The Midnight Caller (Jack Widow Book 6)

by Scott Blade

  “This is all I can find.”

  She shrugged and gave him her wrists.

  He began to saw, tried to stay as far away from her skin as he could. The last thing he needed to do was cut her wrists.

  After a lot of effort, the first zip tie popped off.

  “Stop.”

  She stopped him and motioned for him to back off. Then she repeated the same escape technique that she had back in the hotel room, the first time she got free from her zip ties.

  He was impressed.

  “Where did you learn that?”

  She did not answer. She held her hand out and took the sharp glass fragment. She relaxed in the chair and pulled her feet up, and reached forward and started sawing the zip tie bounding her ankles.

  “I learned it in the service.”

  Widow stepped away, picked up a protein bar and sat in the other chair, across from her.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  He stayed quiet.

  “Where did you learn to take out armed professionals like that?”

  “They weren’t professional. Not really. More like semi-professional.”

  Karpov said, “I thought so. You are military?”

  “No. Not anymore. Once.”

  “Thank you for helping me.”

  Widow nodded.

  “I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

  “Not so fast.”

  She finished cutting her feet free and then lowered them to the floor. Widow realized that he should have brought her shoes too.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

  She scooped up the protein bar, ripped off the paper like she was angry at it, and stuffed her mouth full. Apparently, her kidnappers had not fed her much if anything.

  She chewed and swallowed the first bite and put her hand over her mouth to cover her animal-like consumption.

  “My name is Eva Karpov,” she repeated. “I’m a rezidentura.”

  Which Widow recognized to mean resident. That’s what the Russians called a spy who lived in a foreign country, a resident.

  “You work for the SVR?”

  “You know what that is?” she asked.

  “It’s the Russian Foreign Intelligence Services.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m an agent.”

  “A spy?”

  “Yes, but not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I quit.”

  “Quit? They let you do that and stay in America?”

  “They don’t know. Not yet.”

  “So who are these guys? They’re American.”

  “Yes. I don’t know who they are.”

  Widow was not sure if she was lying or not. Normal people emit telltale signs that they are lying. We all do it. It’s human nature. No one is immune, but some are better at hiding most of these signs than others. Especially a beautiful, Russian agent with spy craft training. Widow had never known a Russian agent before, not a beautiful woman anyway.

  He had heard of them. They were legends in the intelligence world, myths. He had always thought that they were more myth than legend, more legend than fact. But here was one sitting in front of him.

  “Sorry, but I’m starving,” she said.

  “Go ahead. That’s yours,” he said and pointed at the remains of his protein bar.

  She did not say another word. She scooped it up and devoured the bar like she had not eaten in days, which Widow realized she probably hadn’t.

  “Want something else?”

  “Yes.”

  He returned to the minibar and opened it and peeked in.

  “What would you like?”

  “Something big.”

  Most of the options were junk food.

  He pulled out a bag of nuts, figuring that she needed the salt and the protein more than sugar from anything else that was there.

  He handed it to her. She took the bag and started devouring them too.

  With her mouth half-full, she said, “Thank you so much for your help, Mr. Widow.”

  “Tell me what is going on.”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  “Why not?”

  “You could be in danger.”

  “I’m already involved.”

  She stayed quiet.

  “None of those guys are going to forget me. When they wake up, they’ll remember who did this to them.”

  She nodded and said, “We should leave the hotel too.”

  “Let’s wait and see.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “So far, no one has come to our door. No security. Which is usually what would happen. If we can stay the night here, that would be best. We could leave at first light.”

  “What if someone called the police?”

  “We’ll know that soon enough too. NYPD is fast. If the hotel called them, they’ll be here in the next ten minutes, I would think.”

  “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “You only knocked out two, in my room. There are two others. In the lobby.”

  Widow smiled and said, “No they’re not. They’re in the stairwell.”

  Eva smiled and asked, “Who the hell are you?”

  “I told you. My name is Jack Widow.”

  “I mean where did you come from?”

  “I came from this room.”

  “What kind of soldier were you in the military?”

  “I wasn’t a soldier.”

  “I thought you said you were ex-military?”

  “I was. I wasn’t a soldier. I was a sailor.”

  Eva nodded, said, “You were Special Forces?”

  “SEAL,” Widow answered.

  Her eyes lit up.

  “I see. No wonder you can fight like that.”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  Silence fell between them and Eva ate the last of the nuts. She wiped her lips, in a sultry way that Widow wondered was just second nature to her, because of the kind of training she must’ve gone through. He didn’t want to bring it up, but he had heard that female agents were trained much, much differently from males.

  Russians taught them to use all the whims available to them. There are countless stories of Western politicians, generals, and even heads of state falling to the wiles of a Russian woman.

  CHAPTER 24

  WIDOW WAITED ANOTHER ten minutes on top of the first ten, making an even twenty, just to be safe. No one came to the door. No hotel security. No police.

  Widow opened the door a couple of times and peeked his head out into the hall.

  No one came to the door. He heard no commotion. No signs of police.

  “That’s weird. Right?” Eva asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Not really. It is a Saturday night, in New York City, and it’s after midnight. Very likely that whoever is staying in the rooms near nine-twenty-one are still out on the town somewhere. Either that or drunk and passed out in their beds, sound asleep.”

  He kept the door ajar and looked back at her.

  She said, “Okay. But what about those men? They are not going to stay knocked out for long?”

  “Except for the one I injected.”

  “The other two in the stairs?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s more of that stuff. The drug. There must be. You could knock them all out for the next twenty-four hours.”

  Widow said, “That’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  At first, Widow wanted to tell her to wait, but the fear of her running away had occurred to him. After all, he still didn’t know what the hell she was involved in. Might be in her best interest to sneak away, leaving him with four knocked out mercs.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They walked out of the room and side by side down the hall.

  AT THE ELEVATORS, they stopped and Eva looked down. There were small droplets of blood on the carpet, which was also matted down and disheveled
and scuffed in several places.

  She said, “Let me guess, this is where you fought them?”

  Widow nodded.

  She followed him over to the stairwell. They opened the door and found both guys still there. Still unconscious.

  “Isn’t it very bad to be knocked out for this long?”

  Widow shrugged and said, “Didn’t matter to me then. Doesn’t matter to me now.”

  “Come on. Let’s drag them back to the room.”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  They both moved into the stairwell.

  Eva shifted from one foot to the other because the concrete was freezing under her feet.

  She watched Widow lift the first guy up from under his arms and start to drag him back to the door.

  She went around and grabbed his legs, tried to pick him up like a wheel barrel.

  “Never mind that,” Widow said. “Just get the door and then go ahead and be the lookout. We don’t want someone walking out to the hall now.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Go.”

  She went behind him, passed him, and held the door open. She peered both ways and listened.

  “I don’t hear anyone.”

  Widow dragged the guy out onto the carpet.

  Eva moved ahead of him and made her way to room nine-twenty-one. She did not have the keycard to open it, but then realized that she didn’t need it. It was still broken from Widow kicking it in.

  She opened it and waited for Widow to drag the guy in. He dumped him down on the carpet.

  They went back and repeated the process for the other guy.

  After a short break, Widow found the supply of sedatives stuffed into a satchel under the bed.

  He stopped and stared into it for a moment. He saw something that told him exactly what he needed to know about these guys and what they planned for Eva.

  In the satchel, he found a bulky rolled-up sheet of plastic, black like a garbage bag. There were a box of surgical plastic gloves and two pairs of hacksaws and one very sharp bone saw that looked so crude, it was almost obscene.

  Widow took out the sedatives and closed the bag before Eva could see in.

  He used the needles and the sedatives and injected each of the other guys, and reinjected the one who had only gotten a small portion earlier in order to equal it all out. He did not clean any of the needle areas before injecting them. He wasn’t concerned with sanitation, only their silence.

  They checked around the room again for anything useful, found nothing but Eva’s shoes, which she took this time.

  “Damn,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I had a bag. It’s not here. What did they do with it?”

  Widow looked at the pile of sedated guys and said, “We probably should’ve asked them that before we knocked them out.”

  Eva smiled and stepped out of the door first, back into the hall.

  Widow came next and pulled the door as far shut as it would go, which took some effort. It dragged across the carpet.

  Eva looked left. Looked right.

  Suddenly, she saw shadows, and heard voices. Five young guys were walking down the hall toward them. They were talking loud and laughing. They looked like five guys coming back from a night out, clubbing, barhopping, having a lot of drinks on the town.

  “Widow,” she said.

  He looked up and was holding the door shut. It kept jerking back from the hinges.

  They were getting closer. Widow tried to close the door. He at least wanted it to shut.

  Without hesitation, Eva took action.

  She started to wobble around, acted a little intoxicated, and scooped up two handfuls of Widow’s t-shirt. She nearly ripped it, pulling it and him toward her so hard and fast.

  She stood up on tippy toes and kissed him, hard and wet. A distraction.

  Her lips were wet. Her tongue was ample and she wasn’t afraid to use it. That was obvious.

  If Eva was a day over twenty-five, Widow would’ve been shocked. And if she had started her seductive, spy training a day short of five years ago, he would’ve been double shocked.

  She kissed him so hard, he was suddenly worried that even five drunk guys in New York City were going to complain to the hotel’s management.

  The guys walked, stopped talking for a long minute as they passed by. But they didn’t stop and gawk. They kept on walking. Kept on laughing.

  Eva didn’t stop kissing Widow.

  She kissed him hard and long, a good long time after the coast was clear.

  She was damn good at her job. No question.

  Widow suddenly doubted that the FSB would be willing to give her up under any circumstances.

  After another long minute of kissing him, she stopped, backed down and looked in his eyes for a moment. Then she asked, “Are they gone?”

  Widow spoke and for an instant, his voice cracked like he was a teenager all over again.

  “Yeah. They’re gone.”

  “Good. Let’s get back.”

  She let go of him, but kept her hand locked onto the bottom of his fingers. She pulled him along, gently, seductively.

  Widow wondered if she could even help it.

  They walked back down the hall, past the elevators, staying close together.

  Back in Widow’s room, Eva sat back down on the same chair.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Now, tell me what’s going on?”

  “Can I have something to drink?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Water, please.”

  “Of course,” Widow said and he reopened the minibar, took out two bottles of water and handed her one. He joined her at the table.

  Watched her screw the bottle open and take two long, deep pulls from it.

  He did the same and waited.

  “You don’t have a cigarette?” she asked.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  She frowned, took another drink of water and then she said, “Listen. I am grateful for your help, but you may not want to know about me?”

  It was more of a question than a declaration.

  “Tell me.”

  “My name is Karpov.”

  He nodded, knew that part.

  She said, “I have been in America for three years. Working here in New York.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Officially, I do modeling work and study at university.”

  “What do you do for the FSB?”

  “I date who they tell me to date.”

  Widow nodded.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’m not a prostitute. They don’t want me to do that. If I got arrested it would be the end of my work here. I have a contact here, a handler, and he tells me a name and where to go to meet him. I arrange meetings and work my way into their circles. They give me information. I return that information to my government.”

  “Circles?”

  “You know. Social things. Sometimes I date diplomats, lawyers, or whoever and I work my way into knowing who they know and what they know.”

  Widow asked, “Married men?”

  “Usually. But don’t judge me.”

  “I’m not. Believe me. I’m sure I’ve done much, much worse for my country.”

  She said nothing to that.

  Widow asked, “So why did these guys kidnap you?”

  “They must be trying to stop me.”

  “From what?”

  “My father. He’s a submarine commander for Russia.”

  Widow drank another gulp and waited.

  Eva said, “About a month ago, a man approached me. An American man. He is a CIA agent. They took me in and said they knew who I was. But they weren’t going to turn me in if I helped them.”

  “What do they want?”

  “I begged for this assignment. Here in America, I mean. Begged for it. Do you know why?”

  Widow shook his head, even though she meant the question to be rhetorical.

  “I love t
his country. I want to escape Russia. I hoped that I could find a way out.”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  “Of course, we all wondered about trying to escape to your country.”

  “What do they tell you?”

  “Before we are sent here, we are warned not to try to run. If we run, they will do terrible things to our family.”

  “Like what?” Widow asked.

  “They only pick girls who have parents.”

  Which was a surprise to Widow. He had heard that the Russians liked to use orphans. Girls who could disappear easily, without notice. No one left behind to worry about them.

  Eva said, “They use the parents as leverage over us. If we try to…try to…”

  She was struggling over a word.

  She asked, “What’s it called when a foreign citizen tries to request safety here?”

  “Defect?”

  “Yes. I want to defect.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I only have a father. He, too, wants to defect.”

  “Where is he?”

  “That’s why I’m here. He is the captain of a submarine.”

  Widow stayed quiet.

  “A nuclear submarine.”

  CHAPTER 25

  EVA SAID, “A few months ago, I made a friend. More than that. He was another student in one of my classes. We hit it off and I’ve been dating him.”

  Widow said, “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

  “What?”

  “This guy. He’s a friend or a mark?”

  “He’s a friend. He’s not government. Just a regular American guy. A chance meeting.”

  “Okay.”

  “We dated. I wanted to. It wasn’t related to work.”

  Widow stayed quiet, listened.

  “His name’s Edward. He works as a fireman.”

  Widow noticed her face change as she spoke of him. Something in her eyes.

  He asked, “You care about this guy?”

  She nodded.

  “What happened next?”

  “Two weeks ago, he introduced me to this guy he knew, a friend. He said he used to work with this guy. So, I met with him. A couple of times. The guy’s name is Frank Farmer. He works for the government. After our first meeting, Farmer told me that he was a CIA agent. And he knew who I was.”

  She stopped talking and looked down at the floor.

  “What?” Widow asked.

  “I was so stupid. They teach us not to have feelings for a man.”