Black Widow (17 page)

She preferred the reports of only a handful of journalists because they were good and she'd learned to read between the lines. Reporters wrote what they could prove, but they didn't always write what they suspected. Still, if a skilled reader knew what to look for, she could read between the lines and glean a lot of information that way.

Kate's earpiece buzzed for attention. "Yes," she said.

"Director," Christian Sorenson greeted. He was one of the on-site techs who worked for Room 59. In his late twenties, Sorenson had been a child prodigy in whose curious hands a computer became a dangerous weapon. Not only was he one of the best hackers in the espionage business, he specialized in manufacturing computer-generated evidence. His ability to recreate events on computer and forge evidence was almost supernatural.

"What have you got for me?" Kate asked.

"We identified the second woman from the Lovyrev assassination."

The first woman hadn't had any history that the intelligence section could dig up. The Moscow newspapers hadn't identified her. Even European muckrakers hadn't been able to turn up any information about her.

"How did you make the identification?" Kate asked. "I thought no one had any footage of her."

"They had footage," Christian disagreed. "May I borrow your view screen?"

"Sure." Kate tapped her passcode into the mouse. A section of the screen blanked.

"We had to get creative to get the identification," Christian said.

The view screen rolled through the footage of the bomber attack. LovyreVs car roared out of the alley and a woman stepped in front of it.

"This is where they had the image," Christian said.

The footage stopped with the woman standing in front of the sedan. The vehicle was only a few feet away, frozen.

Kate's stomach tightened, knowing that if the footage was allowed to progress the next second or two would show the vehicle hitting the woman. She had seen the sequence of events multiple times. During her career with the CIA and since with Room 59, she'd seen several such acts of violence but hadn't become inured to them. Most days she was thankful for that.

"The windshield," Christian said. "The woman's face is reflected in the windshield. The image — as you can see — is difficult at best. It's distorted, stretched and rounded from the windshield surface. Not only that, but the windshield was bulletproof, allowing a whole new set of refractive qualities I had to figure in to get a good reflection captured. I ended up writing a whole new program over the last couple of days that allowed my computer to crunch out a new image."

The reflection was lifted from the windshield and hung suspended in the section Christian manipulated. Behind it the car, the alley and the tragic events disappeared. Kate was silently thankful and tried to push the thoughts of the woman's horrible death from her mind as she concentrated on the computer tech's efforts to identify her.

The captured face looked stark and ghastly. Light and distortion robbed the image of flesh tones and individuality. Stretched as it was, the face looked more like a ghoulish mask.

"Once I had the image," Christian went on, "I had to adjust it. I had to bring the overall dimensions back to something human and try to maintain the integrity of the features without altering them too much. Otherwise she could have been anyone."

As Kate watched, the face changed subtly. In seconds it shrank and became something recognizable as human. Incredibly the face became even more horrifying because the woman's fear and helplessness were revealed without restraint.

"Sorry about that," Christian said. "I've been working with that woman's face so much over the past couple of days that I forgot how she looked at that moment. From the reading I'd done on them, these women are supposed to be willing martyrs. Still, the whole experience would have to be terrifying."

"These terrorists want you to believe the Black Widows are willing martyrs," Kate said. "If you look into it, you'll discover that most of those young girls are drugged out of their minds at the time they
sacrifice
themselves, or they've been repeatedly beaten and raped to the point that death is preferable to living."

"Didn't know." The computer tech sounded quieter. Kate knew that the cyber world Christian habitually dwelled in usually didn't deal with terror and death that had faces. Collateral losses generally had a bottom line in his world, not an identity. "I just thought they were believers in the cause," he said.

"They believed in it," Kate said. "The cause just didn't happen for them."

"That kind of explains some of the background I found on this young woman," Christian said.

On the screen, the image slid over and another image popped into place beside it. The second image showed a much younger girl with a shy smile.

"Her name was Nuura Shishani," Christian went on. "She was seventeen years old." He paused for a moment. "My younger sister just turned seventeen, and she's still in high school and thinks getting a date for the prom is a problem."

Kate didn't know what to say to that and she didn't even try. Sometimes there were no reference points in the worlds she dealt with.

"Did you identify her from police records?" Kate asked.

"No."

Another image appeared on the screen. This one showed the young woman's face again. She was surrounded by other girls in a small village. The ramshackle houses and dilapidated farm equipment testified to how far from civilization Nuura Shishani had grown up.

"She went missing seven months ago," Christian continued. "I used facial-recognition software to sort through news databases and turned up this image first."

The image pulled back to reveal that it occupied a quarter page in a magazine. French writing bracketed the picture of the young woman.

"A French anthropologist was doing a study in Nuura Shishani's village when she went missing," Christian said. "He was appalled by the way the people in the village, including the family, seemed to take the girl's disappearance. According to him, they didn't do much more than a cursory search for her. Everyone just said she had a lot of bad luck. Like it was a disease or something, the anthropologist wrote. Her husband — and I couldn't believe she was married — died in a confrontation with Russian soldiers."

"She was widowed," Kate said. "In that culture, she belonged to her dead husband's family."

"Then they should have been out looking for her."

"Those mountain people don't have a lot," Kate said. "They work hard just to get through each day. Chasing after a missing girl was beyond their resources."

"But the police..."

"The only police out there," Kate said, "are Russian military. Even if they believed Nuura Shishani had gone missing, they wouldn't have risked anyone looking for her. She could have been bait in a trap."

Kate studied the innocence in the young woman's face. No trace of that existed in the frightened image reflected on the luxury car's windshield.

"Were you able to tie her to Taburova?" Kate asked.

"Not yet. I'm still working on that. I've hacked the FSB's files regarding the bombing, but I've got no joy so far. However, working on the theory that Shishani was abducted, I've identified three local possibilities for connections to the Black Widow camps."

The images of the dead woman disappeared and were immediately replaced by the images of three men. All of them looked rough.

Kate recognized two of them.

"I assembled the files on these guys by cross-referencing what was in the FSB's databases and what was in Interpol's, as well as Eastern European police agencies. From everything I've been able to pull together, these men are players."

"We've tied Maskhadov to Taburova," Kate said.

"I didn't know that."

"You weren't supposed to. But what you've found bears out what we thought we knew," Kate said.

"That's good, I suppose. I wanted to identify the woman if I could. I thought maybe you could figure out a way to let her family know what happened to her."

"If we can." Kate guessed that the family already knew. Still, few televisions existed in the mountainous terrain where Nuura Shishani had been born and raised. Kate had already developed assets in the area. A message might be passed on.

But that wouldn't happen until Ajza Manaev was home free. Kate's stomach knotted a little as she looked at MaskhadoVs scarred face. Cruelty showed in every line, and bleak apathy filled his dark eyes.

And Maskhadov was the man Kate had sent Room 59's newest recruit to. She checked her watch, did the time zone calisthenics and knew it wouldn't be long before Ajza made contact with the man.

North Caucasus Region Outside Chechnya

Ajza woke at the light touch on her elbow. For a moment the darkness and the noise left her disoriented, then she remembered she was on a cargo plane flying into Russia. The red warning light flared quickly to her right and dimmed. She couldn't believe she'd fallen asleep, but after hours of flying the plane's vibrations had a lulling effect.

"Are you with me?"

The speaker was Ajza's sole contact aboard the plane. She'd been forbidden to visit the cockpit. She hadn't been especially curious about who piloted the craft. After she'd put herself into the hands of the people running things, she'd focused on the mission.

"Yes," Ajza answered. She was worn and weary from traveling for two days. The trip had required several stops along the way, and there were more ahead of her.

"Good." The shadows in the cargo hold hid the man's features. Ajza had the impression that he was young, probably no older than she was, but he had the air of a seasoned veteran. "Jump point's coming up in about eight minutes."

"Have you made contact with ground support?" Ajza stood and checked her gear. She was nervous, but she tried not to show it.

"They're waiting." The man looked at her. Even in the darkness of the cargo area he seemed to know she wasn't comfortable. "You jumped much?"

"No. I've been trained, but I haven't done it much." Ajza felt guilty admitting that, as if she was putting part of the responsibility on him.

"It's no sweat. If you've had training, you know what to do."

Ajza nodded, realized he might not have seen that response and said, "Okay."

"Want me to go through your checklist with you?"

She hesitated.

"Hey," the guy said, "I buddy-up every time I jump. I never go through the door without someone else checking me over. I just didn't want to assume and cause hurt feelings before you were out the door."

"If you don't mind," Ajza said.

"I don't." In a quick, concise manner that showed practice and expertise, the man took her through the pre-jump checklist.

"This is a static line jump," the man said. "You gotta clear the plane before you pop the chute. The static line will trigger the initial chute release. Make sure it opens. Don't try to see the chute because it's black and you might not see it. Check the stars. We've got a clear night out here. You'll know the chute's open when you feel the tug, and you'll know it's full when you've got a rectangular void of stars over your head. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Trust the equipment. It works. If the first chute fails out, you've got a second try."

"Yes."

The man put his face closer to hers and turned so his features were caught in the brief flicker of the red light. He gave her a reassuring smile. "It won't fail out. You're going to be fine. I hear it's rough down there, but you're safe until you're on the ground. Copy?"

"Copy." Ajza pulled her goggles and oxygen mask into place.

The man led her to the side door, then hauled it back. Wind snarled into the cargo area and pulled at Ajza's black jumpsuit.

"You're traveling light," the man said as he snapped the static line to her parachute's ripcord.

"It's that kind of mission," she responded.

The man shook his head. "Me, I never felt right unless I was fully rigged out for combat. Whatever you're here to do, that's enemy territory down there. Otherwise we wouldn't be sneaking you in."

"I know."

"If Russia hadn't opened up to European trade, getting you in here would be even harder. As it is now, you could almost fly in commercially."

Ajza nodded and looked at the yawning black night on the other side of the door. The wind buffeted her and made it hard to stand. The suit was designed to help slow her fall and give her some control before she opened the parachute. Now the suit's loose folds worked against her.

"Coming up on your mark," the man said over the roar of the wind.

"Ready," Ajza said, and tried to act like her stomach wasn't turning to water. Night jumps had always made her leery, and she'd never jumped into harsh terrain that wasn't part of an exercise. She tried not to think about the waiting rocks and trees.

The man tapped her helmet. "Go."

Ajza stepped past him and threw herself into open space. She felt the slight tug of the static line plying out behind her. Then she was falling toward the dark earth far below, gaining speed with every second.

Moscow

Sergei Prokhorovs phone rang and he guessed it was his partner Mikhalkov. The old man seemed to hardly sleep these days with the case they were working. When he mulled over an investigation in the middle of the night, often questioning facts but not his gut feelings, Mikhalkov didn't hesitate to call and discuss his thoughts.

For a moment Sergei thought seriously of ignoring the phone. But if it was Mikhalkov and he didn't answer, the old man might show up at his apartment and bang on the door. That had happened before, as well, and Sergei's neighbors had made their displeasure known to him.

All things considered, Sergei didn't want to get dressed and go out into the night. He pulled his cell phone from the nightstand, flipped it open and answered.

"Alexi?" a woman asked.

The voice was unfamiliar to Sergei. He felt certain that if he'd ever heard it before, he would have recognized it.

"Excuse me?" Sergei hoped she would repeat herself. This time he would be ready. He'd listen again, more closely, and see if he could identify an accent or anything unique about her voice. He'd tried the ruse before but to no avail.