Scorpion Betrayal

CHAPTER EIGHT

Volgograd, Russia

Borya Khmelnitsky, aka Gospodin Kolbasa, or Mr. Sausage, was laughing as he poured them both another glass of Dovgan vodka, the only kind of Russian vodka he said wasn’t made out of piss. They were sitting at a window table of the Avgust restaurant on the Embankment overlooking the Volga River, where, though it was April, an occasional ice floe still floated by. It was said that Khmelnitsky got the nickname Kolbasa because of what he had done to a rival from the Tsentraly mafia gang at a sausage factory, like Sweeney Todd, feeding him to them at a so-called peace gathering.

“This guy, this Yuri guy, did it because his wife, she wasn’t happy with her neck, okay?” Khmelnitsky laughed. He was a big man. He wore a black leather jacket over a flashy Hawaiian-type shirt, the unofficial uniform of the Ekaterinburg Uralmash mafia. “She has, how you call it, neck like rooster, okay? So she wants operation to fix neck, make pretty like swan. Also Moskva. All the time she wants to go to Moscow; live better life. This is like Chekhov.

“So this guy, Yuri, is big shot in MOD, Federal Security Service for Atomics, da? We do deal for three kilos Cesium-137, make beautiful dirty bomb. Comes out with big truck and with MOD security team and two troop trucks from Twelfth Main Directorate of GUMO, Ministry of Defense. All official, da? They leave Ozersk. Is closed city. Secret place. No one can enter. Officially, doesn’t exist, Ozersk. People call city ‘Mayak,’ but is Ozersk. In Soviet times, say ‘Ozersk’ and you be in Lubyanka Prison, if they don’t kill you on the way.”

“Is that where the aerosol spray came from?” the Palestinian asked. “Ozersk? They moved it there from Vozrozhdeniya?”

Khmelnitsky looked at him sharply, and for a moment the Palestinian could see how dangerous he was. This was the first time he was meeting the man since they had done the deal for the aerosol apparatus with the three canisters of liquid pathogen culture three months earlier. All at once, Khmelnitsky grinned, showing his crooked satyr’s teeth.

“Who can say? When Soviet times end, many things disappear. Even people,” looking hard at the Palestinian, then smiling suddenly with his crooked teeth like they were best pals again. “So like I am telling, this guy Yuri and his MOD trucks, they go through five checkpoints, scan with dosimeter, alpha radiation detector, no problem. Everything fixed, you understand,” he said, making the universal sign for money, rubbing his thumb on his fingertips. “They drive through taiga, forests, villages, like army convoy right to middle of Ekaterinburg. Right down middle of Malysheva Street. I see him, Yuri. I say ‘bakapor.’ ” Dumbass. “‘What you doing?’

“He say, ‘We do business.’

“I say, ‘You crazy mudak. You want do business in middle of street?’

“He say, ‘Chto zahuy.’” What the fuck?

“So we go to Plotinka, big dam. Is like park, in center Ekaterinburg. We talk out in open away from everyone. See everything. No bugs, no FSB. I say, ‘Where is my Cesium-137?’

“He say, ‘Fuck that cesium govno shit. We do better deal. More money.’”

“What was in the truck?” the Palestinian asked.

“Two steel drums. Between is steel drums of water and big sheet lead. Heavy sukin-sin. Inside, you never believe. I never believe. No one believe.”

“So it was all there? Just like that?” the Palestinian said. He’d heard the story before, although each time the details changed, except for the part about the steel drums and what was in them, which had changed everything and added a second phase to his original operation.

“We go. See for yourself. All so his pizda wife’s neck be beautiful. Crazy, nyet?” Khmelnitsky said, getting up and pulling his Hawaiian shirt over the gun in his belt.

They left the restaurant and walked by a park with souvenir vendors on the tree-lined path selling Matryoshka dolls and cheap watercolor prints. They got into Khmelnitsky’s Mercedes and drove past tall apartment blocks to the Central Railroad Station, with its old-fashioned clock tower, and out toward the train yard.

On a hill in the distance the Palestinian could see an unbelievably huge statue of a woman with her upraised arm holding a sword. Someone had told him she was Mother Russia and that she was bigger than the Statue of Liberty in New York. It all had something to do with World War Two. During the Communist times, the concierge at the hotel had said, Volgograd had been called Stalingrad and was the scene of a great battle. But the Palestinian was from the Middle East, knew little of European history and believed even less. If there had ever been a battle here, unlike Gaza or Lebanon, he could see no sign of it, and in any case it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what was waiting for him in the railroad container car, and if he could pull it off, like World War Two itself, no one would ever forget it, he thought as they pulled into the train yard parking area and got out.

Khmelnitsky took out two railroad badges and handed him one. They pinned them on and showed them to a guard at a gate in the chicken wire fence around the railroad yard. The guard, who was sitting and reading a Russian comic book of Russian Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles led by a balalaika machine-gun-toting bear, didn’t bother to look at their badges. They walked into the yard and over to a section of freight, ore, and container railroad cars. Three of Khmelnitsky’s men, all in Hawaiian shirts and leather jackets, were squatting near one of the freight cars, smoking and sharing vodka from a bottle.

“Is okay, da?” Khmelnitsky said.

“I’ll let you know after I’ve had a look,” the Palestinian said.

Khmelnitsky gestured, and one of his men got up and opened the freight car door. The car was filled with steel drums, with ALUMINUM INGOTS painted on the sides in Russian Cyrillic lettering and seals from the VOLGOGRAD ALUMINUM FACTORY.

The Palestinian climbed up and approached one of the two drums marked SPECIAL ORDER 101 in Russian and removed the top, which hadn’t been welded shut yet. He turned on his handheld Geiger counter and it immediately began clicking, the needle spiking, but well within safe limits for alpha, beta, and gamma radiation levels. If it had been Cesium-137 or Plutonium-239, it would’ve been too radioactive to safely approach, not to mention the difficulty of handling something so radioactive, and which would burst into intense flames at the drop of a hat, like plutonium. He picked up the small beer-can-sized ingot of Uranium-235 and held it in the palm of his hand. It was a dull gray, cool and dry to the touch and very heavy for its size. That was the beauty of U-235, he thought. It was easy to work with, the radiation level safe enough so you could sleep with it under your pillow, and if it was pure enough, it would change the world. He put it back, opened the second drum and measured the second ingot.

“What you think?” Khmelnitsky said. “Uranium-235. Twenty-one kilos. High enriched. Yuri say seventy-six percent, but who knows. Not make nuclear bomb,” he cautioned, “but you do nothing in Russia, I don’t care govno shit what you do. No bomb in Russia, FSB don’t care govno shit what you do.”

The Palestinian finished his measurements and looked up. Without converting a microscopic amount to uranium hexafluoride by mixing it with fluorine gas-tricky enough because it was poisonous-and then testing for U-235, there was no way of accurately determining the exact enrichment level, but he knew it had to be more than seventy-six percent. It was just too easy to go from seventy-six percent to over ninety. Why would you stop?

“What about the RDX?”

“Here. One hundred eighty kilos,” Khmelnitsky said, taking the top off another steel drum marked SPECIAL ORDER 102.

The Palestinian moved aside a layer of aluminum pellets, there to disguise it as an aluminum shipment, and opened a wooden box still marked with the Russian Army seal and markings and filled with a white crystalline solid. He cut off a small piece with his pocketknife and took out a set of vials that he mixed it with. He would be using RDX as the powerful secondary and tertiary explosives, and exploding bridge-wire blasting caps with PETN as the primary to set it off. It was all so elegant, he thought. So perfect and easy to work with and mathematical. He liked the neatness.

He inspected the remaining steel drums and indicated to Khmelnitsky to seal them up. As Khmelnitsky’s men worked, the Palestinian stood outside on the ground beside the freight car. Khmelnitsky smoked a cigarette beside him.

“Is kharasho, good, da?” Khmelnitsky said. “Fifteen million U.S. dollar. Very nice.”

“We agreed ten,” the Palestinian said, tensing. He’d expected this. They had discussed it in Damascus, what to do if the Russians made trouble. This was one of the danger points.

“Kanyeshna.” We agree. “Was ten. Now fifteen,” Khmelnitsky said, squinting through the smoke from the cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Suppose I don’t agree?”

“We kill you. Keep down payment.” Khmelnitsky shrugged. “You die. Next one pays.”

“That would be a mistake,” the Palestinian said quietly. “You want a war?”

“Listen, druk. One time people come to Ekaterinburg for tourism; see Urals, see house where Bolshiviki kill tsar and family. Chto zahuy! Now people come see cemetery for Uralmash mafia. Big stones for graves with big fatagrafira picture of mafia guy, life size, with Mercedes behind him, guy in nice suit. Some graves with laser, kill enemy after you dead. No kidding. Is big tourism. So what you do? Kill me? What I give fuck? My fatagrafira all ready. I am still young guy. Look good forever on stone. This good business. You get bomb, fuck your enemy. Fifteen million and you, me, we stay druks. Get drunk. Everything kharasho.”

The Palestinian looked at the railroad cars and the flat sky, the color of stones. A Russian at his hotel had said millions died right where he stood, although he never believed the Russians about anything, except that they knew how to die.

“After the shipment is on board the ship,” he said.

“Sure.” Khmelnitsky smiled. “We go, you and me, drink Dovgan vodka, go to Ukraina, Donbas oblast region. We go Donetsk city. Put on truck. First make payment. Five million U.S. dollar now. Ten million when this govno shit on ship.”

The Palestinian nodded. He turned on his laptop and made the electronic bank transfer.

“Check your account now,” he said.

“Sure thing.” Khmelnitsky grinned. “I come back. Money kharasho, we go. If not, we kill you.”

T hey took the Aeroflot flight to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a coal mining and industrial city on the Kalmius River. They flew over the vast steppes, one city and town merging into the forests, grasslands, and suburbs of another. Khmelnitsky got drunk on the flight, and every time the blond airline hostess walked by, he would slide his hand up her skirt between her legs.

“Piristan!” stop it, she’d say, pushing his hand away and almost running toward the cockpit.

“Come sit here. I give you something instead of hand,” Khmelnitsky laughed, grabbing himself. “She’s nice, da?” he said to the Palestinian. “Nice ones,” molding his hands like breasts.

“What if she tells someone?” the Palestinian said. “We don’t want trouble now.”

“No trouble. They see this,” touching his Hawaiian shirt, “they know is Uralmash. They say nothing.”

The next time the hostess came down the aisle, she handed him a glass of vodka. “Compliments of the captain,” she said, smiling but with frightened eyes. She let Khmelnitsky fondle her breasts as she bent over to serve the drinks, her smile like the smile on a doll’s face.

“See, druk. I say she nice girl,” Khmelnitsky smiled. “No trouble.”

They landed in Donetsk and were met by four tough-looking Ukrainian men in suits with open shirts and no ties.

“Dobryaky mafia,” Khmelnitsky explained as they walked toward them. “They get percents from me. You pay nothing.”

The Ukrainians drove them to the railroad yard. They watched a gantry crane load the railroad container with the steel drums onto the bed of a long haul container truck. One of the Ukrainians passed money to an inspector as it was loaded and watched as he stamped and initialed the shipping manifest. Once the rig was loaded and checked through the gate, they drove Khmelnitsky and the Palestinian back to the airport, where, after a vodka toast, the two of them boarded an Aerosvit flight to Odessa. Three hours later they were having lunch at the largest of the eight commercial terminals in the Odessa port. Through the window, they could see gantry cranes loading ships along the quay.

“Dobryaky mafia same like Uralmash,” Khmelnitsky said. “All time, we do business, but Ukraina truly stupid huesos. Best thing about whole Ukraina country is that Dobryaky is same as Verkhovna Rada-how you say, Ukraina government. Whole country is corrupt. You do business at one counter.”

“Good for business,” the Palestinian agreed.

“Listen, druk, you-me, we do kharasho business. You tell me what you need: guns, bombs, drugs, women. We do business. Come through Ukraina. No problem customs, militsiya police, SBU. Everything taken care of.”

“If this works out, why not?” the Palestinian said.

After lunch they followed the Ukrainian freight forwarder as he handled the paperwork for the port and the ship. They walked out to the berth to inspect the MV Zaina, a mid-size Ukrainian 26,000 ton cargo vessel flying a Belize flag of convenience. The Palestinian knew she was owned by FIMAX Shipping, a legitimate Ukrainian company, and member of FIATA, that could stand up to scrutiny by the Ukrainian SBU, the Russian FSB, or the CIA.

The paperwork took most of the day. At one point the freight forwarder-Khmelnitsky called him Mikhailo-came to them.

“The customs man, that one,” glancing toward an agent behind the counter in a blue uniform, “wants another fifty thousand hryvnia,” Mikhailo said. The Palestinian did a quick mental calculation. It was about five thousand euros.

“Hooy tebe v zhopu! I cut his huesos eyes out!” Khmelnitsky cursed. The Palestinian put a hand on his arm.

“This customs huesos,” he said to Mikhailo, using the slang. “Is he reliable or does he always ask for more?”

“Always.”

“What you want to do?” Khmelnitsky said to the Palestinian.

“Pay him now,” the Palestinian said. “I’ll give you the money in the men’s toilet. After the ship sails, kill him. I’ll give you another thousand euros.”

“I kill him,” Khmelnitsky said. “But for only one euro. This is all this huesos is worth.”

By late afternoon the big rig arrived carrying the steel drums and ingots. Before they loaded the cargo, the Palestinian inspected the steel drums marked SPECIAL ORDER for the hairs from his head he had glued from the tops to the sides. They were unbroken. They hadn’t been tampered with. He used his laptop to send the authorization for the bank transfer and waited till Khmelnitsky came back after checking it out.

“Money kharasho. Everything kharasho. You see, we do kharasho good business,” the Russian said, clapping the Palestinian on the shoulder.

“Da svidaniya,” the Palestinian replied, shaking Khmelnitsky’s hand. The Russian was smiling so broadly, he thought, you could almost forget he was called “Kolbasa.”

The Palestinian walked up the gangplank onto the ship, pulling his carry-on behind him. A Turkish crewman pointed him to the bridge, where he showed his papers to a man named Chernovetsky, a bearded Ukrainian in a soiled white captain’s cap. The papers identified him as a Moroccan seaman named Hassan Lababi. The captain squinted closely at the photograph on his papers then handed them back.

“New crewman takes midnight watch,” Chernovetsky said in a heavily accented English.

“Oui, Capitaine,” the Palestinian replied, using French to reinforce his Moroccan nationality.

The Palestinian went below and stowed his gear in the crew’s quarters, then went out on deck. He watched the crewmen toss the hawsers and felt the shudder of the engines as the ship left its berth. The Zaina cleared the breakwater and began an easy pitching as it headed out into the deeper water of the Black Sea. The ship was bound through the Bosphorus and the Dardenelles for its next port, Marseilles, where the steel drums were to be unloaded. The Palestinian leaned on the rail and smoked a cigarette and watched the sun as it set behind the western hills of Odessa, the sky a vivid purple and red. As the lights of the city receded in the darkness, he smiled in the knowledge that the Zaina would never reach Marseilles.