Black Widow. Cliff Ryder

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СКАЧАТЬ dockworkers moved quickly, but they ran for their lives when bullets ripped through the chain-link fence and ricocheted off the cars and heavy equipment.

      Only a short distance ahead of her, a young man straddled a motorcycle. Ajza ran toward him, rammed him in the back with an elbow and knocked him off the bike. She caught the motorcycle before it fell over—she didn’t know if she had the strength to right it if it went down. She shoved her pistol back into the waistband holster.

      Hurrying, trying to remain calm, she threw a leg over the motorcycle, slammed the gearshift into low, twisted the throttle and let out the clutch. The rear tire grabbed traction at once and she shot forward. Bullets chased her, peppering vehicles and the road.

      One of Mustafa’s cars braked ahead of her. Men spilled from the car and drew their weapons, taking aim at once.

      Out of options, Ajza steered across the road, double-clutched and downshifted, then powered the motorcycle’s front tire into the air. She hit the road’s edge and went airborne.

      Panic churned through her as she felt the heavy motorcycle fighting the jump. The ground came up faster than she anticipated. When she landed, she struggled for control and barely managed to keep the motorcycle upright as the rear tire churned through the loose earth. She threw her body violently to the side and managed to stay on.

      Her knee, dropped far outside to aid in balance, struck the ground, the material of her pants ripping. The exposed flesh burned hotly. She didn’t know how badly she was hurt because the impact, after an initial burst of pain, made her knee go numb.

      The drop hid her from the view of the gunners. For a moment she thought she’d lost them. Then she heard the racing engine paralleling her route and knew they hadn’t given up.

      The soft ground of the slope Ajza drove over proved treacherous as loose soil tore free under the motorcycle’s tires. She nearly lost control twice and knew that the bike was too heavy for the off-road conditions. Desperate, she angled upward, hoping to somehow get by her pursuers.

      A low-slung sedan roared out of nowhere and slammed into the car pursuing her. The collision forced the car off the road and it briefly sailed through the air over the embankment. A moment later the car landed in the trees and rolled. A man’s broken body tumbled from one of the windows.

      Ajza hoped it wasn’t Nazmi just before thoughts of survival consumed her again. She steered up the embankment, standing on the pegs as the motorcycle bucked and heaved beneath her.

      The car that had smashed Mustafa’s pursuit vehicle jerked into motion just as she passed it. Armed men sat inside, but none of them seemed interested in her.

      A third party? Ajza couldn’t imagine anyone who would want to take part in the confrontation going on. Everything that existed to fight over was lying at the bottom of the harbor.

      It might have been the MI-6 backup team she’d waited on.

      They hadn’t identified themselves, though, and she couldn’t take that chance. She accelerated and raced through the motorcycle’s gears again. No one stayed with her this time. But she still didn’t feel safe.

      11

      London

      “Okay,” Samantha said as she watched the motorcycle race back into the heart of the city, “she’s away.”

      “Pretty resourceful,” Kate commented.

      “I’d have to agree. We weren’t set up to deal with a cache of weapons.”

      “And if you’d known for sure they were there?”

      Samantha didn’t hesitate. “The only option we’d have had was the same one Ajza exercised.”

      “I agree. If we’d thought of it as quickly. I have to admit, she was ahead of me. As you said, we weren’t set up to handle weapons.”

      “Intel assured us that Mustafa doesn’t deal in weapons. We were there to target a drug shipment and take it out to disrupt the finances we’d uncovered.”

      “I want to track down both ends of this operation,” Kate said. “Those were American weapons. They were a special order. I’ll handle things from this end. Maybe you could have someone take a look at Mustafa’s business and find out where those weapons were going. He’s not an end-user for something like that.”

      “Agreed. Nor is he set up to piece a shipment like that off. He was acting as a middleman for a buyer.”

      “I want to find out who that buyer is,” Kate said.

      Samantha watched the car Red Team had used to run blocker for Ajza Manaev. The driver fought with the steering but finally got the vehicle back on solid ground. He drove away, but from the looks of the smoke billowing out from under the hood, the car wasn’t destined to go far.

      “We have Red Team in the field,” Samantha said.

      “How exposed are they?” Kate asked.

      Samantha considered. “Provided they can get cleanly out of this, they should be fine.”

      “Are there any undercover operatives among them?”

      “No one we can put on the ground here.”

      “What about local assets?” Kate asked. “Can we exploit those?”

      “Yes. But we’re going to take a chance on burning them.”

      “With Mustafa.”

      “Yes.”

      “When we’re finished here, let’s take Mustafa off the board,” Kate said.

      Samantha was surprised by the decision. Kate Cochran didn’t casually order someone’s execution. Yet that was exactly what the Room 59 director had just done. “All right,” she said. She knew it was the right decision.

      “Mustafa is too good at what he does,” Kate went on. “I don’t want to risk him expanding his business. His departure should trigger a power struggle that one of the intelligence agencies can take advantage of.”

      “I think so, too. I know my agency will be interested in keeping an eye on things there.” Samantha consulted the wall screen again.

      Turkish military vehicles had arrived on the scene. Fishermen, cargo handlers and tourists were all being pushed back from the area where the truck had gone into the water. Another group converged on the wrecked car Red Team had taken out.

      “Are you ready to wrap this?” Kate asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Get a report to me immediately. Let’s work through debrief quickly and establish the next leg of this project.”

      “Will do.” Samantha cut Kate out of the communication loop. Then she contacted Red Team and ordered them to pull back, too. “Where’s Manaev?”

      “She headed back into the city,” the lead computer-tech support answered. “We lost her in the crowd.”

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