The bathroom door at the end opened and a thirtysomething blonde woman emerged. Her hair was cut in a bob and she wore glasses; her pantsuit was very professional and she smoothed the jacket, looking down at herself as she stepped out onto the tile floor.
Mystique grabbed her, spun her, threw her against the tile wall, and, before the blonde could scream, chopped down on her neck with an open hand, striking a pressure point and driving her to her knees.
The woman swayed, blinked, and began to focus again. Mystique went at the pressure point a second time and the woman went down hard on the tile.
“Sorry,” Mystique mumbled.
“You’re losing your touch,” Wraith told her.
“Yeah, maybe,” Mystique replied. “But what I want to know is, if you have to have been somewhere before to teleport there, how comes we’re in the ladies’ room?”
Wolverine looked at Wraith, raising his eyebrows. Wraith only shrugged.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“So how do we get into the director’s office from here?” Wolverine asked.
Wraith pointed up at the wall in one corner, where a large grating covered a wide air duct. Logan shook his head, smiled slightly, and walked over to the wall with the duct.
“And you say I’ve seen too many movies,” Wolverine said.
They’d crawled through the duct, one by one. It was a straight shot to the office of the director of the CIA, and Wolverine was relieved to find it empty. His adamantium claws made short work of the duct on the other side, and once inside, they found themselves in luck.
The director had left his computer running.
Which was, actually, both good and bad. Good, of course, in that they didn’t need to know his passwords. Bad, because it meant he was likely to return at any second. Not to mention that the locked ladies’ room door was going to draw attention in the very near future.
Fortunately, it took Mystique less than two minutes to run the search they needed. When the computer dinged to signal the end of the search, Wolverine looked at her, waiting for the revelations they had come here to find. When she glanced up at him, he knew she hadn’t found them.
“Nothing?” he asked, incredulous.
“Nothing on Team X. Not one of you. Nothing on me. Nothing on the Widow or Cassidy outside of what was probably already in their APO files.”
“How can that be?” Wraith asked.
“No file on you, either, in case you missed it,” Wolverine noted. “So I guess your tenure as their employee is pretty much over.”
Wraith didn’t have a response for that.
“Wait a minute,” Mystique said suddenly.
“What?” Logan asked.
But Mystique was already typing. She keyed ENTER and sat back in the chair. Several seconds passed. She scanned the results of her search, and her eyes widened.
“Wolverine, I think you should take a look at this,” Mystique said grimly.
Logan stepped to her side and bent to stare at the screen. Mystique had run a search on Team Alpha. Instantly, service records and codenames had come up. Only the codenames, however. There were no real names to go with them, as if the members of Team Alpha had ceased to exist beyond their service to the Agency. And in a way, Wolverine thought, that was probably true.
He was about to ask Mystique what was so stunning about this revelation. The information might be helpful, but it was hardly what they were looking for.
Then he saw the last name on the list.
CODENAME: KESTREL.
A roar built deep in Wolverine’s chest. His claws popped out and as he spun, they sliced through the edge of the computer terminal without even snagging on the plastic. He was prepared to pin Wraith to the wall with a trio of claws through his shoulder, so his former teammate couldn’t teleport without him.
“Kestrel!” he thundered. “You son of a—”
But Wraith was gone.
Of course.
In the halls beyond the director’s office, the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, was filled, suddenly, with the wail of a full security alarm. Langley had intruders.
“We’re dead,” Mystique whispered.
Wolverine growled low in his chest and stared at the office door.
“Not yet we ain’t,” he snarled.
* * *
Team X was inside the Soviet Union. From Wolverine’s perspective, the road east of the border didn’t look that much different from the road to the west. But it felt different, just knowing where they were.
He’d been around a long time. Long enough to remember when the Soviet Union and the United States had been allies. But this was a new era, and if they were caught conducting spy operations inside the U.S.S.R., they’d most likely be killed.
Or, perhaps, tortured and then killed. And it wouldn’t matter to the Soviets that Wolverine was Canadian and not American.
As the truck rumbled through the dark, headlights weakly illuminating the road ahead and yet somehow not truly lighting the way, Logan could feel the wrongness of their presence. They didn’t belong here. And, as far as he was concerned, the sooner they could get back out, the better.
He wasn’t afraid. There weren’t a lot of things on the planet Earth that could frighten Logan. But for the sake of the mission, and the lives of his team—or at least, the lives of Fox and Maverick—he wanted to end it quick so they could get out.
Their hostage KGB man, Igor, was at the wheel again. Logan rode in the passenger seat, with Sabretooth, Maverick, Silver Fox, Cassidy, and Mystique in the back. Their little troupe was growing, and the bigger they grew, the harder it would be for everyone to find cover if things went sour. And it didn’t help that, with every personality added to the mix, there was an even greater chance of internal conflict growing out of control.
Logan glanced back into the rear of the truck and narrowed his eyes as he saw the small smile that seemed to be permanently attached to Creed’s mouth. As he looked at Creed, Logan realized that he might not only be concerned about his team staying in control. Too many times in the past he had let the berserk fury that lurked inside of him free to wreak havoc. Nearly every time that happened, he tried to keep it back, and regretted later that he wasn’t strong enough to do that.
But right then he didn’t much care to hold it back. Sabretooth kept pushing and pushing, as though he wanted it to happen. Scratch that, Logan thought, he does want it to happen. Only Creed’s interest in Team X and their mission kept him from just snapping completely and killing anyone in his path. A year ago, Logan might have said that as a joke. But now, he believed it too much for it to be funny.
The truck bounced along ruts in the road. Despite his enhanced senses, Wolverine had to focus his eyes on the darkness to make out the features of Mystique’s face. Her blue skin was smooth and beautiful, in its way, but almost invisible in the shadows. Even her red hair was nearly black in the dark. Only her yellow eyes showed, glowing in the back of the truck.
Those yellow eyes met Logan’s gaze, then turned away. Not intimidated, just uninterested—and that was much worse. She was a dangerous woman, as dangerous as the Black Widow herself. Perhaps even more so.
“You haven’t changed, Raven,” Logan heard Creed whisper.
“Neither have you, Victor,” Mystique replied.
“You look good,” Sabretooth said, and his eyes shone like soulless black marbles, reflecting all available light because there was no light inside. None at all.
He was flirting with her.
Wolverine couldn’t speak for a moment. Obviously their relationship was one of intense feeling on both ends of the spectrum, but in the middle of the mission, Creed was flirting with a woman who had already tried to pull the op out from under them at least once.
“That’ll do, Sabretooth,” Logan growled.
Mystique looked up at Logan, surprised, and she smiled. Creed snapped his head around and bared his fangs, staring at Wolverine through the narrow window between the cab
and the back of the truck.
“Mind your own business, runt,” Creed snarled.
“This is my business. Everything that affects this op is my business. We’re gonna have to stop for fuel and some kind of food before we reach Minsk, Creed. When we do, Mystique is gone.” Wolverine narrowed his eyes. “I’m not gonna let you throw this op to the wolves just ‘cause you got the scent o’ some skirt’s perfume.”
But when Creed’s response came, it wasn’t in words.
With a roar, Sabretooth launched himself from the floor of the truck, and his fist shattered the glass and frame of the little window. Creed’s claws grazed Logan’s cheek as a powerful hand gripped his throat and began to squeeze.
As if he’d been waiting for just that moment—and if he’d been listening closely, perhaps he had—Igor slammed on the brakes and the truck slewed sideways across the road. It teetered, threatened to turn over but did not, and came to a halt.
Even as Logan’s right hand grasped the hilt of one of the knives sheathed behind him, he saw the KGB interrogator leap out of the truck and race for the woods. His rage blazed even higher, at Creed, and at himself for pushing Creed unnecessarily.
“Bad … timing …” he croaked as Sabretooth choked him.
Creed was trying to get his other arm through the hole, to get a better grip. A growl had grown in Sabretooth’s chest, and his eyes were wilder than ever. His claws punctured the flesh of Logan’s neck.
“Back off!” Wolverine snarled, and slammed six inches of tempered steel through Sabretooth’s forearm.
Creed let out a terrible bellow of pain and rage and withdrew his arm. Wolverine caught his breath, the punctures on his throat healing even as he hit the door latch and tumbled out of the truck. He heard the rear doors slam open, heard Maverick and Fox shouting at him. Logan leapt to his feet, blood burning in his veins, temples throbbing. His lips were curled back from his teeth, and he crouched low over the ground.
The beast had been released. The savage berserk within him smelled Creed’s spilled blood, and would not be satisfied until he lay in a pile of his own viscera in the scruff grass on the side of the road.
Logan withdrew his other knife from its sheath just as Creed came around from behind the truck. He was not alone. All four of the other passengers were following him. Cassidy and Mystique stayed well back, but Fox and Maverick were moving on Creed.
“Not another step,” Maverick shouted, his weapon trained on Sabretooth. “I mean it, Creed. Two in the head will stop even you.”
“Don’t count on it, boy,” Creed snarled.
Fox went for Sabretooth then. She leaped on his back, but he reached around, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her hard to the ground. He glanced down at her.
“Next time, squaw, I’ll gut you,” Sabretooth grunted. “Don’t forget.”
At the sight of Silver Fox injured, something surged within Logan. The tiny bit of reason that remained, somewhere beneath the raging beast, could have disappeared entirely at that moment. Instead, it burst through the fury and came quickly to the fore.
“Enough!” Wolverine snapped.
“You got this comin’, runt,” Creed snarled. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna go yellow on me now.”
Logan seethed, barely controlling his rage. And only for a moment. Only long enough to set his priorities.
“Don’t worry, bub,” he said with a growl. “You need a lesson, and I’m here to give it to you. But first things first.”
Wolverine turned to the others. “Fox, Cassidy, you go after Igor. Track him down and stop him, but don’t kill him. Understand? We need him if we’re gonna find the Widow in Minsk.”
His gaze flicked over to Maverick. “North,” he said, “you cover Mystique. If she moves,” Logan glanced at Mystique, who smiled at him, “kill her.”
Maverick turned his weapon on Mystique.
“Now,” Logan said to Creed, “you wanna go, we’re gonna go.”
Wolverine heard Cassidy arguing with Silver Fox about something, but he tuned it out. All he saw then was Creed. All he thought of was how badly he had wanted to teach the psychopath a lesson. The time had definitely come. If that meant he had to kill him, well there’d be one fewer to worry about getting out of Soviet territory when it was all over.
Creed howled like an animal as he rushed at Wolverine. Logan met him head on. He ducked, drew his knife across Creed’s belly and opened him up. Claws bit into Logan’s side, and blood spurted from the wound.
They had both struck well. The scent of blood in the air drove them wild, and Wolverine used his left hand to defend himself and to get a grip on Creed. He swiped at Sabretooth’s eyes, slashed him across the clavicle, and felt metal strike bone. The grating sound gave him a perverse thrill, and he barely felt it when the knife slipped between his tenth and eleventh rib.
Wolverine and Sabretooth were locked in a killing embrace. Wound after wound was struck, and Creed’s claws were almost as deadly as the knives. Logan suddenly found himself staring at Creed’s throat, only inches from his mouth. The urge to tear the monster’s carotid artery open with his teeth was almost too powerful to resist.
He was growing tired from loss of blood. And maybe Creed was slowing down a little as well.
That’s when Cassidy screamed.
The force of his sonic attack picked Sabretooth and Wolverine up off their feet and threw them with bone-breaking force against the side of the truck. Wolverine felt a rib go. He fell to the ground, disoriented, and he knew it would be several seconds before he could rise. Several seconds that could cost him his life. He was about to curse Cassidy in silence until his eyes focused on Creed, who lay on the ground next to him, barely able to hold up his head.
“What in the name of the Lord is wrong with ye?” Cassidy shouted, and Logan winced at the raising of the man’s voice, though this time, there was no wave of power.
“See … ya got your … power back,” Wolverine muttered, and drew himself to his knees.
“Is this the way Yanks do things, then?” Cassidy shouted. “Am I workin’ with a group of bloody morons? Ye have a mission to fulfill, and people to answer to! Now I’ve put me own interests first, and that’d be stoppin’ the Widow before she ruins any other lives. But this … hell, this is just ridiculous!”
Cassidy wheeled on Maverick.
“And you? Sittin’ there guardin’ the blue girl! Did you ever think about tryin’ to stop this madness?” the Irishman shouted.
Maverick’s face was stone. “I had my orders,” Maverick said simply. “Unlike you, I follow them.”
“That’s just too beautiful!” Cassidy snapped, then spun on Logan again.
Wolverine had just risen to his feet, and Sabretooth was in the process of doing the same.
“Just tell me this, ye pretty ladies,” Cassidy snapped. “Are ye done? I know ye’ll recover from these lovely wounds of yours, ‘cause ye’re both mutants like me, aye? But are ye done? ‘Cause if not, I’ll go on ahead. I plan to finish this job, one way or another. Sittin’ here watchin’ you two great warriors hack each other up ain’t on me agenda. So, are ye done?”
Cassidy’s chest was heaving with his anger and frustration. Behind him, Logan saw that Fox had brought Igor back to the truck. Wolverine brushed himself off, inspected a couple of his wounds. He was in rough shape, but Cassidy was right. He’d recover. Though he wouldn’t be sitting in the front seat for a while. In fact, Cassidy was right about a lot of things.
Logan stepped toward Mystique, pointed a finger in her face.
“I don’t trust you, lady, and I don’t want you outta my sight,” he said. “Back in the truck. Maverick, you get up front with Igor.”
Wolverine turned to Creed. He didn’t offer his hand.
“Sabretooth, get back in the truck. We’ll finish this thing when this op is completed, back on home soil,” he promised.
Sabretooth stared at him a moment, then started to shamble toward the truck.
“Ju
st so long as you know it ain’t over,” Creed snarled.
Wolverine nodded slowly.
“No,” he agreed. “It ain’t over by a long shot.”
* * *
The sedan hadn’t been meant to go so fast, at least not over roads as neglected as these. But the Black Widow wasn’t about to slow down. She ought to have been able to relax by now. This was her country, her own territory. Home.
But until she rendezvoused with her controller and his bodyguards in Minsk, and handed the disk over to him, she would not rest easy. Nor would she slow down. It had been a long and unexpectedly difficult journey. When it was over, she would need a few days to decompress. To forget about Sean Cassidy and the things he blamed her for. To forget about the blue-skinned woman who had attacked her.
Most important, to forget about the Zhevakovs, who had died for their treason. But what she wanted to forget most about the defectors was not their deaths, but their treason itself. The KGB had always treated Natasha well. She could only imagine that it had treated the Zhevakovs equally well. And yet, despite her controller’s commentary when assigning her this mission, what she had learned about them did not seem to indicate that they were evil or stupid or simply greedy.
And, if none of those things were true, then she still had to ask that question: Why? It was a question she felt certain was going to get her in trouble someday. The thought disturbed Natasha, for she had much to lose. So, instead, she pushed the thought away, and allowed her mind to concern itself only with dreams of Mother Russia’s majesty, and the quiet time she would spend over the next few days.
Why, when she finally reached home, her bath alone was going to take an entire day.
“There is a military base not far from here,” Igor admitted. “If you go into the village, there are likely to be soldiers around.”
Wolverine stared at the KGB interrogator. He wished he had some way to determine whether or not the man was telling the truth. Short of torture, he could not think of one. And torture wasn’t in his bag of tricks.
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