Two minutes later, they were on the street again. Logan waved to Danny as he and Mystique straddled the old snortin’ Norton, as he called it. He stashed the journals in a saddlebag he had on the side of the motorcycle and kick started the metal beast.
Mystique tapped his shoulder.
Wolverine looked up.
The chopper was still a ways off, and couldn’t be heard at all over the roar of the Norton’s engine.
Wraith might not be coming for them, Logan thought, but they’d sure gotten somebody’s attention.
* * *
Logan sniffed the air, stared through the shattered window into the darkness of the shop, and nodded.
“She’s in there, all right, Irish,” he told Cassidy.
His boots crunched broken glass as he moved a bit closer to the shop window, narrowed his eyes, and peered inside. Wolverine had excellent vision. Even in the darkness, the Widow had hidden herself well.
“I can hear you breathin’, Widow,” he said. “An’ I got your scent, too. I didn’t come here to kill you, girl. I just want that disk. If you toss it out here, well, then whatever mad-on Irish has got for you is just between the two o’ you. But if you make me come in after that disk … well, let’s just say it’ll throw your odds into the crapper.”
Nothing stirred in the darkness of the shop’s interior. But he knew she was in there. What he’d said about hearing her breathing was not exactly true. His aural senses weren’t that acute. But he did have her scent. Kind of nice, actually.
The wail of a Polizei siren had begun to grow distant. Which was a good sign, considering how much attention Cassidy’s screaming had probably pointed in this direction. Wolverine suspected that one of the others had drawn the Germans’ attention for the moment, and a selfish part of him hoped it wasn’t Silver Fox.
“I think we may’ve a wee problem,” Cassidy told him.
There was shouting a few blocks up. Gunfire erupted not far off, perhaps the next street over. Too close. Like the rumble of thunder, Logan could hear the familiar East Berlin sound of dozens of boots slapping pavement in syncopated rhythm. The sound was growing closer, but there didn’t seem to be any hurry in its approach.
“What’s that?” Logan asked, eyes narrowed.
The idea that Cassidy might give him a problem didn’t sit too well with him. They’d met in a snowbound Canadian tavern and drank beer by the fire, found a lot in common, strangely enough. Logan genuinely liked the man, so he hoped that “a wee problem” didn’t mean he’d have to hurt Cassidy.
At least not too badly.
“The man in charge asked that I bring him back that very same disk,” Cassidy explained.
Wolverine sighed. It looked as though it was going to be a problem after all. But not for long. He felt the weight of the two fighting knives he wore sheathed against his lower back. An apology for what he was about to do came to his lips, but remained unspoken.
Something more important had come up.
“I think we have an even bigger problem, Irish,” Logan snarled.
Which was when the shouting started, and the bullets began to fly. In the years he’d been in the game, Logan had been shot too many times. Hell, he thought, I been shot too many times today. He healed up fast, but that didn’t stop the pain of taking a bullet in the first place.
He was about to fade into the shadows, leave Cassidy and the Widow where they were to face the music. But as he turned, he caught a glimpse of the tank that was rumbling around a distant corner several blocks away. And the goose-stepping soldiers marching alongside it. Some of them began to run in his general direction, unslinging their weapons.
Logan sighed. “Cassidy, can you get us outta here?”
The Irishman blinked, stared a moment into the darkness where the Black Widow huddled, then scowled angrily. He grabbed Wolverine under the arms and let out a scream that nearly burst Logan’s sensitive eardrums.
Then they were flying. Bullets roared past, seeming to bend around Cassidy. One caught Logan in the left .calf, and he cursed silently. Soon, they were far away from their attackers, but they wouldn’t be hard to follow. Not with Cassidy wailing like that. Logan motioned that the Irishman should bring them both to the ground. He knew the Interpol agent would be angry at having to leave the Widow behind, and Logan was none too happy about it himself.
But there’d be another shot at her. He’d make certain of it.
In the chaos that ensued upon Cassidy and Logan’s escape, the Black Widow emerged from the shattered storefront where she had taken refuge. Unwittingly, they had provided the perfect diversion for her to slip away without the delay that a meeting with the East German authorities would entail. It wasn’t long before she met with her contact, and began the long journey that would take her home.
Commercial air travel had been sufficient to get her to East Berlin, but a more circuitous route would be required for the return trip. The airport and train station would be buried in foreign agents after this evening’s events. A slow, scenic ride back to Moscow would help her unwind, and would throw her followers off her scent, as Wolverine had put it.
Wolverine.
A dangerous man, that. She would have to be careful of him in the future.
“What do you mean he never showed?” Logan snarled at nobody in particular. “Wraith was supposed to be here for evac, and it is definitely time to go. Every fascist moron in this city is after us. This ain’t the time for the Agency to flake.”
They all stared at him.
“Be that as it may, Logan,” Maverick said—almost patronizing but not quite enough to deserve a punch in the mouth—”Wraith isn’t here.”
Wolverine shook his head in disgust and took in their surroundings one more time. It was not the ideal place to be stuck without their extraction man. The Franzosischer Dom had been a beautiful church, before World War II. It faced another, the Deutscher Dom, across the Platz der Akademie, which had sustained nearly as much damage. Both churches had been built in the eighteenth century, but air raids had scarred them forever. Or, at least, until the DDR got around to fulfilling its promises to reconstruct the churches. For the moment, Team X had to be grateful that they hadn’t done so as yet.
The night sky was open above them, and Logan was surprised to see the stars in this city so well known for its pollution. He was also surprised, and somewhat comforted, by the green vegetation that grew wild all around, an odd counterpoint to the extraordinary friezes in each false doorway and window on the blackened walls.
In a melancholy way, it was an amazing, wonderful spot, despite, or perhaps because of, the ravaged echoes of a long-ago war. Another time, he might have liked to linger while contemplating the spirit and beauty of the place.
But they were still stuck. Things had gone very wrong. The defectors were dead, which wasn’t a great loss and certainly not outside the parameters of the mission, but Logan thought that if they’d been alive, they might have been helpful in recovering the Widow. And, of course, the disk. That kind of help would have been worth whatever hassle came with forcing Wraith to extract the Zhevakovs along with Team X.
That wasn’t going to happen, of course. No Zhevakovs. No Wraith.
It didn’t help that they suddenly found themselves with uninvited and unanticipated company. Mystique was a spy, a stone-cold mercenary, and a natural killer to boot. But she was at least predictable in a way; they could count on her to betray them whenever it was convenient for her.
“I don’t know what yer all gripin’ about,” Sabretooth grumbled. “All we’d have been able to do was tell Wraith to go home. No way can we evac without that disk. And at this point, I don’t think we should go home without that little Widow girly’s head on a stick.”
They were all silent. Wolverine studied Maverick’s face. Anger and frustration burned behind David North’s eyes, but he kept quiet, waited for Wolverine to make the call. Silver Fox looked much the same, but he thought she looked tired in a way. Tired of the ga
me, maybe. Or just tired of having to put up with Creed. One of these days, if Creed didn’t shape up, Logan wouldn’t be surprised if Fox cut him open and left him for the vultures. He figured it wouldn’t bother him much, either.
So long as it didn’t happen during a mission.
“You tried the safe line?” Wolverine asked Maverick for the second time.
Maverick only looked at him with hooded eyes. If Logan asked a third time, he knew he’d probably have to dodge a punch.
“We’re cut off,” Silver Fox said suddenly. “We can’t get home right now, can’t even report that we botched this mission. I don’t suppose anyone wants to go over the Wall into West Berlin?”
Wolverine stared at her a moment. When he was certain she had not been serious about abandoning the mission, he took a deep breath and scanned all their faces again. Mystique hung back from the team, and he was glad. It wasn’t her place to participate in this discussion. But she was listening, that was certain.
“Sabretooth is right,” he said at length. “We gotta go after that disk.”
“Too bad you didn’t bring your Interpol buddy back here with you,” Maverick said. “If he’s as crazy for the Widow’s blood as you say, he’s probably got a few excellent ideas as to how to track her down. Sounds like he was better prepared for all of this than we were. The Agency sends us in with less information than they could have gotten just by asking Interpol, then Wraith doesn’t show up for evac. If he was here, I’d have to beat some explanation out of him.”
Creed had been crouching like an animal in a corner filled with crumbled stone and green foliage that swayed slightly in the breeze that blew through the shattered church walls. Now he sprang up violently, faced Maverick, and stared down into the other man’s eyes. Creed was a full head taller than North, at least, but Maverick didn’t back off at all.
“I’m gonna tell you this one time, boy, and I ain’t gonna repeat myself. I’m tired o’ your whinin’. You fight real good, and you can take a lot of punishment. That’s the only reason I haven’t killed you myself already.
“Now listen up, all o’ you. Maverick may sound like a damsel in distress half the time, but he does make one decent point,” Creed said, and turned his cruel smile on Logan. “Wolverine, you should have brought Cassidy along just so we could kill him. Procedure, field commander, or have you forgotten Team X is a covert operation? Agency’s gonna be none too happy to know we’re compromised.”
Wolverine only stared at him. Returned the cruel smile. Let a low, dangerous laugh roll up from his gut and through his gritted, too-sharp teeth.
“You got a lot o’ gall, Creed,” Logan said through his laughter. “But I’m glad you do. And I’m glad you spoke up. I guess I’m a little too angry about this whole snafu to think straight. Leastways I was, until you got all uppity on us.
“You’re right,” Logan continued. “I’m field commander on this op. That means we’re gonna put all this democratic bull behind us. No more questions. No more answers. Just orders. You all clear on that?”
“Clear,” Fox agreed, and Logan could feel the energy burning off her as she readied herself to back him up if Creed should make a move.
“Clear,” Maverick said. “Just so long as we’re moving. We’re just targets if we keep sitting here.”
The smile on Creed’s face had not disappeared. If anything, it had grown wider—a little more dangerous, a little more insane. But Victor Creed wasn’t insane. Not really. At least, not yet. He was just the meanest human being Logan had ever come across. And he’d run into some nasty individuals over the years.
“We clear, Sabretooth?” Wolverine asked, glaring at him intently.
“Oh, yeah,” Creed said after a moment. “We are very clear.”
“Good,” Logan said.
He pulled one of the knives from its sheath at his lower back and flipped it toward Creed. The big man’s speed was nearly as great as his own, and it was no problem for Sabretooth to snatch the knife from the air. The blade cut his palm a bit, and Logan couldn’t escape the sudden thought that he’d allowed it to happen. Just for the blood.
“You want to kill someone, Creed?” Wolverine growled low. “You can kill your girlfriend over there.”
He heard the intake of breath from Mystique, but that was her only reaction. She could have run, then. Logan had kind of hoped she would, but not really expected it. The blue-skinned woman wanted something from them, wanted the disk and probably the Widow, too. And she obviously meant to stick with them if she could, let them do the real work and then grab the glory when it was over. Maybe even take Team X down along with the Widow. What she did was covert ops, too. Her superiors wouldn’t want live witnesses any more than the Agency that employed Team X did.
Creed turned to look at Mystique. He was still smiling, but the smile had changed somehow.
“Victor,” Mystique said, and Logan heard the warning in those words.
“Oh, so it’s Victor, is it?” Maverick said. “Isn’t that nice. Just one happy little family.”
Sabretooth’s eyes flicked over to Maverick, just for a second, but Wolverine saw the death those eyes held for North, and wondered what was between Creed and the shapeshifter that could leave such a deep wound.
“I agree,” Silver Fox said.
Logan was surprised, but said nothing.
“Mission security is compromised every moment she is with us,” Fox concluded. “She should be terminated.”
” ‘She’ is right here,” Mystique said archly. “If you’re planning to kill me, at least don’t pretend I can’t hear you.”
“She’s all right,” Creed said suddenly.
They all stared at him, even Mystique. In fact, Logan would have had to say that none of them looked as stunned as Mystique herself.
“What?” Logan asked, unable to stop himself.
Sabretooth glared at him, as if Logan had just pointed out a horrible weakness in him. It occurred to Logan that that might not be far from the truth.
“I’ve worked with her before,” Sabretooth said. “She’s all right.”
“That’ll do,” Mystique said suddenly.
She walked forward until she stood at roughly the center-point of the gathering of Team X. One by one, she changed her appearance, becoming each of them in turn. Just to show them that she could.
“You could try to kill me, I suppose,” she said, stopping to stare into Wolverine’s eyes. “Or we could work together. I was well aware of the Black Widow’s presence and her plan. I know the way the KGB works, far better than you or your Agency. Apparently, they couldn’t even be bothered to give you information they undoubtedly already had.”
Logan frowned. Not because her claim was preposterous, but because it had a ring of truth.
“Who are you working for?” he demanded.
“The Israelis.”
“Mossad?”
“Of course,” Mystique admitted.
“So if you’re such an expert, where will the Widow go next?” Silver Fox asked.
“Well, my guess would be that your own Agency, as well as the Mossad, MI6, and a handful of others will have people covering the airport and train stations. I mean, they all have double agents within the East German government, so they’re certain to know if the Widow were to work with the East Germans.
“Logic says that if she wants to get out without anyone knowing about it, she’ll go by car. And if she is going by car, the nearest KGB rathole after East Berlin is Warsaw,” she concluded.
“Which brings us deeper behind the Iron Curtain,” Maverick observed.
“You didn’t honestly think she’d head for London, did you?” Mystique asked. “She’s going back to Moscow. We’ve got to stop her, and get back that disk.”
“We?” Silver Fox asked.
“Makes sense,” Creed said, though he didn’t smile anymore. Nor did he even look at Logan.
“All right,” Wolverine agreed.
The rough linen clothes
they wore over the black jumpsuits of Team X would have to last them for the duration. Or until they could steal something else. They checked their weapons and small stash of supplies, and then they were ready. All they needed was to steal another car.
Wolverine approached Creed, who stood by Mystique. The two were arguing, their voices low, and there was a hatred in the eyes of both killers that crackled like an electric current between them.
“… nothing I’d like better than to gut you, Raven,” Creed snarled.
“Why didn’t you?” Mystique challenged.
“You know why,” Sabretooth said. “You owe me, now, lady. But don’t think the day won’t come when I will rip your throat out.”
Wolverine was interested to hear Mystique’s response to this threat, but she had noticed him. Creed spun on him, raging, but only narrowed his eyes and waited for Wolverine to speak.
“My knife?” he asked.
Creed handed it back to him.
“You change your mind about wanting to kill her, you can have it back,” Logan told him.
“That might be for the best,” Creed admitted.
“Another time,” Wolverine corrected. “You’ll have to make other plans to see her, though.”
“What’s that mean?” Mystique demanded.
“It means you’re staying here,” Logan told her pointedly.
Mystique laughed. “You don’t honestly think I’ll …”
Wolverine’s eyes flicked to Creed’s face, and Sabretooth caught his meaning immediately. The big man’s fist slammed hard into the side of the blue-skinned woman’s face, and Mystique went down in the rubble hard, striking her head on a chunk of granite.
Logan crouched to check her pulse. She was fine. Or as fine as one could be after being knocked out by Victor Creed. Wolverine glanced up at Creed, silhouetted against the void of dark, star-filled sky through the shattered ceiling far above.
For the first time in Logan’s memory, he thought Sabretooth looked happy.
He shivered at the thought, and was glad to know that his knife was back where it belonged.
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