“Wherever the story takes me,” he said.
“Yes,” Kozhanovskiy put in. “Where exactly do you fit in all of this, Mr. Kilbane? This doesn’t seem to be normal journalism.”
Scorpion shrugged. “My definition of ‘normal’ is pretty elastic. I promised Iryna I wouldn’t print the story till I had the facts.”
“Your word!” Kozhanovskiy said, stubbing his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Can we trust him?” he asked Iryna.
“Of course not!” she snapped. “If he’s going after Pyatov, one of us has to go too. And it can’t be you, so it has to be me.”
“I haven’t agreed to any of this,” Scorpion said.
“Just tell me. Do you really think Pyatov will be at Cherkesov’s rally in Dnipropetrovsk?” she asked.
“It was your idea,” Scorpion said. “Nighttime, a big stadium with a clear shot and multiple exits, crowds, chaos. Like you said, it’s perfect.”
“I don’t like this,” Kozhanovskiy said to her.
“We can’t let Kilbane go off on his own. It’s too important,” she said.
Scorpion started to get up. “You two will want to talk this over,” he said.
“Kilbane, stay. Please,” Kozhanovskiy said, holding his hand up. “I know this isn’t your country, but there are millions of lives at stake.” He turned to Iryna. “What about one of the others? Slavo? Misha?”
“We don’t know how far this goes. No one else must know,” she said.
“Forget it. I work alone,” Scorpion said.
“You think I’m not tough enough,” Iryna said, fishing in her handbag. She pulled out a small Beretta Storm 9mm pistol and showed it to them.
Scorpion smiled. “You know how to use that?”
“My father took me hunting in the Carpathian Mountains from the time I was a little girl,” she said, putting the gun back. “I’m a pretty good shot.”
“Yes, but are you willing to use it?” he asked quietly.
“You really don’t understand, Mr. Kilbane.” She smiled oddly. “We members of the upper class like to kill things. It’s our way of proving we’re tough enough to deserve our privileges.”
“What about the campaign?” Kozhanovskiy said. “You don’t have the time. We need you.” He looked at her. “I need you.”
“What choice do we have? Besides,” she grimaced, “Slavo is dying to take my place. You won’t be sorry. He’s very good.”
“Not like you,” Kozhanovskiy said.
“People look at me, they see my father. To be the child of a great man is to be an afterthought.” She looked down at her plate.
Kozhanovskiy glanced at his watch, then stood up. “I have an interview on Inter TV,” he said. “What about Pyatov? And him?” indicating Scorpion.
Iryna got up as well. “I’ll handle it,” she said, air-kissing Kozhanovskiy once on each cheek.
“Are you sure?”
“No. But I have to try,” she said, brushing off his suit jacket with her hand.
“All right,” he said, going to the closet. “From now on this is your only assignment. Slavo!” he called out as he pulled on his fur hat and overcoat, then said to Iryna, “Keep me posted,” and to Scorpion, whose hand he shook before he left the room, “ Buvay, Mr. Kilbane. You are quite a reporter. Only two days in Ukraina,” shaking his head. “I’ve never met one like you.”
Scorpion watched him talking in rapid-fire Ukrainian to Slavo and two of his bodyguards who stood outside the apartment door. They all left together. When he looked back, Iryna was watching him.
“Just so you know,” she said, holding her cell phone in her hand. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what Reuters says. I don’t trust you even one centimeter. You don’t act like a journalist. You have no interest in politics or in interviewing me or Viktor Kozhanovskiy. A real reporter would’ve jumped at the chance. Who the bloody hell are you?”
Chapter Fifteen
Centralny Vokzal
Kyiv, Ukraine
They spent the night in a first-class sleeper compartment on the overnight train to Dnipropetrovsk. Two beds narrow as coffins and facing benches so close, if they both sat at the same time, their knees were touching. The curtains were drawn over a window caked with ice as the train rocked across the countryside in the darkness.
Iryna had changed into wool clothes, a synthetic down overcoat, and a woolen hat pulled down over a curly blond wig. When she met him on the freezing platform of the Central Station, he had barely recognized her. She gave him a start because in the blond wig, she looked like Alyona in the pouty photo. She could have been any pretty Ukrainian blonde. Scorpion had changed his image too. Instead of a suit and overcoat, he wore a heavy sweater, jeans, ski jacket, and a wool cap. Designed so no one would give him a second glance.
Back at the apartment over the pub she had asked him: “Who the bloody hell are you?”
“I’m exactly who you think I am,” he’d told her.
“Are you CIA?”
He shook his head.
“How do I know you’re not working for the other side?”
“Anyone who speaks Russian as badly as I do couldn’t possibly be working for the other side.” He paused. “Why didn’t you tell Kozhanovskiy?”
“You know why.”
“To protect the campaign? Is that what this is?” he asked. “Trying to live up to Daddy?”
“Self-preservation,” she replied, shaking her head. “You said it yourself when you first came to see me. The trail leads back to me.”
Now, settled in the compartment, they didn’t talk about what happened on the train platform.
A crowd of about twenty tough-looking men wearing black armbands began grabbing people. They let some alone and shouted at others. Then all at once fighting broke out. A group of the men with armbands surrounded a man with his wife. They manhandled the woman aside and began beating the man with their fists. He fell to the platform. One of the men took out a workman’s hammer, and the man screamed as his hands and knees were smashed with the hammer. The assailant continued to hit him in the face with the hammer, while the other men crowded around and kicked him as he lay on the platform.
Three of the men with armbands had come up to Scorpion and Iryna.
“Cherkesov abo Kozhanovskiy?” one of them asked.
Scorpion grabbed Iryna’s arm.
“My z Kanady,” Scorpion had said-We’re from Canada-meanwhile staring at the men savagely kicking the fallen man on the platform whose face was bleeding and who could no longer protect himself.
The man questioning Scorpion had followed his glance.
“Ne khvylyuy tesya,” he said. “Vin prosto Zhid. ” Don’t concern yourself, he’s just a Jew, waving it off. Scorpion felt Iryna start to move forward and tightened his grip on her arm.
“Remember why we’re here,” he whispered to her, turning them away from the beating.
I n the train, the female suputnikh brought them tea and biscuits. Iryna lit a Dunhill cigarette, her fingers trembling. For a long time neither of them spoke. It was warm inside the car, and Scorpion took off his heavy sweater.
“Maybe we’re on a fool’s errand. We should let him kill Cherkesov,” Iryna said finally, meaning Pyatov.
“Is war better?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking away. “He hasn’t been elected yet and look what he’s doing. I’m watching my country commit suicide.”
