Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To find Pyatov,” he whispered.

“We’ll meet later?”

Scorpion nodded. “Don’t do anything stupid-that means heroic. I’ll call,” he told her as he got out.

“Yid’ te dali,” she said to the driver, motioning him to go on.

Scorpion watched the taxi pull away, the wheels skidding in the slush. He climbed over snow, its surface black with soot between parked cars, and walked through the snow to the campaign office. One of the Black Armbands in front of the office handed him a leaflet, but then blocked his way as he tried to go in.

The Black Armband said something to him in Ukrainian. Scorpion showed him his Reuters ID.

“Ya zhurnalist iz Anglii,” he explained in Russian. I’m a journalist from England. “ I must to speak to the nachalnik,” the boss.

The Black Armband squinted at his ID, clearly unable to read the Latin lettering. He jerked his head for Scorpion to go inside.

The office was crowded with people talking, working at computers, on the phones. It could have been a campaign office anywhere. Scorpion spoke to four people before someone handed him off to a young woman who took him up the stairs to a tiny second-floor office.

“You are from England! Laskavo prosymo! ” Welcome, a burly man in a shirt and tie called out. A cardboard sign in Cyrillic lettering on his desk spelled out his name: IHOR OLIYNYK. Although it was only eight-thirty in the morning, the man put a bottle of Khortytsya horilka and two glasses on the desk. He too wore one of the black armbands. He poured the vodka and they raised their glasses.

“Za zdorowya!” Oliynyk toasted.

“Bod’mo!” Scorpion toasted back, and they drank.

As Oliynyk refilled their glasses, Scorpion handed him his business card.

“What can I do for a friend from the Reuters agency of England?” Oliynyk asked, glancing at the card and putting it in his pocket.

“I’m looking for someone,” Scorpion said, fishing out a photo of Pyatov that Iryna had had Photoshopped from a group picture. He handed it to Oliynyk.

“I never see him before.” Oliynyk shrugged, tossing the photo on the desk.

“I need to talk to Pan Cherkesov.”

“This close to the election. Impossible!”

“I need to speak to him now, today. Can you arrange it?”

“What is this about?”

“I’m a reporter. I have a story that could change the election. Before I print it, I need to talk to Cherkesov.”

“Talk to me,” Oliynyk said. “I’ll pass it on to him.”

Scorpion shook his head. “There isn’t time. Come with me if you like, but I have to see him at once.”

“What is this?” Oliynyk stared at Scorpion. “You want money? Is that what this is?”

Scorpion stood. “I’m obviously wasting your time. This is how elections are lost,” he said, taking back the photo and starting to leave.

“Wait!” Oliynyk called. “What is this story?”

“Come with me and find out,” Scorpion said, stopping at the door.

“Let me see the photograph again,” Oliynyk said, motioning. Scorpion handed it back. “This man?” He looked at Scorpion. “Is he dangerous?”

“What do you think?”

“Hivno,” Oliynyk cursed. He got up and grabbed his scarf, hat, and overcoat. “Come with me,” he said, taking Scorpion’s arm. “But if this is not legitimate, believe me, I would not want to be you if Gorobets gets his hands on you.”

“Who’s Gorobets?” Scorpion asked as they pulled on their outerwear. Oliynyk nodded to two Black Armbands who came with them, both obviously armed, their hands in their overcoat pockets. They waited in the street in front of the office, the wind whipping at their clothes. A red and white tram whirred by, its roof covered with snow.

“He’s a power in the party,” Oliynyk said. “Close to Cherkesov. Among other things, he’s the father of the Chorni Povyazky.” The Black Armbands.

A black Audi A8 pulled over. Scorpion took a deep breath before he got in. For the second time in barely thirty hours he was getting into a car with men who might try to kill him.

“So who is this man?” Oliynyk asked in the car, handing the photo back to Scorpion.

“His name is Sirhiy Pyatov.”

“And why should he concern us?”

“Not here,” Scorpion said, indicating the other men. They drove in silence. There was a sense of menace in the car. These were violent men, Scorpion thought. They longed for violence the way other men longed for a woman.

“You want see Gorobets?” The Black Armband in the front passenger seat asked him in English.

“Da,” Scorpion said.

The Black Armband who was driving said something in Ukrainian, and the one next to him in the passenger seat laughed.

“What did he say?” Scorpion asked Oliynyk.

Oliynyk smirked. “He say Gorobets don’t like what you say, you dancing with Shelayev.”

“Who’s he?” Scorpion asked.

“He is Gorobets’s protector man. How you say in Angliskiy?”

“Bodyguard.”

“Da,” Oliynyk nodded. “One time man with cane attack Gorobets in Verkhovna Rada. Shelayev could stop easy, but nyet. He take man’s skull one hand and squeeze,” making a squeezing motion with his fingers. “Break skull like egg.”

“Kak khorosho,” Scorpion murmured. How nice. He looked out the window. The day was dark, the sky slate gray, and even though it was morning, shop and office windows were already lit. He wondered what in hell he was doing, trying to save this Cherkesov son of a bitch. Rabinowich and Shaefer. They want me here, he told himself. There was more to this than a Ukrainian election.

They pulled up in front of a modern-style hotel just off Karl Marx Prospekt, the city’s main street, got out and went inside in a group. There were at least a dozen Black Armbands armed to the teeth in the lobby. They took an elevator to the top floor, where a group of Black Armbands stood guard outside a suite. The guards started to frisk everyone, and Scorpion took out his Glock. He removed the ammunition clip and handed the gun to Oliynyk.

“What’s this for?” Oliynyk asked him.

“Protection. Even in England, we’ve heard of the Cassette Scandal,” Scorpion said, referring to a notorious case from 2000 when the then Ukrainian president, Kuchma, was accused of arranging the kidnapping of a journalist whose body was later found beheaded. “I’ll want it back when we leave.”

A Black Armband frisked Scorpion, and Oliynyk knocked at the door. When it opened, they went inside.

The hotel suite had been turned into an office, with desks, telephones, and computers jammed in. There were more than a dozen men and women working. A bank of TVs mounted on the wall showed every Ukrainian channel plus Russian ORT and CNN.

A heavyset bald man in shirtsleeves and wearing horn-rim glasses stood in the center of the room talking to a young woman, who nodded and went to her desk. He looked like the uncle who tells a dirty joke at a family gathering, Scorpion thought, and could see that the way the others treated him, he was clearly the nachalnik- the boss.

“This is Gorobets,” Oliynyk said to Scorpion, and began talking rapid-fire in Ukrainian to the heavyset man, who didn’t respond. Oliynyk paused, began again, and Gorobets made a slight gesture, waving him away.

“You are from England?” Gorobets said in English to Scorpion. Although accented, his voice was soft and very clear. A whisperer’s voice, Scorpion thought.

“Canadian,” Scorpion said. “I work out of the Reuters office in London.”

“You have ID?” Gorobets asked.

Scorpion showed him his press pass. Gorobets peered nearsightedly at it. His eyes, magnified behind the glasses, were strange, like blue glacier ice.