Cliff Ryder - Black Widow

Without warning a pair of strong arms wrapped around her. For a moment Ajza almost broke free of them and fired an elbow backward. She caught herself just in time from smashing her mother's face.

"I know," her mother said. "I know."

Without a word, Ajza turned and settled into her mother's embrace. Her mother's callused hands stroked her back and patted her as if she was a child. The tears came then, and so did the old frustration.

They deserved to know what had happened to Ilyas. The government owed them that.

"I'm sorry, Mum," Ajza whispered. "I try to be strong."

"Some days are easier than others," her mother replied. "But we still have each other. That's what we need to concentrate on."

"I will." Ajza held her mother fiercely. "I will."

"Give me the money and you won't get hurt, old man."

The harsh threat in the young male voice drew Ajza's attention at once from the street outside the shop. She'd been watching the two intent and quiet young men who had set up camp there in a MINI Cooper.

Ajza glanced at the mirrored disk in the corner of the shop. Two boys — they weren't men by any stretch of the imagination — confronted her father at the counter. They looked like street urchins, dressed in ragged jeans and patched football shirts. They didn't even belong to the same team.

The boy who'd spoken looked as tall as her father, and he weighed more, but Ajza doubted he was even fourteen. His face had the softness of youth, though the eyes were bitter hard. He was very pale, his blond hair dyed blue at the spiked tips.

"Are you deaf?" the boy demanded.

Her father kept his hands folded over his chest and locked gazes with the boy. "I'm not deaf."

"Then what are you bloody waiting for?"

Her father shook his head. "I'm not giving you any money. If you want money, go out and get your own. Or go ask your parents."

The young man drew a switchblade from his pants pocket. The blade snikked as it opened. "I'm going to take yours."

Her father scowled at him. "You are a bad boy. You should be ashamed."

Quietly Ajza strode forward. Her father wouldn't allow himself to be robbed. He never had. In the past he'd beaten would-be robbers with the baseball bat he kept behind the counter. Twice he'd ended up in surgery, once with a cranial fracture and the second time with a gunshot wound. But he didn't seem to acknowledge the threat before him.

From the corner of her eye, Ajza knew that the two men across the street in the MINI Cooper had noticed what was going on. As closely as they'd been watching the building — though they'd tried to act like that wasn't what they were doing — they couldn't have missed the robbery attempt.

"If you don't give me the money," the boy threatened, "I'm going to cut it out of your arse."

"I'm going to call the police." Her father reached for the handset on the counter.

Immediately the boy vaulted onto the counter. At the same time, one of the men across the street launched himself into a run, threading through the traffic and setting off a wave of bleating horns.

"Give me the money!" The youth brandished his knife. "Now, and you won't get hurt."

"Do it." The second boy let a length of bicycle chain spill out of his fist to the floor.

Without a word, Ajza stepped forward and delivered a snap-kick to the face of the second boy. He flew backward toward the entrance.

"What are you doing?" her father demanded.

Ajza didn't reply. She couldn't believe her father was remonstrating with her when the two boys had come there to rob him.

The first boy swung around with his knife, then stabbed at Ajza's face. She dodged to the left, shoved her right arm on the outside of the boy's right arm, wrapped her hand over and caught him under the armpit. The knife was turned away from her, blocked by her body as she held on. Before the boy could set himself, Ajza yanked him from the counter.

The boy wheeled through the air as Ajza maintained her hold. He thudded against the floor on his back, the wind blasted from his lungs. Ajza twisted his wrist with her other hand, then plucked the weapon from his fingers.

"Stop!" Her father rushed around the corner and knelt by the boy. "Stop it now! Do not hurt him!"

Angry, still fueled by adrenaline, Ajza barely held back a scathing retort. Her father was more worried about the boy than he was about her.

The boy tried to get up. Ajza didn't even have to restrain him. He was too weak to rise from the floor. The other boy got to his feet, took a look at his partner, then made a mad dash from the shop.

The man who'd been watching from the MINI Cooper seized the robber by the throat and smashed him up against the door frame.

"Stay," he ordered.

The boy nodded. Tears flooded his eyes as he tried to recover.

The knife wielder erupted in a torrent of curses. He struggled against Ajza's grip but couldn't break free.

"Do not hurt him," her father ordered.

"I won't," Ajza replied.

"I will call the police." He went back to the counter.

"What is going on?" Ajza's mother stood in the doorway drying her hands on a towel.

"They tried to rob the store," Ajza said.

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."