little doubt about her assets.
“What you want, golubchik, my darling?” the blonde asked in fractured English.
“I’m looking for Mogilenko.”
The blonde recoiled. “You nice-looking guy. Why you want trouble?” she asked, tucking the money in her cleavage.
“How do I find him?”
“Listen, my darling, stay here. Plenty beautiful girls. Have good time. Don’t do this,” she said, her eyes wide, watching him.
“I just need to talk to him,” Scorpion said, handing her one of a number of different business cards he had had made up in Bucharest; this one said his name was Luc Briand from an offshore services company headquartered in Marseilles.
She motioned him to the side of the bar. “Go away. Now,” she whispered.
“What’s the problem?” he said.
“Listen. A year ago, young man come. Same thing. Nice, clean-cut, like you. Ask for Mogilenko. They take to see him. Only Mogilenko thinks this man looks at girlfriend, Valentina. They cut out his eyes, then his khui,” referring to the male organ. “Valentina try to look away. He shoot Valentina in head. Bang! Young guy, bang! Bury them together, man’s khui in her mouth. This is Mogilenko.”
“Why do you work here?”
She looked at him. Around them the music and lights pulsed, making patterns of light and shadows on their faces.
“You new in Ukraine, golubchik. Is not so easy,” she said.
Scorpion touched her arm. “Just tell me.”
“You sure you want?”
Scorpion felt a pang. Forcing the issue with a psycho Ukrainian mafia chief wasn’t the smartest way to go about this. But the clock was ticking. If the assassination was real-and it had to be or Rabinowich wouldn’t have been so desperate-whoever ordered it had two choices: use one of his own or contract the hit with the mafia. He needed to find out which.
He nodded. said, “Yes, it’s what I want.”
“You don’t need look,” she said, tucking his card into her cleavage. “He find you.”
He watched her make a call on a phone by the bar, glancing at his card as she talked. As the strippers wrapped themselves around their poles, he thought about what he was getting into. What was it Shaefer had said? The difference between the SVR, the SBU, and the Ukrainian mafia, that’s a pretty thin line.
He didn’t have time to finish his drink before two men-one small, one very large, at least six-foot-six, both in unzipped military-style parkas-came up on either side of him. The smaller one showed him a Makarov 9mm pistol tucked in his belt.
“You come,” he said.
“We’re going to see Mogilenko?” Scorpion asked.
“You come,” resting his hand on the gun.
“Buvay, rodimy,” Scorpion said to the blonde. So long. He smiled at her, but she looked straight through him as though he were already dead.
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.
