Black Widow

Ajza knew about the shahidka

They’d been given the name because their husbands had been killed fighting the Russian army. Some said that the shahidka were cursed, born into trouble and bad luck, and death to any man who took their hand in marriage.

Of course, there was no way anyone could tell if a woman was shahidka. There was no test, and they weren’t marked by God until after they’d lost their husbands.

Women in Chechnya married young, sometimes as early as thirteen or fourteen. The men they married weren’t much older, and they became soldiers the instant someone thrust a rifle into their hands.

Unable to afford mercy to the young troops, the Russian military often killed them. Those deaths doomed the women as well. In their culture, a woman belonged to a man. When a woman’s husband died, she became the property of her husband’s family. She could be separated from her children, have her house taken and be left out on the street—or sold to another.

Or she could end up a Black Widow.

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mel Odom for his contribution to this work.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Moscow

“I don’t want you to die because of me,” he pleaded.

Maaret looked at her husband through tears as they stood in the cold wind that whipped through Patriarshiye Ponds. His plea touched her heart and she saw the pain in his blue eyes. He was so young, so full of life and joy despite the darkness and fear that stained his soul. She didn’t know how she had missed seeing those other things. But she’d been so much in love with him that she had only seen the good.

The thing that hurt the most was how much she still loved him.

He wasn’t Russian except by blood, but he should have been. In addition to the light eyes, he had soft blond hair that always managed to look unkempt. More than the looks, though, guilt and despair filled him. Those things made him truly Russian.

As she looked at him, her cheeks numb in the freezing temperature, Maaret wondered if his soul had been as tortured before he had come to her country, lied to her and fathered their child.

Unconsciously Maaret ran a hand over her swollen stomach. That the child should die was the most hurtful thing of all. She had created her baby with the love she had for her husband.

“Please, Maaret,” he whispered just strongly enough to be heard above the wind. “Please forget this madness and come away with me.”

She smiled sadly and touched his lips with her cold fingers. Even with her glove off, she no longer felt his flesh beneath her. The distance she felt from him scared her, and that distance grew with each gray breath.

“No,” she said simply. “It is too late.”

“It isn’t too late.” His stubbornness overrode the fear. “I can save you from this.” His hand touched her stomach, then slid to the belt of explosives she wore around her hips.

“It is too late,” she insisted. She took his hand in hers. “They watch us even now.”

He shook his head. At times, he was so like a child. She thought, even then as she faced her death, that he would have made a wonderful father.

If he had stayed.

And if he had stayed and been found out, he would have been killed.

People passed them as they stood there. Older couples gave them knowing smiles, undoubtedly thinking that this was a spat between a young husband and wife. Those people didn’t have many concerns. They lived in an affluent part of Moscow where the night was held back by bright lights and fences protected the pond and the tall apartment buildings. Snow dusted the boughs of the mighty pine and spruce trees, and swirled between the naked branches of tall oaks.

In addition to wealthy Russians, Americans and Europeans lived there, as well. That was why the area had been targeted.

“I…I…” Her husband’s voice broke, and his obvious pain and confusion and desperation fueled her own. “I can fix this, Maaret. I swear.”

She knew, though, that his promise was hollow. He had masters and allegiances just as she had. Neither of them could escape their fates.

“You can’t,” she told him.

“There must be a way.”

“No.” She shook her head. “They have found you out, my love. They know what you truly are.”

The tears that tracked his face glistened like diamonds in the streetlights. Like a child, he wiped them away with his sleeve. Then he glared across the walkway that wound through the residential area. A few of the nearby windows held Christmas ornaments and lights.

“Are they here?” he asked hoarsely.

“I don’t know,” Maaret said.

“Did Taburova bring you here?”

“Yes.”

Her husband seized her arms. “Maaret, please listen to me. I have friends.”

She knew he had friends. They posed danger to him and to her. And to the child.

“I can take you from here,” he said.

Here wasn’t Moscow. This was the first time she’d ever been to Moscow. Her country lay to the north. It was all she’d ever known. She’d been born in a small house there, and she’d always believed she would be buried in one of the small graveyards.

“I don’t want to leave my home,” she told him. “When you married me, you promised you wouldn’t take me from my home.”

“I love you, Maaret. I would have promised you anything.”

“So you lied?”

He flinched painfully at her words, but still clung to her. He no longer met her gaze.

“I did what I had to,” he whispered.

“You didn’t have to marry me. You didn’t have to father our child. All you had to do was inform your masters about the heroes of my country and their efforts to free us from the Russian dictators.”

“It’s not like that.” His protest sounded weak.

“Then why spy in my homeland? Surely you could have found other women in—” Maaret faltered because she suddenly realized she didn’t even know what country her husband was from. Everything about him had been a fabrication, a dream that continued to evade her.

He held her at arm’s length and gazed into her eyes. “I love you, Maaret. And I love our child. I want us to be together. I want us to be happy.”

She believed him. God help her, she believed him. The weight of the explosives strapped to her body suddenly felt like concrete blocks. They crushed her. And they threatened her baby. She felt him—she’d never doubted the sex of her unborn child—move within her. He shifted, as restless as his father.

“You must go,” she told him. “This is not a safe place.” She breathed the cold air into herself and turned her body and her heart numb. She pushed him away.

“No, Maaret,” he said more forcefully. “I won’t allow you to do this.”

“You won’t allow me?” Maaret’s anger stabbed through her. The child within her moved again. She swept her arms against his and broke his hold on her. If only his hold on her heart broke so easily.

“I am your husband,” he told her.

“You are a liar!” Her viciousness amazed her.

“I love you. I never lied about that.”

Maaret saw the knife in his hand too late. Even then, she didn’t fear him, only what he meant to do. He leaned in and kissed her. She wanted to slap him and push him off her. Instead, she took his face in her hands and returned the kiss with a hunger only he caused within her.

It wasn’t until he drew away that she realized the weight of the explosives had vanished. He held the six packages of plastic explosives—Semtex—still strung on the belt, but the belt was severed.

“No!” Maaret gasped. She fumbled in her coat pocket for the detonator Taburova had provided her when he’d strapped the explosives on her. “You can’t!”

Her hand searched her empty pocket.

He opened his fingers and showed her the detonator. He’d stolen it without her knowledge.

“You can’t do this!” she shouted loudly enough to draw the attention of passersby.

“I can’t let you die, Maaret. Nor can I let my child die.” His face was grim. “Taburova and the others are homicidal hate-mongers. They’re not the patriotic heroes you believe them to be.”

Maaret lunged for the explosives.

He pulled them away easily.

“I’m not doing this for them,” she pleaded. “I’m doing it for me. And for our child. If I die striking back at our enemies, all my sins will be washed away. Our child will die, but he will be reborn without sin.”

“Our child,” he said, “is already without sin. And I want his mother to live because I love her more than my life.”

He turned and ran through the falling snow, threading through the bystanders and passersby. Some of them saw the belt of explosives dangling from his hand, but none of them recognized them.

Maaret tried to pursue him, but the new snow made the footing treacherous. She skidded and slipped, and finally realized she couldn’t catch him.

He fled without a backward look, intending to reach the pond only a few feet away. He halted at the fence and drew the belt back to throw.

The explosion was devastating.

The concussive force slammed into Maaret and knocked her off her feet. Her first thought was the baby. It took so little to trigger a miscarriage. She’d been surprised that the stress of the past few days hadn’t triggered an end to her pregnancy.

Deafened by the blast and temporarily blinded by the light, Maaret rolled over and pushed herself to her feet. She stood, finally, and swayed as she looked at where she’d last seen her husband.

The fence leaned precariously and powder burns stained the snow black. One of the massive pines lay broken and leaning against the side of an apartment building. Many windows stood empty of glass, and tattered curtains shifted in the breeze. Pedestrians who’d survived the blast climbed back to their feet. Several people remained down, and more than one twisted, bloodied body offered mute testimony of death and severe injury.

Screams penetrated the cottony pressure in Maaret’s ears. Warmth covered her right cheek. When she touched her face, her fingers came away stained crimson.

Blood, she realized. But it wasn’t hers. It was his.

Maaret joined in the screaming. Earlier, when she’d accepted her own death and that of her son, she had known she would never see her husband again. But she hadn’t planned on being alive to have to deal with that.

Instead, he was gone.

She stumbled toward the blast area. She was the only one who walked in that direction. All the others fled, running and limping away as quickly as they could.

“Maaret.”

The man’s cold, hard voice came from behind her. She didn’t turn because she didn’t wish to deal with his harsh remonstrations. It wasn’t her fault that her husband had come there. He could only have found her through the man who called her name now. She’d been the bait in a malicious trap.

A powerful grip seized her left upper arm. “Maaret.”

She faced him then because she had no choice.

Mayrbek Taburova glared at her with his one good blue eye. His other eye, the right one, was covered by a black leather patch. Fine scars showed around the edges of it. His curly black hair peeked from beneath his wool cap. Powdered snow clung to his fierce goatee. He was in his forties, more than twice her age.

“Come with me, child,” he ordered.

“I failed,” she said.

Amazingly he smiled at her. “No,” he said, “you didn’t. This was as it was meant to be. His sacrifice was given in love. Your sins, and those of your child, have been cleansed.”

Maaret was dumbfounded for a moment, then she realized Taburova thought her husband had detonated the explosives on purpose. She knew better than that, though. He would not have killed himself, and he would not have killed the others who lay unmoving on the ground. That wasn’t his way.

“Come,” Taburova said. He pulled gently on her arm.

Numb to the cold and the horror around her, Maaret went. She glanced over her shoulder at the blackened spot that stained the ground by the pond. The falling snow worked to knit a fresh white blanket to cover the damage, the mangled bodies that lay scattered over the area.

If not for her husband, Maaret knew she would have walked into one of the apartment buildings and set off the explosives she had worn. The damage and the death toll would have been much worse. The man who had outfitted her with the explosives had told her how much destruction the explosion would cause, as if she should take joy in that knowledge.

She hadn’t.

And she hadn’t thought of the lives she would have ended. If she’d done that, she wouldn’t have been able to carry the explosives into the building. Children lived there, as well, though she’d been told the apartments she was supposed to target were dwellings without children.

Maybe it was the truth.

She’d gotten to the point where she no longer recognized the truth.

“You did well, Maaret,” Taburova said as he quickly guided her through the alleys. “I’m very proud of you.”

Maaret said nothing. She covered her bulging belly with her free hand to protect her child, but she knew she would never possess the power to completely protect him. She wept for her child, for her dead husband, and for herself.

1

Istanbul, Turkey

“Get up!”

Ajza Manaev woke instantly at the command but too late to avoid the slap to the back of her head. She recognized Fikret’s growl as her hand closed on the 9 mm Tokarev pistol under her pillow. Her natural anger suited the role she currently played, so she let the emotion take her.

Fikret obviously expected her to react to his rude awakening. He tightened a fist in her hair and tried to control her.

Ignoring the blazing pain at the back of her scalp, Ajza twisted in the small bed and rammed the pistol into Fikret’s underarm. She twisted and raked the sight across the nerves clustered there.

With a squall of pain, Fikret released his hold and stepped back. He was a bear of a man, thick and heavy with fat, but incredibly strong. A thick mustache bisected his round face. Stubble covered his cheeks.

He cursed at her as he yanked his jacket and shirt back to check his armpit for a wound of some kind.

“I ought to kill you!” he screamed. He released his jacket and shirt, and turned his gaze back to Ajza. His huge hand drew back automatically to deliver a blow.

Ajza held the pistol in both hands and aimed it squarely between Fikret’s eyes. “Touch me again,” she told him coldly, “and I’ll kill you.”

“I tried to wake you,” he protested. “You wouldn’t wake.”

“I always wake,” Ajza said. “You only tried to wake me once. Then you hit me. If we didn’t need you today, I would kill you for that alone.”

Fikret lowered his hand and looked over his shoulder at the other men in the small apartment. “Tell her,” he exhorted. “Tell her that I tried to wake her. Tell her that she is hard to wake.”

Nazmi shoved his foot into a worn work boot and laced it. He was young and lean. Long black hair grazed his shoulders, shoulders that bore tattoos of American rock bands.

“She’d didn’t look that hard to wake, Fikret,” Nazmi said with a big grin. “You told her to wake at about the same time you hit her. She woke pretty fast and offered to kill you.” He shrugged. “If she was hard to wake, I think you would have gotten out of the way in time.”

Fikret scowled and jabbed a big finger in Nazmi’s direction. “Maybe I should kick your ass, too, you young pup.”

A knife appeared in Nazmi’s hands like magic. An easy smile framed his face. “Anytime you wish to try, you fat oaf, you are most welcome.”

Ajza watched the exchange with a wary eye. The animosity between Fikret and Nazmi had existed from the beginning. In fact, most of the team avoided the big man because he struck quickly with verbal abuse and with his hands. This morning was the first day he’d tried that with her.

“Get away from my bed,” Ajza ordered.

Fikret scowled. “This is a very small room.”

“Then go outside.”

Angrily Fikret stomped outside.

“I don’t think you made him very happy.” Nazmi reached for his other boot.

“I’m not getting paid to do that.” Ajza sat on the bed and watched the others getting ready. The fact that so much activity going on hadn’t woken her surprised her. In a way, Fikret had been right. She had been hard to wake.

You’ve pushed this operation too long, she told herself. You should have been pulled a month ago.

But every time they’d gotten ready to retrieve her from the field, one more piece of the puzzle dropped into place. That slow trickle of crucial information had been the most exasperating of all.

If not for the cloud of doubt clinging to Ilyas’s death…

Resolutely, as she had done for two years, Ajza pushed away her pain and confusion over her younger brother’s death. Those feelings proved hard to bear. She missed Ilyas. Whenever she spent time at home with their parents, she felt the gaping hole left by his death.

“I think of making Fikret angry as a bonus,” Nazmi told her. “I’m just glad they’re not charging me for the privilege.”

Ajza looked at the younger man. At twenty-nine, though they thought her younger, she felt like the old person among them.

“Is this for real?” she asked. “Or is this another false alarm?”

Nazmi shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know.”

“I hate getting up early when there’s no reason.”

“But you miss so much of the day when you sleep late.” Nazmi stood and stomped his work boots into a better fit. “I will make you a deal. If this is another false alarm, I will buy you breakfast at the market. Okay?”

The crush Nazmi had on her had been apparent from the start. Given another time and place, Ajza might have let the attraction between them develop. Still, having a friend to cover her back when the bullets started flying was a good thing.

“All right,” she said.

Nazmi gazed at her. “Aren’t you going to get dressed?”

Ajza got out of bed with the Tokarev in her hand. She wore sweatpants and an oversize T-shirt. “Not in here,” she said.

“Get dressed in here and I will buy you two breakfasts,” Nazmi suggested. He made no move to get out of her way.

“Maybe I will shoot you in the head and take your money, then buy myself as many breakfasts as I want.” Ajza smiled sweetly as she looked up at him.

“You know,” Nazmi said, “I almost think you would do such a thing.”

Ajza knew that he had no idea of what she had done in the past or was prepared to do now.

“You know that Mustafa doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” Nazmi said.

“Tell him to leave. I’ll catch up.” Ajza pushed Nazmi aside and went to the bathroom.

Inside the small bathroom with the rust-coated shower and toilet, she turned on the water and undressed. Then she knelt, reached behind the toilet and pressed a section of the wall. The section slid away and she took out the micro-miniature burst transmitter.

“This is Calico,” she said quickly, in a voice that—thanks to the running water—couldn’t be heard outside the thin walls of the room. “The meeting is on.”

She pressed send and watched as the transmitter encrypted the message, compressed it and beamed it in a split second. Somewhere in England’s MI-6 offices, someone should receive the message.

If they didn’t, she knew she might be dead within the next hour with no one the wiser.

Just like her brother.

2

New York City

“Does he follow you everywhere?”

Kate Cochran looked at her companion and smiled. “Are you referring to my bodyguard?”

“I am,” Gunter Hirschvogel admitted. He claimed to be in his late forties, but Kate knew from his file that he was in his early sixties. However, trim and fit as he was, tanned and dark-haired, he got away with the lie almost effortlessly.

His suit was handmade Italian. The plastic surgery didn’t show except for a little around the eyes, which no one would have faulted him for. Eyes were important. Especially for someone who’d made their wealth by getting other people to trust him.

“He goes with me most places,” Kate responded. She knew she looked elegant in her dark blue evening gown. Her wrap pulled everything together, and she’d turned heads most of the night. That had been enjoyable.

“When we get to my apartment,” Hirschvogel said, “where will he be then?”

“Comfortable, I hope,” Kate answered.

Hirschvogel laughed. “Perhaps we could send him down to the bar.”

Kate looked over her shoulder at Jacob Marrs, the man they were discussing. “I don’t think he’d like being that far away from me. He takes his job very seriously.”

“I don’t see how any man would want to be far from you,” Hirschvogel said.

“Thank you,” Kate said as if flattered by the comment. Only the years of doing espionage work in the field kept her in character. She detested men like Hirschvogel.

“However, I do have another possible solution.” Hirschvogel removed his electronic keycard from inside his jacket. “Perhaps we could put him with my security people.”

Kate glanced back at the two men who had accompanied Hirschvogel to the museum earlier. Older than Jake, both wore cruelty and dispassion like armor.

“It’s a shame one of us doesn’t have another bodyguard,” Kate said. “Then they’d have a fourth for bridge.”

“Actually, I have a houseman.” Hirschvogel opened the door, stepped inside and waved toward another man standing just inside the apartment foyer.

Kate cursed silently. Events could get very dicey in the apartment. If Hirschvogel found out who she was, and who and what she represented, he would probably try to kill her.

“Good evening, Mr. Hirshvogel.” The houseman was in his late forties. No emotion showed in his pale blue eyes. “Good evening, miss.” He didn’t offer to take her wrap or his employer’s coat. That would have slowed his reflexes and filled his hands.

“I have him,” the calm voice of Kate’s support technician reported. “Friedrich Moews. This guy’s a killer, Kate.”

The transmission came from the receiver/transmitter built into Kate’s left earring. It was state-of-the-art, complete with encryption encoding. Agents had wired a repeater inside the building earlier that afternoon. The delicate necklace at the hollow of her throat held a wireless camera.