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#3
OCT 10 |
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“What's Going On”
July 20, 1971. 12:45 pm
Natasha had expected the call, which was why she’d brought the cellular phone along. These new phones worked by having calls bounced to them from a satellite, so she could get the phone call anywhere within range of the satellite. She’d known Clint would call it when she did not answer at home; she just did not expect the call this soon. He was starting to check in on her more frequently, apparently.
“Hello?” Natasha said after picking up the call.
“Hey babe!” Clint said from the other end. “How come you didn’t pick up the house phone? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, everything is fine here! I just went out to buy a few things. How’s work?”
“We’re heading to the Arctic. We think those Kree soldiers are forming a beachhead there or something. Are you okay with—I mean, we could use you at the mansion, to check on things while we’re up there.”
Natasha smiled. Clint was so careful now about not making her feel left out. “Okay, honey, I’ll stop by there later. I’m in a store, so I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay. Love ya, babe!”
“Love you!” Natasha shut off the phone, which was much smaller than the long, bulky, box-like phones most people with cellular phones had, and hung it from her belt. She saw that Carl was awake now and inching towards his gun. She stomped her heel on his arm and he let out a howl. Thankfully, Clint had already hung up and did not hear that.
July 19, 1971. 1:11 pm. Yesterday
Betheda Terrace, Central Park
The Astrologer looked like a bum on a park bench, idly throwing bread to ducks. He certainly did not look like the sort of man a good-looking woman would walk up to and sit down next to. Other men in the park glanced over, a bit enviously, at the slim, shapely woman in a short-sleeve blouse jeans, and dark glasses. Her old black-haired wig completed Natasha’s disguise.
“Nice day, Astrologer,” Natasha said. She still had not got a real name out of him, but it seemed unimportant. He seemed to like answering to this.
“Cancers will like today,” the Astrologer said as he tossed the last of his bread crumbs. “The moon has been strong for them since the last equinox.”
Natasha was still learning how to interpret the Astrologer. Everything that sounded like astrological babble had a deeper meaning. Whether he understood it or not himself, she was still unsure. She was also unsure of how his predictions had so much knowledge of the Zodiac cartel’s inner workings, but she was certainly willing to use that to her advantage. She knew enough about the Zodiac cartel to know that Cancer was in charge at this time. “How strong?” she asked. “Strong enough that they might have a big plan underway?”
The Astrologer shrugged. “No, not a time for action. Cancer is still introverted…but it is a time for gathering other houses to them.”
Natasha knit her eyebrows while she struggled to find meaning. “Other houses…including rivals? Rival houses?”
“Yes!” the Astrologer said, his hands becoming more animated as he talked excitedly. “Their dignity waxes past the usual exaltations and Mars is in an especially deep fall, especially under the moon’s influence.”
“So, if Mars were the Maffia…” Natasha said, remembering how that connection had led to a particular success in the Meatpacking District just days ago, “then Zodiac is still moving in on Maffia territory, clandestinely, under cover of darkness.” At night, when I can’t sneak out to catch them because Clint would be home and wouldn’t let me, Natasha thought to herself bitterly. “Are they looking to absorb the Maffia, I mean, Mars?”
“No, not absorb!” the Astrologer scolded, like he was explaining something to a child. “If Mars was not there, there could be no alignment! What will come from Mars will come from within.”
“Ah…” Natasha said as she did her own absorbing. “Zodiac doesn’t want all of the Maffia, they just want…the middle management? The lieutenants? And leave the rest as a hollow threat to distract us from Zodiac?” Natasha thought some more about how to word her next question. “So, if I were looking for the best place to catch Cancer putting Mars into a deeper fall, but during the day – outside the moon’s influence – where would I go?”
“Donnadio’s Restaurant,” the Astrologer said as if it was a simple question and answer.
July 20, 1971. 12:46 pm. One minute later
The back room of Donnadio’s Restaurant, in the Bowery
“Now, Carl, where were we?” she asked. She kicked his gun farther away and put her hands on her hips. “Before you lost consciousness, I think you were going to tell me how to find Zodiac?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“Sure you do, Carl!” Natasha said, picking him up by the arm she had stomped on. He groaned at the additional pain. “You may not look like much right now, but I understand Zodiac is courting you from the Maffia. Very impressive! I bet you know a lot too…like where I can find Zodiac?”
“I couldn’t tell you anything if I wanted to,” Carl said, pulling himself up to a sitting position. With his good arm he straightened his tie and tried to look in control. He did not bother to look at the three Maffia goons all lying on the floor unconscious around him. “After what you did to us in the Meatpacking District last week, everyone’s being warned not to talk to you. If I was to leak you anything, my life wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel.”
“Very cliché, Carl. Here’s another one: you tell me what I want to know, or I spread the rumor around that you’re my informant.”
Carl looked frantic. “Hey, you’re not playin’ fair!” he said. “Can’t ya just web me up like Spider-Man or something?”
“Do I look like Spider-Man?” Natasha asked, looking as serious as she could.
Carl took one look up and down her tight-fitting bodysuit and gulped.
Two minutes later.
Natasha walked out of Donnadio’s by the front door and down the street to where she had left her Bonneville Triumph parked. This was her third time busting up Zodiac recruitment drives and this one was her deepest in Maffia territory. Now she had some more names and locations to work with and was eager to press on, but knew she could not today. A few months ago she would have, but a few months ago she was not pregnant. Clint and the other Avengers would have told her not to do it, but for her that was the whole problem. She would prove to them that she was just as capable as ever, but she would show them the proof only after she had single-handedly crippled the Zodiac cartel. Well, single-handedly, with the Astrologer’s tips.
Natasha sighed. Maybe it was just a nice fantasy. She could only do so much during the daytime while Clint was out and if she snuck out at night he would know what she was doing for sure. She rode home with the bitter knowledge that Clint wasn’t as dumb as he acted and would figure out what she was doing sooner or later and insist she stop. She also resented that her body was craving chocolate. Ironically, she had skipped lunch while staking out a restaurant and she felt like she was starving.
About 30 minutes later, she had stopped in her driveway to open the garage door when she noticed her phone was ringing again.
“Hey babe,” Clint said on the other end when she picked up. “There’s a whole platoon of Kree soldiers up here. Looks like I might miss dinner tonight. Gotta run. Love ya!”
Natasha was not worried. She knew the Avengers would handle whatever that was about. But she did realize that this left her plenty of time to look into her new leads before Clint came home. She smiled and decided she could spare time to make something to eat before she headed out on the road again.
The door from the garage led into the foyer that, despite the carpet and wallpaper having been replaced, still basically looked like the foyer of the KGB substation the townhouse had secretly been only a few short years ago. Manhattan real-estate was difficult, not to mention very expensive, to obtain, but thanks to special circumstances and the assistance of her old comrade Ivan Petrovich, Clint and her had been able to pick the house up as a steal. The bulletproof glassed in post at the garage entrance that arrivals would have to slide their identification under to be examined by a guard on duty had been transformed into the Barton laundry room; the nearby reinforced metal door remained looking like a bank vault’s rather than something that merely led to a kitchenette. Natasha pushed it open and walked in, setting her bike helmet on the table before she went to the fridge.
She was just getting out some bread to make a sandwich to go with her chocolate bars when she smelled a trace of tobacco in the air. She frowned, wondering a moment if it was coming off her own clothes since she’d just been in a restaurant, but no, it was rather in the air in the house. Faint, although still noticeable to her honed olfactory senses. It didn’t smell like one of the stogies Clint sometimes smoked along with Ben Grimm at the latter’s famous poker games, and even if it did, she knew Clint wasn’t home to have lit one up, so she was suspicious of where the odor could be coming from.
She went into the dining room in search of the offending source and not finding one – or an open window the smoke might have blew in from – she walked into the adjoining living room. It was out of her peripheral vision that she then saw a man in a costume hugging the wall, a pistol in his hand. Before he could get the drop on her, she instantly swung out her hand and chopped him in the throat. Another identical looking man, who had been laying in wait on the opposite side, brought his gun to bear on her— seemingly aiming it at the back of her head – but glimpsing his reflection in a glass lamp on a nearby coffee table, she whirled and kicked the gun out his grasp.
“You two sure picked the wrong house to burglarize,” Natasha observed as she effortlessly blocked the punch the second man threw and let him have one of her own in return that connected solidly with his jaw.
As he fell back into a potted plant, she retrieved his dropped Beretta pistol, one that she saw was modified to fire tranquilizer darts.
She didn’t have a second more to contemplate this. Three other men, similarly garbed and armed, rushed into the living room. Tranq darts shot over her as she ducked into a quick forward roll. Coming out of it still with the pistol in her hand, she fired a return volley of darts. To her dismay she saw her darts bounce harmlessly off the light armor they were wearing.
The man whose pistol she’d taken lunged at her again. She sidestepped him and, in the same movement gave his weapon back, smashing it into the side of his head. Though he wore a sort of helmet, the blow was hard enough to leave him senseless. Delivering a powerful kick to propel the man between her and his oncoming fellows, she retreated into the dining room and then back around into the kitchen.
She started down the hall toward the garage when the door flew open that she’d not bothered to lock and at least five more goons appeared. They, too, were clad in the same padded armor, helmet and goggles, and armed with tranq guns.
But she had something even better.
Natasha extended her hand and with a practiced motion tapped the small trigger in her glove. In response an electrical discharge shot out and struck the first of them in the chest. The miniaturized weapon that was first devised by the KGB fit perfectly into her glove and left gold bracelet. In recent years it had been enhanced by Tony Stark so that she could fire up to a hundred highly charged blasts before its power cells started to deplete.
Her eyes widened, though, to see the man shrug off her Widow’s Sting like it was nothing, their armor not just bulletproof but seeming to be electrically insulated as well. Whoever they were it was clear they had come well prepared for her.
The specially outfitted goon brought his pistol up and unleashed a multi-round burst of darts, which were more than capable of penetrating her costume. Natasha hurriedly threw herself out of their way. Turning, she could hear in the dining room the first group coming up behind her. In seconds she would be trapped, and no matter how good she was there was no way she could defeat all of them hand-to-hand in such close quarters at the same time dodging all their rapidly fired darts.
Before they all reached the kitchen, Natasha moved fast. While she could fit through the small window over the sink, she doubted she could get through it in time; but her quick mind had discerned another escape route. She went to the corner wall and pulled open a wooden hatch that led into an old dumbwaiter. It was something left over from the townhouse’s early days that she and Clint only made infrequent use of. Climbing in, she crouched down on the oversized lift and knocked over some dirty dishes Clint must have sent down some time ago to be washed and forgot. Idiot, she thought with a smile as she slammed the hatch shut after triggering the lift to take her upstairs.
The goons all came to a sudden stop in the kitchen, momentarily confused by her little disappearing act, momentarily being the operative word. As she progressed up the shaft, she heard them below her investigating the hatch. It would be merely another moment or two until they realized where she was, or rather where she was going to be.
As soon as the lift reached the top floor she leapt out, just as the first of them were running up the steps. The goon aimed his gun and fired. She ducked the darts, ran, rolled and came up, kicking him in the chest. Sending him further off-balance with an elbow strike to the goggled face, she grabbed underneath his armored vest and quickly flipped him down the staircase. The goon nearly broke his neck as he crashed into his fellows, who were knocked off their feet like bowling pins.
In that instant she was closing the distance to the master bedroom. She ran into the walk-in closet and ripped open the secret panel in which Clint stowed his various bows and arrows. She grabbed his special always-strung bow and notched a trick arrow whose function she recognized.
A few lessons from Hawkeye were enough to allow her to successfully shoot the arrow to the end of the hall by the stairs. The attached smoke grenade detonated a thick cloud of dark smoke, casting the floor above into darkness and triggering the fire alarm. The disoriented men moved forward through the smoke hesitantly, unable to see more than a few feet in front of them as they coughed and struggled to breathe. Natasha fired another arrow into the smoke that pinned one man’s leg to the floor with a glob of putty, and then, holding her breath, she ran forward and waded into the black cloud to take advantage of its cover.
Her fists and feet lashed out in a series of blows that incapacitated four more of them. The temporary smokescreen soon dissipated though enough for the goons down the stairs to start taking shots at her. She turned back to the master bedroom to try to make use of some more trick arrows, but from the same direction yet another goon was racing up the adjoining hallway toward her, his dart gun blasting away. One dart nearly caught her in the neck.
With nowhere else left to run, Natasha sprinted into the upstairs den – and stopped short as she saw a man just sitting in the chair there. Recognition barely registered before Natasha tried to blind him quickly with a Widow's Sting. The electric arc was interrupted halfway to its target. Her first thought was that it was a forcefield, but then she spotted the edges of the glass shield sitting in front of him. Much lower tech, but in this instance just as effective.
He was a heavy-set man, but it was barely observable in his well-tailored brown suit. He sat nonchalantly with one leg crossed over the other. What made him stand out was that his face was concealed behind a large, crude gold mask fashioned like some primitive icon of a bull's face, replete with horns.
“Taurus,” Natasha said, identifying the man by the Zodiac symbolism of his mask. She would have loved to tear that mask off his face and see who was beneath it. “What's going on?” she demanded.
“At ease, men!” Taurus called out from behind the full-face mask. “That is, if Mrs. Barton here would like to take a short break from her exercise?” He gestured to the spare seat in the den.
“I’ll stand,” Natasha said, stepping into the room and leaning against the wall so no one could come up behind her. She was determined not to let it show how it annoyed her when he called her by her real name. Instead, she countered with, “and you have permission to do this? I understand how Zodiac operates. At this time of year, Cancer is in charge of the organization, not you.”
Taurus uncrossed his legs and stood up. “Make no mistake – no matter what the bylaws of Zodiac are, it is and always will be my organization. It was my fortune that founded it and my leadership that made it what it is,” he said, wagging an angry finger at her.
“Aren’t you breaking the unwritten rule of super villainy, that you don't come after us in our civilian lives and we don't track your every movement?
Taurus straightened his suit. “But you have, haven't you?” he said. “Two disruptions of our operations, three ambushes of our operatives, and now an assault on a raw recruit – six surgically precise attacks in one month.”
“I have my sources. Sources are still fair game, aren't they?”
“They would be if they weren't psychic,” Taurus said, sitting back down. “The Astrologer? You see, you erred in allowing him to continue his ravings on street corners. We picked him up earlier today.”
“So what happens next?” Natasha asked, shifting her weight to her right hip. “I push over that glass screen, take you prisoner and make you tell your men to surrender?”
“If you make a move against me, my men behind you out in the hall know to open fire – this time with real bullets and not with tranquilizer darts. And this screen may be portable, but it is also bulletproof. Why up the stakes any higher? Especially with your precious cargo?”
“I can't believe even Zodiac would stoop so low as to kill a pregnant mother,” Natasha said, scowling.
“I’m sure you've dealt with plenty of ruthless men before. But let's not lose our cool; I obviously don't want you dead or you would be already.”
“Is that what you told Daredevil?”
“Oh, please. That was not our fault. We wanted to hold Daredevil as bait for a trap for you Avengers. Unfortunately, we contracted a criminal called the Exterminator to catch him, unaware of how badly he wanted Daredevil dead. The Exterminator grossly disobeyed his orders and I give you my word he paid for it as fatally as Daredevil did.”
“So this is Take Two? You capture me and use me as bait?”
“Not quite. The game's already been altered by you and the Astrologer. We don't know what all he's gleaned of our organization and told you, but in our worse-case scenario you've already told enough to the Avengers that they will be heading for our secret headquarters any time now. So we don't need bait; we need leverage.”
“A hostage.”
“Precisely. I assure you, I took command of this operation personally so that no one with a serious grudge against you would be in the position of capturing you. I personally don't hold anything against you. Your organization against mine…it’s all just business to me. So, your options are that you surrender to us and no one – especially your baby – gets hurt, or you fight your way out of this room and take what risks are waiting for you.”
Natasha glanced at the window.
“There are even more men out back waiting for you if you want to try that route,” Taurus interjected.
There was a long pause while Natasha weighed her options. She was still confident that she could take down this guy and all his remaining flunkies. But if she took a bullet, or even one good punch to the stomach...
“I surrender,” Natasha said.
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To Be Continued...
Next: In Black Widow #4: How good a hostage does the Black Widow make? Ask Watchlord! It’s called “Knock Three Times” and it’s coming in just 4 more weeks!
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