Scorpion Winter

Chapter Thirty-Three

Zimovishche

Chernobylska Exclusion Zone

The farmhouse was in the woods at the edge of an abandoned village. Scorpion had taken a road that led from the river into what must have once been farmland and was now an empty landscape covered with snow. The tree line was beyond the fields. Shelayev had chosen well, he thought. The woods could not be approached from the road except across the open snow. It would give Shelayev plenty of warning if anyone tried to approach.

He stopped the car in the middle of the road, got out and studied the open field from behind the car through his night vision goggles. He could see light coming from somewhere in the trees, the only sign of life in the night. The snow in the field had footprints going from the road to the woods, but was otherwise empty. Crossing the field was not only a giveaway, it was possible the field was mined or booby-trapped. Shelayev had already shown he knew how to make a bomb and set a trap.

Scorpion looked to the right, at the abandoned houses of the village. He could approach the woods from that side, he decided. The houses would give him some cover and possibly had lower radiation levels.

There was an irrigation ditch beside the road, with a glimmer of ice at the bottom. He slid into the ditch and made his way toward the edge of the village. While in the ditch, he was hidden from anyone looking out from the woods. He nearly stumbled over something in the bottom of the ditch. It smelled appalling. As he climbed around it, he saw it was the remains of a wild horse.

When he got near the village, he peeked out over the top of the ditch. An abandoned house, shrubs and bare trees growing on its roof, shielded him from the woods. He scrambled out of the ditch, went around the back of the house and into the woods.

He stepped slowly, using his night vision goggles to scan for trip wires before he took each step. Then he heard something and froze. The cry of a night bird and a sudden flutter of wings. Damn, he thought. If Shelayev was waiting, that would have sounded the alarm. He froze behind a tree, took a deep breath and peered around the trunk. With his night goggles, he could see the house about two hundred meters ahead. It was overgrown with vegetation and snow on the roof, like all the other houses in the zone. As he stepped out from behind the tree, a bullet tore a chip of wood from the trunk a few inches from his head. He dove to the ground behind a fallen log.

He hadn’t heard the shot, just a faint chunking sound, so Shelayev had used a sound suppressor. If he was Spetsnaz-trained and using a rifle at two hundred meters, Scorpion reflected, he shouldn’t have missed. Odds were, Shelayev was using a pistol. The question was, what to do about it? He couldn’t stay behind the log. He looked around. There was a tree with a thick trunk about ten meters away. He found a pinecone and tossed it at a bush in the opposite direction, then made a dash to the tree as a bullet ricocheted off a tree behind him.

“Dmitri Shelayev, ne strelyaite!” Scorpion called out in Russian. Don’t shoot! “Alyona’s safe. I just want to talk.”

Two bullets thunked one after the other into the tree trunk he was standing behind.

He’s good, Scorpion thought as he scrambled on all fours, dodging through the trees on a diagonal toward the cabin. He still couldn’t tell where Shelayev was firing from, except that it was from somewhere near the house. Through his goggles, he spotted movement from near the house into the shadows of the trees. He crouched beside a bare tree that had grown at a strange angle, realizing he needed a diversion.

Scorpion placed the Geiger counter in the crook of a branch on the angled tree and got ready to move. He turned on the beeper and fired the Glock toward where he’d last seen movement, then ran to a large tree close to the house, the beeper sounding behind him. He could hear shots coming from a stand of trees about forty meters from the angled tree. Holding his breath, he strained to listen. It was very faint, but he heard it. The sound of someone moving through the branches, toward the angled tree. The sounds stopped. Time to move, Scorpion thought.

He ran toward the house and around to the side, crouching low. He was below a small windowsill, and risked raising his head to peer into the house. The light he had seen was from a candle on a table. The house was furnished. It had the feel of someone living there, but he could see no movement. Ducking back down, he moved slowly on all fours to the corner of the house, where he waited and listened. He could hear the Geiger counter beeping faintly. It still seemed to be coming from where he had left it.

Something was wrong, he sensed. Shelayev should have reached the Geiger counter by now. He could hear nothing coming from the direction where Shelayev had been. Deciding it would be safer on the side of the house away from where he’d just come from. Scorpion eased his way around the corner, keeping the Glock ready. On this side the trees were closer to the house. The branches of a large tree had grown through a broken window into the house.

He started to go around the large tree when something hit his wrist hard, followed by a wrist grip that forced him to drop the Glock even as he began to react. He could feel Shelayev reaching around to grab his jacket in back. A pure Sambo move that would be followed by a leg sweep, he thought as he went into a two-hand Krav Maga wrist counter, stepping back to avoid the leg sweep. He was just in time, as a punch hit him in the side of his head and a Sambo sidekick grazed his ribs. It knocked his goggles off. Shelayev was good and strong and fast as hell, he realized as he countered with a grapple throw and leg sweep of his own, which Shelayev countered with a countergrapple. They were throwing elbows and kicks in a rapid sequence, fighting blindly in the dark by feel and with only a sense of each other’s shapes.

Scorpion spotted the glint of a knife in the darkness. Knowing he was in a fight for his life, he desperately kicked at Shelayev’s knee as a feint to grab the hand holding the knife in order to do a Krav Maga disarm. Although it was almost impossible to tell, he thought the blade had holes in it: Jesus, a Spetsnaz ballistic knife, he thought, blocking a Sambo grapple and attempt to throw, and doing the Krav Maga knife disarm, just managing with all his might to twist the wrist against Shelayev’s immense strength. Scorpion followed with a quick front kick, taking the knife away.

He was staggered then by a Sambo sidekick to his thigh, just missing his groin, followed by a lightning-fast second sidekick to his knife hand to try to knock the knife away. He counterblocked as he reversed the knife and, stepping inside-remembering Koichi saying once that Sambo expects the opponent to use an outside leg sweep-hit Shelayev with an elbow smash to the throat. He heard Shelayev grunt, then grabbed him around the back of the neck in a guillotine choke hold combined with a hip throw to take him down. As they struggled on the ground, Scorpion hanging onto the choke hold with one hand while Shelayev hit him with an elbow to the face, Scorpion used his left hand to put the point of the knife to Shelayev’s throat, his thumb on the release that would shoot the blade through the other man’s throat and windpipe.

“Ya hochu pogovorit,” Scorpion gasped. I want to talk. “Dimitri, Ya drooh Alyona.” I’m a friend of Alyona’s.

He felt Shelayev suddenly relax and stop fighting.

“Where’s the pistolet?” Scorpion asked.

Shelayev indicated his pocket.

With his other hand keeping the knife to Shelayev’s neck, Scorpion pulled out the pistol-an SR-1 Gyurza-and put it in his pocket.

“Who are you?” Shelayev asked in Russian.

“We met before. In Dnipropetrovsk. I’m the journalist, remember?”

“Kilbane,” Shelayev said, taking off his night vision goggles, which were similar to Scorpion’s, and getting to his feet as Scorpion released him. The goggles had gotten wrapped around his neck during their struggle. “You didn’t learn to fight like this in journalism school,” he said, rubbing his neck.

“You’d be surprised. The girls at Columbia are pretty tough,” Scorpion said, picking up his pack and goggles. They spoke in a mixture of Russian and English. Using the goggles, he searched until he found the Glock lying on the ground.

“What do you want?” Shelayev said.

“If it isn’t broken, I have a bottle of Nemiroff in my pack. All you have to do is promise not to kill me,” Scorpion said, unable to see Shelayev’s face, deep in shadow. A few minutes later they were sitting at the table inside the house passing the bottle between them.

The house was cold as ice. Scorpion kept his jacket on, their breath visible in the candlelight. Before coming in, he had gone back to retrieve the Geiger counter, and while in the woods, threw away the ballistic knife and reattached the button video camcorder. When he got inside, he activated it. The only source of light was the candle on the table, casting their shadows on the walls, and Scorpion kept his fingers crossed that the hidden video camcorder would be able to pick up Shelayev’s face in the dim light. Scorpion removed the ammunition clip, emptied the chamber from the Gyurza pistol, then put the empty gun on the table between them.

“How did you find me?” Shelayev asked.

“Something Alyona said.”

“Alyona told on me?” Shelayev clenched his massive fist, though otherwise his face betrayed nothing.

Scorpion shook his head. “Only that you had gone where no one would find you. Iryna thought-”

“Iryna?”

“Iryna Mikhailivna Shevchenko. We’ve been working to try to clear our names. We’ve been accused of killing Cherkesov.”

“You and Iryna Shevchenko kill Cherkesov?” Shelayev snorted. “Is absurdnyi.”

“Tell that to the politsiy and everyone else who is after us.”

“Why did Alyona say anything about me?” He looked sharply at Scorpion, the candle flame reflected in twin pinpoints of light in his eyes. “How did you find her?”

“The bald man from the Black Cat cafe where she works. He guessed about the Puppet Theatre. First Alyona disappeared, then her friends, Ekaterina and Fedir. He was worried about them.”

“And Alyona told you about me? She said where I’m going? Just like it was nothing, that kurva bitch!” he snarled.

“She was tortured,” Scorpion said. “She was in shock with internal bleeding when we got to her. Ekaterina and Fedir were already dead.”

“ Ahhhhh!” Shelayev screamed, smashing his fists on the table, nearly knocking over the candle and the horilka. He got to his feet and began pacing and smacking his fist into his hand. He turned on Scorpion.

“Who did this?”

“Who do you think?”

“Tell me!” Shelayev demanded, balling his fists.

“Kulyakov. We found them under the stage in the Puppet Theatre. He was holding her head in a tub of ice water.”

“You’re lying. Prokip wouldn’t do that. He is a drooh,” Shelayev said. A friend.

“Kulyakov is a sick sukin sin son of a bitch i vy khorosho znayu, and you damn well know it,” Scorpion said. “He does what Gorobets tell him to. The enjoyment he gets from torturing people, especially naked women, is just an extra bonus.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s true,” Scorpion said, taking a slug of the Nemiroff and passing the bottle over to him.

“Where is she now, Alyona?” Shelayev asked, taking a long swig of the horilka and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“We took her to a Medikom in Vyshhorod. Iryna was with her. She was cut all over. Plus internal bleeding, but the doctor said she would live.”

Shelayev rubbed his hand over his face, then looked sharply at Scorpion.

“Did you kill Kulyakov?”

Scorpion shook his head. “He got away.”

Shelayev smirked. “How did you let that happen?”

“There were two of them. The other was about to kill Iryna. I had to stop him.”

For a time neither of them spoke. It was strange sitting there by candlelight in a dark house, just the two of them, in the middle of a radioactive forest. Something told Scorpion he would remember this scene for the rest of his life.

“Why should Prokip torture her?” Shelayev asked.

“To find you. You know it’s true, that’s why you’re hiding from them.”

“You’re wrong! I expected Kozhanovskiy’s people or his SBU mussory to be after me. Gorobets has no reason. I followed orders.”

“Ne dorak,” Scorpion said. Don’t be stupid. “You’re a witness; the only one who can tie Gorobets to Cherkesov’s death. He needs you dead.”

“But killing Cherkesov was his idea. It had to be done,” Shelayev said.

“Why?”

“Cherkesov was a traitor, that filthy ebanatyi pidaraz motherfucker!” he shouted, slamming the table with his fist, making the candle and bottle of Nemiroff jump.

“Who told you he was a traitor? Gorobets?”

“ Ladna, you are not entirely stupid,” Shelayev said. “Sure Gorobets. He showed me. A secret text to Cherkesov.”

“Who was it from?”

“A man named Gabrilov.”

“The one from the Russian embassy?”

“He is head of the SVR in Kyiv.”

“I know. Also Alyona’s contact,” Scorpion said, stopping himself from saying case officer.

“So!” Shelayev said, shaking his finger in Scorpion’s face. “You didn’t learn that either at Columbia, Pane Kilbane. I think you are CIA.”

“Also Mossad and MI-6. I’m a triple threat. What did the message say?”

“That sukin sin!” Shelayev snarled. “Cherkesov wants good relations with the Russians. Horosho! Okay! Extend lease for Russian naval base at Sevastopol. Horosho! But that mudak bastard wanted to give Crimea back to Russia. For what? For money like a Jew!” He turned and spit on the floor. “We are sons of the Cossacks. You understand? For this, we fight! For this,” his eyes narrowing, “we kill.”

“The Crimea? You killed Cherkesov because of Crimea?” Scorpion said.

“Crimea is ours.”

“When the fuck did I land in the nineteenth century?” Scorpion said, shaking his head. “What the hell is next? Balaklava and the Charge of the Light Brigade?! Did Gorobets say what would happen once Cherkesov was dead?”

“He said Davydenko would be President.”

“Davydenko the idiot?”

“Better him than Kozhanovskiy and Iryna Shevchenko, who want to sell us out to the Americans!” Shelayev said hotly.

“So you killed Cherkesov?”

Shelayev looked at him and didn’t answer.

“The C-4 in Cherkesov’s car,” Scorpion said. “How’d you wire it? To the ignition?”

Shelayev shook his head. “Cell phone. I wanted to be sure he was in the Mercedes when it went off. Someone might have started the engine before he got in.”

“You were Gorobets’s security. It made it easy, didn’t it?”

“I did the final security check, so no one would spot it before. I got under the car. It only took maybe twenty seconds.” Shelayev shrugged with a faint smile of pride.

“If anyone saw you, you were just doing your job.” Scorpion nodded. “Have you heard about the war?”

“I saw the TV yesterday in Chernobyl,” Shelayev said sullenly.

“When you planted that C-4, what the hell did you think you were doing?”

“Saving my country,” Shelayev said, looking up. “Alyona too.”

“The Serb who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War One probably didn’t mean to start a war either. But he did,” Scorpion said grimly. “But why should it bother you? You’ve already got a lot more blood than Cherkesov’s on your hands.”

“What?” Shelayev looked startled. “What are you talking-”

“Alyona’s friends. Ekaterina and Fedir. Kulyakov killed them because Gorobets was looking for you. If I hadn’t got there in time, Alyona would be dead too. And then there’s Dennis.”

“Who?” He looked wide-eyed at Scorpion.

“My InterInform guide, Denys. Your little Spetsnaz lavoushka trap in the apartment in Pripyat killed him. If Ukraine falls to Russia, you’ll have done it.”

Shelayev stared at him. “Gorobets told me-” he began.

“Can’t you get it through your thick skull?” Scorpion snapped. “Gorobets wants you dead. You and Alyona both.”

“So you say,” Shelayev said, standing up. Before Scorpion could stop him, he snatched a second Spetsnaz ballistic knife from behind a pot on a shelf and pointed it at Scorpion. The force of the knife, if the stories were true, could put the blade through his entire body and out the other side.

“We had a deal,” Scorpion said, his eyes on the knife.

“I don’t trust you. You’re trying to trip me up, you CIA mudak bastard. I love my country. My father was a hero. He fought the Germans in the Great Patriotic War.”

“Before you do something stupid, just one question: Why are you trying so hard to protect the man who wants you and Alyona dead?”

“It’s not true,” Shelayev said, shaking his head. “I did it for my country, but also for Alyona. She was in the middle. She was desperate.”

“I know. Her mother was dying and the authorities threatened to release her brother, Stepan, from Pavlovka. Do you know who did that?”

Shelayev didn’t answer.

“Gorobets,” Scorpion said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Shelayev stared at him, his eyes wide and blue.

“I caused this, didn’t I?” he said.

“You lit the match. Gorobets set the explosive.”

“I am the traitor,” Shelayev said, almost to himself.

“Dmitri, if you are willing to tell the truth we can stop this.”

“And then Kozhanovskiy and the Jews win!” he snarled.

“And what about Alyona?”

“Alyona was a dream. Besides, after all this radiation…” Shelayev gestured vaguely at the house and the woods. He sat back down at the table but kept the knife aimed at Scorpion’s chest. With his other hand, he took a long swig of the horilka. He wiped his blond hair out of his eyes.

“Do you know Taras Sherchenko, the poet?” he asked. He began to recite:

“When I die, bury me

On a grave mound

Amid the wide wide steppe

In my beloved Ukraina…”

He looked at Scorpion. “She wants to be an actress. So beautiful,” he said.

Shelayev put the knife in his mouth and pressed the release with his thumb. He gagged as the blade shot through the roof of his mouth and brain, the point and part of the blade sticking out of the top of his skull, gushing blood as he toppled to the floor.