Black Widow (10 page)

Her father shook his head while he waited. "They would have gone," he said in his native tongue. "When I didn't give them the money, they would have given up."

Ajza didn't think so. The boy she had hold of seemed high on drugs. But she didn't argue with her father.

"Your daughter..." it was always
your daughter
when he was displeased with her "...insisted on apprehending them. Now I'll have the police to deal with, as well. I have work to do. Police reports and questions will steal my time." He turned away as the phone was answered.

Ajza studied the man in the doorway. He was lanky and clean-cut. He wore a windbreaker, even though the day was too warm for it. She knew the windbreaker covered the gun he carried at the small of his back. The presence of the weapon showed in the movements he made.

Few policemen carried guns in England these days, although more did now than before the threat of terrorist attacks. But he wasn't a policeman, or he would have announced himself.

Plenty of criminals carried guns. Ajza watched him carefully.

"Are you all right?" the man asked her.

"Yes. Thank you."

He grinned and shook his head, much too at ease with violence to be a regular person off the street. Even if she'd not seen him in the MINI Cooper, that alone would have given him away.

"You didn't seem to need me," he said. "You had everything here taken care of."

Not everything, Ajza thought.

The police arrived, and the questions and reports that Ajza's father dreaded began. Ajza stood to one side while the lead investigator ran the operation.

During the ensuing time, the man had chatted casually with her and introduced himself as Jason. He didn't give a last name. Ajza had let him handle most of the conversation, avoiding his attempts to get to know her better. He was, she had to admit, a very smooth talker.

His partner out in the MINI Cooper kept watch.

After a bit, one of the investigators approached Jason. Their talk was short, then the lead investigator came over, chatted briefly, took a look at Jason's credentials and cut him loose from the investigation.

"Looks like I'm the lucky one," Jason said to Ajza.

He should have just walked away. It was what she would have done if their roles had been reversed. She wouldn't have broken cover for any reason less than life-or-death.

Jason had an ego. He liked playing the protector, and he liked playing mysterious.

"We were lucky you were here today," Ajza said, feeding his ego.

Jason smiled. "You're pretty good at taking care of yourself."

"There were two of them."

With a shrug Jason said, "They were boys playing toughs. I'm just glad I was in the neighborhood."

Ajza looked at him. "I know it's awful, but I really don't remember seeing you around."

"I'm here every now and again."

"Do you work somewhere close by?"

"An investment firm. Nothing elaborate."

"You're very fit."

"I work out."

Ajza smiled at him, trying to look like a defenseless woman. That was easy because his ego would allow him only to recognize her as inferior. She knew the type. "Perhaps I'll see you around."

He stared at her for just a moment. She thought she might have pressed that too far.

"You never know," he said. He said goodbye and left, careful to take a right turn at the door as if he was simply resuming a trip back to the office. His partner across the street didn't move.

Ajza waited and endured her father's silent displeasure. But she couldn't help wondering who Jason was and who he represented.

The investigating detective took Ajza's name and address. He looked at her from under his hat brim. He was middle-aged, articulate and observant.

"You live in London?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Why are you here?"

"I took a few days from work to visit my parents."

"Very thoughtful."

"Thank you." Ajza knew the man was on alert. Whoever Jason was, his presence at the shop had raised the detective's suspicions.

"Where do you work?" the detective asked.

Ajza named the corporation where MI-6 had established her cover. She didn't hesitate. Everything she told the policeman would check out.

"How long have you been working there?" the policeman asked.

"Since I got out of college." Ajza folded her arms and took a deliberate defensive posture. "Why do I get the impression that I'm under investigation?"

"Sorry." The detective smiled. "I've always been the curious sort. It helps in my line of work."

"I suppose it would."

The detective made note of her answers.

"Would you care to know where I went to college?" Ajza asked.

He shook his head and looked slightly embarrassed. "No, that won't be necessary. I'm just glad nothing bad happened to you or your father. You were very lucky that chap happened along as he did."

"I know." Ajza bit her lip and feigned indecisiveness. "I'm frightfully embarrassed."

"Why?"

"You're going to think I'm positively dreadful."

"Nonsense." The detective gave her a reassuring smile.

"I'm afraid I wasn't as good with my questions as you are with yours." The reminder was deliberate, subtly reminding the man that he owed her for his prying. "I never even asked him his name."

"Well, given the excitement of the moment, that's understandable." The detective made no offer to give her the man's name.

"Do you think you could tell me his name and address?" Ajza asked. "I'd like to call and thank him. Perhaps send him some flowers or — at the very least — a card. After all, he did save my father's life."

The detective put his notepad in his pocket. "His name is Donald Smythe. I'm afraid I can't give you his address. Privacy, you know."

"What about where he works? That wouldn't be an invasion of privacy, would it?"

"I'm afraid I didn't get that information, Miss Manaev."

"Oh. Well, that's disappointing. Perhaps if you should get it later..."

"Of course."

But she knew the man wouldn't be in touch with her again.

After the police left, things returned to normal. Ajza stayed busy restocking and cleaning the shop. The patrons broke up the monotony of the day as always. She remembered many of them from having lived there as a girl, before going away to university. Some of them were new to her, but not to her father. She loved to hear her father's patter with the people who entered the shop. His words always brought comfort because kindness filled him while he worked.

Only a little of the awkwardness between them remained. The afternoon's business more than made up for the lunch rush that was lost. The neighborhood turned out to get a firsthand account of what had happened, and they nearly always left with some purchase.

Ajza noted that her father didn't mention her part in quelling the youths. He only said he gave credit to a passing stranger.

After dinner that night, Ajza retired to the room her parents kept for her. It was odd visiting it. The room held many of her childhood things, but not much of the woman she'd become.

Her mother remarked on that infrequently. Ajza had offered to clean the room out so they could lease it to a university student or a young single. Her mother had refused, saying they kept the room so she would have a place to stay when she visited.

Her brother's room remained untouched.

Ajza had peeked in earlier the previous day after her arrival. Her mother kept everything clean despite the fact no one lived there. All of Ilyas's memorabilia remained on the shelves. His comic books stood in collector's boxes. The spy novels he'd read lined the bookshelves. Comic-book figures stood on his dresser, poised to spring into action.

For a moment as she'd peeked into that room, Ajza had almost been able to feel her younger brother's presence. It wasn't so long ago that he'd sat on the floor and played with those action figures.

In her dark bedroom, Ajza sat near the window and looked out to see the MINI Cooper. The vehicle had moved during the course of the day, but the two men remained constant. There had been no shift switch. She knew they would be getting tired. Even if they took turns sleeping, the endless hours of constant inactivity would take their toll.

But it showed how determined they were in their assignment.

That made Ajza even more curious. Especially since they were watching her so close to her parents' home.

A quick glance at the street revealed that the nightlife around Haymarket Centre was in full swing. The pubs kept the locals and the tourists busy, and they provided a distraction for her watchers.

Ajza dressed for the night in a black turtleneck, black jeans, black running shoes, a Black Watch cap to capture her dark hair and a black peacoat against the night's chill and to straighten out her curves. Looking in the mirror, she knew the men watching her wouldn't be able to tell if she was a man or a woman.

It was perfect.

Quietly, as she had in the past, she stole from her parents' house. The window in the small living room opened into a fire escape that snaked down the side of the building. She caught it, heard the rust scrape against her gloves, then swung out. Hand over hand, she made her way down and dropped to the alley behind the shop.

Then she stepped into the darkness.

Chechen Republic

Belted into the passenger seat of the Russian jeep, Taburova felt exposed. He'd grown up in the open spaces of the Caucasus Mountains. He'd hunted and fished, and he'd been respected for those skills. In those days he'd relished the wilderness.

Now it was far too easy to imagine Russian sharpshooters behind every tree and boulder. Despite all his precautions, he was grimly aware that all it would take was one well-placed bullet by a man patient enough to wait for an opportunity.

He knew that because he had been that man several times himself.

"Sir?" The driver glanced at Taburova.

"I am tired. There is nothing we can do about that. Keep driving."

"Of course." The driver dropped down another gear as they prepared to climb yet another steep incline. The vehicle's engine growled and fought for inches. Loose soil churned away under the tires. The jeep slid again and again.

Frustrated, Taburova gave the order to stop. He slid from the jeep and shouldered the AK-47 he carried. "We walk from here. The vehicles aren't going to make it."

"Yes sir."

The men in the vehicles behind him disembarked, as well. They carried weapons but didn't turn on the flashlights they'd brought. The moonlight was bright enough to see by, and the lights would only mark them as targets.

Taburova started forward, leaning into his approach, then stopped within ten paces. He waved his men to a halt behind him.

"What is it?" one of the men asked.

"They are up there." Taburova's eye scanned the dark ridges before them. "And they are watching us."

"They are expecting us," someone said.

"The council of elders is expecting us," Taburova corrected. He reached into his pocket for a flashlight. "The men up there behind those rifles might not even know what day of the week it is."

"Stupid goatherds," a coarse voice spat.

"I hope your voice does not carry into those hills," someone else said. "Otherwise, one of those men might decide to put a bullet between your eyes."

"You do not even know that someone is there."

"You are an idiot if you think that."

"I cannot believe you are afraid of these backward people."

"These
backward people,"
Taburova said, "fought the mighty Russian army to a standstill out here. Outgunned, outmanned, these warriors brought single-shot rifles into battle and cut down proud Russian soldiers like they were wheat. If you do not keep that in mind, I will kill you myself."

No one else spoke.

Taburova turned on his flashlight. The beam tracked the hard-packed earth, showing the ruts left by two-wheeled carts and the heavy footprints of oxen. Then he flashed the beam up in his face and held it for all to see.

Footsteps shuffled behind him and he knew that the men closest to him retreated. He didn't blame them.

"I am Mayrbek Taburova," he declared in a loud voice. "Someone among you should know me. I have spoken with the council of elders. I am here answering their call."

Adrenaline flooded Taburova's senses. If they fired on him, he'd never hear the bullet that killed him.

A moment later a match flame between cupped palms plucked a hard-planed face from the darkness only briefly. The hollow eyes regarded Taburova.

"Come," the man called down. The cupped palms moved apart and the flame died.

"So, you still live to fight, my friend." Sixty hard years had made Bislan lean as a rake, and misfortune had bent him, yet the old man radiated a dangerous ferocity. His white beard danced in the light breeze. Though his eyes crinkled in laughter, nothing touched the cold chill permanently locked there. The battered
catnous
he wore fluttered under the long fur coat that draped him. He leaned on an aged sniper rifle that was wrapped in canvas to protect it from the elements.

"I still live," Taburova agreed. "And I still fight."

"It is our way." Bislan held out an arm.

Without hesitation, though he had seen the old man once slit a man's throat with the same gesture, Taburova stepped into Bislan's embrace. The arm still felt strong and able, though the old man had gone stringy with the hard times.

"It is good to see you, my friend." Taburova hugged the old man fiercely, then stepped away.

"I know you are taking the battle to those Russian pigs," Bislan said, "and I am proud of you for that. But every time you leave us, I have to wonder if it will be the last time I see you."

Taburova smiled. "I will bring you news of victory soon. You will not have to sing any songs over my death."

"I hope not. You should live to bury me. And I should die a very old man. That way I know we will have killed many Russians."

Small and remote, the settlement consisted of a collection of shacks built into the foothills. Much thought had gone into building the dwellings, but materials hadn't been readily available. Taburova had grown up in such a house, one with a dirt floor and heated by a fire made from dung. The mountains pressed hard on the men who lived among them.