“Why?”
“Cherkesov was a traitor, that filthy ebanatyi pidaraz motherfucker!” he shouted, slamming the table with his fist, making the candle and bottle of Nemiroff jump.
“Who told you he was a traitor? Gorobets?”
“ Ladna, you are not entirely stupid,” Shelayev said. “Sure Gorobets. He showed me. A secret text to Cherkesov.”
“Who was it from?”
“A man named Gabrilov.”
“The one from the Russian embassy?”
“He is head of the SVR in Kyiv.”
“I know. Also Alyona’s contact,” Scorpion said, stopping himself from saying case officer.
“So!” Shelayev said, shaking his finger in Scorpion’s face. “You didn’t learn that either at Columbia, Pane Kilbane. I think you are CIA.”
“Also Mossad and MI-6. I’m a triple threat. What did the message say?”
“That sukin sin!” Shelayev snarled. “Cherkesov wants good relations with the Russians. Horosho! Okay! Extend lease for Russian naval base at Sevastopol. Horosho! But that mudak bastard wanted to give Crimea back to Russia. For what? For money like a Jew!” He turned and spit on the floor. “We are sons of the Cossacks. You understand? For this, we fight! For this,” his eyes narrowing, “we kill.”
“The Crimea? You killed Cherkesov because of Crimea?” Scorpion said.
“Crimea is ours.”
“When the fuck did I land in the nineteenth century?” Scorpion said, shaking his head. “What the hell is next? Balaklava and the Charge of the Light Brigade?! Did Gorobets say what would happen once Cherkesov was dead?”
“He said Davydenko would be President.”
“Davydenko the idiot?”
“Better him than Kozhanovskiy and Iryna Shevchenko, who want to sell us out to the Americans!” Shelayev said hotly.
“So you killed Cherkesov?”
Shelayev looked at him and didn’t answer.
“The C-4 in Cherkesov’s car,” Scorpion said. “How’d you wire it? To the ignition?”
Shelayev shook his head. “Cell phone. I wanted to be sure he was in the Mercedes when it went off. Someone might have started the engine before he got in.”
“You were Gorobets’s security. It made it easy, didn’t it?”
“I did the final security check, so no one would spot it before. I got under the car. It only took maybe twenty seconds.” Shelayev shrugged with a faint smile of pride.
“If anyone saw you, you were just doing your job.” Scorpion nodded. “Have you heard about the war?”
“I saw the TV yesterday in Chernobyl,” Shelayev said sullenly.
“When you planted that C-4, what the hell did you think you were doing?”
“Saving my country,” Shelayev said, looking up. “Alyona too.”
“The Serb who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War One probably didn’t mean to start a war either. But he did,” Scorpion said grimly. “But why should it bother you? You’ve already got a lot more blood than Cherkesov’s on your hands.”
“What?” Shelayev looked startled. “What are you talking-”
“Alyona’s friends. Ekaterina and Fedir. Kulyakov killed them because Gorobets was looking for you. If I hadn’t got there in time, Alyona would be dead too. And then there’s Dennis.”
“Who?” He looked wide-eyed at Scorpion.
“My InterInform guide, Denys. Your little Spetsnaz lavoushka trap in the apartment in Pripyat killed him. If Ukraine falls to Russia, you’ll have done it.”
Shelayev stared at him. “Gorobets told me-” he began.
“Can’t you get it through your thick skull?” Scorpion snapped. “Gorobets wants you dead. You and Alyona both.”
“So you say,” Shelayev said, standing up. Before Scorpion could stop him, he snatched a second Spetsnaz ballistic knife from behind a pot on a shelf and pointed it at Scorpion. The force of the knife, if the stories were true, could put the blade through his entire body and out the other side.
“We had a deal,” Scorpion said, his eyes on the knife.
“I don’t trust you. You’re trying to trip me up, you CIA mudak bastard. I love my country. My father was a hero. He fought the Germans in the Great Patriotic War.”
“Before you do something stupid, just one question: Why are you trying so hard to protect the man who wants you and Alyona dead?”
“It’s not true,” Shelayev said, shaking his head. “I did it for my country, but also for Alyona. She was in the middle. She was desperate.”
“I know. Her mother was dying and the authorities threatened to release her brother, Stepan, from Pavlovka. Do you know who did that?”
Shelayev didn’t answer.
“Gorobets,” Scorpion said. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Shelayev stared at him, his eyes wide and blue.
“I caused this, didn’t I?” he said.
“You lit the match. Gorobets set the explosive.”
“I am the traitor,” Shelayev said, almost to himself.
“Dmitri, if you are willing to tell the truth we can stop this.”
“And then Kozhanovskiy and the Jews win!” he snarled.
“And what about Alyona?”
“Alyona was a dream. Besides, after all this radiation…” Shelayev gestured vaguely at the house and the woods. He sat back down at the table but kept the knife aimed at Scorpion’s chest. With his other hand, he took a long swig of the horilka. He wiped his blond hair out of his eyes.
“Do you know Taras Sherchenko, the poet?” he asked. He began to recite:
“When I die, bury me
On a grave mound
Amid the wide wide steppe
In my beloved Ukraina…”
He looked at Scorpion. “She wants to be an actress. So beautiful,” he said.
Shelayev put the knife in his mouth and pressed the release with his thumb. He gagged as the blade shot through the roof of his mouth and brain, the point and part of the blade sticking out of the top of his skull, gushing blood as he toppled to the floor.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Verkhovna Rada
Kyiv, Ukraine
Scorpion drove through the darkness toward the checkpoint at Dytyatky, the road with its patches of snow a ghostly white in the headlights. His cell phone had finally gotten into range and he picked up a BBC news broadcast. The Russians had announced a deadline of midnight, after which Russia “would take whatever steps are necessary, including military action, to ensure the security of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine,” the cell phone broadcast said.
“In Kiev,” the announcer went on, “the meeting between presidential candidate Viktor Kozhanovskiy and acting president Lavro Davydenko has ended without a joint statement or any sign of compromise. Mr. Kozhanovskiy has accused Mr. Davydenko of indifference to the suffering of the Ukrainian people and a callous
