Black Widow: Red Vengeance (A Marvel YA Novel)

by Margaret Stohl

  ** FILE COPY OF INCOMING TRANSMISSION ** FROM THE PENTAGON **

  Phil, I don’t know what’s going on over at the DOD but it looks like a nightmare.

  A biological profile of your [CLASSIFIED SUBJECT] was just presented to me—five minutes ago, in my own office—by three of my aides as part of my four p.m. briefing.

  As a security risk. Like [CLASSIFIED SUBJECT] was about to invade the whole planet. Get on your best game. You cannot take all of this [CODE:REDROCK] heat alone.

  Stay low. Head down.

  ARTIE

  DEEP IN THE RAIN FORESTS OF

  THE AMAZÔNIA LEGAL, BRAZIL

  ONE HUNDRED KILOMETERS

  SOUTHWEST OF MANAUS

  You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.

  It was a line from a Russian poem. Who had written it? Natasha couldn’t remember now—not here, this far from Moscow. Anna Akhmatova? As the bombs fell on Stalingrad?

  She thought so, but all Natasha knew for certain was that she found blue skies disturbing, even this one. The one she stared up at now from her current place in the mud, hidden inside a stand of teak trees sprouting from the middle of the jungle basin, with only the connective tissue of roots and moss and hardscrabble stones spreading beneath her. The unfamiliar patchwork of too-green rain forest crowded above her, and then that ridiculous blue sky.

  Everyone who grew up in Moscow knew gray was the color of the sky. The color of the sky and the color of truth, Natasha said to herself. The color of my heart, even. Now, as she lay gripping her rifle in the muddy wash beneath the cloudless Amazonian sky, she recognized her old gray truth more than ever.

  Blue is the color of hope, and hope is just the sound of people lying to themselves. You can’t save the world. You can’t even save one person, not the one person you want to save. Because Alexei’s gone.

  Proshli i Mertvykh. Gone and dead.

  Natasha checked the safety on her high-powered rifle. She grimaced, yanking tight the Velcro waist strap of her body armor, beneath her flak jacket. You’re losing it. The closer you get to the Red Room, the harder it will get. So shake it off. She rolled over onto her stomach. Dostatochno! Enough.

  Natasha had been crawling her way through the mud beneath a canopy of teak and rubber and brazil-nut and mahogany and banana and acai palm trees (at least according to Tony Stark’s environmental recognition software) all morning. The two Widows had broken the map into grids, and had been switching and shifting positions as they worked through it, but there was no sign of anyone or anything yet.

  It was Ava’s second mission, and it was the Amazon—tough terrain. The bullets weren’t rubber and the enemies weren’t a rival division of S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.

  You’re going to hear about this from Coulson.

  Natasha tried not to think about how little there was to go on for this op—one signature on one shipping document. One Veraport warehouse in the middle of the Amazon and one shot at linking it back to Somodorov’s Luxport operations in Ukraine and Turkey.

  To Yuri Somodorov. To the Red Room. To Alexei.

  All Natasha knew was that if it was connected to Alexei’s death, it was all going down. Weapons. Operations. Financing. Infrastructure. Personnel. Everything.

  I’ll kill everything you left behind, everything you ever cared about, the same way I killed you, you ghost of an old man. The way you killed my brother.

  Natasha angled her face up at the sun until the blind burning sensation forced her eyelids shut again. She tried not to think anymore. Not about Ivan. Instead, she waited and listened. Ten more minutes and she would move on.

  It’s quiet—almost too quiet.

  Even for a rain-forest jungle in the middle of nowhere.

  She opened her eyes again, leaning on her elbows as she raised the double lens of her military-grade spotting scope and scanned the horizon.

  These optics are meaningless. Nothing to see, nothing to track. The only chatter going on around here is a treeful of macaws. Natasha sighed. Are you really surprised? That durak Maks? That hacker would have said anything to get away from the Triad, not to mention two Widows….

  Still, Yuri Somodorov’s name had been in his files. And the Green Dress Girl had rigged her Cuff. And Maks had hacked her account to send her a message from someone he feared too much to name. That message had brought her this far, hadn’t it? THE LIVING AVENGE THE DEAD, NATASHK—

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a crashing sound in the distance, and she reacted instantly, every cell in her body contracting as she grabbed her rifle—

  Then freezing—as she listened intently—

  BOOM!

  What the—?

  Silence.

  It could have been a rock slide. Maybe some kind of illegal mining operation? Or maybe— She tightened her grip on her rifle and glanced down at the drag bag by her side. If there really was something out there, she was going to need a little more firepower than even that. She began to mentally catalog her options as she waited….

  But there was still no sound, from any direction.

  Now you’re being paranoid. She checked the spotter again. She couldn’t see anything, but when she breathed in, she thought she could smell the faint trace of spent gunpowder. Or it could be one of the indigenous tribes building a fire. Who was it in this area, the Dessana? It could be them. Natasha pocketed her spotter and rolled back onto her stomach, touching her S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue earpiece.

  Or it’s your imagination.

  Natasha’s voice was a whisper into her comm link. “Black to Red, you hear that? You got eyes on anything downstream? Friendlies or unfriendlies? Anyone showing up?” She waited. She had sent Ava ahead to clear a quick path down to the riverbank earlier, in hopes of getting a better look up and down the watery highway.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have let her go off on her own—why isn’t she answering?

  Water was the only way through the more deeply forested terrain, unless you went by chopper, and choppers made noise. If Ivan Somodorov sent Yuri to establish a Red Room satellite as far away as the Amazon…They wouldn’t want to be found, and wouldn’t take too kindly to visitors.

  Natasha tried again. “Black to Red, you copy?” This time the response came with a burst of static almost louder than the voice speaking it, which was also a whisper now.

  “Red to Black, that would be negative. I got a couple of monkeys going bananas and that’s about it. After an hour of freaking bushwhacking in the heat. What’s going on over there, shishka?” Big shot.

  Ava was fine.

  Natasha exhaled. Thank God.

  “Stand by, Red,” she said, ripping open a heavy-duty Velcro pocket, pulling out a square of transparent thermoplastic—a self-updating, heat-based, and environment-responsive combat plexi-map made by Stark Industries. (“I’m thinking of calling it ComPlex,” Tony had said. “That, or Digital Polymerized Methyl Methacrylate, what do you think? Catchy?”)

  The ComPlex was just one of the thousands of patents Tony had Pepper Potts file for him. Last year had been a busy one; he’d gotten together a whole think tank of what he called “Like Minds,” including promising students from all over the world. He’d begun a whole division dedicated to operational tools and toys—anything that could protect servicemen and -women, or minimize casualties in a combat situation. Some of his ideas were stupid—and many more had a habit of blowing themselves up in the prototype phase—but the ComPlex had come in handy on more than one occasion, and she’d started to rely on it.

  Natasha stared at it before she touched her earpiece again. The jungle afternoon was so humid she almost couldn’t see the holographic map projected on the plexi’s surface, foggy air rolling over it like her own breath. The map flickered on and off; the heat seemed to have fried the screen.

  She swore under her breath, shaking the plexi. “Black to Red, you sure? Thought for a second I heard a detonation, maybe SAM popping off down there? Some kind of portable MANPAD, like a bazooka
or a Stinger?” It could have been anything. Anything bigger than a shotgun and smaller than a tank…

  Ava’s voice buzzed in her ear. “Negative on the fireworks, Black. I’m telling you, I got nothing on visual. Though it’s hard to hear over all the monkey screaming. Did you know monkeys could scream?”

  Natasha frowned, tapping the clear square to zoom. The square shuddered and reset—and now a thin network of iridescent blue lines uncurled in front of her.

  There—

  “Affirmative, Red. I have, in fact, been to the Bronx Zoo. And ComPlex is back online. Now I’m seeing some sort of thermal signature. Looks like grid…D-9.” Natasha waited—and another burst of static hit her earpiece, along with Ava’s voice.

  “Copy that. I can confirm, D-9 is lighting up for me too, kapitan. We’ve got company,” Ava said.

  Natasha didn’t take her eyes off the pulsing red spot on the map, just over what looked to be the next ridge, on the far side of the Amazon river. “Affirmative. That’s the one, Red. I’m seeing multiples, no clear read on how many.” So there was at least something going on around here, whether or not it had anything to do with the Somodorovs. Either way, they hadn’t come this far not to check it out.

  “Copy that, Black. Rendezvous at perimeter D-9 for recon?” Ava sounded eager.

  “Affirmative, Red. But do not approach. Wait on my command. I’m only a few clicks away. Black out,” Natasha said, yanking her earpiece free of her head before Ava could respond.

  As Natasha picked up her drag bag, she heard what she thought were the macaws, thrashing in the canopy as they finally flew away.

  Something inside of her must have thought differently, however, because muscle memory kicked in, and she threw herself behind the nearest rubber tree without knowing why—

  RATATAT TAT TAT—

  RATATAT TAT TAT—

  The mud she’d been lying in exploded into gunfire—

  Pebbles and moss flew into the air—

  Dragunovs. Which means Russians. Which means that was a SAM I heard—

  Which means they’ve seen us, too—

  Natasha spun and fled, diving for cover just as an RPG hit and her tree erupted, melting into a flaming black hole. And where there was one rocket-propelled grenade, there were always more.

  “Ava,” she shouted, but she couldn’t hear anything.

  Der’mo—

  You wanted storms, Natashkaya?

  Now you’ve got them.

  S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY

  CLEARANCE LEVEL X

  SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES & INDIVIDUALS (SCI) INVESTIGATION

  AGENT IN COMMAND (AIC): PHILLIP COULSON

  RE: AGENT NATASHA ROMANOFF A.K.A. BLACK WIDOW

  A.K.A. NATASHA ROMANOVA

  AAA HEARING TRANSCRIPT

  CC: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, SCI INQUIRY

  COULSON: You realize how out of line that was? Taking a kid out into the field?

  ROMANOFF: You’re the one who told us to go away and bond.

  COULSON: I meant minigolf, or bowling. You were supposed to take it easy on her.

  ROMANOFF: Minigolf? Who do you think you’re talking to?

  COULSON: Bonding doesn’t mean you take her with you to invade the Amazon. You weren’t just her AIC, you were the only agent there. Period.

  ROMANOFF: I wasn’t thinking, okay? Neither one of us was.

  COULSON: Someone had just tried to off you. You were out for blood. And for your brother.

  ROMANOFF: You’ve been there. I know you have.

  COULSON: We’ve all been there. It’s just not a good place to be, not for a kid.

  ROMANOFF: I know. But sometimes she doesn’t feel like a kid. Not when she’s in my head, remember?

  COULSON: Maybe that’s the problem. One of them.

  ROMANOFF: How many do I have now?

  COULSON: It doesn’t matter. One or a hundred. They’re all named Somodorov.

  ROMANOFF: Not Romanoff?

  COULSON: You tell me.

  DEEP IN THE RAIN FORESTS OF

  THE AMAZÔNIA LEGAL, BRAZIL

  ONE HUNDRED KILOMETERS

  SOUTHWEST OF MANAUS

  Ava watched as a plume of gray smoke billowed into the blue wash of sky above the forest canopy. The trees were so tall that she might not have noticed right away, except for the sudden, acrid smell of burning rubber—and the blast of static now shooting into her earpiece. Der’mo—

  She’d yanked it away from her ear, but not before hearing Natasha shout her name. A rocket-propelled grenade. RPG-7. Maybe three hundred meters away, no more than five. She hadn’t gotten the highest score in the class on the 1993 Mogadishu case study for nothing. Ava tapped again and again on her earpiece. “Black! Come in, Black!” She pressed harder on her receiver, but there was no response. She tried again—“Natasha!”

  Nothing. She focused her mind and tried to reach out to the Widow using their Quantum connection, but her mind was racing as quickly as her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t find a way out of herself.

  Blue electricity sparked from her fingertips to the dirt surrounding her. If she didn’t do something she was going to explode.

  Come on. Think, Ava—

  The comm link wasn’t picking up even ambient noise now. There was no signal, which made no sense. The S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite wasn’t down, unless…

  It’s a dead zone. Cell tower’s been taken down. No repeater. No amplifier. No transponder.

  So there’s something here. Something big. And someone has gone to a whole lot of trouble to make sure we don’t find it.

  She could feel the surge of adrenaline in her veins. Her heart pounded, and sweat dripped down her face into her ears. She tried not to think about—

  No! Don’t say it! She’s fine. Probably just on the move. She’s freaking Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. It would take more than an RPG to slow her down—

  Right?

  Still—

  Ava heard the RATATAT TAT of automatic rounds firing again. The jungle canopy above her rustled gently in the direction of the noise, still coughing up thick black curls of smoke.

  Don’t just stand there, you idiot.

  Move—

  Ava felt her boots begin to move up the riverbank as her mind raced even faster. Now think—

  She took cover behind the nearest rocky outcropping and tried to assess the situation. Meet her back at the chopper. That was the plan, for if we lost contact. Dust off at fourteen hundred. That’s what she wants you to do.

  Ava jumped as she heard what sounded like the repeating echo of a Dragunov—

  You know Natasha. She’ll kill you if you don’t follow protocol—

  Then the low rumbling blast of another RPG-7—

  But what if they kill her first?

  As Ava crouched in the shadow of the rock, light spread from the double hourglass logo on her chest, and her hand moved unconsciously to the blades strapped to her thighs. Today a camo combat suit had replaced Alexei’s old Kevlar fencing jacket, the one she’d used as the material to make her very first combat gear, but the double blades—one short, one long, both retractable, both electrified—never left her sides. She usually only felt safe when she was wearing them, when she knew the blue fire that came from deep inside her could find a way out through their steel.

  Besides, they were Alexei’s blades. When she wore them, she felt like she had part of him with her, which was exactly how she wanted to feel. Even now.

  What would you have me do, Alexei? Am I just supposed to let her take that kind of fire alone? You tell me, she’s your sister— The answer came instantly. Ava rose to her feet, sweeping her arms away from her body and pulling her blades into ready position. Clear blue light radiated out from her in every direction.

  Suddenly he was there with her, crouching behind her in the shadow of the rock. “Go,” he whispered. “But be careful. I’ll kill you if you get shot.”

  She nodded. I’m going. Then she took a deep breath and threw her
self into the tangle of rain-forest undergrowth that reached almost all the way to the riverbank—just as Natasha would absolutely not have wanted her to. Sorry, sestra—you can ground me later.

  Ava stumbled over the uneven jungle floor, slicing at the undergrowth as she moved, advancing and attacking in almost one fluid motion—even if the only things she got to attack, for the moment, were plants. That doesn’t mean I’m not ready for combat.

  As she pushed forward toward the sound of the mortars, she tried not to let it rattle her. Suddenly this whole op seemed like a terrible idea, though Ava had no idea why the infamously fearless Black Widow had seemed to also feel that way. Sometimes she thought it was just the natural yin and yang of their relationship, that they were doomed to be in total and perpetual disagreement about everything.

  Everything except Alexei. It was true; on that subject the two Widows were in perfect accord. Anyone who had a hand in Alexei’s death would be made to pay.

  Anyone and everyone.

  Ava ducked as she heard an erratic, staccato echo, this time louder than ever. RATATAT TAT—

  RATATAT TAT—

  She pushed on until she came to the clearing where she had last seen Natasha. The sudden BOOM of a long-range sniper sent her diving behind a clump of rubber trees. Ava found herself holding her breath, only exhaling when it began again—meaning it had yet to find its target.

  BOOM.

  There it was. Natasha was still alive, and Ava was jubilant. Go ahead, shoot all you want. You’re not going to hit that target. Not unless she wants you to.

  Another bullet whizzed past Ava’s head, and she realized Natasha wasn’t the only target; she had to get out of the line of fire. She took off running, jumping over the roots of an enormous teak tree, rolling herself expertly up and over the fallen trunk abutting it.

  Ava forced herself to do the battle math, just like Natasha would. What do you know? Heavily armed multiples. They’ve got the comm link down. So there’s a they. At least four, by my count. One to pop the SAMs. One on the Dragunov. One sniper. One on the comm—