Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

“Rabinowich thinks so too.”

“Christ. You really see us going in?”

“Who the hell knows?” Shaefer shrugged. “Technically, Ukraine is a member of the NATO Membership Action Plan. They sent troops to support us in Afghanistan. If Russia were to invade, in theory we’d have to do something.” He hesitated, as if he knew what he was about to say wasn’t something he should ask as a friend. “When you get to Kiev, my bosses would appreciate anything you could toss our way.”

“I can’t go near Kiev Station. Besides, there’s ELINT all over the place,” meaning heavy Russian and Ukrainian surveillance on electronic communications, and that he wouldn’t go near any CIA operatives or locations in Ukraine.

“We’ll stay clear,” Shaefer agreed. “Have to. If anything goes south, they’ll blame the CIA bogeyman. Suppose you need to get hold of Rabinowich or me?”

“Give me a dead-drop.”

“Old school.” Shaefer nodded approvingly and gave him the details and how they would handle Scorpion’s cover.

Scorpion glanced at the cafe window. It was still snowing; the street was empty. He wasn’t anxious to get back out in it and to the airport. They were the last ones in the cafe, and the waiter had glanced over at them more than once.

“We should get going,” he said.

Shaefer touched Scorpion’s forearm. “About Ukraine. How much time have you got? Did Akhnetzov say?”

“The election’s in a week. Whatever is going on, it’s already running.”

Shaefer whistled silently to himself. “You’ll have to force the issue. You watch your ass, bub. The difference between the SVR, the SBU, and the Ukrainian mafia, that’s a pretty thin line. Those are some very badass Mike Foxtrots,” Army slang for motherfuckers. “Makes Waziristan look like apple pie and motherhood. You Romeo that?”

“Happy days,” Scorpion said, finishing his beer.

Maidan Nezalezhnosti

Kyiv, Ukraine

The giant television screen blasted the Plach Yeremiyahi rock band to tens of thousands of demonstrators clapping and moving to the beat in Kyiv’s Independence Square. The night was frigid and the crowd was dressed in heavy coats, wool caps, and Russian fur hats. Many were in their twenties, there more for the music and the noisy crowds than the politics. But scattered among them were older faces, some with orange scarves and flags. They looked around uncertainly, as though they had gotten lost on their way to a college rally. A giant banner on a Soviet-style building lit with floodlights proclaimed VSEUKRAYINSKE OBYEDNANNYA BATKIVSHCHYNA, the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland Party, and signs in the crowd read KOZHANOVSKIY FOR THE PEOPLE. On the towering white column in the center of the square, someone had taped a poster with a squint-eyed photo of Kozhanovskiy’s opponent, Cherkesov, that read: HET ZLODIY. Down with the Thief.

“Podyvit’sya na nykh.” Look at them, a long-haired young man in a jacket standing in front of Scorpion said to his blond girlfriend, indicating a middle-aged couple waving orange T-shirts in time to the music. “You’d think it was the Orange Revolution all over,” he added, his breath like puffs of smoke in the cold. For Scorpion, trying to acclimatize to the winter here, it was so cold it hurt to breathe.

“Well, I think they’re klevyy,” cool, his girlfriend said.

Scorpion continued to move through the crowd. It had been a busy day for him. He had never been in Kyiv before, and flying into Boryspil Airport, looked out over the city dusted with snow. The gray Dnieper River divided Kyiv in two, the east or Left Bank an endless spread of apartment buildings and factories, the Right Bank a jumble of Soviet-style buildings, gold-domed churches, and, beside the river, a statue the size of the Statue of Liberty of a woman with a raised sword.

He rented a fourth-floor apartment on Pushkinskaya on the Right Bank near vulytsya Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street. His cover was as a Canadian journalist named Michael Kilbane working out of London, in Kiev to cover the election for Reuters.

Being a journalist was standard cover, good enough to explain why he’d be poking around and asking questions. Shaefer had provided him with authentic-looking press credentials and promised to have MI-6 backstop his cover with the Reuters office on Canary Wharf in London. It was good enough for a standard police check. If he needed deeper cover, he would already be in bigger trouble than any story or identity could protect him.

The music in the square stopped to cheers and shouts for “Bolshe!” more, and “Prodolzhaite igrat’ muzyku!”- Keep on playing! A man on the giant TV screen announced something to more cheers and good-natured catcalls, and then a woman in a black leather overcoat and Russian fur hat suddenly appeared and began speaking. The crowd quieted down, not because of what she was saying-Scorpion caught only that she was apparently introducing a speaker-but because, even bundled up as she was and distorted on the large TV screen, her looks were extraordinary.

“Kto ona?” Scorpion asked a man in a heavy jacket and wool cap standing next to him. Who is she?

“You don’t know Iryna?” the man answered in Russian, pronouncing her name Ee-ree-na, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Scorpion shook his head. “Iryna Mikhailivna Shevchenko. Her father was the founder of the Rukh, the Independence movement.”

“Spasiba,” Scorpion said, nodding thanks and moving on around the edge of the crowd as the woman began leading them in a chant.

“Kozhanovskiy!.. Kozhanovskiy!.. Kozhanovskiy!” the crowd shouted in response, erupting into a roar of approval as the candidate himself replaced the woman at the podium.

“Ukraintsi!” the older, barrel-chested man shouted, grinning widely. “The time has come to choose your future!” The crowd roared again. There were ripples of applause as Kozhanovskiy went on, and then, from the edge of the square, a jumble of shouting and women screaming.

“Dopomozhit!” a woman screamed. Help! “Prypyny!” others shrieked. Stop it! “Militsiyu!” Security Police! And at the edge of the crowd, “Bandity!” as people began to surge away, shouting and running.

Scorpion couldn’t see what was causing it. Someone banged into him and without looking, continued running. A gap opened in the melee and he finally saw what was happening.

A mob of perhaps a hundred men, many armed with clubs, had waded into the crowd. They were swinging wildly, smashing heads, shouting “Het Kozhanovskiy!” Down with Kozhanovskiy! As people trampled each other to get out of the way, Scorpion waited. The front wave of the attackers came toward him. They looked like thugs, and he saw what seemed to be criminal tattoos on many of their necks.

Two burly men were coming at him, clubs upraised. One had a spiderweb tattoo on the side of his neck, a Russian prison tattoo signifying that he was a drug dealer. He swung his club, and Scorpion sidestepped him with a leg sweep, taking him down as he blocked a punch from the other thug, using an aikido ikkyo wrist lock to bring him to the ground. As the mob surged past them, Scorpion lay on top of the second, pressing hard on his elbow and wrist, causing him to cry out in pain. The drug dealer started to get up. Scorpion kicked him in the face and he collapsed, his nose spurting blood. Someone else kicked at Scorpion then, who kicked back and caught a knee, this third thug grunting and stumbling on.

“Kto vas poslal?” Scorpion demanded of the man he still held to the ground. Who sent you? He could see a crucifix tattoo on the back of the man’s neck. Another blatnoi thug, he thought, applying sharp pressure to the man’s wrist and elbow.

“Poshol na khui!” the man cursed at him, his breath smelling of onions. He managed to grab Scorpion’s neck with his free hand and try to choke him. Scorpion applied more pressure to the wrist, pried one of the man’s fingers from his neck and bent it back suddenly, breaking the finger. The man screamed.