Andrew Kaplan: Scorpion Betrayal

He started to signal the waiter for the check when it occurred to him that a bit of arm candy might be useful at the Dacha Club. He motioned to the blonde. She came over and sat down.

“I am hoping you change your mind, milenky, my dearest.” She smiled, resting her hand on his thigh.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Zhana. For you, I am Zhanochka. And you?”

“Damon,” using his cover ID. “I’ll give you five thousand rubles to come with me to the Dacha Club. We won’t be leaving together. I have business there.”

“Listen, Damonya, my sweetness, give me two hundred euros, I do anything you want, any place you want, any way you want,” she said.

“This isn’t love, Zhanochka golubcha. One fifty euros and you find your own way home from the Dacha,” he said, taking her hand as he got up. They caught a taxi outside the hotel. It was still raining, the sky the strange tangerine-gray of the long northern twilight. Once inside the taxi, he gave her the money. She counted it and slipped it into her bra. The taxi turned onto the broad Nevsky Prospekt, the lights from the buildings reflected in the rain-slick street.

The taxi pulled up, and even in the rain there was a line of people standing outside the awning entrance to the Dacha Club. With fifty euros to the doorman and Zhanochka on his arm, they walked past the crowd waiting to get in and into the club, its sleek multistoried metal and glass interior pulsating to loud Russian rock music. Zhana began to sway to the music as she walked beside him to the bar. They pushed in between two men, one of whom was big and broad-shouldered, in an Italian leather jacket, with the look of someone in the underworld. A glance at the tattoo on his neck confirmed for Scorpion that he was of the Belaya Energia, a white supremacist gang. The man started to say something harshly, then stopped and smiled when he saw Zhana. They began talking rapidly in Russian, and she indicated Scorpion with a movement of her head.

“He wants me to go with him,” she told Scorpion, nearly shouting to be heard over the noise of the crowd and the music.

“Tell him you’re free to do what you want if he’ll introduce me to someone,” Scorpion shouted back.

The man laughed and gestured toward the tables near the bar, where there were at least a dozen good-looking women in tight low-cut dresses. “Take you pick, druk. No need introduce. Her I take,” the man said in broken English, grabbing Zhana by the buttocks and pulling her tight against him. She tried to twist away but he held her tight. Scorpion reached over, pried the man’s little finger off her and bent it back nearly to the point of breaking. With his other hand, he grabbed the man’s other wrist in a Krav Maga hold so he couldn’t use the knife he had pulled out, all of it done so quickly no one else noticed.

“The person I want to see is Vasiliev,” Scorpion said.

The man immediately stopped. “You want see Kiril Andreyevitch?”

“Da,” Scorpion said, letting him go. The man put the knife away and let Zhana loose. She turned and looked warily at Scorpion.

“He not see you. Is Tambov,” the man said, holding the finger that Scorpion had twisted.

“Let’s let him decide, druk. Tell him it’s about a beautiful woman and a shipment in the port. We’ll wait for you here.”

The man whispered something to a friend with a badly scarred face, also in a leather jacket, who turned to look at Scorpion, his open shirt revealing the top of a blatnoi prison tattoo on his chest. Then the scar-faced man motioned to his friend and the two of them left, weaving their way through the crowd to a glass elevator. Scorpion watched them till Zhana tugged at his arm.

“We should go now, pozhalsta, my sweetness,” she said urgently. “I give you back the money. We fuck like crazy. I don’t like these bandity.”

“You go. Keep the money,” Scorpion said, kissing her cheek, his eyes on the crowd in the mirror.

“You sure? I mean it. I don’t want no money. I like you,” she said plaintively.

“I don’t want you to get hurt. Go, pozhalsta,” he said, giving her a little shove, never taking his eye off the crowd in the mirror.

“Da svidaniya, golubchik,” she said, looking back at him, but this time Scorpion wasn’t watching. Instead, he walked up to a striking blonde woman in a Burberry raincoat who had just come into the club. She was standing between two Middle Eastern-looking men in suits, their raincoats over their arms. He made the move as he pretended to squeeze by, deliberately bumping into her.

“Hello, Najla,” he said as her eyes widened at the sight of him.

“Well, if it isn’t Herr Crane,” she said, just managing to recover. “Or is it Monsieur McDonald or whatever your name is these days?”

“McDonald’ll do. I guess they were right. Everyone does come to the Dacha Club.” He took her arm. The two men started to react, and at a nod from her they stopped. “He’s an old friend,” she said to them in Arabic.

“Ismak, who are you?” one of the men said in Arabic, with what Scorpion thought was a Farsi accent.

“Emam mardar sag ast,” Scorpion said in Farsi. My name is your mother is a bitch. He added, “We have to talk,” to Najla in English, pulling at her arm. They stood next to a glass wall sparkling with colored lights. The two men watched Scorpion with hard eyes, their hands in their jacket pockets.

“Talk about what? Marseilles?”

“Not here,” he said, looking around.

“Why? Do you want to tie me up again, liebling?” Her dark eyes on him, and hearing her call him darling, even though he knew she meant it as little as the hooker, Zhana, sent a tiny electric spark through him.

“Maybe I should’ve.” He peered at her. “I think I like you better as a brunette.”

“So do I. It was supposed to help disguise me. It seems it didn’t work.” She smiled ruefully.

“You’re hard to miss,” he said.

“How did you find me?”

“Airport security camera in Turin.”

“Of course. One always underestimates the Americans. But I should never underestimate you, should I?” she said, looking into his eyes.

“Don’t play me, Najla. We need to talk-without your gorillas,” he added, glancing at the two men. “Where can we go?”

“Just like a man! We find each other again, like a miracle, and all you want is to get a room.”

“Or maybe a ship. You like ships, don’t you? First the Zaina, then the Shiraz Se,” he said, grabbing her arm. She looked stunned.

“I can’t talk now,” she said, trying to pull away.

“Not this time, Najla. Or is it Brynna?” Scorpion said, tightening his grip. He saw the two men start to move and he got ready for it. Najla stared at him, her eyes dark, unreadable. Then Scorpion felt a hard poke in his back.

“Go away,” he said, not turning around. The poke came again.

“Vasiliev wants to see you,” the scar-faced man said. His friend and another tough-looking man stood next to him.

“I’m busy,” Scorpion said.

“Kiril Andreyevitch is not the kind of man you keep waiting,” the scar-faced man said, showing Scorpion a gun in a shoulder holster. Scorpion looked at Najla. She leaned close, as if to kiss him.

“Diese manner sind Iranier,” she said. These men are Iranians. “They are forcing me to go with them. We’re meeting Chechens in the Summer Garden by the Coffee House in two hours. For God’s sake, help me,” she whispered in his ear in German. She looked into his eyes and kissed him full on the lips.

“Come,” said one of the Iranians, pulling her away.

“Mein Gott!” she said, looking wistfully at Scorpion. “How did we land in the middle of this?”

“I’ll see you,” Scorpion said, watching her as she stood looking tiny between the two Iranians.