Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

“You’ve been busy,” Iryna said, looking at him with those intense blue eyes with a tinge, he could swear, of real interest, as if seeing him for the first time.

“If Pyatov killed Alyona, it means…” Kozhanovskiy began.

“ Tak, yes-it means he couldn’t trust her,” she said. “The assassination plot could be real.”

“Pyatov worked for us!” Kozhanovskiy said. “The media will crucify us! It’s a disaster.”

“It’s worse than that,” Iryna replied, her fist clenched on the table. “If the Russians think we killed Cherkesov, they’ll invade. It’s the end of Ukraine!”

“NATO will have to do some-” he started to say.

“Nichivo!” she snapped. Nothing! “NATO will make noise and the UN will tsk-tsk; the Europeans will cluck and the Americans will shake their fingers and say, ‘Shame on Russia,’ and they-will-do-nothing,” she concluded, enunciating each word.

Kozhanovskiy looked at her. “We should call the politsiy.”

“Before we find out who else might be implicated?” she said. “And what if they arrest us? On the eve of the election! Half the politsiy are crooks and the other half are working for Cherkesov!”

“What can we do?” he asked.

“We have to stop Pyatov,” she said.

“How do we even know he’s the assassin?” Kozhanovskiy growled. “All we know is what this journalist,” indicating Scorpion and using the word like a curse, “is telling us. We have no idea who he is.”

“Alyona’s friends, the actors at the Black Cat,” Scorpion said, “told me that three weeks ago Pyatov came into money. They said he had a big deal going. The same time he stopped showing up for work.”

“The same time he stopped working for us,” Iryna murmured.

“They said he was Syndikat,” Scorpion added. “They were afraid of him.”

“ Sooka suna, it fits,” Kozhanovskiy cursed. He looked at Iryna. “Now what?”

She took a sip of tea, eyeing Scorpion.

“Mr. Kilbane, you mean to track Pyatov down, don’t you? We couldn’t stop you if we wanted to, could we?”

“Wherever the story takes me,” he said.

“Yes,” Kozhanovskiy put in. “Where exactly do you fit in all of this, Mr. Kilbane? This doesn’t seem to be normal journalism.”

Scorpion shrugged. “My definition of ‘normal’ is pretty elastic. I promised Iryna I wouldn’t print the story till I had the facts.”

“Your word!” Kozhanovskiy said, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Can we trust him?” he asked Iryna.

“Of course not!” she snapped. “If he’s going after Pyatov, one of us has to go too. And it can’t be you, so it has to be me.”

“I haven’t agreed to any of this,” Scorpion said.

“Just tell me. Do you really think Pyatov will be at Cherkesov’s rally in Dnipropetrovsk?” she asked.

“It was your idea,” Scorpion said. “Nighttime, a big stadium with a clear shot and multiple exits, crowds, chaos. Like you said, it’s perfect.”

“I don’t like this,” Kozhanovskiy said to her.

“We can’t let Kilbane go off on his own. It’s too important,” she said.

Scorpion started to get up. “You two will want to talk this over,” he said.

“Kilbane, stay. Please,” Kozhanovskiy said, holding his hand up. “I know this isn’t your country, but there are millions of lives at stake.” He turned to Iryna. “What about one of the others? Slavo? Misha?”

“We don’t know how far this goes. No one else must know,” she said.

“Forget it. I work alone,” Scorpion said.

“You think I’m not tough enough,” Iryna said, fishing in her handbag. She pulled out a small Beretta Storm 9mm pistol and showed it to them.

Scorpion smiled. “You know how to use that?”

“My father took me hunting in the Carpathian Mountains from the time I was a little girl,” she said, putting the gun back. “I’m a pretty good shot.”

“Yes, but are you willing to use it?” he asked quietly.

“You really don’t understand, Mr. Kilbane.” She smiled oddly. “We members of the upper class like to kill things. It’s our way of proving we’re tough enough to deserve our privileges.”

“What about the campaign?” Kozhanovskiy said. “You don’t have the time. We need you.” He looked at her. “I need you.”

“What choice do we have? Besides,” she grimaced, “Slavo is dying to take my place. You won’t be sorry. He’s very good.”

“Not like you,” Kozhanovskiy said.

“People look at me, they see my father. To be the child of a great man is to be an afterthought.” She looked down at her plate.

Kozhanovskiy glanced at his watch, then stood up. “I have an interview on Inter TV,” he said. “What about Pyatov? And him?” indicating Scorpion.

Iryna got up as well. “I’ll handle it,” she said, air-kissing Kozhanovskiy once on each cheek.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But I have to try,” she said, brushing off his suit jacket with her hand.

“All right,” he said, going to the closet. “From now on this is your only assignment. Slavo!” he called out as he pulled on his fur hat and overcoat, then said to Iryna, “Keep me posted,” and to Scorpion, whose hand he shook before he left the room, “ Buvay, Mr. Kilbane. You are quite a reporter. Only two days in Ukraina,” shaking his head. “I’ve never met one like you.”

Scorpion watched him talking in rapid-fire Ukrainian to Slavo and two of his bodyguards who stood outside the apartment door. They all left together. When he looked back, Iryna was watching him.

“Just so you know,” she said, holding her cell phone in her hand. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what Reuters says. I don’t trust you even one centimeter. You don’t act like a journalist. You have no interest in politics or in interviewing me or Viktor Kozhanovskiy. A real reporter would’ve jumped at the chance. Who the bloody hell are you?”

Centralny Vokzal

Kyiv, Ukraine

They 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.