men started to react, and at a nod from her they stopped. “He’s an old friend,” she said to them in Arabic.
“Ismak, who are you?” one of the men said in Arabic, with what Scorpion thought was a Farsi accent.
“Emam mardar sag ast,” Scorpion said in Farsi. My name is your mother is a bitch. He added, “We have to talk,” to Najla in English, pulling at her arm. They stood next to a glass wall sparkling with colored lights. The two men watched Scorpion with hard eyes, their hands in their jacket pockets.
“Talk about what? Marseilles?”
“Not here,” he said, looking around.
“Why? Do you want to tie me up again, liebling?” Her dark eyes on him, and hearing her call him darling, even though he knew she meant it as little as the hooker, Zhana, sent a tiny electric spark through him.
“Maybe I should’ve.” He peered at her. “I think I like you better as a brunette.”
“So do I. It was supposed to help disguise me. It seems it didn’t work.” She smiled ruefully.
“You’re hard to miss,” he said.
“How did you find me?”
“Airport security camera in Turin.”
“Of course. One always underestimates the Americans. But I should never underestimate you, should I?” she said, looking into his eyes.
“Don’t play me, Najla. We need to talk-without your gorillas,” he added, glancing at the two men. “Where can we go?”
“Just like a man! We find each other again, like a miracle, and all you want is to get a room.”
“Or maybe a ship. You like ships, don’t you? First the Zaina, then the Shiraz Se,” he said, grabbing her arm. She looked stunned.
“I can’t talk now,” she said, trying to pull away.
“Not this time, Najla. Or is it Brynna?” Scorpion said, tightening his grip. He saw the two men start to move and he got ready for it. Najla stared at him, her eyes dark, unreadable. Then Scorpion felt a hard poke in his back.
“Go away,” he said, not turning around. The poke came again.
“Vasiliev wants to see you,” the scar-faced man said. His friend and another tough-looking man stood next to him.
“I’m busy,” Scorpion said.
“Kiril Andreyevitch is not the kind of man you keep waiting,” the scar-faced man said, showing Scorpion a gun in a shoulder holster. Scorpion looked at Najla. She leaned close, as if to kiss him.
“Diese manner sind Iranier,” she said. These men are Iranians. “They are forcing me to go with them. We’re meeting Chechens in the Summer Garden by the Coffee House in two hours. For God’s sake, help me,” she whispered in his ear in German. She looked into his eyes and kissed him full on the lips.
“Come,” said one of the Iranians, pulling her away.
“Mein Gott!” she said, looking wistfully at Scorpion. “How did we land in the middle of this?”
“I’ll see you,” Scorpion said, watching her as she stood looking tiny between the two Iranians.
“Will you?” Najla said as the three Tambov gangsters closed around Scorpion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Summer Garden, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Scorpion came up to street level from the Gostiny Dvor station. It was almost dark, a hint of light lingering on the horizon as he crossed Sadovaya Ulitsa. Although the rain had stopped, the air was wet and the street glistened under the streetlights. He caught a gypsy Lada taxi and took it through the empty streets and across the bridge to the Summer Garden. The park was deserted, the wrought-iron gate dripping wet as he pushed it open. Inside, a plastic map on a post showed where the Coffee House was. The path through the overhanging trees was barely visible in the near darkness and there were a hundred places for an ambush. They had picked the perfect spot, he thought. Scorpion took out Ivanov’s gun and clicked off the safety.
They would expect him to take the most direct path. Instead, he set off toward one side of the park. He would circle around and approach the Coffee House from the opposite Neva side of the park. Seeing the shadow of a figure cast by a streetlamp, Scorpion instantly snapped into shooting position before he realized it was a Grecian statue on a pedestal beside the path. He studied the dim outlines of the trees. Realizing it was too dangerous to stay on the paved path, he stepped off and moved through the dark tangle of the trees, thick as a forest, the ground soft and carpeted with wet leaves underfoot. He thought about Najla and the feel of her lips and the closeness of her body when she kissed him at the club. Even now he still didn’t know if she was playing him. Even if she was, he didn’t know if he had it in him to kill her.
Vasiliev had been another surprise, he thought, pushing silently through the wet branches. They had taken him to the second floor of the club to a private elevator that required a key and a number code to enter. The elevator took them up two floors to a hallway carpeted with Persian rugs and lined with expensive oil paintings; landscapes by Levitan and portraits by Serov from the Soviet era. Two men in suits stood by a metal detector like those in an airport. He had emptied his pockets, including the gun, into a plastic tray.
“Paspart,” one of the men said.
Scorpion handed him his McDonald passport, which the man pressed on a scanning machine. Then he went through the detector and one of the men pressed a button next to a steel door that looked like it had been designed to survive a bomb blast. They waited while someone inside checked the security camera and buzzed them in.
Scorpion walked in alone, the others taking their places in the hallway beside the door as it closed behind him. Inside, Vasiliev sat behind a Louis XV desk in an office that could have been a library in an English manor house, if not for the bank of TV flat screens arrayed on one wall and a row of computers on a table. Vasiliev wore gold-rimmed glasses and an impeccable Armani suit. He looked like a banker, sitting with his left hand resting on the desk, until Scorpion realized that although lifelike, the hand was artificial. A tough-looking Russian with prison tattoos and a shaved head sat next to the wall behind Scorpion, holding a Beretta pistol with a silencer in his lap.
Vasiliev said something in Russian as Scorpion sat down.
“Izvinitye, I only speak a little Russian,” Scorpion said.
“Mr. McDonald,” Vasiliev said in good but heavily accented English, “you said something about moving an item through the port and a beautiful woman. It aroused my curiosity.”
“It was meant to. I need to locate a shipment. The woman, I’ve already located.”
“Ah.” Vasiliev tilted his head. “Where is she?”
“Downstairs, or at least she was till your men pulled me away. What someone told me was right. Everyone comes to the Dacha Club.”
“The Dacha is like the turnstile of the New Russia. Sooner or later everyone must pass through-and pay the toll,” Vasiliev said. “She is beautiful, of course, this woman. Otherwise, you would hardly risk talking to me about it. Suppose I take her from you?”
“She can look out for herself,” Scorpion said. “She is dangerous, even for the Tambov.”
“I’m not so easy to kill,” Vasiliev said, showing Scorpion his artificial hand. “Point her out,” he added, gesturing at the bank of TV screens showing different interior and exterior views of the club. Scorpion looked but didn’t see her or the Iranians.
“She’s not there. She must have left.”
“Or she doesn’t exist. As for tracking a shipment, go to a freight agent. I’m a simple club owner. Why come to me?”
“Not this shipment.”
“What’s so special about this one? Guns? Drugs? You’re wasting my time.” Vasiliev said something in Russian and gestured dismissively with his good hand to the shaven-headed man, who stood up.
“Because this involves the FSB and state security,” Scorpion said.
“We do business with the FSB every day. There is no problem.” Vasiliev raised a finger to indicate to the shaven-headed man that he should wait a moment.
