away from where he’d just come from. Scorpion eased his way around the corner, keeping the Glock ready. On this side the trees were closer to the house. The branches of a large tree had grown through a broken window into the house.
He started to go around the large tree when something hit his wrist hard, followed by a wrist grip that forced him to drop the Glock even as he began to react. He could feel Shelayev reaching around to grab his jacket in back. A pure Sambo move that would be followed by a leg sweep, he thought as he went into a two-hand Krav Maga wrist counter, stepping back to avoid the leg sweep. He was just in time, as a punch hit him in the side of his head and a Sambo sidekick grazed his ribs. It knocked his goggles off. Shelayev was good and strong and fast as hell, he realized as he countered with a grapple throw and leg sweep of his own, which Shelayev countered with a countergrapple. They were throwing elbows and kicks in a rapid sequence, fighting blindly in the dark by feel and with only a sense of each other’s shapes.
Scorpion spotted the glint of a knife in the darkness. Knowing he was in a fight for his life, he desperately kicked at Shelayev’s knee as a feint to grab the hand holding the knife in order to do a Krav Maga disarm. Although it was almost impossible to tell, he thought the blade had holes in it: Jesus, a Spetsnaz ballistic knife, he thought, blocking a Sambo grapple and attempt to throw, and doing the Krav Maga knife disarm, just managing with all his might to twist the wrist against Shelayev’s immense strength. Scorpion followed with a quick front kick, taking the knife away.
He was staggered then by a Sambo sidekick to his thigh, just missing his groin, followed by a lightning-fast second sidekick to his knife hand to try to knock the knife away. He counterblocked as he reversed the knife and, stepping inside-remembering Koichi saying once that Sambo expects the opponent to use an outside leg sweep-hit Shelayev with an elbow smash to the throat. He heard Shelayev grunt, then grabbed him around the back of the neck in a guillotine choke hold combined with a hip throw to take him down. As they struggled on the ground, Scorpion hanging onto the choke hold with one hand while Shelayev hit him with an elbow to the face, Scorpion used his left hand to put the point of the knife to Shelayev’s throat, his thumb on the release that would shoot the blade through the other man’s throat and windpipe.
“Ya hochu pogovorit,” Scorpion gasped. I want to talk. “Dimitri, Ya drooh Alyona.” I’m a friend of Alyona’s.
He felt Shelayev suddenly relax and stop fighting.
“Where’s the pistolet?” Scorpion asked.
Shelayev indicated his pocket.
With his other hand keeping the knife to Shelayev’s neck, Scorpion pulled out the pistol-an SR-1 Gyurza-and put it in his pocket.
“Who are you?” Shelayev asked in Russian.
“We met before. In Dnipropetrovsk. I’m the journalist, remember?”
“Kilbane,” Shelayev said, taking off his night vision goggles, which were similar to Scorpion’s, and getting to his feet as Scorpion released him. The goggles had gotten wrapped around his neck during their struggle. “You didn’t learn to fight like this in journalism school,” he said, rubbing his neck.
“You’d be surprised. The girls at Columbia are pretty tough,” Scorpion said, picking up his pack and goggles. They spoke in a mixture of Russian and English. Using the goggles, he searched until he found the Glock lying on the ground.
“What do you want?” Shelayev said.
“If it isn’t broken, I have a bottle of Nemiroff in my pack. All you have to do is promise not to kill me,” Scorpion said, unable to see Shelayev’s face, deep in shadow. A few minutes later they were sitting at the table inside the house passing the bottle between them.
The house was cold as ice. Scorpion kept his jacket on, their breath visible in the candlelight. Before coming in, he had gone back to retrieve the Geiger counter, and while in the woods, threw away the ballistic knife and reattached the button video camcorder. When he got inside, he activated it. The only source of light was the candle on the table, casting their shadows on the walls, and Scorpion kept his fingers crossed that the hidden video camcorder would be able to pick up Shelayev’s face in the dim light. Scorpion removed the ammunition clip, emptied the chamber from the Gyurza pistol, then put the empty gun on the table between them.
“How did you find me?” Shelayev asked.
“Something Alyona said.”
“Alyona told on me?” Shelayev clenched his massive fist, though otherwise his face betrayed nothing.
Scorpion shook his head. “Only that you had gone where no one would find you. Iryna thought-”
“Iryna?”
“Iryna Mikhailivna Shevchenko. We’ve been working to try to clear our names. We’ve been accused of killing Cherkesov.”
“You and Iryna Shevchenko kill Cherkesov?” Shelayev snorted. “Is absurdnyi.”
“Tell that to the politsiy and everyone else who is after us.”
“Why did Alyona say anything about me?” He looked sharply at Scorpion, the candle flame reflected in twin pinpoints of light in his eyes. “How did you find her?”
“The bald man from the Black Cat cafe where she works. He guessed about the Puppet Theatre. First Alyona disappeared, then her friends, Ekaterina and Fedir. He was worried about them.”
“And Alyona told you about me? She said where I’m going? Just like it was nothing, that kurva bitch!” he snarled.
“She was tortured,” Scorpion said. “She was in shock with internal bleeding when we got to her. Ekaterina and Fedir were already dead.”
“ Ahhhhh!” Shelayev screamed, smashing his fists on the table, nearly knocking over the candle and the horilka. He got to his feet and began pacing and smacking his fist into his hand. He turned on Scorpion.
“Who did this?”
“Who do you think?”
“Tell me!” Shelayev demanded, balling his fists.
“Kulyakov. We found them under the stage in the Puppet Theatre. He was holding her head in a tub of ice water.”
“You’re lying. Prokip wouldn’t do that. He is a drooh,” Shelayev said. A friend.
“Kulyakov is a sick sukin sin son of a bitch i vy khorosho znayu, and you damn well know it,” Scorpion said. “He does what Gorobets tell him to. The enjoyment he gets from torturing people, especially naked women, is just an extra bonus.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s true,” Scorpion said, taking a slug of the Nemiroff and passing the bottle over to him.
“Where is she now, Alyona?” Shelayev asked, taking a long swig of the horilka and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We took her to a Medikom in Vyshhorod. Iryna was with her. She was cut all over. Plus internal bleeding, but the doctor said she would live.”
Shelayev rubbed his hand over his face, then looked sharply at Scorpion.
“Did you kill Kulyakov?”
Scorpion shook his head. “He got away.”
Shelayev smirked. “How did you let that happen?”
“There were two of them. The other was about to kill Iryna. I had to stop him.”
For a time neither of them spoke. It was strange sitting there by candlelight in a dark house, just the two of them, in the middle of a radioactive forest. Something told Scorpion he would remember this scene for the rest of his life.
“Why should Prokip torture her?” Shelayev asked.
“To find you. You know it’s true, that’s why you’re hiding from them.”
“You’re wrong! I expected Kozhanovskiy’s people or his SBU mussory to be after me. Gorobets has no reason. I followed orders.”
“Ne dorak,” Scorpion said. Don’t be stupid. “You’re a witness; the only one who can tie Gorobets to Cherkesov’s death. He needs you dead.”
“But killing Cherkesov was his idea. It had to be done,” Shelayev said.
