Budapest

Natasha - A New Mission

NATASHA

Natasha could practically smell his fear.

She stood just on the outskirts of the dim circle of light provided by the solitary lamp on the table in Sergei Nobokov's study. She'd made him wait for hours, watching his panic grow, steadily rising to the boiling point until his white linen shirt was soaked with sweat and his pulse jumped at the side of his neck so fast that she wondered if he'd have a full on heart attack before she got the chance to interrogate him.

Of course the spider venom she had injected into a good portion of the wine in the cellar of his massive multi-million dollar mansion probably contributed to his blind fear as well. He had been rendered completely immobile by now, the offending wine glass long since fallen from his fingers and shattered on the floor. He was paralyzed from the neck down and by the time he realized he'd been poisoned...well...she'd already cut the power lines and scrambled his cell phone and any other electronics, leaving him sprawled in a pitiful, helpless heap in his study.

"I know someone's there!" Nobokov shrieked for the hundredth time in the past hour. "Show yourself, you bastard!"

Natasha chuckled, the first noise that she had made to alert him to her presence. Nobokov sucked in a startled breath but he couldn't move to see her as she stepped out of the shadows and into the pale, thin yellow light.

Softly, she started to chant in a sing-song voice as she stood behind him, right in his blind spot so he still couldn't see her. Not yet.

"The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout."

Nobokov started to hyperventilate, mumbling prayers under his breath in Russian so rapidly that the words tumbled over each other and came out mostly unintelligible.

"Down came the rain and washed the spider out."

"Oh god," he sobbed. "Oh god, oh god, no."

"Out came the sun and dried up all the rain."

"Whatever you want, you can have it!" he yelled. "Money, weapons, information, anything, just please, don't hurt me. I know they sent you, I know they want me dead, just...please...don't do it."

Natasha took her time circling around to face him, trailing her fingers along the back of his chair, tapping her fingernails along the wood like spider feet. When she slid her fingers along his shoulder, he hiccupped in surprise and his breathing sped up even more. She marveled he hadn't passed out yet...

"Out came the sun," she said, looking him straight in the eye. "And dried up all the rain."

He squeezed his eyes shut as the song drew to a close, certain his life would end when the lyrics faded.

Natasha reached into the waistband of her jeans and pulled out a pistol, slowly screwing the silencer into place in front of Nobokov. His eyes flew open and he watched her every movement, his pupils blown wide as saucers. She set the muzzle of the gun against his kneecap and he whimpered.

"And the itsy bitsy spider crawled up the spout again."

"What do you want?" he said between gasping breaths. "Just tell me what you want. I don't even know what you want. Please...I..."

"Stop talking."

Nobokov snapped his mouth shut and his lips trembled as he struggled to regain some of his composure.

"Who else do you work with?" she asked, pressing the gun against his kneecap just a little bit more.

"I don't...I don't know who you're talking about."