Cliff Ryder - Black Widow

Ajza placed her weapon on the flat board in front of her. The target range consisted of planks nailed together to form a makeshift rail in front of the five women shooting. They shot crates that had targets painted on them. Many of the crates had some bullet holes in them, but most of the rounds had gone into the hill behind the targets.

"Ready," Saleh said.

The women picked up the pistols. Ajza lifted her weapon and felt the comforting weight of it. Her days in camp had been miserable. Every night the men verbally and physically abused some of the women, breaking the spirits of those who dared fight back and making numb the ones who were afraid. All of them learned that death was preferable to life.

In those few short days the women Ajza had arrived with were well on their way to becoming automatons. Part of their behavior was due to the drugs the men gave them, but most of the numbness came from loss of hope.

They no longer prayed to God to free them. Instead, they gave lip service to the goals that Taburova told them they should have. They asked for strength to die while bringing death to the enemies of their people. Ajza felt certain most of them simply wanted to die — quickly and painlessly. The men tortured those they killed.

Every night Ajza had gone to bed feeling guilty and powerless. As Taburova had ordered, the men left her alone. But that made her feel isolated, for the other women had learned to hate her for her special treatment. Outside of Maaret, who was left alone, as well, Ajza made no real acquaintances.

In her years of deep-cover work, Ajza had never seen anything as dehumanizing as what the men subjected the women to. She struggled not to let their terrible plight get to her. But she wished she had a way to contact the woman who had placed her in the operation. Ajza wanted out, and she wanted the women freed. A raid needed to be staged and the Black Widow camp razed to the ground.

"Aim!" Saleh barked.

Ajza steadied herself automatically, then realized she was aiming at the center of the target and moved to the outside.

"Fire."

Before she pulled the trigger, Ajza closed her eyes and squeezed off the rounds rapidly. She felt the pistol jump in her hands. She let it climb so that she knew the third bullet was well above the target. When she was finished, she laid the weapon on the plank again.

"You are all pathetic," Saleh declared as he marched in front of them and surveyed the targets. "You are supposed to kill the Russians to avenge your husbands. Don't you want to kill Russians?"

The women hung their heads in shame and fear. Saleh was known for his bursts of violence. He walked over to a small woman at the end of the line.

Tears tracked down the woman's face as she struggled with her pistol. The slide had jammed on a partially expelled casing.

"But you are the most pathetic," Saleh declared as he snatched the pistol from the woman's hand. "I have told you again and again that you must have a firm grip on the weapon. If your hands are too relaxed, the weapon will jam. This is a good weapon. You are a bad shooter."

"I am sorry," the woman whispered.

Without warning of any kind, Saleh backhanded the woman in the face and knocked her to the ground. She cried out in pain as she covered her bloody mouth with a shaking hand. Mercilessly Saleh kicked her in the side and drove the breath from her lungs.

Ajza barely restrained herself from interfering. He's not going to kill her, she told herself. If he was going to kill her, he'd already have done it.

"Do not be sorry!" Saleh shouted, looming over the woman. "Sorry does not kill Russians. Shoot better. Hold the weapon firmly. That kills Russians — the murderers of your husbands."

The woman wiped blood from her face and did not look at Saleh. "I will."

"Get up." Saleh turned and walked back to his post. He fisted the AK-47 at his side. "We will do this until you do it right. Load three more rounds. Now."

One of the other men watching the training walked by and deposited three more bullets onto the plank in front of Ajza and the other women. Ajza picked up the rounds and clicked them into the magazine, then slammed the magazine home.

At the end of the line, the beaten woman pushed herself to her feet, then picked up her weapon and loaded it. Blood dripped down her chin from her broken lips as she took her place on the firing line. White knuckles revealed the death grip she had on the weapon.

Saleh watched her closely, but Ajza knew the man watched them all.

"Shoot the targets," Saleh commanded.

Ajza fired once, then twice. She hesitated on the third shot as if taking better aim.

The beaten woman also hesitated. For a moment Ajza thought she was going to turn her weapon on Saleh. After seeing the woman shoot, Ajza doubted she would hit him. Ajza still wasn't certain what she herself was going to do with her third shot, but she felt confident she could kill Saleh.

Then the woman fired all three rounds at the target. All of them went wide and dug holes in the hillside. When she was finished, she placed the pistol on the plank and wept as blood trickled down her chin.

Ajza fired her last round and put her weapon down, as well.

"You still shoot terribly," Saleh announced. "Thank God you will be carrying bombs when you go into battle."

The beaten woman bowed her head as Saleh walked away. "At least then it will be over," she whispered. She wiped blood from her face with a trembling hand. "God, please let it be over quickly."

Moscow

Every day Sergei spent in the safe house seemed like a miracle because he expected to be discovered at any moment. He had no problem believing that safe houses existed within the city. During his investigations, he had located such places, but he knew there were dozens of others he didn't know about. He hoped this was one of those that wouldn't be found.

The small apartment was located in the basement under a dance club. Getting in and out was no problem, and he was generally covered by all the traffic going in and out of the club. During the day, enough pedestrians were on the sidewalks that again it was relatively simple to get lost in the crowd.

In order to find the safe house, someone had to know it was there.

Since his arrival, however, Sergei hadn't left once. He'd sat and watched the news. The story about the attack in the streets involving him had been dropped quickly by the television news. When the reporters couldn't find anything to tie the events to, they had no choice but to move on. There was enough unrest in Russia's satellite countries that no story could stay front and center for long. And the ever-present threat of the Chechen rebels remained.

Even the assassination of Gregor Lovyrev by the Chechens hadn't remained at the top of the news. His death had quickly become just another terrorist statistic.

When he wasn't watching the news, Sergei slept and ate. He felt guilty about lying in hiding when Mikhalkov remained somewhere fighting for his life. The mysterious woman had let Sergei know that the old man still lived and that he was all right.

But Sergei didn't know if that was true. He tried to remain calm about it, but in a way he felt he was to blame for Mikhalkov's injuries. The old man hadn't known everything Sergei had about the investigation. The woman limited contact and information. Sergei had no idea what she was doing, but he knew that someone should be checking up on Kumarin.

Despite having safely slept in the apartment for three nights, Sergei kept a pistol in his hand wherever he was. At night the weapon lay under his pillow. Never in his life had he behaved that way. But then, never in his life had he felt so unsafe. This was different, and in no way as romantic or as exciting as the spy novels he'd read had led him to believe.