bound, taped, and tied together, facing each other so one couldn’t use his hands to try to help the other. He took Gabrilov by the arm, and after checking the hallway, walked him to the room next door, Gabrilov gasping in pain at every step. Once inside, Scorpion used another plastic cuff to tie Gabrilov’s hands behind him and then propped him to sit on the floor against the bed. He sat down in a chair facing Gabrilov.
“Now we can talk,” he said.
“What you want, zhurnalist?” Gabrilov said, spitting out the word like an epithet.
“Who killed Cherkesov?”
Gabrilov shrugged. “How I should know?”
“Pyatov was the bolvan- the idiot, the decoy. You used him to set up Iryna Shevchenko and me so Kozhanovskiy would lose the election. Except it wasn’t you. Russia wanted Cherkesov to be president.”
“Is maybe Kitaiskim.” Chinese.
“Get a new song. That one’s getting old,” Scorpion said. “The Chinese aren’t going to risk a war. Not over a pipeline that’s got to go through Russia anyway. So who did it? Who had something to gain by killing Cherkesov?”
“CIA.” Gabrilov smirked. “You want assassin, look in mirror.”
Scorpion shook his head. “The Americans don’t want a war in Europe any more than the Chinese.” He aimed the Glock at Gabrilov. “No more twenty questions, you mudak son of a bitch. Tell me or I’ll kill you.”
“Even you kill, I not telling,” Gabrilov said, folding his arms over his chest.
“Not even when I tell Yasenevo about the money the Guoanbu’s been depositing in your Pravex account?”
Gabrilov stared at him. Scorpion could see his hands tremble.
“It’s no longer a matter of the SVR and maybe just a bullet in the back of the head, is it? It’s the FSB, you fool,” Scorpion said. He waited. You can’t just lead the Joe all the way to the Promised Land, Koenig used to say. When it comes time for him to drop his pants, you have to let him come to it himself. People would rather die than face who they really are.
“I not know,” Gabrilov said.
Scorpion shook his head. “No good. Everything about the assassination came from you. No matter which way I turn, the compass needle points to you.” He stood up. Time to play his hole card. “I have to end this. Do I contact Checkmate?” he asked, referring to Ivanov, the legendary spymaster of the FSB.
Scorpion waited for Gabrilov to get the picture. The FSB hated the SVR even more than they hated the CIA. He wanted Cherkesov to picture himself being questioned in Lubyanka. Especially about the money from the Chinese. From somewhere in the hotel, he heard the sound of a TV commercial, something about Obolon beer.
“What you want, mister?” Gabrilov said at last.
“No more lies. Who killed Cherkesov?”
Gabrilov licked his lips. He looked lost. “His own peoples,” he said.
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“I not sure. You will find.”
Jesus, it made sense, Scorpion thought. A power struggle within Svoboda. He was about to question Gabrilov about what the Russians really wanted when his cell phone vibrated. It was another message from Iryna.
She texted: come now. urgent.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Darnytskyi
Kyiv, Ukraine
“Who’s the ski jacket in the van across the street?” Scorpion asked.
“Danylo. Viktor sent him to-” Iryna started, but couldn’t finish because they were kissing, tongues searching, exploring, tearing off their clothes as if it were the first time; if anything, more intense. Bittersweet too, as if they sensed their time together was coming to an end. Afterward, in bed, she lit a cigarette and told him more.
“You heard there was a riot in the Verkhovna Rada? Anyway, it’s settled. The elections will be postponed for three weeks. It hasn’t been made public yet, but Svoboda is going to announce that Lavro Davydenko will be the party’s new candidate for President.”
“Who’s Davydenko?”
“A nobody. A nonentity. He’s the kind of man that when he enters the room, you get the feeling someone just left,” she said, exhaling smoke angrily.
“Why’d they pick him?”
“He’s Gorobets’s man. If Gorobets sent him to fetch coffee, he’d do it. Ask him a question and he turns to Gorobets and says ‘What do you think, Oleksandr Maxymovych?’ Such a man-not a man, a thing! President! Now of all times!”
“What happened?”
“Didn’t you see the news? As prime minister, Viktor sent a request to NATO to stop the Russian invasion. NATO is meeting in emergency session. Viktor spoke on the phone with the American president. The Americans say they will issue a stern warning to the Russians. A stern warning!” She turned to him “The Americans. Can we trust them?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t do politics,” he hesitated. “Then too
…”
“Then too what?”
“America has its own interests to look out for.”
She stubbed out her cigarette in a jar top she was using as an ashtray.
“I smoke too much.”
“You do,” he said.
She turned to him on her side, her naked breast nudging his arm.
“Did you find out anything?”
“It’s not the Guoanbu. The Chinese made a show of interest in the new gas pipeline to distract the Russians from what they really want: new markets and gas for China.”
“So who killed Cherkesov? The CIA?”
“That’s what the SVR is trying to sell. Except you and I both know it’s not true.”
She traced her finger down his face from his forehead down his nose and lips to his chin.
“How do I know?”
“You were with me,” he said. “It was an inside job. A power play inside Svoboda. So we just need to figure who stood to gain from Cherkesov’s death.”
“Gorobets! He’s the big winner, especially if that clown, Davydenko, wins! He’ll be running the country. We’ll denounce him!” She sat up excitedly.
“Right now everyone, including the politsiy, thinks we’re the killers. We need proof. We need the bomber.” He looked at her. “What was so urgent that you texted me?”
“I heard from Oksana.”
“Your mole in Gorobets’s office?”
Iryna nodded. “She said something. Gorobets has a bodyguard. Big guy with scruffy blond hair in his eyes.”
“Shelayev.” Scorpion nodded. The guy who crushed heads like eggshells. “What about him?”
“She said she hasn’t seen him since the assassination. No one seems to know where he is, or if they do, they’re not saying.” She looked at Scorpion, her face with its pixie haircut barely visible in the darkness. “Could he be the assassin?”
“He’s Gorobets’s man. And he’s Spetsnaz-trained. Possible, very possible.”
“She said something else. It bothered me. That’s why I had to see you.”
“What?”
“She said that two days before the rally in Dnipropetrovsk she went to a cafe near the university here in Kyiv.
