The Widow's Strike

by Brad Taylor

  “He wasn’t arrested. He disappeared. Just like your men in Thailand. Someone is tracking you.”

  Malik absorbed the information, slowly nodding his head. He had begun to suspect the same thing. At least as far as the Thailand team was concerned. “If what you say is true, we need to counterattack. I’m due to meet my shahid tomorrow. I can send her immediately, but I would like to set a trap for those who took Roshan. They will surely follow me here.”

  “There are others who think we shouldn’t execute at all. That there are too many fingerprints pointing to the republic as it is. Rumor has it you’re using a Chechen. Is this true?”

  Irritated that his Chechen contacts had leaked the information, Malik said, “Yes. Why is that an issue?”

  “The Russian Federation is our ally. A relationship we don’t want to upset. Using one of her citizens could prove problematic.”

  “Problematic for the Chechens, yes. Not for Russia. Think about it: The shahid will give them free rein to do whatever they want in Chechnya. The world will be appalled at the carnage, all done at the hands of a Black Widow. We’re handing them a gift.”

  The man considered for a moment, then reached underneath his chair and retrieved a satchel, passing it over.

  “Your new documents are there, along with a cell phone.”

  “Thank you, but I have Sanjar getting phones as we speak.”

  “That is well and good, but this phone will remain with you always. So we can contact you should we need to. Be sure and answer it.”

  So, tightening the noose, are we?

  Malik opened the satchel and saw the small dry-ice box containing both the virus and the vaccine. He said, “Of course. I am always at the ayatollah’s mercy.”

  “There is also the matter of the vaccine. Where is it?”

  Malik feigned surprise. “It’s here. Right here. You were only supposed to leave me three doses for my team, then take the rest for development.”

  “What? Those weren’t the instructions given at the embassy in Singapore. You gave them the vials, telling them they both held the virus.”

  Which was absolutely true, but Malik had known this question was coming and had decided to play stupid, giving them the faulty vaccine to provide breathing space for the mission. They would never let him continue if they knew a successful vaccine didn’t exist. All he needed was one dose for the Black Widow.

  Malik said, “There is some mistake. Those were not my instructions. Look, I can’t open the vaccine here, and I need it for the mission. I will bring it to my contact in the United States after setting loose the Widow.”

  The cleric regarded him with a scowl, Malik knowing the entire operation now hung in the balance.

  Eventually, he said, “Okay. Because of your past service and judgment, I’m going to let you continue, but keep that phone on you at all times. Malik, I believe in you, unlike others. Don’t prove me wrong.”

  “What about the men searching for me?”

  “I’ll get another Quds Force here. Come up with a plan.”

  Malik nodded and said, “Thank you. Insha’Allah, this strike will cause the Great Satan unimaginable pain.”

  The cleric stood to leave, his parting words sending a chill through Malik.

  “There will be pain, no doubt. If you fail, if the West learns the source of the attack, the pain will be yours to bear.”

  40

  Sitting in a booth, Jennifer scanned the menu of bar food and said, “You really have a knack for finding western bars. It’s starting to amaze me.”

  We needed a place that had free Wi-Fi, and as fate would have it, there was a pub called Murphy’s on Nathan Road just blocks from our cameras. An Irish oasis in a world full of foreign cafés serving fried grasshoppers. We’d gone inside, and I’d found it just my kind of place. The only downside was I had to drink iced tea with lunch.

  The signal strength booming on my tablet, I dialed in the IP address of the cameras and said, “It’s the other way around. They find me.”

  She closed the menu. “Just once, could we get something besides hamburgers? We go to the most exotic places, and you refuse to eat any of the food.”

  “But this place has the Wi-Fi we need.”

  “No, we don’t. We’re on our lunch break.”

  I said, “Surveillance chief doesn’t get a break.”

  She gave me her disapproving-teacher look and motioned over the waitress. I hid the tablet page and was in the middle of ordering when my earpiece chirped.

  “Pike, Pike, you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  Son of a bitch.

  Jennifer stiffened slightly but showed no other outward sign she’d heard. I keyed my headset and continued to order, letting them know I was engaged. I heard, “Got it. Glad to see someone’s eating. Ernie just left the building.”

  We had a picture of the countersurveillance operative from Singapore, and Decoy had remarked on how much he looked like the Muppet Ernie from Sesame Street, thus, that’s what he was now called.

  I ignored the earpiece, keeping my attention on the waitress and waiting on Jennifer. She interrupted my order by looking at her watch and exclaiming, “Whoa! Pike, we lost track of time. We gotta go!”

  I snapped my watch up and pretended surprise. “Shit! You’re right. Sorry about this.”

  I threw some bills on the table, and we exited to Nathan Road.

  “We’re out. Which way did he go?”

  “Our way. Setting up trigger now. Stand by.”

  I’d split the team into pairs on both sides of the market, which gave us the ability to pick up a follow no matter which way he exited and allowed the flexibility to rotate the teams in for chow and bathroom breaks. I really hadn’t expected anything to happen this quickly, but I was happy it had. Ernie wasn’t the general, but he would lead us to him. Of that I was sure.

  “Pike, this is Decoy. I got eyes on. He’s headed north, paralleling Nathan Road.”

  About a block away.

  I motioned to Jennifer and we began moving north on Nathan, closing the distance.

  “Decoy, who’s your backup?”

  “Pike, Knuckles here. I got eyes on Decoy. I can relieve him.”

  “Roger that. Retro, Blood, jump ahead to the north. Get in front of him.”

  “Already moving.”

  I was trying to build a bubble around Ernie so that no matter which way he went, he’d bump into someone. Given the manpower, I’d done about as much as I could.

  We continued through the mass of people, not moving fast enough to spike anyone, when I heard, “He just went left. West. He’s headed to Nathan Road. I’m off.”

  Perfect. Coming right to me.

  Jennifer and I began scanning the crowds, knowing he was within seconds of running into us. It was the hardest part of surveillance: acting like you had a destination while trying to find your target. You always had to keep in mind the third man—the cameras and people around you who would trigger law enforcement if you did anything awkward.

  Retro said, “I’ve got him. He’s moving to the subway. He just went down.”

  The subway station we’d used to get here was right in front of us, and we went down as well, letting Retro handle the eye.

  We reached the platform, and I said, “Which train? We’re here.”

  “North. He’s headed north.”

  Jennifer tapped my elbow and said, “I see Retro.”

  Which was good enough. We got on the same subway as Retro, a car behind him.

  Ernie got off three stops north, at Mong Kok, and went east on Argyle Street before entering a shopping mall. Retro pulled off, and Blood took the lead.

  I called Retro. “What is this place? Get a data dump.”

  He came back in minutes. “It’s called Sin Tat Plaza. It’s an electronics mall know
n for selling gray hardware.”

  “What’s that mean? ‘Gray hardware’?”

  “Counterfeit or resold electronics. Mostly mobile phones. Stuff that isn’t strictly black market but also isn’t authorized by the manufacturer.”

  Shit. He’s buying untraceable phones.

  “Blood, give me a lock-on. Jennifer and I are coming in.”

  He directed us to the second floor, and I got eyes on Ernie. I waved Blood off and took the eye, window-shopping with Jennifer.

  Ernie wandered around for a little bit, then went back outside, traveling north on Tung Choi Street, continuing his shopping. Eventually he reached a small four-story office complex with a number of shops on the ground floor linked together in a little indoor cul-de-sac. In the center was a guard desk housing a single man, who was apparently bored beyond belief, not even stopping anyone from reaching the elevators.

  Ernie looked at a piece of paper in his hands, then glanced around the circle of stores, finally settling on one. He entered, and I held back. It was small enough that I didn’t want to go in with him for fear of getting burned. He exited about eight minutes later carrying a bag.

  “Blood, I’m still on him. Go in the store and buy a phone. See what the procedure is.”

  We needed to find out the numbers he had purchased, and I wasn’t sure how we would do that, since we were now in the land of Communist China and calling in a liaison favor was out of the question.

  Ernie went straight back to the subway, riding it underneath Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island. He passed through the admiralty station and exited at Central, now walking north and entering the International Finance Centre mall, a high-end shopping plaza as different from Sin Tat as a filet mignon was from a hot dog.

  What’s he getting here?

  It didn’t make any sense. Knuckles now had the eye, with Retro as backup. I said, “Get ready, people. Something’s about to happen. Remember, he was pulling countersurveillance in Singapore, so look sharp. Keep him in sight no matter what, but don’t let him burn you.”

  I positioned in a café with view of the entrance he had used and waited, the tension mounting, my subconscious telling me to get in the hunt. Get eyes on. I ignored the urge and played the tourist with Jennifer.

  I waited for the call that he was meeting the general or conducting reconnaissance for a strike or something equally nefarious, but all I got was simple shopping updates. He went into the two-story flagship Apple store and bought a couple of iPads, then found a SmarTone booth and purchased a plethora of stored-value SIM cards. Nothing more. It was almost like he was truly a tourist from the Middle East using his time in Hong Kong to outfit himself with the latest electronics.

  He didn’t conduct anything remotely like a surveillance detection route and didn’t seem to care if he was being followed. I began to wonder if he was a decoy. If his mission was precisely to pull us out and away from the real action. I was considering breaking off when I got the call that he was headed back my way, and I waited to pick up the eye.

  Jennifer saw him first, and we let him pass. He reached the door, and we got our initial sign that he wasn’t a tourist. He sat on a bench at the exit and did a half-assed job of acting like he was reading the iPad box, flicking his eyes all around and studying everyone who passed him.

  Unfortunately for him, he’d made the amateur mistake of starting his detection while he was already in a box. He’d walked into us, so we were now out of suspicion. After all, how could we be following him if we were already here when he arrived? Not only that, but his actions gave me plenty of time to leapfrog people in front of him again. Clearly not that well trained.

  I made the call to the team and formed a loose bubble around him outside, going so far as to position a team inside the subway station, letting them know his awareness level was now up.

  Continuing his amateurish actions, he waited until the lobby was relatively clear, then leapt up and began speed-walking out the door. Right into my first position.

  Eventually, after continuing his junior-varsity surveillance detection, including jumping on then off the subway, he ended up at the Island Shangri-La hotel, a five-star resort adjacent to Hong Kong Park.

  Amateurish as it was, his antics forced us to really hang back, and we lost him inside the hotel, but the location, coupled with his actions, told me all I needed to know.

  Something special is inside this place.

  41

  Elina awoke early, feeling more tired than she should have given the opulence of her room. The anxiety inside her had only increased after meeting her contact the day before, keeping the needed sleep at bay.

  A young man with a thin mustache, he had given no information on her mission. Not the location, the purpose, or the target. And she’d tried hard to find out. Instead, he’d provided her with an Apple iPad, a cell phone, and several prepaid SIM cards. He’d then given her instructions for the meeting today, admonishing her to be alert for anything suspicious, which did nothing but increase her unease.

  She hadn’t left her room since checking in, the masses of foreign people swarming around the city making her feel light-headed and lost. The thought of someone hiding inside the crowds, looking for her, made her want to forget the mission. To flee back to the comfort of Chechnya, where the beast was easy to see. Easy to fight.

  She banished the fears through willpower alone, remembering who she was and why she had been chosen. Bringing forth the iron forged by the enemy she now fought. She collected her new phone and left the room.

  Exiting from the south, she moved through Hong Kong Park, stopping to survey the pond in the center, as she had been told.

  A group of old men and woman were executing a delicate ballet of tai chi, and she paused a moment longer, watching the symmetry and enjoying the peacefulness.

  She prayed again that she wouldn’t be asked to attack people such as this, wherever she was directed. Prayed for a target worthy of her sacrifice.

  She had begun again on her instructed path when a placard set into stone caught her eye. She moved close enough to read it, curious about the history of the park.

  Underneath the Chinese Hanzi, in English, was nothing more than an admonishment to avoid contact with all birds in the park and to immediately wash your hands if contact was made. On a brass plaque set in stone?

  Elina couldn’t make sense of it, then remembered the temperature check in the airport, designed to prevent “bird flu” from entering the country. Clearly, it was already here and was dangerous enough to warrant permanent warning markers.

  She reached the Peak Tram station a hundred yards farther, a funicular railroad leading to the highest point on Hong Kong Island. She opened the door to the ticket counter, seeing a sign declaring that the handles were disinfected every hour.

  She purchased a ticket and loitered at the end of the station platform, taking note of any Caucasians as instructed, but only seeing obese westerners with rowdy kids. She tried to focus on them, to spot if someone was paying her any particular attention, but was drawn to the locals sprinkled on the platform. About half were wearing surgical masks.

  Apparently, the people here lived in daily fear of this bird flu. She began to suspect the very air she was breathing, her xenophobia spiking again. How had she not heard of this before? Was this why she had been instructed to buy the same masks? Should she have been wearing one now?

  The tram arrived and she took a seat in the back, keeping everyone in front of her and in sight. It chugged up the slope, grinding along like it had for over a hundred years, the spectacular view being recorded by a plethora of tourist cameras. Elina ignored it all, concentrating on maintaining calm.

  Eventually, it ground to a halt at the top of Victoria Peak, with the tourists spilling out and entering the viewing platforms. She ignored them and continued with her instructions, crossing over the shopping area
to the Pok Fu Lam Country Park, a huge expanse of woodlands that ran from the peak all the way to the ocean below, covering the back half of the island. She entered the walking path, getting passed by joggers and hikers on their way to the summit.

  As she became lost in the forest, the path reminded her of home and brought some measure of peace. She found herself alone and picked up her pace down the slope. She counted picnic shelters, and when she passed the third one, she slowed, looking for her sign that the meeting was on.

  A few feet past the shelter, scribbled in chalk on the path, was a marker stating MILE THREE, ostensibly for someone jogging, but in reality the signal for her. She felt the tension return. She rounded a corner and saw a man sitting on a bench. As she got closer, she recognized the contact from yesterday. He studiously ignored her, focusing on the path to her rear, and she continued on.

  She reached the fourth picnic shelter and took the path that led to it, walking beyond the tables and continuing into the tree line. The path ended on a knoll buttressed by a brick wall. A set of stairs led to a picnic table hidden by the wall. Sitting on it was a swarthy man with a full mustache.

  He smiled and said, “Hello, Black Widow. Come, have a seat.”

  She did so, and waited on him to continue.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Elina.”

  “Elina, you may call me Malik, and first let me tell you how pleased I am to meet you. You will strike a great blow against your enemies and will be remembered long after you have become a martyr.”

  “Who? What enemies do you speak of? Nobody will tell me anything. It’s always something I will learn later.”

  He appeared surprised at her response, but not angry.

  “The supreme enemy against Islam in the world. The Great Satan itself.”

  He smiled as if she should feel honored. Instead she felt disappointment, her fears confirmed.

  “Why do I care about America? They’ve done nothing to me. To my people.”