Cliff Ryder - Black Widow

But here in Greater London, everything looked too commonplace. She regularly rode the train from Leicester and frequently walked along the platforms she was on now. She felt even more out of place because she carried no baggage, while nearly everyone around her had a briefcase or valise.

She hailed a cab on Euston Road after making certain no one followed her.

"Where to, miss?" the driver asked.

"Broadway Market, please."

The driver flipped on his meter, pulled away from the curb and battled for a place in traffic. "Do you have any place special in mind, miss?"

"I'm just going to wander." Ajza pushed herself back in the seat and tried to relax.

After paying the driver, noting that her cash was dwindling quickly, she stepped into the flow of people patronizing the local shops and restaurants. The overcast sky promised dreary weather and the possibility of rain.

Broadway Market was a center of activity on Saturdays, when farmers brought their produce to sell. The neighborhood consisted of narrow buildings squeezed among several alleys and narrow streets. It was, Ajza had concluded, a particularly good spot for being elusive if the need arose.

Keeping her head low, Ajza used the shop windows to check the area. She scanned the reflections. No one followed her.

Unless they got here ahead of you — perhaps you're not as clever as you think you are, she cautioned herself.

She forced those thoughts from her head. She was clever. Not only that, she had no choice in what she was going to do.

The sights and smells of all the food around her made her stomach grumble. She knew she had to eat to keep her strength up. During the train ride, she'd managed to sleep most of the hour-and-twenty-minute journey, but that was nowhere near what her body craved. She still hadn't decompressed from the Istanbul assignment.

She purchased a blueberry scone from a small pastry shop, picked up a newspaper to check the headlines and walked into the Java Highway cyber cafe, squeezed between a wedding-apparel shop and a shoe store. The smell of fresh coffee gave her a lift.

A short counter with two staff took up one corner of the room. Computers and tables filled the rest. Dim lighting enhanced the blue-gray screens of the computers.

Ajza paid for an hour and took a computer near the back wall. The doorway to the alley was only a short distance away. She settled in, opened the account Trevor had created for her, then logged on to the Annie's Dungeon website.

She negotiated the handful of screens noting that the user was entering a zone for adult material, followed immediately by images of men and women in garish clothing, chains and holding whips. None of it made an impression on Ajza. This was all pretend. What she had seen in the field — what she had done — was much worse.

She logged into the chat room and looked at the names. No one with cardinal was on the roster provided.

The time was nine-fifty-three.

As calmly as she could, she sipped her coffee. She knew she should eat the scone, but she didn't trust her stomach.

Mum and Dad are fine, she told herself. But she kept thinking how quickly Ilyas had slipped away. He'd been gone before they knew it.

The chat room was active. Ajza watched each new name that entered. She ignored the suggestive and outright inflammatory remarks the other users posted. During her training, she'd been taught how to entice and lure over the Internet. The cyber battlefield took shape the same way as physical terrain. In the end, though, everything was filtered through human lust and greed.

And, perhaps, sometimes self-preservation.

CardinalSin logged on at nine-fifty-seven.

Ajza cracked her knuckles out of habit, then leaned into the keyboard and monitor.

Chechen Republic

"Bring them out." Taburova stood in front of the shack where the women were held. He'd spent the night talking and drinking for far too long. Now he was getting a late start and it angered him.

Two of his men entered the shack and herded the women back outside. In the daylight, they looked like scarecrows wrapped in light coats. Most wore headscarves, but none of them had veils to cover their faces. None were beautiful, but a few of the younger ones were pretty enough.

One of the older women fell to her knees in front of Taburova. She cried out for mercy and touched her forehead to the ground.

"Don't cry out to God," Taburova told them. "He will not hear you. Today, only I am listening."

Quickly the other women knelt and pressed their faces to the ground. A handful of them cried, their thin faces jerking with their repressed sobs.

"Your tears will only hit the dry ground, and even it will remain parched rather than accept them," Taburova told the women. "No one cares about you. You are nothing. The Russians made you that way."

The men stood around them with their weapons but didn't speak.

"I could kill you out here and leave your bodies for the carrion feeders."

One of the women looked up. "Please, I have a child. She needs me."

"You disgrace your child," Taburova said. "You disgrace God. And you think only of yourself."

The woman wept openly.

Taburova stepped forward and kicked the woman in the side. She screamed and tried to get away. He kicked her again.

"Be still," Taburova ordered. "And stop crying or I will kill you, instead of offering you a chance to avenge your husband and yourself, and to make your daughter proud of you."

The rest of the women watched him fearfully. They knew what he was talking about, and they knew that — in the end — they had no choice.

"I'm going to offer all of you that chance." Taburova stared at them while the woman he'd kicked shuddered on the ground. "Like God, I don't have to be merciful. You have lost your husbands fighting the Russians. Your sons. Your fathers."

Tears tracked down the faces of all the women.

"Those brave men gave their lifeblood fighting for your freedom," Taburova went on. "You can do no less. Your country needs you."

"My daughter," the woman on the ground wailed.

Anger spiked within Taburova as he turned to look down at her. "Your daughter is an orphan." He pointed the AK-47 at her head and pulled the trigger.

The bullet exploded through the woman's head and the detonation caused the others to jump. Her blood was the only thing that moved on the ground.

"Death became your fate when your husbands, brothers, sons and fathers died," Taburova told the rest of them. "All of you have sinned. You know you have sinned. It stains your hearts, and it brought the bad luck that has left you here."

His words left them shaken. What he told them was nothing new. They had grown up steeped in such beliefs. And Taburova knew that no one who had ever dealt with misfortune felt they were without sin. Every person, eventually, blamed themselves for where they were in life.

These women lived hard lives even before they'd been left without guardians.

"I will give you the opportunity to redeem yourselves," Taburova said. "And to strike back at the Russians."

He paced in front of them, searching the dirty faces for the one who could be the leader he needed among these women. They couldn't all be sheep. God willing, there was a lioness among them.

"Don't you want to make the Russians pay in blood for all that they have taken from you?" Taburova demanded. "They have stripped you of everything. You have no one to speak for you. Stained by sin as you are, you have no chance to get into heaven. I will take you there."

A young woman stepped forward, but she ducked her head fearfully as she faced Taburova. "I will go. I will bring death to the Russians."

Taburova walked toward her. Her resolve lessened as he got closer. She stood on shaking legs with her chin trembling and tears streaming through the dirt on her face.