Scorpion Winter (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Expo Plaza

Kyiv, Ukraine

T
he Lianhuay company office was on the ninth floor of an office building across from the Expo Plaza Exhibition Center. There were two security cameras covering the front entrance, but only one at the back. Scorpion used his Leatherman tool to chip a toehold in the wall at the back of the building, then climbed up and disabled the camera. A tap on his Peterson universal key and he was inside.

The building was dark and empty. His footsteps echoed as he climbed the stairs to the Lianhuay office. There was an alarm on the office door, but it was only single channel. It took him less than a minute to disarm it. The door lock was a card reader. He used an NSA card and waited while the software read the magnetic reader setting and opened the lock.

Before entering, he used his flashlight to check for motion detectors. He didn't see any and went inside. It was hard to tell whose office was whose; the name plaques were in Mandarin, which he couldn't read. But hierarchy was the same no matter what language it was in, he thought. Li Qiang would have the best office, and so he made his way to a large corner office with window views of the Expo Plaza across the way.

He turned on the desk computer, plugging his NSA drive into a USB port. The NSA software automatically figured out how to log itself into any computer with administrator privileges. It also scanned the password files for account passwords and provided English translation on the fly for all major languages, including Mandarin. While the software was running, he checked the desk drawers. In one of them he found a Chinese M-77B 9mm pistol, checked to see if it was loaded and put it back. He went through the rest of the drawers but found nothing of interest.

He hit the Start and the All Programs arrow and pressed the NSA Ctrl key combination for translation to English. Then he saw it. A client software program on the PC for the CCB Bank. Based in Beijing, CCB was one of the largest banks in the world.

Scorpion accessed the bank's website with the software client, letting the NSA software provide the user ID and password. There were multiple accounts. This was going to take a while, he thought, settling down to open them one by one. Then he got lucky. In the second account he opened, he spotted an electronic bank transfer of $2,500 in U.S. dollars to an account in Pravex Bank, Kyiv. He didn't bother with the NSA software, but letter by letter translated the Cyrillic account name. It belonged to Oleg Nikolayevich Gabrilov. He did a Find all search and saw repeated transfers to Gabrilov's account in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $6,500 over the past two years.

Well well.
Scorpion smiled to himself. The only thing better than having a potential Joe's balls in a vise, he thought, was getting proof he was being paid by the wrong people.

After copying the files to the plug-in drive, he shut down the computer. Before leaving, he used an antiseptic wipe to clean everything he had touched and then rearmed the security camera. Ten minutes later he was out on the snowy street on his way to the Nyvky Metro station.

So it looked like Gabrilov was Li Qiang's double agent in the SVR. It wasn't about politics. It was about money. Natural gas. Maybe if he could produce the real assassin, he and Iryna would be off the hook. Maybe.

The street was cold and empty and he shivered inside his coat. Not far from the Metro station he saw an open café, stepped inside and ordered
chorna kava
, black coffee, piping hot, and gulped it down. The TV on the wall behind the counter showed a press conference going on in Washington. The President of the United States was speaking. He was warning Russia not to invade Ukraine. As a precautionary measure, he announced that he had ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to raise the level of American military readiness to DEFCON 2, the second highest level before war.

Scorpion put down his coffee and went back outside, walking as fast as he could to the Metro.

He was running out of time.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Shulyavska

Kyiv, Ukraine

S
he was beautiful, blond, and sexy in a tight red dress cut low to reveal perfect cleavage. She was singing Madonna's “Take a Bow” in a throaty contralto, stage lights gliding across her body, and she almost had you going, except that she was a man.

“Razve chto Ruslan?”
Scorpion asked the waiter in Russian. Is that Ruslan?

“
On nazyvaet sebya
Svetlana,
” the waiter said. He calls himself Svetlana.

“Can you bring her over?” Scorpion asked, holding out two one-hundred
hryven
bills.

“Konechno.”
Sure. “You got good taste,” the waiter said, taking the money.

Scorpion was sitting in the shadows, in an alcove with a plush sofa and a view of the stage. The club was chrome and black, cigarette smoke spiraling in colored lights, and filled with gay men and a few lesbian couples. A few minutes after her set, the waiter, smirking, brought Svetlana over to his table.

She looked at Scorpion, smiled, and sat next to him, motioning for the waiter to stay.

“Kupitmne champanskogo, dorogoi,”
she said, squeezing Scorpion's thigh. Buy me champagne, darling.

“Skolka?”
Scorpion asked. How much?

“Twelve hundred,” the waiter said. About $150.

Scorpion nodded. Svetlana looked triumphantly at the waiter, who grinned and left.

“Do you speak English?” Scorpion asked.

“Little only,
dorogoi
,” Svetlana said, groping up Scorpion's thigh toward his groin till he stopped her.

“Let's talk first,” he said.

“
Konechno
,
dorogoi
. After
champanskogo
, we go VIP room,” Svetlana said, indicating a room with вип in red neon over the door. “You will like me, I promise,” she whispered in his ear.

“You will like me better,” Scorpion said, showing her a stack of large
hryven
notes.

Svetlana took his hand and started to pull him up.

“Forget
champanskogo
and fuck me now,” she said.

Scorpion pulled her back down.

“What about your
droog
?” Your boyfriend.

“What boyfriend?” looking at him suspiciously.

“Your Chinese
droog
, Li Qiang.”

“What is this?” she said, exhaling smoke.

“I need to talk to Li Qiang. No trouble, just business.”

“So go his office. Don't come sex me. Make trouble,” she said, staring glumly at the stage, where a drag queen pulled up her plaid schoolgirl-style skirt and wiggled her behind at the audience to laughs and scattered applause.

“I need to see him alone. Without his bodyguard,” Scorpion said.

“Why?”

“You don't understand. He doesn't have to be afraid of me. I am afraid of his bodyguard, Yang.”

“Ne svisti.”
Don't lie. “You not type guy who is afraid,” she said, putting the cigarettes back in her purse and starting to get up. “I not like.”

Scorpion grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. He put a stack of money on the sofa and held her hand on top so she could feel it.

“You really like him that much?” he asked.

“He okay,” she shrugged. “To tell truth,” looking at Scorpion, “he kind of
lokh
, understand?” Russian slang for a mark, a sucker. She wrinkled her nose as if smelling something bad. “I get bored. China men not so big where is important, understand?”

“Help me tonight, I'll give you ten thousand. Half now,” Scorpion said, removing her hand and counting it out. “No trouble, I promise.”

She took the money and smiled.

“You look big enough,” she said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke at him.

“Not for you,” he said, putting the rest of the money away. “Like I said, this is business,
rodimy
.”

He waited while Ruslan went back and changed. When Ruslan came out looking like a man, they took a taxi to the massage parlor on Berezhanskaya. Without the makeup and the wig, Ruslan was a young man, handsome enough to be a model, and it was easy to see how he made such a good-looking woman.

They drove down the hill toward the Shulyavska neighborhood, the streets wet with slush, overhead power lines sagging with snow. On the way, Ruslan called Li Qiang on his cell phone. Following Scorpion's instructions, Ruslan insisted they have one night that was just the two of them, without having Yang Hao waiting outside the door.

“Ya hochu tebya, moi dorogoi,”
Ruslan told him. I want you, my darling. “For once, the whole night, just the two of us.”

After hanging up, he said, “He's coming.”

“What about the bodyguard?”

“Yang is staying in car. He promise not come inside.” Ruslan held out his hand. “You give rest of money,
kharasho
?”

“Inside,” Scorpion said.

The taxi pulled up to the massage parlor with its blue neon sign that read
CONGO MASSAGE SPA
in the curtained window. Scorpion paid the driver and he and Ruslan went in separately, acting as if they didn't know each other. Ruslan got the deluxe room, number 4. He slipped the man behind the counter fifty
hryvnia
to let Li Qiang know where he was.

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.”

“And if I agree to make the call?” Li said. “Consider it professional courtesy. I'm curious myself, especially since I pay the son of a bitch.”