking for me. You had a picture of me from Italy and you had software matching it to my visa photograph, probably matching visas from every Russian embassy and consulate in Europe. You went to a lot of trouble,” Scorpion said, putting down the glass of vodka. He’d only sipped it and it had already started to go to his head. Like Ivanov himself, it was smooth as silk.

“Atlichna!” Bravo! “I wish you were a double. Budem.” Ivanov raised his glass to Scorpion and drank. “Except, I owe you from Arabia. You killed several of my men. By rights, I should put a bullet in your head,” he said, opening a drawer and placing a gun on the desk.

“Why don’t you?” Scorpion said, measuring distances and moving his foot back under him so he could spring out of the chair.

“Because I don’t know why you are here in Saint Petersburg. There is also the matter of the missing twenty-one kilos of U-235.”

“No one told you? Not Harris? Not your moles in the AISE and the Italian government? No one?”

Ivanov shook his head.

“It wasn’t there,” Scorpion said. “It was smuggled into Italy through Genoa on a Ukrainian ship, the Zaina, but it wasn’t in the truck they were planning to blow up the Palazzo delle Finanze with. Harris says the talk about uranium was disinformation from you.”

“It wasn’t,” Ivanov said, his eyes icy behind the steel-rimmed glasses.

“I know. There were signature traces of U-235 radiation in the hold of the Zaina and in a warehouse in Turin used by the Palestinian. The U-235 was brought into Italy, but it isn’t there now.”

“Where is it?”

For a moment neither man spoke.

Ivanov leaned forward, his arms on the desk. “You think the uranium is in Saint Petersburg? Should I be worried?”

“Yes.”

Ivanov drummed his fingers on the desk. “Then I can’t put a bullet in your head, can I? Maybe I should have them work you over and implant a bug in you like the Chechen?”

“You don’t want to do that-and I don’t think we have the time,” Scorpion said, glancing at the window. The sky had grown darker. It was going to rain any minute.

“It seems for once we may be on the same side, Amerikanets,” Ivanov said, taking another sip of vodka and refilling both their glasses from the bottle. “Perhaps we can help each other.”

“You can help me by staying out of my way. No surveillance. I can’t have something blown because someone spots one of your mudaki where he shouldn’t be.”

“What are you looking for?”

“A woman.”

“Beautiful?”

“Very.”

“There is no shortage of beautiful women in Saint Petersburg.” Ivanov smiled wryly.

“This one’s not from Saint Petersburg.”

“You should let us help you find her. We could do it quickly, just as we found you.”

“And the moment you do, perhaps a confederate of hers presses ‘Send’ on a cell phone. Then what?”

“And you are the only one who can get close to her. So we must trust you. That is not a condition I am comfortable with.”

“Give me your cell number. If I need you, I’ll call.”

“So apart from the bug, there’s nothing we can do?”

“I need a gun. I left mine in Italy to avoid problems on the plane.”

“Take this. You know it?” Ivanov said, handing him the gun on the desk.

Scorpion nodded. “SR-1 Gyurza, special for the FSB. Eighteen rounds. Armor piercing,” he said, pulling out the clip. “It’s not loaded.”