Cliff Ryder - Black Widow

"The woman came here yesterday?" Sergei asked.

Golovko consulted his notes briefly. "Yes. My papers are always in order."

"Does security maintain video surveillance of the morgue?"

"Yes." Golovko frowned. He doubtless guessed where the line of questioning was leading and didn't like it.

"Then we'll need to take a look at that."

Golovko sighed.

Sergei ignored the man. "What can you tell me about IvanoVs death?"

"The shot through the head killed him instantly. Then he was thrown from the building where he was murdered. He fell three stories, which is congruent with the murder scene the police found inside the building and the impact site where he was discovered."

"By passersby?"

"That was what I was told. You will have to check with the investigating police officers as to the veracity of that."

"Anything else?"

"The body had a number of minute burns," Golovko stated. "The police found the remnants of a flare nearby. The wounds hadn't started healing, so I believe they were postmortem."

"Someone shot Ivanov and pushed him through a window, then threw a flare down in the night so his body could be clearly seen?" Sergei asked.

"The body wasn't pushed through a window. It was thrown out." Golovko waved Sergei over more closely and pointed at the bruising on the dead man's neck. "Ligature marks. These fit the clothing he was found wearing. His murderers — or someone — picked him up by his clothing and threw him through the window. The rest of it is as you say."

So a message had been sent. Sergei looked at the dead man one last time. He felt certain he knew who Emile IvanoVs partner was. All that remained was catching the man and putting enough pressure on him to make him crack.

"Should I correctly identify this man?" Golovko asked.

Sergei shook his head. "No. For the time this will be our secret. I need a copy of your report."

Golovko nodded and walked over to his computer. The printer churned out the pages in rapid succession.

"Am I free to go?" the medical examiner asked.

"There is one more thing," Sergei said.

* * *

The tiny security office was neat and tidy. Electronics crammed the shelves. The security officer manning the operation took his job seriously. His eyes flitted over the monitors built into the wall ahead of him.

"My employer was with the Russian Army," the middle-aged man said. "In intelligence. He was very good at his job, but there were so many cutbacks after communism failed that he had to surrender his post. He decided to embrace capitalism and wished to stay in Moscow. So he created this company."

"He appears to have done well for himself," Sergei said as he studied the screen that scrolled footage of the previous day.

Golovko sat in front of Sergei and studied the screen, too.

"We have grown," the guard said. "We manage security on several sites. Many of them are government buildings."

"If we find what we are looking for," Sergei promised, "I will put in a good word for you."

"If it is here to be found," the man replied, "we will find it."

Sergei watched the footage as people came into the hospital. The cameras that uploaded video primarily covered the entrances and not much of the interior.

"There she is." Golovko pointed to a blond woman with heavy makeup. She dropped her cigarette at the hospital's entrance and crushed it underfoot. Sergei guessed she was in her late twenties or early thirties. She didn't look at all heartbroken. At the front desk, she talked quickly on a cell phone.

"I need a full-face photograph of the woman," Sergei told the security officer. "And a copy of this footage."

"Of course." The man started working on his computer.

* * *

"You know this woman?" Sergei asked Mikhalkov as the older man examined the photograph from the hospital security office. They sat in the car outside the coffee shop where Sergei had picked up Mikhalkov.

The man nodded. "She is a prostitute. An expensive one. But she is not Emile IvanoVs wife. IvanoVs wife is not this attractive."

Sergei remained aware of the foot traffic beside the car. Tourists, mostly.

"Do you think IvanoVs wife knows what happened to him?" Sergei asked.

Mikhalkov shrugged. "I do not know. She knew this would happen to him one day. He was always taking chances. The higher the risk, the higher the pay, he claimed." He glanced at the picture one more time and handed it back to Sergei. "Apparently the risk this time was very high."

Sergei put the photograph back into the file folder he'd carried from the medical examiner's office. "According to the records I've seen on Ivanov, he worked with many people."

"Yes. He acted fearless, but he was not. He was just foolish. He often acted as a face, a go-between for people to make dangerous liaisons. It is a wonder he lived as long as he did."

"But he was not part of Kirinov's organization?" Sergei asked.

"No. A man like Emile Ivanov was an insect compared to Kirinov."

"Has Irina told you why Kirinov was interested in Ivanov?"

"Only that Kirinov was supposed to ensure Ivanov made good on a deal that he had helped put together," Mikhalkov said.

"Kirinov had an interest in this deal?"

"No."

Sergei thought about that and quietly gripped the steering wheel. "Then why would Kirinov be interested in such a deal?"

"That is one of the questions we must find an answer to, Sergei." Mikhalkov shifted uneasily in the passenger seat. His fingers drummed briefly on the car door while he surveyed the crowd around them. "Kirinov was not a man that could be pulled into an action by just anyone. And the rewards — whatever they were — had to be high to pull him back to Moscow."

"Do you have any thoughts about what those rewards might have been?"

Mikhalkov hesitated for a time, then appeared to come to an abrupt decision. "Money would not have pulled Kirinov back to Moscow. Greedy as he was, Kirinov had more than enough money. He would not risk his life for more. Whatever he was after, it was personal."

"Revenge, perhaps?"

"He could have hired his revenge. He could have purchased the death of someone here in Moscow. For a bonus, he could have had his enemies delivered to wherever he was staying and killed them himself. No, this was something more important."

Sergei slid the file into his briefcase and locked it. "Then we find the woman."

Mikhalkov nodded. "We start there. She is but a stop along the trail. However, we must expect resistance along the way. Whoever worked through Kirinov and Ivanov, this person has a lot of power."

Sergei felt a tingle of fear in his stomach. It wasn't often that Mikhalkov was cautious, and he'd learned to take note when the old man was.

Outside Chechnya

Ajza sat with her back against a tree only a few feet from a well-traveled footpath. Moonlight reflected from a small pond a hundred yards away. Nocturnal creatures, furred and feathered, made their way to the water to drink and to hunt.

Having her hands cuffed behind her was uncomfortable. She hadn't once asked to be uncuffed because she knew it would do no good. Achmed and his men saw her only as merchandise. Not only that, after being told that Russian soldiers had taken her, they saw her as soiled merchandise.

She'd only been allowed the use of her hands for feeding herself and for personal needs. The rest of the time she'd endured the handcuffs. The metal had scratched her wrists and threatened infection. Her face bore scratches and bruises from the times she'd fallen over the rough terrain.

The men sat and talked among themselves. Achmed eyed Ajza in cold fury. She knew that he ached to break her in spite of the warning Ivan had given him. Although it had been hard and not in her nature, she had managed to avoid looking him in the eye.