Christopher Golden

by Codename Wolverine X-men

  Despite a pain in her back that she didn’t want to think about, and the blood on her face from cuts she received from the shattered windshield’s fragments, the Widow felt strong, confident, and very angry.

  She closed her eyes, measured her breathing, and waited.

  Several times more, Cassidy called out to her. But she knew that his anger and impatience would get the best of him. As the sirens grew closer, he crouched down beside her broken window. She lay upside down, only her seat belt holding her up. Cassidy reached inside the car, began to search her clothing for the disk she had retrieved from the Zhevakovs.

  Natasha lashed out, her right hand gripping Cassidy’s neck. He shouted in surprise, tried to pull back, but even weakened, she held on long enough to fire the electric charge from the glove on her hand. Tens of thousands of volts slammed right into Cassidy’s throat.

  He stumbled backward, mouth open in a silent scream, and fell to the pavement. The Widow cursed him in Russian, glanced over at Mikhail to make certain he was still breathing, then fumbled at her seat belt, trying to extricate herself from the car. She’d felt weak, at first, but now adrenaline was pumping through her system.

  The seat belt released, and she brought her legs down first and managed to scramble out through the shattered passenger window without scraping herself too badly. The Widow stood, stretched, glanced at the small crowd of laborers who had gathered to stare in shock at the totaled car, then she looked at Cassidy.

  And he was moving.

  He shouldn’t have been moving. She’d hit him up close with a full dose of what her KGB controller had called “the widow’s bite.” He should be completely unconscious by now.

  But Cassidy was obviously made of sterner stuff than most. Perhaps, Natasha thought, his mutant constitution made him more resilient than the average human. It didn’t matter. She’d just shock him again.

  First, though, she wanted some answers.

  Sean’s head felt as though it was going to explode. Pain lanced through his skull and his mouth felt dry. But he had to get up. Had to get at the Widow. If he just killed her and went back to London without the disk, Interpol would probably bring him up on some kind of charges. He needed the disk to justify whatever else happened today.

  “Get up, Cassidy,” he grumbled to himself.

  Or he tried. The words came out a halting croak. The electroshock that the Widow had hit him with had done something to his voice. Suddenly, Cassidy panicked. If his vocal cords were damaged, he was in big trouble. He wouldn’t be able to fly out of here when the job was done, and it was a long way back to West Germany if you were a redhead and the Russkies already knew you were a spy.

  He shook off the shock, rolled over, and got to his knees, looked up … and saw the Widow.

  There was blood on her face in several places, and glass in her hair. But what stopped him cold was the hatred in her eyes. It hadn’t been there before, and for just a moment, he wondered if his own eyes looked the same.

  “You cold-hearted son of a …” she began, in English.

  Cassidy railed at her. “Ye dare much, Widow,” he croaked weakly. “Ye may be a wee slip of a girl, but ye’re the most evil little wench I’ve ever set eyes on.”

  She kicked him then, not quite stable on her feet. That was probably the only thing that saved him, as Cassidy turned his head slightly to the side and the Widow’s boot caught him just under his right ear. He sprawled to the pavement again, but the kick seemed almost to have cleared his head rather than muddled it further.

  Cassidy rolled to his feet, tried his sonic scream … and only got a hoarse little roar for his trouble.

  “What’ve ye done to me, witch?” he whispered. “As if it weren’t enough to ambush me the last time we met?”

  The Widow danced closer to him, moving with more confidence now, and spun into another kick. Cassidy was ready for her, and blocked it with his forearm. He hit her then, a weak, backhanded blow across the face, filled with disdain and hatred.

  But Romanova ignored his hate. She spun away from the blow and turned into a fighting stance. Her eyes and her body told him that one-on-one, he could never beat her. She was a far superior hand-to-hand fighter. But neither of them was up to much of a fight at the moment, and Cassidy planned to take advantage of that.

  She tried to kick again. Cassidy dodged. But he’d played right into a feint on her part, and the Widow brought her elbow down on the back of his neck. Sean went to his knees, and she had him.

  “There’s a good man dying in that car and his blood is on your hands,” she said in heavily accented English.

  Cassidy wanted to say something about the man being KGB and deserving what he got. But he couldn’t. He could barely think beyond the idea that he might have killed a man he didn’t know, a man who’d done nothing to him. A man who might have had a family, a wife and children of his own.

  It wasn’t him. He knew that. He was an inspector for Interpol, a lawman. He hoped that the man would live, but after a moment, the echo of the Widow’s bitter words came back to him.

  “Ye’ve got a lot of nerve, I’ll give ye that, lass,” Cassidy croaked. “When last we met, ye put a man’s life in danger because ye knew I’d try to save him. And when I did, ye caught me down defenseless and tossed me from a rooftop. By God’s grace alone, I’m still alive today. But I was in hospital for near a month, girl. When I got home, me wife was gone. Dead, Widow … and what an appropriate name for a creature such as yourself. I wasn’t home, nor can I ever go back there without thinkin’ of what might have been if I’d been home.”

  “But …” the Widow began, and Cassidy saw that she was startled by his words. “But this is what we do. How can you blame me for …”

  He took advantage of her confusion. Swiftly, Cassidy lunged at her, grabbed the girl’s jacket at the collar, and brought his fist down hard on her. Hard enough that he lost his grip and she stumbled back, away from him, and went down on the pavement. And now their positions were reversed.

  “It’s not what I do, ye stupid git!” he roared. “I’m a policeman, is all. Maybe it’s more complicated than that, but I’m not a spy. Not some terrorist!”

  The Widow frowned, gingerly touched the place where he had struck her. Cassidy stalked toward her again.

  “Give me that disk, girl,” he demanded.

  “I’m not a terrorist,” she snarled.

  “By God, Widow, if ye don’t give me that disk now I’ll pry it from your dead—”

  A voice shattered the intimacy of their conflict. A barked order. Not from the civilian bystanders, that was for certain. No, though the voice shouted in Polish, it came from behind Cassidy. He turned, slowly, to the sound of a dozen pistols being cocked, and saw the uniformed Polish police officers who aimed their weapons at him. He knew what they saw. A Westerner beating a young girl who’d barely survived a car accident.

  In a sense, they were right.

  Cassidy opened his mouth to let loose with his sonic scream, to clear himself a path and fly off to a place where he could think about all of this. He desperately needed a place to think.

  Nothing came from his throat but a strangled squeak.

  Cassidy stared at the weapons. At the anger on the faces of the men who held them. After a moment, he held his hands in the air, and realized he was going to have plenty of time to reflect on his battle with the Black Widow.

  If he lived past the next thirty seconds or so.

  * * *

  The afternoon was almost gone and dinnertime was fast approaching when the stolen truck carrying Team X rolled past the factories that lay on the outer edges of Warsaw. They needed gas and food and rest, but Wolverine figured they’d be fortunate enough to find the first two. Rest wasn’t on the agenda, not until the op was concluded.

  Gray buildings belched black smoke on either side of the road, and the truck was running on fumes. Logan was at the wheel now. They’d stopped a while back for him to switch places with North. Maverick spok
e perfect German, but Wolverine spoke fluent Russian, with a good enough accent that most Poles, at least, would believe him to be exactly that.

  Logan peered through the grimy windshield, trying hard not to think about how close to empty the gas tank was. This was familiar territory—he’d first been to Warsaw more than fifteen years earlier—but there were a number of new factories, newly developed areas, and enough time had passed that he found it hard to navigate the streets.

  The “new” section of the city, built around the reconstructed old center, was just ahead. If they passed more than a few blocks into that, they would have gone too far.

  Then, suddenly, a whitewashed, two-story building with three wide garage doors came into view on the right, straddling the line between the industrial section of the city and the broad expanse of offices and apartment buildings just ahead. Logan forced the gear shift down with a horrible grinding noise, and pulled the truck over to the side of the road. A much larger truck, belching its own noxious fumes, trumpeted its driver’s disapproval just before it thundered by.

  “What’s goin’ on up there, runt?” Creed asked.

  Sabretooth was getting antsy. He’d been riding in the back with Silver Fox and Maverick for more than two hours, and Wolverine had been surprised at how little argument there’d been among them. But now Creed wanted out, no question. And Logan couldn’t blame him.

  He made sure the brake was set, then turned to look through the narrow window at the rest of his team.

  “We can’t exactly ask the local authorities if they’ve seen a Russian teenager who just happens to be a KGB agent,” Wolverine explained, bristling at having to state the obvious. “There’s a mechanic’s shop right across the street. I used to know the guy who ran it. If he’s still there, he might be able to help us find out what we need to know.”

  “Able, okay,” Maverick said grimly. “But willing?”

  “That’s a funny thing about me askin’ people for information, North,” Logan replied. “Even if they ain’t willin’ to share at first, they always come around in the end. Now you just get up here, and if anybody comes by to make you move the truck, or ask what you’re doin’ here, don’t even try speakin’ Polish. Use your German. That’s authentic and they’ll be able to tell. Then, even if they think there’s somethin’ fishy, they won’t know which side of the Iron Curtain you’re employed by. I think that’s the best we can hope for, right about now.”

  Wolverine hopped out, and North came around and took his place at the wheel.

  “Gimme ten minutes,” Logan replied. “You don’t see me or get some kind of signal from me, come and fish me out.”

  “You got it,” North confirmed. “But what if this old friend of yours doesn’t pan out?”

  “I got a contingency plan,” Wolverine said dismissively.

  But North wasn’t about to let it go. “I’d like to hear it,” he said. “I think we should know what you’ve got in mind.”

  Wolverine stared at him a moment. He thought about smiling, trying to offer some kind of reassurance that they weren’t on a suicide mission, but found he didn’t have it in him.

  “My old buddy doesn’t have any answers for me, then we start makin’ noise,” Logan explained. “We’ll draw attention to ourselves, bring the KGB down on our heads, then turn the tables, kick their behinds, and find out what happened to the Widow.”

  Maverick stared at him, expressionless.

  “That’s not much of a plan,” he said at last.

  “No, it ain’t,” Wolverine agreed.

  “Well, I for one think it’s a hell of a plan,” Creed called from the back of the truck, his voice floating through the narrow window. “Probably get us killed, but I like a challenge.”

  Maverick’s grim countenance actually crumpled into a smile. He hung his head, chuckling. Logan was surprised and pleased to see him relaxed, even for a moment.

  “Well,” Maverick said, “I’m sure that gives you a lot of confidence in your plan.”

  “Yeah,” Logan agreed. “That kinda endorsement always gives me a sorta warm, fuzzy feelin’ inside.”

  North smiled again, then shook his head with a look of bemused disbelief. “All right,” he said. “I’m going to try to take a little nap. Try not to get yourself killed or, even worse, do something that would require our help. That’d be bad.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Logan replied, then turned and walked across the street toward the pale face of the auto mechanic’s garage.

  It occurred to him that it didn’t look much different from a lot of auto body shops he’d seen back home. The place was good sized, with the interior of the triple-doored garage rising up through the second story. But above the office area, there were several rooms given over to the residence of the shop’s owner, Janek Sniegowski. He only hoped the man was still alive.

  At the office door, Logan rapped on the glass several times. It was late, and he’d reasoned that any mechanics who might work there during normal hours had probably already left for home. The dying sunlight created a glare on the office windows, and it was difficult to see inside, but Logan was certain he saw someone move within.

  When a face appeared beyond the glass, eyes narrowed at his intrusion, he realized that his disguise was not likely to inspire a stranger to open their door to him now that this area of the city was relatively deserted. The man at the door was young, perhaps twenty, and his face and hands were smeared with black grease and oil stains.

  “What do you want?” the young man asked in Polish, his tone bordering on the belligerent.

  “I want to see Janek Sniegowski,” Wolverine told him, but he spoke in Russian, in the clipped, almost imperial accent of Moscovites.

  The mechanic’s eyes widened slightly. The belligerence didn’t disappear, but along with the man’s hostility there bloomed a respect tinged with fear. Oddly dressed and speaking the way he did, the young man had to assume he was either KGB or something very like it. The hard look he gave the mechanic didn’t do anything to dissuade that impression.

  Less than two minutes later, a white-haired man just a bit shorter than Wolverine, and with a solid paunch at his belly, came to the glass. He stared in silence at Wolverine for nearly half a minute before he shook his head in disbelief and unlocked the door.

  “Come in, old friend,” the man said. “I did not recognize you at first … or, perhaps it is that I recognized you too well. How can this be Logan, I wondered, unless he has not aged a single day since last we met?”

  “Good genes,” Wolverine replied, and the two men exchanged a glance that told him that Janek knew better, but was willing to accept that the subject was closed.

  If only he knew how close that was to the truth, Logan thought.

  “This is my son, Wladek,” Janek said. “He is an excellent mechanic, but it is all he knows. Wladek, leave us, please. Finish what you were doing in the garage.”

  The young man, Janek’s son, stared at his father in surprise. He had seemed prepared to defend the old man against Logan, or at least to try. Even now he seemed certain that Logan would harm the old man in some way, but after a moment’s hesitation, he obeyed. The door from the office to the garage swung shut behind him, and Logan could hear the kid growling with disgust just before the door closed fully.

  “What’ll you tell him later?” Logan asked.

  “That it is none of his business,” Janek said, and his tone told Logan that the old man’s family affairs were none of his business.

  “Why did you not just shatter the glass?” Janek Sniegowski asked, nodding toward the front of the office. “You are known for your less than gentle entrances, my old friend.”

  Logan smiled. “Didn’t want to give you any headaches,” he said. “Just coming here is asking too much as it is. I owe you, Janek. Now my debt will be even greater.”

  “You saved my life, once, Logan. You owe me nothing,” Sniegowski replied, the wrinkled skin at the corners of his eyes bunching even more
as he narrowed them. “Now, you need something from me. What can I do for you?”

  “Looking for a girl,” Logan replied.

  Janek raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  “KGB. Name o’ Romanova. Also called the Black Widow. She’s traveling by car from East Berlin to Moscow, and I’ve been told this would be her first stop. I was hopin’ that you could tap your old KGB contacts and find out if she’s passed through, and if not, where she would meet her own contact,” he explained.

  Janek stood, stared thoughtfully out through the glare. He walked over to a corner table and picked up a pack of cigarettes. Logan remained silent as the old man knocked a butt from the pack and lit up. The cough that ensued was awful, and Wolverine knew immediately that Janek Sniegowski was dying. He might not even know it yet, but the cigarettes had taken his life. Had killed him just as surely as the KGB would have if they’d ever found out that one of their Polish informers was working both sides of the street.

  That was a long time ago, but from the way the old man’s brow furrowed, Logan knew Janek had remained in the information loop. Once a spy, always a spy. To the death, all too often.

  Janek took a long drag on his unfiltered cigarette, then looked up at Logan.

  “She’s been through already,” he said.

  Logan cursed silently.

  “Her next stop will be Minsk, but if you want to stop her, you’d better try to do it before she reaches the border,” Janek said. “Once inside the Soviet Union, she will be much better protected. She was traveling with another agent, but the man is in the hospital here in Warsaw, so the Widow now travels alone.”

  “What?” Logan snapped. “What happened to the other agent? Why is he in the hospital?”

  “They were attacked on the road,” Janek replied. “Right in the middle of Warsaw. The man was arrested, of course.”