against the side of an apartment building. Many windows stood empty of glass, and tattered curtains shifted in the breeze. Pedestrians who’d survived the blast climbed back to their feet. Several people remained down, and more than one twisted, bloodied body offered mute testimony of death and severe injury.
Screams penetrated the cottony pressure in Maaret’s ears. Warmth covered her right cheek. When she touched her face, her fingers came away stained crimson.
Blood, she realized. But it wasn’t hers. It was his.
Maaret joined in the screaming. Earlier, when she’d accepted her own death and that of her son, she had known she would never see her husband again. But she hadn’t planned on being alive to have to deal with that.
Instead, he was gone.
She stumbled toward the blast area. She was the only one who walked in that direction. All the others fled, running and limping away as quickly as they could.
“Maaret.”
The man’s cold, hard voice came from behind her. She didn’t turn because she didn’t wish to deal with his harsh remonstrations. It wasn’t her fault that her husband had come there. He could only have found her through the man who called her name now. She’d been the bait in a malicious trap.
A powerful grip seized her left upper arm. “Maaret.”
She faced him then because she had no choice.
Mayrbek Taburova glared at her with his one good blue eye. His other eye, the right one, was covered by a black leather patch. Fine scars showed around the edges of it. His curly black hair peeked from beneath his wool cap. Powdered snow clung to his fierce goatee. He was in his forties, more than twice her age.
“Come with me, child,” he ordered.
“I failed,” she said.
Amazingly he smiled at her. “No,” he said, “you didn’t. This was as it was meant to be. His sacrifice was given in love. Your sins, and those of your child, have been cleansed.”
Maaret was dumbfounded for a moment, then she realized Taburova thought her husband had detonated the explosives on purpose. She knew better than that, though. He would not have killed himself, and he would not have killed the others who lay unmoving on the ground. That wasn’t his way.
“Come,” Taburova said. He pulled gently on her arm.
Numb to the cold and the horror around her, Maaret went. She glanced over her shoulder at the blackened spot that stained the ground by the pond. The falling snow worked to knit a fresh white blanket to cover the damage, the mangled bodies that lay scattered over the area.
If not for her husband, Maaret knew she would have walked into one of the apartment buildings and set off the explosives she had worn. The damage and the death toll would have been much worse. The man who had outfitted her with the explosives had told her how much destruction the explosion would cause, as if she should take joy in that knowledge.
She hadn’t.
And she hadn’t thought of the lives she would have ended. If she’d done that, she wouldn’t have been able to carry the explosives into the building. Children lived there, as well, though she’d been told the apartments she was supposed to target were dwellings without children.
Maybe it was the truth.
She’d gotten to the point where she no longer recognized the truth.
“You did well, Maaret,” Taburova said as he quickly guided her through the alleys. “I’m very proud of you.”
Maaret said nothing. She covered her bulging belly with her free hand to protect her child, but she knew she would never possess the power to completely protect him. She wept for her child, for her dead husband, and for herself.
1
Istanbul, Turkey
“Get up!”
Ajza Manaev woke instantly at the command but too late to avoid the slap to the back of her head. She recognized Fikret’s growl as her hand closed on the 9 mm Tokarev pistol under her pillow. Her natural anger suited the role she currently played, so she let the emotion take her.
Fikret obviously expected her to react to his rude awakening. He tightened a fist in her hair and tried to control her.
Ignoring the blazing pain at the back of her scalp, Ajza twisted in the small bed and rammed the pistol into Fikret’s underarm. She twisted and raked the sight across the nerves clustered there.
With a squall of pain, Fikret released his hold and stepped back. He was a bear of a man, thick and heavy with fat, but incredibly strong. A thick mustache bisected his round face. Stubble covered his cheeks.
He cursed at her as he yanked his jacket and shirt back to check his armpit for a wound of some kind.
“I ought to kill you!” he screamed. He released his jacket and shirt, and turned his gaze back to Ajza. His huge hand drew back automatically to deliver a blow.
Ajza held the pistol in both hands and aimed it squarely between Fikret’s eyes. “Touch me again,” she told him coldly, “and I’ll kill you.”
“I tried to wake you,” he protested. “You wouldn’t wake.”
“I always wake,” Ajza said. “You only tried to wake me once. Then you hit me. If we didn’t need you today, I would kill you for that alone.”
Fikret lowered his hand and looked over his shoulder at the other men in the small apartment. “Tell her,” he exhorted. “Tell her that I tried to wake her. Tell her that she is hard to wake.”
Nazmi shoved his foot into a worn work boot and laced it. He was young and lean. Long black hair grazed his shoulders, shoulders that bore tattoos of American rock bands.
“She’d didn’t look that hard to wake, Fikret,” Nazmi said with a big grin. “You told her to wake at about the same time you hit her. She woke pretty fast and offered to kill you.” He shrugged. “If she was hard to wake, I think you would have gotten out of the way in time.”
Fikret scowled and jabbed a big finger in Nazmi’s direction. “Maybe I should kick your ass, too, you young pup.”
A knife appeared in Nazmi’s hands like magic. An easy smile framed his face. “Anytime you wish to try, you fat oaf, you are most welcome.”
Ajza watched the exchange with a wary eye. The animosity between Fikret and Nazmi had existed from the beginning. In fact, most of the team avoided the big man because he struck quickly with verbal abuse and with his hands. This morning was the first day he’d tried that with her.
“Get away from my bed,” Ajza ordered.
Fikret scowled. “This is a very small room.”
“Then go outside.”
Angrily Fikret stomped outside.
“I don’t think you made him very happy.” Nazmi reached
