Scorpion Winter

Chapter Eight

Patona Bridge

Kyiv, Ukraine

“He’s un con, an asshole, Cherkesov, but he will win,” Mogilenko said in French. They were in his office on the top floor of the Dynamo Club. The room was ultra modern. Mogilenko wore Prada tortoise-frame glasses, jeans, and a Ralph Lauren blazer, his long graying hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked more like a fashion designer than the head of Syndikat, Ukraine’s most powerful mafia gang. He sat on a sofa, a bottle of Khortytsya horilka between him and Scorpion. In the plate-glass wall behind Mogilenko, Scorpion could see the lights of the city. Through the thick carpet beneath their feet, he could feel the floor vibrate to the beat of the music below.

They were not alone. A tall man with prison crosses tattooed on both sides of his neck lounged against the wall. His eyes, along with a Russian SR-1 Gyurza pistol with a silencer, were fixed on Scorpion. Mogilenko introduced him as Andriy la machine. “Because when he eliminates problems, it’s like a machine.” When Mogilenko said that, Andriy didn’t smile.

“What makes you so sure?” Scorpion replied in French.

“Les Russes want it,” Mogilenko said. “In this country, when the Russians want something, that’s how it works.”

“Where’d you learn French?” Scorpion asked.

“I did my MBA at INSEAD near Paris.”

“Is that a job requirement for a Syndikat pakhan?”

“You’d be surprised. Business, as the Americans say, is business. Budmo,” Mogilenko said, pouring Khortytsya for both of them and then drinking. Scorpion took a sip.

“I was at the Kozhanovskiy rally,” Scorpion said. “Any idea why a bunch of patsani leg-breakers might bring iron bars to a political rally?”

Mogilenko shrugged. “Maybe someone paid them. I heard one of the Kemo got his fingers broken,” he added, looking straight at Scorpion.

“Maybe he stuck it where it didn’t belong.”

“Very likely,” Mogilenko said, nodding.

“So the Syndikat supports Cherkesov? Is that why somebody sent patsani thugs to the rally?”

Mogilenko laughed. “Last week we broke up Cherkesov rallies in Kharkov and Donetsk. This week, a Kozhanovskiy rally. We support whoever pays.” He shrugged. “And don’t get taken in by Iryna Shevchenko because of her pretty face. She’s a douleur cuisante,” meaning sharp as a whip.

“So it’s strictly business. You don’t give a damn who wins?”

“Whoever wins, we do business.” Mogilenko put his glass down. “And now, monsieur, we’ve had our horilka and our little conversation. So before you go baise-toi, why don’t you tell me what the fuck you really want, upizdysh?” His eyes glittered behind his glasses. The blonde was right, Scorpion thought. He was a psychopath.

“I’ve been approached for a job,” he said, leaning forward. “Kyiv is Syndikat territoire. I figured I better check with you first.”

“What job?”

Scorpion took a deep breath. He was about to cross a red line.

“Maybe not everyone likes Cherkesov,” he said.

“Who sent you?” Mogilenko asked, looking at Scorpion as though he were an insect in a science experiment.

“Sorry. I don’t talk about clients.”

“I won’t ask twice.” Mogilenko looked at Andriy.

“You think I’m a mouchard?” Scorpion snapped, using the French slang for stool pigeon.

“I think, you miserable fils de pute, you made a big mistake. Sortez! ” Mogilenko snarled, gesturing for Scorpion to get out. To Andriy, he said in Russian, “Get rid of him.”

T hey went out the back door to an alley that led to the street. There were four of them: Scorpion, Andriy, and the two men in the bulky parkas who had brought Scorpion up to see Mogilenko. The wind had come up. It was very cold. As they walked to a black Mercedes sedan waiting down the block, its engine idling, Scorpion knew that he had made a terrible mistake. It was like that infinitesimal moment when you step on a land mine just before it explodes. If Mogilenko and the Syndikat were involved in the assassination plot, Mogilenko would have tried to get information out of him. If the assassination was news to Mogilenko, he would have tried to coopt him, or tried to use the information to his advantage. But he had done neither.

Mogilenko was going to get rid of him. Probably to score points with whichever side won, Scorpion thought as he got in the back of the Mercedes, sandwiched between Andriy and the big man. Andriy pressed the muzzle of his silencer against Scorpion’s side.

The small man got into the front passenger seat next to the driver. He turned around, a gun in his hand. Scorpion’s heart was pounding.

“What is your name?” the small man said in Russian.

“Briand. Lucien Briand. In Russian, Lukyan,” Scorpion said.

“You worried, Lukyan?” indicating the gun.

“I don’t know. Where are we going?”

“Make no difference to you pretty yob fucking soon,” the small man said, and the big man next to Scorpion snickered.

They drove up Khreshchatyk toward the Maidan. The street was lined with Soviet-style buildings, glossy billboards, and shops whose windows reflected the streetlights and the bare winter trees. It was getting late; there were only a few pedestrians. It started to snow.

“What you want from Mogilenko?” the small man asked.

“Maybe I wanted to fuck his girlfriend,” Scorpion said.

The small man grinned widely.

“You heard that story?”

“Seems everybody has.”

“That’s no story, upizdysh. Me and my drooh had to bury those govniuks,” he said, racking the slide on his gun. “You made a big mistake, Lukyan. He’s a crazy guy, that Mogilenko.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Scorpion said, measuring angles and distances with his eyes, barely able to breathe. “I’ll pay you a hundred thousand hryvnia. Each.”

“No good, Lukyan,” the small man said. “You know what Mogilenko would do to us?”

“You don’t want to do this. I know people. I’ve got blat,” Scorpion said, meaning influence. He suddenly had a terrible urge to urinate. He was running out of time.

“You don’t got blat, drooh. Mogilenko, he got the politsiy and half the Verkhovna Rada on his payroll. He got the real blat,” the small man said, rubbing his thumb on his fingers in the universal sign for money.

They drove onto the entryway to a bridge over the Dnieper River, ice floes floating on the dark water. The roadway was coated with snow, and at that late hour there was almost no traffic. The driver stopped the car midway on the bridge.

“Get out,” the small man said.