Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

Scorpion got the key to Room 16 and went through the main lounge, where a dozen or so naked men lounging on benches and in the steaming Jacuzzi pool checked him out. He found his way to Room 4, knocked and went in. Ruslan was lounging on a waterbed. He jumped up when Scorpion came in.

“You want I wait?” he asked.

Scorpion shook his head and gave him the rest of the money. Ruslan started for the door, then stopped.

“No trouble, da?”

“No trouble,” Scorpion said.

“You want, I wait in other room. After, we make sex. No money. Best zhopa in world,” Ruslan said, slapping his ass and wiggling it suggestively.

“I like women,” Scorpion said.

“I am better. The woman always she make trouble.”

“Well, we’re no bargain either,” Scorpion said. “Go out the back way and don’t let anyone see you,”

“Buvay, rodimy,” Ruslan said-So long, sweetheart-and left.

Scorpion waited behind the door. It was after midnight when he heard a knock. A moment later the Chinese man from the photo walked in.

Stepping out, Scorpion motioned with the SR-1 Gyurza for Li Qiang to sit on the waterbed.

“De Ruslan?” Li Qiang asked in Ukrainian.

“He’s not here. Speak English,” Scorpion said.

“Na zhal, ya ne hovoryu po angliyski.” Sorry, I don’t speak English.

“You went to USC, you son of a bitch. Don’t bullshit me,” Scorpion said, sitting on the only chair in the room, just out of range if Li Qiang made a move.

“What’s your problem? You go to UCLA?” Li Qiang said in perfect English, studying the man in front of him.

He’s good, Scorpion thought. Li Qiang was sizing him up so he could provide a description in case he survived. He approved, one professional to another.

Li Qiang looked at the gun pointed at him. “Are you going to kill me?”

“That depends on our conversation.”

“I have a man outside.”

“Yang Hao. In the car. For the time being, he lives. Like you,” Scorpion said.

“Who are you? CIA? MI-6?”

“The goddamn Boy Scouts! What difference does it make? You’re running the Russian, Oleg Gabrilov.”

“Am I? And how did you come across that particular piece of disinformation?” Li Qiang said, sliding back on the waterbed so he could rest his back against the wall. He folded his arms across his chest and bobbed up and down on the bed, sitting perfectly straight, like a yogi riding the waves into nirvana. He’s good, Scorpion thought again. The fact that his most important Joe was blown should’ve rocked Li Qiang down to his socks, but he looked unfazed.

“Bank transfers from CCB to Gabrilov’s Pravex account,” he replied.

Li Qiang shrugged. “Second-rate hacker stuff. You’ll have to do better.”

“Not sure the folks in Yasenevo will see it that way. Or Zhongnanhai, come to that,” Scorpion said, referring to the Moscow suburb where the SVR was headquartered and the Beijing headquarters of the Guoanbu. It effectively told Li that he knew Gabrilov was SVR and that he headed Guoanbu operations in Kyiv.

“That is better. Much better,” Li agreed. “So is this about money, Mister…?”

“Vasja Pupkin.” Russian slang for John Doe.

“Cute,” Li smirked. “What do you want Pane Pupkin?”

“Who killed Cherkesov?”

“Don’t you watch TV? The authorities suspect Iryna Shevchenko and a foreign journalist, name of… I forget.”

“Kilbane,” Scorpion said.

“That’s it. I believe they’re after you, Pane Pupkin-or is it Kilbane?” looking directly at Scorpion. So the son of a bitch recognized him, Scorpion thought.

“Now who’s being cute?” he replied. “Especially since we both know Iryna and I didn’t do it.”

“No, but that won’t stop them from executing you. Bullet in the back of the head seems to be their style. Do you like travka?” Li asked, using the Russian slang word for marijuana.

Scorpion shook his head. “Not while I’m working.”

“Of course. Mind if I light up?”

“Mne po figu,” meaning he didn’t give a damn. “And you didn’t answer me. Who killed Cherkesov?”

“What makes you think I would know?” Li had pulled a joint out of his pocket and was now lighting it, filling the air with the scent of marijuana.

“You and Gabrilov hired Sirhiy Pyatov as a decoy to lure someone from the Kozhanovskiy campaign as the fall guy. Plus you had a motive to get rid of Cherkesov.”

“Which is?” Li said in a choked voice from holding the smoke in, then exhaling.

“The new gas pipeline from Kazakhstan. Cherkesov was going to throw the deal to the Russians.”

“Nanyi zhi xin!” Li exclaimed in Chinese, shaking his head. “This is a CIA fantasy! You can’t seriously believe that we’re stupid enough to jeopardize everything we’re trying to do in Europe over a Ukrainian gas pipeline?”

“Why not? It’s billions of dollars,” Scorpion said, having expected Li Qiang to deny involvement, but this was something else.

“First of all,” Li said, “it isn’t the pipeline we care about; it’s the gas. And we want it to go the other way, to China. Killing a hundred Cherkesovs wouldn’t make that happen. Second, to get to Ukraine the pipeline has to go through southern Russia near Astrakhan anyway, so the Russians were always going to be part of the deal.”

“You bid on it.”

“Of course we bid on it. Better that than to have them focus on something important. You should learn from Sun Tzu.”

“ ‘All war is deception,’ ” Scorpion quoted.

“So…” Li Qiang looked at Scorpion speculatively. “Not entirely stupid.” He shrugged. “In the end, we’ll do business with Kozhanovskiy or whoever Svoboda gets to replace Cherkesov-or Vasja Pupkin, for all we give a damn.” He coolly exhaled a long stream of marijuana smoke. “This is good shit. Sure you don’t want some?” holding the joint out to Scorpion, who shook his head.

“Let’s assume for a second I believe you,” Scorpion said. “If you didn’t kill Cherkesov and no one in the Kozhanovskiy campaign did, who did? It couldn’t be the SVR. The Russians wanted him to win.”

“Can’t you guess, bratan?” Li said, grinning like the Cheshire cat, his eyes glassy with the marijuana. Now they were brothers, Scorpion thought. A little more grass and maybe he’d get some truth out of the son of a bitch. “Think. Who stood to gain from Cherkesov’s death? Who did he threaten?” All at once, Scorpion realized what Li Qiang was trying to tell him.

“You’re saying it’s a CIA operation?”

“They have the most to gain.” Li shrugged. “You know you’re an attractive man. Not so handsome as that lying bljad whore Ruslan, but not bad.”

“It’s not a CIA op,” Scorpion said. But was it? he wondered, then thought about some of the ops-within-ops Bob Harris, the Deputy DCIA, had pulled. But why would they want him and Iryna as the fall guys? It would ensure that Kozhanovskiy would lose. It didn’t add up.

“Then it’s a mystery,” Li said. “You’re not going to kill me for that, are you?”

“I’m going to give you one chance to live,” Scorpion said. No matter how you turned this thing, he thought, Gabrilov was the key. He had set up Pyatov as a decoy to cover the real assassination. If he didn’t do it for the Guoanbu, he sure as hell did it for someone. “Set up a meeting. Private. Just you and Gabrilov. Only I’ll be there instead of you. I’ll call and tell you where and when.”

“Suppose I don’t cooperate? Or suppose I decide to send my bodyguard, Yang Hao, instead, or maybe just turn you in to the politsiy or the SBU?”

“You know, I thought we were getting along. Now I’m beginning to think you don’t understand me, bratan,” Scorpion said quietly. For a moment the only sounds were the rhythmic sexual groans coming from the room next door. Li looked at him with glassy eyes, then shook his head as if to clear it. “You think I haven’t arranged backup? If anything happens to me, you and Gabrilov will be blown all over the Internet. Even if I’m dead, Yasenevo and Zhongnanhai will know exactly who to blame.”