“Besides, you just got through telling us how wired in all of Ivan’s Quantums are. We can’t fire on the White House, the Pentagon, the Kremlin, Parliament, MI6, Beijing, and half of the Arabian Peninsula without expecting blowback. Talk about World War Three.” Alex shook his head.
“That’s why it’s not plan A,” Natasha said, sounding grim. “But we also can’t sit around and wait for one of those Quantums to give launch codes for a nuke or kill the radar for every airplane headed into JFK or LAX.”
“There has to be another way,” Ava said.
“Tony’s monitoring the NSA feeds and the Stark sats. If we get a surge anywhere, and it looks like Ivan’s army is beginning to deploy—well, we’ll deal with that when and if it happens.” Natasha sounded as unhappy about it as they did. “Until then, let’s stay focused on our own play.”
Ava stared at the small black drive that lay flat in the palm of her hand. Natasha had reprogrammed it with Dr. Orlova’s O.P.U.S. sequence in the final few hours before leaving the Dacha Odessa Hotel. “We don’t have much to go on. Just the Swan Lake code and that Ivan’s other lab was in Istanbul.” She turned the drive over in her hand. “It has to be enough. We have to make it work.”
“It will,” Alex said from behind her.
Natasha touched a screen on her control panel, and a map lit up on the surface, the satellite image of a city. “We’ve got one other thing, actually.” Pulsing lights illuminated a three-inch circle in the center of what looked like a grid of dense urban blocks. “We’re picking up a massive heat signature with a very small radius in the center of Istanbul. There.”
“Is that the lab?” Alex asked his sister.
Natasha nodded. “It looks like we’re within kilometers of Ivan’s Turkish operation. And from the corresponding radiation numbers, I think we can also say that we’ve found his next O.P.U.S. power source. He appears to be draining power from the city grid even as we speak.”
“Where?” Ava asked.
“The old city of Sultanahmet, right in the center of Istanbul.” Natasha looked over at her. “You want to go over the play again?”
Ava held up the drive. “We find the device, locate the port somewhere on it, connect the drive, take the O.P.U.S. network offline.”
“And?”
“The transfer can only take ten seconds. There’s a counter on the drive. It’ll start timing from the second I connect it to Ivan’s device,” Alex recited.
“You mean I connect it,” Ava said.
“No,” Alex said. “We don’t know that you have to do it. We just know you had the code. You can give me the drive. I volunteer as tribute. Let me go. I’ll disable the O.P.U.S. and get out. No big deal.” He reached for the drive.
Ava snorted, holding it away from him. “The whole code is based on my DNA, remember?”
“You’re not thinking straight, Ava. The second we take out the O.P.U.S., you’ll lose all your Entanglement skills. You won’t be a tough little Agent Romanoff Mini-Me anymore. You won’t know how to fire your Glock or your Bloch or whatever.”
Natasha looked back at him. “Glock. And it’s times like this that I can’t believe we’re related.”
Ava glared. “Oh my God. Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I can do this. Stop worrying.”
Natasha held up a black-gloved hand. “Ava’s our best shot at jamming the device—it’s her code. But we need to get her close enough to do it and cover her while she does. None of those things will be easy. They might not even be possible.”
Neither Ava nor Alex said a word.
Natasha checked her control panel. “Fifteen minutes out. We’re cleared for an airfield just outside of the city,” she said.
“And by cleared you mean…?” Alex raised an eyebrow.
“We cleared ourselves.” Natasha shrugged. “And it might not be so much of an airfield as a field.”
Alex reached up for Ava’s hand and held it, lacing his fingers through hers. He decided, right then, that he would never wanted to let it go.
S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY
CLEARANCE LEVEL X
LINE-OF-DUTY DEATH [LODD] INVESTIGATION
REF: S.H.I.E.L.D. CASE 121A415
AGENT IN COMMAND [AIC]: PHILLIP COULSON
RE: AGENT NATASHA ROMANOFF A.K.A. BLACK WIDOW, A.K.A. NATASHA ROMANOVA
TRANSCRIPT: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, LODD INQUIRY HEARINGS.
DOD: So you approved not one but two minor assets for a black-ops, off-the-books mission in a country where we are in no way authorized to execute fieldwork?
ROMANOFF: Something like that. Sir.
DOD: And you thought this would be okay because?
ROMANOFF: Because that’s my job. Because Ivan Somodorov was my responsibility eight years ago. Because I was supposed to keep him from getting to Ava Orlova the same way he’d gotten to me, the same way he’d gotten to her mother, and I failed. Because there was nothing I could do to save anyone, when it came to Ivan Somodorov, but God help me that wasn’t going to keep me from trying.
DOD: Did you ever stop to think that there were other ways to go about that job, agent?
ROMANOFF: No, sir.
DOD: Because?
ROMANOFF: I guess I’m a Romanoff, sir.
DOD: And that’s something you have to live with now.
ROMANOFF: We have to live with a lot of things, sir. That’s the other part of being a Romanoff.
STREETS OF SULTANAHMET
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
It hadn’t been hard to find Ivan’s lab. It had taken longer to find a way from the dead farmland where they’d hidden the plane to the center of Istanbul. Natasha tagged Ivan’s location twenty minutes after they’d rolled out of the back of a dusty truck, thanks to Russian wireless. There may have been sixty-eight million subscribers to MegaFon wireless, but very few of them happened to be in the part of Istanbul’s old city where Ivan’s lab was located. The combined wireless signals of an underground crew of Ukrainians and Russians practically formed an electronic WE ARE HERE.
Now Natasha led the way into a crowded marketplace.
“We think Ivan’s working in Sultanahmet, right?” Alex said. He pointed to a street sign. “We’re here.”
“Must be the Turkish word for the part of the city with the most tourists, the most mosques, and the most men.” Ava scanned the crowd.
“It’s the old town. Ivan’s back to hiding in plain sight,” Natasha said. “It’s kind of brilliant, actually. Every foot of this place is sacred. No government in the world could touch any of these buildings, even if Ivan Somodorov and his entire army were inside. Not without causing international chaos.” She was impressed.
“Great. So he’s a genius. Fifty points for Ivanclaw.” Alex was grim.
Natasha tried to put it out of her mind. What was about to happen. What she was going to have to do.
She knew, when it came down to it, that she was going to be the one who had to pull the trigger. She always was, wasn’t she?
Stay focused, Romanoff. It’s all about the mission.
Keep your mind on the mission.
Natasha hadn’t told them how impossible it would be—to do what they needed to do. She also hadn’t mentioned how bad the situation was, considering what Stark had told her. The Entangled were hidden throughout the families of the Pentagon, not to mention Langley. In New York, they were invisible among the interns and the neighbors and the dog walkers and the gardeners and the children of diplomats working at the United Nations. The North American targets would be the first to go.
Children of senior members of the Kremlin were Entangled too. Moscow’s FSB had over 250,000 employees by Natasha’s count. Who would notice the irregular behavior of one agent, with one compromised family?
Students in Islamabad had been flagged. Pakistan’s ISI could be compromised for months before S.H.I.E.L.D. ever knew the difference.
And names they’d found operating just outside MI6? In the center of London? Could be disastrous.
Or the son of the deputy minister in charge of India’s Research and Analysis Wing? He was close enough to trouble to be strategically useful to Ivan.
And of course, the student analysts they’d found in Berlin. The BND knew far too much about the former Soviet world for Ivan to leave it standing. S.H.I.E.L.D. was working overtime to build their case now, but they were coming from behind.
Natasha shook her head.
It was going to be a bloody mess—that much she knew.
If she couldn’t get to the O.P.U.S. before Ivan activated them all, it wasn’t going to be up to Natasha or Tony or the kids.
S.H.I.E.L.D. would take them all out before anyone could stop them.
Including Ava Orlova.
And including my own brother.
So focus.
She looked at the two of them now.
They’re just kids.
She looked past them to the spires rising in the distance. The Ayasofya, on her left, was the color of the rose-petal jam the street vendors offered up from their blankets. A complex compilation of shapes, boxy and sharp and round. The Blue Mosque, on her right, competed in the sunlight for size and significance. Glittering gold reflected as it twisted itself atop the spires, and crowds rushed the paths and archways into its courtyard.
“See? That’s the Blue Mosque. Holiest spot in all of Sultanahmet.” Natasha nodded with her head.
Ava looked up at the familiar name. “Where? I don’t see it.” She frowned. “By where those birds are?”
What birds?
Natasha never pointed, and she only gave the barest indication of where she was looking now. Ivan’s very first lesson—never move in the direction you seem to be moving—was harder to shake than she had ever let on.
“And across the street, that’s the Ayasofya, which was basically the building that caused the Crusades,” Natasha said, keeping her eyes on the sky.
There they are.
The birds.
A whole group of them—tiny as swallows, nothing more than gray splotches that hovered over the cobblestone street in front of them, weaving from storefront to storefront.
“So it’s pretty much the Helen of Troy of houses of worship?” Alex looked at the ancient building, interested.
Natasha kept her eyes trained above the buildings.
It’s a pattern. A repeating pattern.
Birds don’t fly like that.
Ava took in the crowded street corner. “I’m guessing we’re a little late for the Crusades, but it seems like those same two blocks are still where everyone here is headed. Should we walk that way?”
Those aren’t birds.
“Don’t walk. Run—”
Natasha shoved them roughly in front of her and took off through the intersection.
Those are Ivan’s drones.
As they ducked through the streets, Natasha kept her head down, letting only her eyes scan the streets around her. Ava and Alex followed.
“This way.”
They skidded around a corner, sending a crowd scattering. A group of women in raincoats buttoned from collar to toe. Natasha looked over her shoulder.
At least six small gray objects still followed, maybe a hundred feet above the street. If she listened, she could make out the faint hum of their motors, even from here. Even above their pounding footsteps.
They had to get off the open street.
“In here,” Natasha hissed.
Ava and Alex followed her down the pavement, pushing through a crowd of vendors, past scattered places where the sidewalk became a café or a shop. The road was so clogged now, it was like an outdoor mall without walls.
Dust flew as they moved.
The vendors called after them, even as they ran.
“You like a book? Why not?”
“English? German? Italian?”
“I remember you.”
Natasha dove behind a stall of textiles, and a rack of colorful embroidered bags went flying.
Alex jumped over a pile of woven slippers and scarves. Ava dodged an old man holding a tray of walnuts and stumbled into the shadows behind Alex.
They caught their breath as Natasha pulled a small lens out from her jacket.
“What are those things?” Alex asked.
Natasha held the lens to her eye. “Drones. Nasty buggers. Sting so bad they’ll incapacitate you. When they’re not moving too much, you can see the lasers lighting up on their bellies.”
The hovering machines roamed the sky above them even now. All three of them stared.
“Ivan’s drones?” Ava watched them rotate across the street.
“Microdrones, actually. And yes,” Natasha said.
“So those things are weapons?” Alex stared.
“And cameras. They’re meant to find us as much as deter us.” Natasha pocketed the lens. “Looks like we’ve found Ivan’s lab. The drones just mean we’ve hit the perimeter.”
“How do we get past them?” Ava looked at her.
Good question.
She worked through the logic out loud.
“They followed us when we ran, which means either they spotted us, or they’re somehow connected to the O.P.U.S., and they’ve pinned one or both of you as Quantums.”
“Great,” Alex said. “Now what?”
Natasha took in the street around them.
Cobblestones and an El Torito. Thousand-year-old buildings and a McDonald’s in the distance. They were caught between the ancient mosque and the Starbucks, in a chaotic confusion of time.
Like me, she thought. And Ivan and my brother and Ava.
What are any of us doing here?
Did I choose this? I can’t remember anymore.
How it began. What I wanted. Who I was.
Before Ivan Somodorov and his scars.
She turned to look the other way, to where the street and the crowd widened and hardened into a broad city square, beautiful and old. Everywhere there were trees and benches and people sprawled sitting under and on them, even in the winter sun.
Focus on the mission. How do you take out Ivan’s drone perimeter without sounding all his alarms?
In every direction the bright day bustled on without them. A man tried to sell his Turkish novel from a white canvas stand. A mobile ATM pulled up next to him. Two cats watched from a white iron fence. A police car sat in the street nearby.
Not much to work with there.
An old man wandered down the street selling walnuts by the half.
Just past him, a row of men at stands sold ragged chunks of cold watermelon, burned chestnuts, and corn on sticks.
So, what? We throw chestnuts at them?
At the end of the row, another man wrapped something that looked like a pretzel in wax paper and handed it to a policeman on a parked motorcycle.
Cops are out in full force for lunch.
The solution came to her before she could look away.
“Give me a three-minute head start. Then move it.” She kept her head down, taking off down the sidewalk toward the food stalls.
She looked behind her. The drones were still hovering over the last block.
It’s the O.P.U.S.
Those things aren’t even picking up on me.
They’re there for Alex and Ava.
Even before she neared the first stall, she had her sleeve up and her widow’s cuff buzzing.
“You try,” the man said, holding up a stick of corn—as her cuff sparked, and his entire cart exploded into flames.
She pushed through the crowd.
The policeman dropped his pretzel—and the chestnut grill went up next.
Then the pretzel stand. Then the books.
The crowd began to run. The sky was now filled with billowing black smoke, the air with police sirens.
It was impossible to see the drones now—and impossible to be seen.
Eight seconds later, Alex and Ava appeared at Natasha’s side, and they slipped through the chaos of the street without anoth
er word.
The smell of burned chestnuts, like burning rubber, was still in the air as they turned off the busy street a few blocks later. Police sirens were still echoing in the distance.
“This is it,” she said, letting her pistol slide into the palm of her hand.
“How do you know?” Alex looked at her.
“This isn’t my first last stand,” Natasha said. She didn’t smile. She had meant to, but she found she couldn’t.
A ramp in front of them lead to a wide, dark doorway.
Natasha hesitated, but Alex was the one who spoke first.
“If something happens—”
“Don’t,” Natasha said. “Don’t ever.”
“I just wanted you to know. I’m glad we met. I mean, again. Now. I’m glad you found me, Tash.”
“Technically,” Natasha said gruffly, “you found me.”
“Technically,” Ava said simply, “I found you both.”
They were silent.
Natasha’s thoughts were reeling, but she couldn’t seem to pull them in. Now that it was time, she was too exhausted to say anything. If she was being honest with herself, she was too scared.
But I want you to know, she thought, stealing a glance at her brother. Everything.
Natasha looked quickly down at her own black boots, now as battered as any soldier’s.
She tried to think about what she would tell him, if she could. If she were the kind of person who could say things like that.
That you are important.
That you always were.
That I never wanted to leave you.
That I’m proud of you, every bit as proud as if I’d had something to do with the person you became.
That I always cared—even when I lost you.
That some part of me would not stop until I found you—and that some part of you was waiting.
It’s in your eyes, she thought.
All of it.
Our parents and our past.
The beginning and the end.
She took a breath, looking up at the door in front of them. She focused on the peeling curls of paint, the splintered wood frame.
I hope you love this girl and that she keeps you happy. I hope you let me go, right away, and I hope you know that I never will.
Black Widow: Forever Red Page 24