Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

Just as Scorpion approached the landing of the fourth floor, two men came up the stairs from below, one of them in the black jacket and wool cap described by Iryna. They all saw each other at the same time. As they started to point their guns at him, he fired twice, hitting the first man in the head, the second-the one in the wool cap-in the shoulder. The man in the wool cap managed to fire twice as Scorpion leaped down to the landing, the bullets just missing, ricocheting off the metal stairs. He tripped as he landed, dropping the Gyurza. The man in the wool cap kicked the Gyurza away and aimed his own pistol. He smiled, showing broken teeth.

He was still smiling as Scorpion ripped his Glock from its holster at the small of his back and fired into the center of his forehead. The door to the landing opened then, and another man was on him, using a Russian Sambo kick to his middle along with a forearm that knocked the Glock from Scorpion’s hand. He was a big man, broad as he was high, and looked as strong as an ox.

Scorpion bounced off the wall to close in, using a CQC strike and parry combination with a leg sweep that took the big man down. He broke the man’s nose with an upward palm smash and put a guillotine choke hold around his massive neck, using the crook of his elbow and forearm to cut off the flow of blood through the carotid artery to the brain. The big man struggled violently, repeatedly slamming Scorpion back against the wall. He groped for Scorpion’s eyes with his sausagelike fingers. Scorpion barely held on, his ribs and back feeling like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. He grabbed his wrist to tighten his grip around the man’s neck and pulled up with all his strength.

The man slammed him again, knocking the wind out of him. All Scorpion could do was hang on, desperately squeezing his neck. Then all at once his efforts succeeded. The man went limp, falling back, a dead weight on top of him. Scorpion kept the choke hold tight another thirty seconds till he was sure the man was dead.

He squeezed out from under the massive body and, staggering, retrieved the Glock and the Gyurza pistols from the stairs. A woman with a little boy, who had no doubt heard the shots, peeked at him from the landing above.

“Ischezni!” he snapped at her in Russian. Beat it. She and the boy disappeared.

“Nadia! Nadia!” he called up to the landing above, and after a moment he heard Iryna’s footsteps on the stairs. He went through the dead men’s pockets. They carried cell phones and ammo clips, but none of them had ID of any kind. Even the labels from their shirts and jackets had been removed.

“Christ,” he said to himself as Iryna knelt beside him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“They have no ID,” he said as they went quickly down the stairs toward the back exit he had checked out when they first moved in.

“So they’re not politsiy or militsiyu.”

“Or Syndikat blatnoi. The thugs have to carry ID in case they get stopped by the cops.”

“So who are they?”

“Can’t you guess?” he said, pausing at the back door. He cracked it open and peered out at an alleyway piled with snow and trash. He scanned the roofline for snipers. It looked clear. They probably figured three men inside plus the front covered and the element of surprise was more than enough to arrest a man and a woman.

“SBU,” she said.

“Probably,” he nodded. “Let’s go!”

They ran out the door into the alley, slipping in the snow, its surface black with dirt. Scorpion went ahead toward the corner. Iryna followed, her carry-on balanced on her head like an African woman. Scorpion stopped at the corner and, motioning her to keep back, lay down in the snow. With Iryna behind him, breathing hard, he edged forward, peeked around the corner and ducked back.

He stood up and brushed the snow off. “It looks clear, but they’ll be waiting to hear from their men inside. We won’t have much time.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait here. Keep out of sight. When you hear a car horn, run toward it and get in. If you hear shooting, go out in the street and run the other way.”

“How will you get a car?” she asked, but Scorpion was already walking quickly down the street path in the snow, his backpack over his shoulder. As soon as he was sure no one was watching, he slipped the Glock into his overcoat pocket.

He spotted a Lada sedan parked by the curb. After trying the driver’s door and finding it locked, he knelt in the street. He didn’t want to smash the car window. There was always the chance of an alarm, and driving in this cold with an open window was not only uncomfortable, it would attract attention. He fished in his backpack for his lock kit, pulled out the Peterson universal key and within seconds opened the car door and got in. Using the kit’s cylinder extractor, he pulled the cylinder from the car’s ignition switch and started the engine with a jiggle of the Peterson key, then unlocked the doors and honked the horn for Iryna.

As he turned the wheel, ready to pull out, he saw her in the rearview mirror, pulling her carry-on toward him through the snow. She was bending over to see which car he was in and he honked again. He felt for the Glock as the seconds ticked by. The rear door opened and she tossed her carry-on in back. As she got in beside him, he spotted two men in the side mirror coming out of the alley.

They saw Iryna get into the car and started running toward them. Before she even closed the door, Scorpion pulled away, the tires slipping on snow and ice. He swerved the Lada into the street and heard shots behind them as he accelerated, skidding, toward the corner. He made a sharp turn, cutting off a snow-covered van, and cut into the lane of cars moving on a wide street thick with slush churned by the traffic.

“Now what?” she breathed.

“Where’s the nearest Metro?”

“I’m not sure. I’m a Right Bank girl. Probably Lisova,” she said, looking back. To their left was a lake or inlet of the Dnieper, the ice frozen solid, and in the distance tall apartment blocks. “I’ve never even been in this part of Kyiv before.”

“We have to get rid of the car,” he said. “They’re probably already calling in a description to the politsiy. We don’t have much time. What did Kozhanovskiy say?”

“I didn’t want to risk his cell. I spoke to Slavo. He says they are all stunned.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Gorobets called Viktor and told him he should agree to a three-week delay in the election for the Svoboda party to pick another candidate.”

“Svoboda meaning Gorobets.”

“Yes.”

“What’s Viktor going to do?”

“Slavo doesn’t know. No one knows what to do. There’s going to be a vote tomorrow in the Verkhovna Rada.” She turned to Scorpion. “I have to go back.”

“They’ll arrest you.”

“No, I’ll get away. I’ll see you later.”

“It’s better if we’re not together,” Scorpion agreed. “Together we’re like a neon sign.”

“Is that what you want?” turning to him.

“What I want is irrelevant.”

“Not to me,” she said, then exclaimed, “Look!”

“What is it?”

“That mashrutka!” she said, pointing at a minibus they were passing, with a hand-lettered sign on its window. “It’s going to the Chernihivska Metro.”

“Okay,” he said, accelerating. He looked for a place to lose the Lada. If he pulled ahead about two blocks, that should give them enough time. He scanned the street ahead. There was a parking space in front of a shoe store. He cut over and swung into the space at an angle.

The two of them jumped out of the car. They grabbed their things from the back of the Lada and ran to the corner, just getting there in time to wave the mashrutka down. It stopped and they squeezed in, breathing hard.