Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

Scorpion tried to walk. Without the shackles, he could do it, but just barely.

“So there was no invasion, no war?”.

“No. Why are you stopping?” Ivanov asked, as Scorpion stopped walking.

“There’s something I have to do,” he said.

“Not now. We only have a few minutes,” Ivanov said. “I don’t want this to turn into a nomenclatura administrative shitting contest.”

Ivanov and the guard helped him hobble down the corridor toward the locked steel door to the cell block. Screams echoed from behind several of the cell doors.

“Where’s Kulyakov?” Scorpion asked, leaning between Ivanov and the guard. There were two plainclothes men with them-he assumed they were FSB-and another prison guard.

“He’s not here,” Ivanov said, looking at the guard.

“Pravda,” the guard said. It is true.

“What about Stepan?” Scorpion asked.

“Who?”

“A crazy blondish man who helps with interrogations.”

“Yego krysha ushla,” the guard said to Ivanov-his roof is gone-meaning, he’s crazy as hell.

Ivanov stopped. He looked at Scorpion.

“We don’t have time for this.”

“He killed a young woman. She didn’t deserve it. Not from him,” Scorpion said, pushing them off and hobbling forward on his own.

“I was right,” Ivanov frowned. “You’re a sentimentalist.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” Scorpion said. “Gde on?” he asked the guard. Where is he?

The guard indicated the staircase. They went up two floors, Scorpion wincing at every step, to an office off a corridor. Ivanov opened the door and peered inside. He motioned the guard closer.

“Is that him?” he asked.

The guard nodded.

Stepan was sitting alone at a table. He was staring at a lit candle, where he held a squirming white mouse, its pink eyes bulging, over the flame with a pair of tongs.

“I’ll give you one minute,” Ivanov said, checking his watch. “Then we leave-with you or without you.”

Scorpion went in and closed the door behind him.

“Y ou saved me. Why?” Scorpion asked. They were sitting in the backseat of a Lada Riva sedan driving along Grushevskogo past government buildings in Mariinsky Park. For Scorpion, the setting was surreal. He felt like any second the view would be revealed as a dream and he would be back in his cell, about to receive a bullet in the head.

“I am superstitious. All Russians are, even the atheists. Especially the atheists.” Ivanov smiled. “Here,” he said, pouring a shot of vodka from a flask into a shot-sized metal cup. “Stolichnaya Elit, not that Ukrainian piss they drink here. You look like you need it. Budem sdarovy,” he said.

Scorpion drank and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s superstition got to do with it?” he asked.

“Twice now you have helped Russia,” Ivanov said. “The funny thing is both times you had no intention of doing it. These idiotsky adventuristov!” he growled, and Scorpion knew he was speaking of SVR adventurism. “Dragging us into a war with NATO that we have no business in and could not win, and for what? A Ukrainian politician we could buy, sell, or replace a hundred times over? Chto idiotism!” What idiocy! “Anyway,” he poured another slug of vodka into the metal cup and drank it down, “I had a feeling, a premonition, that someday we might need you again. ‘Bog lyubit troitsu,’ ” he said, quoting the old Russian proverb that God loves threes. He shrugged. “Call it superstition, or an insurance policy.” Scorpion started to laugh but had to stop, wincing because of the pain, and then laughed and winced at that.

“For a man who was within minutes of being a corpse, you are surprisingly jolly. What’s the joke?” Ivanov looked at him curiously.

“Superstition. Really?” Scorpion grinned. “I suppose the fact that keeping me alive as a witness to who really killed Cherkesov, and gives you leverage over both the SVR and whoever wins the election in Ukraine, has nothing to do with it.”

“I was right,” Ivanov said. “I always tell my subordinates one should never underestimate the Americans. Because they often do stupid things doesn’t mean all of them are stupid.” He shook his head. “If I thought I could trust you and if you weren’t such a damned sentimentalist, I would hire you in a second. I’m glad I didn’t terminate you that time in Saint Petersburg.”

“Makes two of us,” Scorpion said. “What happened with the invasion?”

“We did a deal.”

“What deal?”

“Davydenko and Kozhanovskiy jointly signed an agreement with the Russian foreign minister that regardless of who wins the election, Ukraina will conclude a treaty guaranteeing Russia a renewed lease on the Russian Black Sea Fleet naval base at Sevastopol, with an easement in Crimea to supply the base for another fifty years. In exchange, Ukraine gets a discount on the prices we charge Europe for oil and gas.”

“So the crisis is over?”

“For today.”

“You know about Shelayev? That he killed Cherkesov?”

“I have the video. It proved quite useful within our own…” He hesitated. “… discussions. What will you do now?”

“You mean, am I leaving Ukraine?”

Ivanov smiled. “ Yei bogu, but it’s a pleasure doing business with someone who understands how the game is played.”

“You don’t want me dead because I give you leverage, but my presence here is a problem.”

“Let’s just say we have an understanding with Davydenko,” Ivanov said. They were driving on a bridge across the Dnieper. Scorpion looked out at the river, white with ice. He had the sense that he would never see it again. A ray of sunlight beamed through a crack in the clouds, making the snow and gold-domed spires look like a fairyland city.

“You mean with Gorobets,” Scorpion said.

“ Gospodin Gorobets is a friend and ally of Russia.”

“What if Kozhanovskiy wins the election?”

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“We’ve done our own polling. If absolutely necessary, we’ll create another crisis, but it won’t be necessary.”

“Where are we going?”

“Boryspil Airport. You can use your Reinert passport. There won’t be any difficulties,” Ivanov said, tapping a cigarette on a slim crocodile-skin case. One of the FSB men leaned over from the front seat and lit it for him.

“I need to see Iryna Shevchenko first. I won’t leave without talking to her.”

“She’s waiting at the airport.” Ivanov spoke briefly with the FSB man who had lit his cigarette. The man made a quick call and nodded to Ivanov. “ Da, yes, she’s there.”

“Why did Gorobets intervene to let her go? The video?”

“You see how useful you’ve been?” Ivanov said. “That stupid charge against her was a liability. Anyone would have seen through it. She would have become a martyr-more dangerous in death or prison than she could ever be on her own. It would have given Kozhanovskiy a cause.”

“You want me out of Ukraine too, don’t you?”

Ivanov took a deep puff and exhaled. Through the window, Scorpion could see industrial sites and rows of apartment buildings. They were on the highway to the airport.

“I have something to tell you. Call it professional courtesy,” Ivanov said. He seemed uneasy.

“I’m listening.”

“You need to know who betrayed you. Who do you think tipped where you were to the SBU?”

“Kozhanovskiy’s aide, Slavo. Even though we kept changing, he got her latest cell phone number and they tracked it.”

Ivanov shrugged. “You are talking about a Joe. The real question is, who was running him?”

“The SVR. Gabrilov.”

Ivanov shook his head and exhaled smoke. “Gabrilov is back in Moscow.”