trouble,” Scorpion said, putting down the glass of vodka. He’d only sipped it and it had already started to go to his head. Like Ivanov himself, it was smooth as silk.
“Atlichna!” Bravo! “I wish you were a double. Budem.” Ivanov raised his glass to Scorpion and drank. “Except, I owe you from Arabia. You killed several of my men. By rights, I should put a bullet in your head,” he said, opening a drawer and placing a gun on the desk.
“Why don’t you?” Scorpion said, measuring distances and moving his foot back under him so he could spring out of the chair.
“Because I don’t know why you are here in Saint Petersburg. There is also the matter of the missing twenty- one kilos of U-235.”
“No one told you? Not Harris? Not your moles in the AISE and the Italian government? No one?”
Ivanov shook his head.
“It wasn’t there,” Scorpion said. “It was smuggled into Italy through Genoa on a Ukrainian ship, the Zaina, but it wasn’t in the truck they were planning to blow up the Palazzo delle Finanze with. Harris says the talk about uranium was disinformation from you.”
“It wasn’t,” Ivanov said, his eyes icy behind the steel-rimmed glasses.
“I know. There were signature traces of U-235 radiation in the hold of the Zaina and in a warehouse in Turin used by the Palestinian. The U-235 was brought into Italy, but it isn’t there now.”
“Where is it?”
For a moment neither man spoke.
Ivanov leaned forward, his arms on the desk. “You think the uranium is in Saint Petersburg? Should I be worried?”
“Yes.”
Ivanov drummed his fingers on the desk. “Then I can’t put a bullet in your head, can I? Maybe I should have them work you over and implant a bug in you like the Chechen?”
“You don’t want to do that-and I don’t think we have the time,” Scorpion said, glancing at the window. The sky had grown darker. It was going to rain any minute.
“It seems for once we may be on the same side, Amerikanets,” Ivanov said, taking another sip of vodka and refilling both their glasses from the bottle. “Perhaps we can help each other.”
“You can help me by staying out of my way. No surveillance. I can’t have something blown because someone spots one of your mudaki where he shouldn’t be.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A woman.”
“Beautiful?”
“Very.”
“There is no shortage of beautiful women in Saint Petersburg.” Ivanov smiled wryly.
“This one’s not from Saint Petersburg.”
“You should let us help you find her. We could do it quickly, just as we found you.”
“And the moment you do, perhaps a confederate of hers presses ‘Send’ on a cell phone. Then what?”
“And you are the only one who can get close to her. So we must trust you. That is not a condition I am comfortable with.”
“Give me your cell number. If I need you, I’ll call.”
“So apart from the bug, there’s nothing we can do?”
“I need a gun. I left mine in Italy to avoid problems on the plane.”
“Take this. You know it?” Ivanov said, handing him the gun on the desk.
Scorpion nodded. “SR-1 Gyurza, special for the FSB. Eighteen rounds. Armor piercing,” he said, pulling out the clip. “It’s not loaded.”
“I don’t trust you that much. You are not called ‘Scorpion’ for nothing,” Ivanov said, placing three clips of ammunition on the desk.
T he coffee shop in the Vladimirsky Mall looked for all the world like a Russian Starbucks, even to the oval green sign. From behind a pillar on the second floor, Scorpion watched Prosviyenko sit down at an outer table. From a distance, Scorpion couldn’t be sure, but he had to assume the reporter was wired. After twenty minutes Prosviyenko glanced at his watch, got up and started to walk to the mall exit. Scorpion waited to make sure he was alone, then bumped him from behind and said, “Izvinitye,” and then in English as he passed, “Meet me in the men’s toilet.”
As soon as Prosviyenko entered the bathroom, Scorpion told him to empty his pockets and open his shirt. Scorpion remembered Koenig telling him that local reporters who knew their beats could be invaluable sources of information, but you had to be careful they didn’t make you the story.
“Is this necessary?” Prosviyenko said, keeping his hands in his pockets. He was tall, fair-haired, with the jeans-and-tweed-jacket look of a young professor. A man came out of a stall and looked at the two men, then went to the basin to wash his hands.
“I need to know if you’re wired.”
“Suppose I don’t want to open my shirt?”
“Da svidaniya,” goodbye, Scorpion said, and started to walk out.
“You said you had a story,” Prosviyenko called out.
“There’s no story. I just want some information and I’m willing to pay for it. Say five thousand rubles for a few minutes, ten thousand, if it’s worth my time.” Scorpion wasn’t sure how much local print reporters made, but it couldn’t be that much.
“Ten thousand?” Prosviyenko said. He emptied his pockets and opened his shirt, letting Scorpion pat him down. The man washing his hands made a face as he watched them in the mirror, his expression suggesting he thought they were fairies, then he went out. “Do we do it here?”
“There’s a pub on the third floor. Meet me,” Scorpion said, and walked out. Five minutes later they were sitting opposite each other, Scorpion facing the concourse to make sure no one was paying attention to them.
“You mentioned money,” Prosviyenko said after the waitress brought them bottles of Baltika beer.
“I did,” Scorpion said, and reaching over to shake Prosviyenko’s hand, pressed the folded-up rubles into his hand.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I saw in the Saint Petersburg Times where you covered a story on corruption in the port, only you were careful not to name names.”
Prosviyenko put down his bottle of Baltika. “You know what means ‘zamochit’?”
“You mean, to kill?”
“It means literally to piss on someone. Among the blatnoi — the criminals-it means, yes, to kill. Don’t think I didn’t get little anonymous phone calls even when I didn’t name names. Here.” He put the five thousand rubles on the table. “Take it back. You don’t know who you are dealing with.”
“Keep the money. I just need to ask you a question. You decide if you want to answer. You know the port?”
“Which one?”
“Ekateringofskiy Basin.” There were three separate ports in the Saint Petersburg complex on the Gulf of Finland, west of the city. Scorpion had checked with the port before the FSB picked him up. The Shiraz Se had berthed at the Ekateringofskiy wharves and left port yesterday. With the hotel concierge’s help, he’d hired a Russian temporary secretary and had her contact all the funeral homes in Saint Petersburg. There was nothing about a Pyotr Escher or a body having been brought in by anyone named Escher to any funeral home in Saint Petersburg during the past week. Nor were there any hotels or apartments for rent where a Brynna Escher had registered. He didn’t tell the secretary about the name Kafoury, because he didn’t want the FSB to get it. Both Najla and the coffin had disappeared as soon as she left Pulkovo Airport. The only lead he had left was the port. “Suppose I had some contraband, something serious I had to get through customs and out of the port. Who would I need to talk to?”
“Drugs? There are plenty of fartsovchiki. The city is full of them.”
“Something bigger, more difficult. I need someone who can get things done, someone with real blat,” meaning connections.
