Blck Widow, aka Natalie Romanova, aka Natasha Romanoff, crawled through the soft powdery snow on her stomach. Supporting herself by her hands, she boosted herself slowly forward by a few inches, then, just as carefully, she pulled a rifle next to her a few inches forward. In this way, she minimized any movement that might be detected by a lookout she got into position.
The rifle Black Widow was carrying was wrapped tightly in white cloth to break up its shape, and also to disguise its distinctive black color. She was wearing a white parka with a fur-lined hood that was pulled down over her head. Her face was covered by a white balaclava helmet. Her legs were covered with a loose pair of white trousers. Strips of white cloth had been sewn onto the parka and trousers to help break up the outline of her body.
Black Widow was in the middle of an abandoned army base, now shrouded by the darkness of a moonless night. Disused buildings could be seen in all directions. She was crawling towards the only lit building in the area, a large warehouse standing alone, some distance from the other buildings. It looked decrepit, with rotting metal sides and broken windows. Yet, the dim lights shining through gaps in the structure indicated that it was being used. And, of course, there were too many heavily armed guards, all carrying AK-47 type assault rifles, guarding it for it to be empty, although they were dressed in civilian clothing.
Black Widow crawled up further to a spot just behind a rusting vehicle and pulled the butt of the rifle into her shoulder. Under the wrapping, its actual form was difficult to discern. It was an AK-type rifle in 7.62mm Soviet caliber, similar to the ones carried by the North Koreans, this specific type of rifle being chosen because it was most commonly used by the police, soldiers, and gangsters in this region. This afforded deniability and anonymity. If a Western weapon had been used, it would certainly have raised eyebrows and questions. If instead, such a weapon had been used, there was a chance any shooting would be put down as part of a gang war, which was all too prevalent in these parts.
The weapon, however, had been suitably enhanced. It had a metal rail fitted to its hand-guard, which stretched back over the top of the receiver of the rifle. The rail had slots on the top which allowed her to fit an optic. The scope was a compact Red-Dot Sight scope that presented a red-dot on a small round lens that allowed her to shoot quickly and accurately. The rounds Black Widow had loaded into the magazine were Russian-made sub-sonic cartridges with heavy bullets that left the barrel at a speed slower than the speed of sound, thus making the weapon even quieter. Together with the fat suppressor that shrouds the barrel, extending well beyond the muzzle, the rifle was very quiet indeed.
Black Widow had been monitoring the base for the past few days from a hide she set up just behind the treeline a few hundred meters behind her. It was cold hard work. She laid for hours in a narrow slit trench just behind a fallen tree, with the branches of a conifer tree disguising the opening through which she peered out with binoculars. She had to eat cold rations as any flame or smoke might give her away. She also had to relieve herself in the hide into a plastic bottle and a plastic bag. These had been disposed of by burial just before she moved. All precautions had to be taken to disguise her presence, such that she was nothing but a ghost to all.
The sound of motor vehicles reached her ears, and Black Widow turned her head to see a convoy of trucks turning off the main road into the compound, their headlights doused. As the trucks came up to the warehouse, the large twin sliding doors cracked open, casting a sliver of light onto the first of the truck. The door on the passenger side opened, and a man in the blue camouflage uniform of an Interior Ministry general stepped out. She fished a monocle scope out of a chest pocket and peered through it to examine the man's face. It was the Russian general that the intelligence report had identified as the seller.
A man came out from between the doors and went up to the general. They shook hands. Black Widow turned slightly and shifted the scope to look at the other man. For a moment, the man's face was obscured by the Russian general's, then as he turned, she saw the face. It was the Hydra agent identified as the buyer. With both targets present, it was time for the spy to strike.
Black Widow slid the scope back into her chest pocket as the two men disappeared into the warehouse. She shifted her right hand to a communicator box strapped to a sprung collar around her neck and squawked the Push-To-Talk button twice. Hundreds of kilometers above her, a SHIELD satellite in Low-Earth Orbit was monitoring the area, and the two squawks would be picked up and retransmitted to the Operations Room back in SHIELD, indicating that she was ready to move in.
Black Widow waited until the trucks were driven into the warehouse, and then she acted. Turning her rifle, she twisted it up. The illuminated dot of her scope came to rest on the head of a sentry on the roof.
"Click. Puff. Clack." The rifle spoke once.
A hole appeared on the sentry's head, and he looked surprised for a moment before his eyes rolled up and he slumped onto the roof. At the same time, the bolt of the rifle cycled, ejecting the fired round out of its side, and reloaded a new round from its curved magazine into the waiting chamber. It would have been even quieter to use a bolt action rifle, as the cycling of the action made a distinctive sound. However, stealth had to be balanced by the potential of violence of action.
Black Widow turned her rifle down now and aimed at a pair of sentries standing near to staircase leading up to the roof. They seemed to have heard nothing. She waited until one of the men turned away from the other. She aimed and shot the other man. The rifle cycled and was ready to fire again in an instant. The first man had turned back at the sound of his companion falling to the ground. His mind had just a split second to understand that his comrade was dead before a heavy 7.62mm bullet slammed into his brain. He too slumped to the ground.
The guards on this side had been eliminated, and the Black Widow was on her feet, sprinting across the open ground without any witnesses. She got to a staircase that ran up the side of the warehouse and mounted it quickly. As she got onto the roof, her eyes spied another sentry on the roof, patrolling on the far side, armed with a sniper rifle. He was just turning towards her. He spotted her just as she raised her rifle and placed the red dot onto his head. He was just pulling his rifle up when the 7.62mm bullet slammed into his brain. He slumped onto the roof without even a whimper, his rifle clattering on the metal roof.
Black Widow stole in the shadows towards one of the dusty skylights of the warehouse. She pulled back the hood of her parka, and unzipped it, taking it off. Next, she undid the knot tying the drawstring of her pants, and it slipped down her legs. This revealed that she was wearing a black costume underneath. It was a catsuit of black, made of a sophisticated elastic fabric that stretched tightly over every curve of her voluptuous body, with a heavy plastic zip that ran down from her neck down to her navel, between the mounds of her breasts.
Standing at full height, Black Widow looked surprisingly petite, being only about 5-foot 4-inches, give or take an inch. However, her limbs were toned, betraying the hours of training she put in every day to maintain her skills. Her bosom hung heavily before her chest, with each of her fleshy mounds being a hefty DD-cup in size. They bounced slightly as she moved, restrained by the sports bra she wore underneath. Just beneath them, her body narrowed dramatically at the waist, before flaring out again into a pair of shapely hips. An astute observer would probably have guessed that she had a figure measuring 36-25-36.
On her shapely hips, Black Widow wore a nylon belt with dull black disks clipped to it in a row, with a black plastic Kydex holster over her right hip, holding her back-up weapon, a 9x18mm Pistolet Makarova (PM) pistol. This was not the usual pistol that she would carry, as she preferred a 9x19mm Glock 26 pistol, both as it fired a more powerful round while remaining compact, and because it held two more rounds in its magazines. The muzzle of the PM pistol extended beyond the mouth of the slide and was threaded to fit a suppressor, which she carried in a narrow nylon sheath fitted to her belt. Finally, on her feet, she wore a pair of black rubber-soled PVC boots. When she pulled off her white balaclava helmet, wavy auburn red hair tumbled out of the white headgear, reaching down her long graceful neck to her shoulders. The hair was parted to the right to allow clear any hair from her dominant eye and cut such that it would sweep away from her beautiful face.
On her wrists, Black Widow wore a pair of gauntlets. These were also of dull black and seemed to make up of tubes clustered in a row around each of her joints, extending halfway up her upper arms. To complete her ensemble, she wore a narrow black bag across her back, its thick strap crossing the front of her body. It looked as if it held something heavy, which indeed it did, as it contained both her satellite communications set, spare ammunition, grenades, and even blocks of C4 plastic explosives with sticks of detonators.
Black Widow now knelt over the skylight to look at what was going on inside the warehouse. There were at least two dozen men underneath. They were moving steel canisters. One of the men lost his grip on one of the canisters, and it fell to the floor with a heavy clang.
"Be careful, you swine!" said a loud voice, "You don't want those gas to escape!"
Black Widow was moving her left hand up to her throat to report in when she heard a sound behind her. In a moment, the rifle was up in her shoulder again, its folding buttstock sliding with practiced smoothness into the pocket formed between her right shoulder joint and her chest. There was a dull thud, and the guard, who had climbed up the staircase on the other side and spotted her, had a third eye appear on his forehead. The man fell
backward over the railing and disappeared from view. Seconds later, there was a loud and sickening thud from below.
For a moment, there was silence, then all hell broke loose. Men were shouting from below, and Black Widow knew that her presence was now known to the others. She cursed her carelessness as she shoved the selector lever on the right side of her rifle up from semi-automatic fire back to fully automatic fire. Already, she could hear heavy feet stomping on the steel staircase next to her.
Black Widow rushed to the edge of the roof and slid into a prone position, twisting her body around and pushing the rifle away from her body, out past the edge of the roof, while keeping her body out of view from whoever was coming up. Holding it at an angle in her hands, she pressed the trigger with the forefinger of her right hand. The AK chattered softly and danced in her hands as it spilled fire down the staircase. Spent cartridges ejected out of the rifle as the bolt slammed back and forth.
Screams of agony could be heard from below.
Black Widow stole a glance over the edge of the roof. She saw at least three guards slumped on the staircase, but more were running up. She shouldered the rifle in her shoulder, and fired another two bursts, knocking back another two guards. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement and turn around again. Another soldier had emerged at the top of the other staircase running up on the other side of the building. She fired a short burst, hitting him, and throwing him back off the roof. The next soldier ducked back just in time to prevent him from becoming the next victim.
Having bought herself some time, Black Widow knelt and swung the bag that had been slung across her back round to her front, such that it hung horizontally across her body, just beneath her breasts. She yanked back the zip holding it shut and dipped her hand into the bag, grabbed a fresh magazine for her AK. With her left thumb, she pushed the magazine catch forward, then used the fresh magazine to flick the old one away. She inserted the lips of the new magazine and racked it back to lock it into position. She reached round to the right of the rifle with her left hand and racked the bolt back firmly to chamber a fresh round.
More guards were coming up the staircases now. They were firing as they go. Black Widow knew that she was running out of time. Besides, fighting on the roof would not get her closer to her objective. Turning around, she fired short bursts into the skylight windows, shattering them.
Black Widow slipped through a shattered window onto a steel beam below. The soldiers below were running around like ants on a hot concrete pavement.
They had not spotted her yet as she walked quickly on the dusty steel surface, balancing precariously on the narrow beam. She spotted the pile of canisters now piled to one side. Next to them, she spotted the general and the Hydra agent. Both of them were holding pistols now and scanning the dark corners of the warehouse, looks of fear etched on their faces.
Black Widow thought quickly. There were too many soldiers for her to handle, even with her skills. She to find a way to even the odds. She glanced down at the gas canisters below her, and read the Cyrillic letters on them. These confirmed that they contained nerve gas, of a variety that was quick-acting, but which would disperse and become harmless relatively quickly.
Black Widow tucked her rifle in the crook between her thighs and her stomach while she pulled back zip on the outer pocket of her bag as quietly as she could. She pulled a gas mask from it. Its matte black rubber face had two large bug-like visors for her to view through, and a large round canister fitted to the left side of the face. Tugging back the rubber straps running across its back, she pulled the mask on and made sure it fitted snuggly. Then, Black Widow took two of the disks from her belt.
Holding them in her hand, she used her thumbs to push up their activation switch. Then she flung them down into the pile of canisters. They fell with loud clangs amongst the canisters. One of the soldiers turned at the sound.
"Grenades!" he screamed in Russian, then jumped to one side.
The Russian general did not fully comprehend what was happening and started moving just a moment too late. Each of the two disks was filled with almost an ounce of C4 explosive. The explosions caught him and threw him like a rag doll across the warehouse into one of the trucks. At the same time, the explosion ruptured the canisters, flinging them throughout the warehouse. They began to spill gas into the warehouse. Already, the men nearest to the canisters began to drop to the floor like flies.
The Hydra agent ran as quickly from the canisters as he could towards the rear of the warehouse. Black Widow leaped into the air when she saw this. As she did so, she shot out something from her right gauntlet. A canister flew out from one of the tubes on the gauntlet, trailing a thin strong line.
Crawls sprung out at its tip, turning it into a grappling hook, which connected with a steel rafter, allowing the woman to slow her descent. Then, when she was just a few feet off the ground, she flicked her wrist, which dislodged the hook, and she landed softly on the floor of the warehouse. As she stood up, the wire that had suspended her was quickly retracted into her gauntlet, with the crawls retracting into the canister as it telescoped back into its housing.
A soldier staggered across Black Widow's path. He raised his rifle with some difficulty when he saw her, but her own AK spoke first, drilling three holes into his chest. She did not stop as he slumped onto the floor but continued after the Hydra agent through the open door as men continued to die behind her. Once out of the improvised gas chamber that was the warehouse, she ripped the gas mask from her head, sliding it up her left arm to keep a hold of it as she held up the rifle.
The Hydra agent was already running towards a car, but Black Widow's strong strides allowed her to catch up quickly.
"Leaving so quickly?" Black Widow asked as she was almost on top of the man. She leaped just as the Hydra agent opened the car door and turned to get in. She landed next to the car, grabbed the collar of the man's greatcoat, and pulled him out of the car. As he took a step back to balance himself, she placed a foot behind him, tripping him up and knocking him to the ground. He grunted as he landed on the ground. But he held something in his hand. His pistol! And he was aiming it straight at her!
Black Widow somersaulted back as the Hydra agent opened fire wildly. She cursed once more at her carelessness as she landed in a low crotch. She would have shot him, but SHIELD's instructions were clear. She was to bring him in. Alive. For questioning. She raised her left arm and aimed her gauntlet at the man. The gauntlet hummed softly and a blue lightning bolt shot out of it. It hit the man squarely in the chest and his body was jolted violently for a moment, before she slumped back to the ground, unconscious.
Black Widow did a quick scan around. Seeing no living soul, she walked up to the Hydra agent, her bubble-like buttocks swaying behind her as she took step after step. She knelt next to him and flipped him around. She unzipped the small square pocket on her bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, before crossing his wrists behind his back and securing them together with the steel manacles.
"Black Widow here," the female spy said as she stood up and pressed the communicator on her throat, "Target secured. Ready for extract."
"Good job, Black Widow." crackled a familiar voice in the earpiece inserted into the left ear of the woman.
"A bit of a mess there, Coulson." the woman said, conceding for a moment her shortcomings. The general at her feet began to stir back to consciousness.
"No problems. We will have a clean-up team on the ground after we extract you. No one died tonight that didn't deserve it. That stuff would have caused havoc if it got onto the black market."
Black Widow nodded grimly, and took one last glance around the battlefield, before bending down and hauling the Hydra agent back onto his feet to begin the short trek to the exfiltration site