Scorpion Winter (24 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Lukyanivska Prison

Kyiv, Ukraine

T
he screams echoed off the walls of the cell. Scorpion couldn't tell where they were coming from or even whether they were from a man or a woman. They sounded barely human. They seemed to go on for hours, though he knew it might have only been minutes. It was part of the process, he thought. Time deprivation, sensory deprivation, loss of control of your own body, humiliation, pain. “Reports from subjects have repeatedly confirmed that the anticipation of torture is worse than the torture itself,” he remembered Sergeant Falco quoting from the KUBARK book, the CIA's classified manual on torture. Buzz-hair-cutted, fat-faced, massive-shouldered, no-necked Sergeant Falco tapping the desk with a rubber hose. Scorpion had encountered him during his Level C SERE training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, back when he was in JSOC's First Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta Force. The rules for Level C SERE were that interrogators were allowed to break no more than one major and two minor bones. For five straight days and nights he'd had Sergeant Falco's undivided attention.

Not an easy man to forget, Sergeant Falco.

The screams subsided. For a moment there was nothing. Suddenly, he heard a terrible piercing scream, louder, higher pitched, worse than anything he had heard before. A woman, he thought. Definitely a woman. Then he understood. They wanted him to think it was Iryna.

Maybe it was.

Scorpion was penned naked in a small cage, his hands plastic-cuffed behind him, in a squatting stress position. There was no room to straighten any part of him, and the pain in his knees and back, shoulders and neck, was becoming unbearable. In a little while he would fall against the side of the cage and it would be even more uncomfortable.

The cell the cage was in was concrete and pitch-black and unbelievably cold. When they first brought him into the prison with his hands zip-tied behind him, Kulyakov had watched, smiling, as three SBU
mussory
took turns beating him with rubber truncheons. One of them got too close and Scorpion nearly took his head off with a Brazilian
capoeira
-style heel-kick that laid him out. He head-butted another and started to take the third man out, but Kulyakov had called for help and another three or four beefy guards piled in, swinging truncheons. One of them slammed his truncheon into Scorpion's groin as he was kicking, bringing him down.

His body ached all over from the beating they had given him, angry that he had hurt two of their comrades. But it was worth it, he thought, even as they were hitting him. It was worth it to let them know that they weren't completely in control. The pain was bad though. It was hard to know which was worse, the bruises from the beating, the pain in his joints from the stress position, or the cold.

The cold, he decided. He was shivering violently, approaching hypothermia, which he remembered starts when body temperature drops below 35 Celsius, 95 Fahrenheit. His breathing was becoming shallow. He needed to do his thinking now, he realized, while he still could, before the cold robbed him of his mind too.

“Sooner or later you'll break. Everyone does,” he remembered Sergeant Falco saying. It was a contest between interrogator and captive. Between Kulyakov and him. Kulyakov wanted confessions. If he didn't get it from him, he would try to get one from Iryna.

Scorpion tried to calculate if she could resist. How bad would they go on her? Would they sexually abuse her? Probably, he thought. How did he feel about that? He didn't want to think about it, he realized.
Well, you better, because they're going to do it.
If they survived—and realistically, for him at least that was almost an impossibility—would he take her back? Even if he would, would she let him?
You're in a dream world,
he told himself.
It's the cold. It's the cold and the pain and the screams doing the thinking.
Not me,
he decided. He would take her back no matter what they did. And even if Iryna didn't break—she would try not to, he knew that about her—Kulyakov also had Alyona. He'd get his confessions.

So what weapons did he have? Kulyakov had two limitations. First, he knew that Kulyakov couldn't afford to let him die. He needed to parade him for the Russians. And second, a confession from Iryna alone wouldn't do. Kulyakov needed a confession from him too. They would likely try to use him and Iryna against each other.

“It's about fear and pain,” Sergeant Falco told them in that mock prison camp that was way too real. “At some point, there's only pain. It'll blot out everything. Your wife, your mother, your country, your god. You think it won't, but it will. You need to hold onto one idea. Only one. My job is to get past that. Believe me, I will,” Falco said, smashing the rubber hose on the desk with a loud thunk. “Before I'm done with you, the only thing you'll believe in is me.”

That would be his one idea. Kulyakov didn't want him to die.

Was someone screaming again or was it in his mind? He wasn't sure and tried to move his head. Cell by icy cell, his brain was beginning to shut down.
The cold doesn't matter,
he told himself.

He remembered once, when he was a boy, Sheikh Zaid sent him out wearing only a
thawb
robe and a knife, to be alone in the desert for three days; part of his education in what it was to be a man of the Mutayr. It was winter and the temperature in the northern desert dropped 100 degrees from daytime to night. He remembered laying on the sand looking up at the stars like ice crystals in the sky. It was bitterly cold and he shivered in the robe, unable to sleep. There was no one, nothing, for as far as the eye could see anywhere. He was hungry and utterly alone. The nearest source of light were the stars.

“How should I deal with the heat and the cold?” he had asked Sheikh Zaid before he set out.

“Be patient,” Sheikh Zaid replied. “Remember, Allah is merciful. The pain always ends. Either you die, or if Allah wills, you will see the sun, but either way the pain ends.”

He looked up in the darkness of his cell and saw stars. His mind was beginning to blur, he thought. He fought to keep it clear. There were plenty of unanswered questions. What had happened with the war? He had heard no explosions or air raid sirens, so maybe his YouTube video had been seen or Akhnetzov had gotten through. Or maybe the city was under attack right this second and he was buried so deep behind Lukyanivska Prison's thick walls he couldn't hear it.

What had happened to Alyona? And Iryna? Would she give him up? How had the SBU found them at the TV station? He was certain they hadn't been followed. Was it Akhnetzov? Or someone at the station? Or even Kozhanovskiy? Someone had tipped the SBU about the upcoming broadcast. Who was it? Who stood to gain from stopping the video from getting out?

Gorobets? Gabrilov and the SVR? But how could they have known about the broadcast or where he and Iryna were? Because they knew. Kulyakov had come himself with the SBU team to the TV station because he knew they would be there. But how? It was almost as if there were another agent, an invisible player in the game. But how could that be?

He heard footsteps and the door unlock, and then a blinding light came on. It hurt his eyes and he had to squint to see. It was Kulyakov. This time he came with four big guards. They had learned to take him seriously, he thought with a tiny touch of satisfaction. The battle had been joined.

“So Kilbane aka Peter Reinert aka Scorpion. Ready for a little chat?” Kulyakov said.

Jesus, where'd he get “Scorpion”? he thought in panic. Then he remembered, Akhnetzov knew it. Possibly Boyko too. And Iryna. He'd told her that night in the apartment in Zaporozhye.

No, not Iryna,
he told himself. He didn't want to think they'd gotten it so soon from her or what they might have done to her to get it. Still, point for Kulyakov, he acknowledged. Good move and right out of the KUBARK playbook. Show the captive that you know more than he thinks you do and he'll assume you know a lot more. The CIA, the SBU, the FSB, they all played by the same rules.

“Khuy tebee v rod?”
Scorpion said. With my dick in your mouth? His teeth were chattering like castanets from the cold, and one of the guards snickered.
Hold onto one thought,
he told himself as they took him out of the cage.
Only one. No matter what, he can't afford to let you die.
Straightening his arms and legs was agony, but Scorpion forgot about it when one of the guards smashed him in the small of the back with a rubber truncheon, straightening him up.

Two guards, one on each side, half dragged, half carried him down a long gray corridor lined with steel cell doors. The corridor smelled of urine and disinfectant. As soon as they heard footsteps, prisoners began catcalling from behind the locked doors. Calling out,
“Skazhit im nichoho, brat!”
Don't tell them a thing, brother! And
“Dopomozhit!”
Help! And
“Yob tvoiyu maty, mussor mudaky!”
Fuck your mothers, cop bastards!

The guards hauled him into a large room with a mirror that he assumed was a two-way glass and strapped him into a heavy metal chair bolted to the door. He was able to see implements on a bench and electrical wiring before they strapped his head so he couldn't move it.
It's coming,
he told himself, trying to keep his heart rate down as the adrenaline started pumping. One of the guards attached electrodes to his genitals. Just the clamps alone were painful. He started breathing shallowly and forced himself to breathe more slowly.

Kulyakov came in along with a pudgy blondish man in a guard's uniform, which he wore with the jacket open, a wrinkled shirt hanging out of his trousers. The man had a smile painted on his face like a doll's. Scorpion wondered if he was a mental defective. He walked over to an electronic box connected to the electrodes. He touched it, almost caressed it, with his fingers, then licked his fingers with his tongue. Kulyakov sat in a chair facing Scorpion. Two of the guards left the room. The other two stayed behind Scorpion's chair, ready to grab him if he tried anything.

“The guards have gone to get their guns. You can't get out of this room. Not till I say so,” Kulyakov said.

Scorpion didn't say anything.

“I've been looking forward to this.” Kulyakov allowed himself a small smile.

“I should've killed you in the Puppet Theatre,” Scorpion said.

“Why didn't you?”

“I wanted to question you first. Then Iryna needed help.” He tried to shrug, but was unable to move.

“One of your many mistakes,” Kulyakov said. “You know why you're here?”

“An unpaid parking ticket?”

“Good.” Kulyakov nodded. “You're going to make this fun.” He smiled and looked at the guards, who began to laugh. The blondish man grinned and made a strange “uh, uh, uh” sound, showing wide gaps in his teeth. “You're going to be tried and convicted of the assassination of Yuriy Cherkesov and the members of his staff who were in the car when you blew it up. You and your fellow conspirator, Iryna Shevchenko.”

“If the verdict's already been decided, why bother with a trial?” Scorpion said.

“Tribunal,” Kulyakov corrected. “By the SBU.”

“Of course. Less chance of anything resembling the truth sneaking in.”

“You see,” Kulyakov said, turning his head toward the unseen watchers behind the glass. “This is good. We have a dialogue.” He gestured at the blondish man. “We should try out the equipment. Not too much.”

There was the briefest electric hum before the pain hit Scorpion like a sledgehammer. His penis felt like it was pulverized and on fire. He gasped in the chair, jerking desperately against the straps. It seemed to go on a long time, getting worse by the second. When it stopped, despite the cold in the room, he was drenched in sweat.

“That was a low setting. We can make it a lot worse,” Kulyakov said.

Again, right out of the KUBARK manual, Scorpion thought. Create anticipation of greater pain by telling the subject how much worse you can make it. Begin the obscene intimacy between torturer and subject, where the subject comes to regard the torturer as his ally in a conspiracy to limit the pain.

“So? No clever retort? Are we done with that?” Kulyakov said, putting one leg over the other and leaning forward.

“How'd you find us?” Scorpion asked.

Kulyakov gestured at the blondish man and there was an instant hum of pain. Scorpion felt his back arching and the agony in his loins. A loud groan escaped him. At a sign from Kulyakov, the machine stopped. Scorpion slumped in the chair. He was soaked with sweat.

“You have it backward. I ask the questions,” Kulyakov said, glancing at the mirror to make sure his wit was appreciated. “Let's talk about the assassination. Who ordered you to kill Cherkesov? The CIA?”

“We both know I didn't kill Cherkesov,” Scorpion said.

“We expected you to say that,” Kulyakov said, signaling to the blondish man.

This time the hum was louder and the pain much worse. He felt as if someone were stabbing his genitals with a red-hot knife. He screamed, the tears coming out of his eyes. Abruptly, the pain stopped and he became aware of the faint smell of burning flesh. His own.

“So let's get this over with. For the record, who do you say killed Cherkesov?”

“Dimitri Shelayev killed Cherkesov,” Scorpion gasped. “I know it, you know it. By now, lots of people know it.”

“You have evidence?”

“You know I do. Shelayev's confession. The video.”

“What video?”

“The one at the TV station.”

Kulyakov shook his head. “We searched thoroughly. There is no video.”

“People at the station saw it.”

“We questioned everyone at the station. They all deny it.”