The Widow's Strike

Book 4: A Pike Logan Thriller

by Brad Taylor

Genres: Action & Adventure; Military Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Compared to such luminaries as #1 New York Times bestselling authors Brad Thor and Vince Flynn, Brad Taylor delivers edgy and adrenaline-drenched military thrillers. The Widow's Strike pits Taskforce operator Pike Logan and his partner Jennifer Cahill against a Chechen suicide bomber intent on releasing a deadly, genetically mutated virus. Traversing the globe to stop this catastrophe, the two soon discover there is a more dangerous enemy lurking in the shadows.

Release date: July 16, 2013

Publisher: Dutton

Print pages: 528

Sample

1

“Gord?” A woman’s heartfelt plea fluted through the misty night.

Who was calling Threadville’s favorite doctor in that flirtatious tone? In less than a week, Gord was marrying Edna.

That voice was not Edna’s.

Dropping to a crouch behind the branches of a weeping willow, I put my arms around my two dogs, a brother-and-sister pair who were part border collie. Taking their cues from me, they remained silent, but they tensed against me.

“Gord!” The second plea was still bell-like, but now it was a command.

Mist drifted away, and the fairy lights in the gazebo-like bandstand on the hill above us were bright enough for me to see the woman on the riverbank.

I had never met her, but I knew who she was. She called herself Isis. Like many others, she was in Elderberry Bay for the Threadville Get Ready for Halloween Craft Fair. Halloween was just over four weeks away, and Threadville tourists and customers were keen to create costumes and decorations.

Isis bound books by hand, books she titled The New Book of the Dead, which, she claimed, tied her craft to Halloween. To me, it seemed like a bit of a stretch.

Was Isis in costume? Despite the evening’s foggy chill, she wore a sleeveless white gown with a gold cord tied around the empire waistline. She raised both hands, palms up, toward the sky. I squinted, but the fog kept me from figuring out what those small objects on her palms were.

I could have gone closer and introduced myself as Willow, one of the craft fair organizers, and also the owner of In Stitches, Threadville’s machine embroidery boutique. However, I was curious about Isis’s weird behavior. Okay, maybe I was just plain snoopy. I stayed hidden with my dogs, where we could watch without being seen.

Isis glided down the concrete boat launch ramp until water had to be lapping at the toes of her sandals. She stooped, placed the object from her right hand on the surface of the river, and intoned, “When your time comes, you will go to the afterlife I have chosen for you. I will join you there, eventually.” Then she raised her voice and called out in raspy, doom-filled tones, “Edna!”

As far as I could tell in the wispy mist, Edna was nowhere near. I held my breath. Quivering in my embrace, my dogs stared toward Isis.

She thrust the object from her left hand onto the water, pushed it down, and held it underwater. “Go,” she ordered, “to the deepest, darkest river! Go to the bowels of the Earth. Fall apart. Scatter. Go where you will never rise!”

The fog thickened, hiding Isis and enveloping the dogs and me in a cold gray cocoon that would keep Isis from seeing us. I shuddered. The little scene had turned nasty.

Hanging on to their leashes, I let the dogs pull me away from Isis and toward the dark trail that would take us along the river to our hillside apartment underneath In Stitches.

Isis’s voice rang out again. “Who’s there?”

I thought Sally-Forth and Tally-Ho might bark and give us away, but they only lowered their plume-like tails and increased their pace. No one answered Isis, but I heard footsteps, as if someone were running up the wooden access ramp leading to the bandstand, up the hill from me. I stopped the dogs and turned around. Distorted in the foggy glow, an elongated shadow flew through the mist in the bandstand. Isis, or someone else?

Farther away, down toward the beach, the fog parted, revealing a figure walking with a jerky gait, his arms held stiffly in front of his body, wrists bent, and palms down. He shambled up the hill toward where I’d seen Isis. He wore a dark suit with a 1930s silhouette, broad at the shoulders, narrow at the waist and hips, and lots of fabric in the pant legs. I couldn’t make out details of his black hair or whiter-than-white face, other than he appeared to have a large wound near his chin.

For the past couple of days, zombies had been booking into the Elderberry Bay Lodge for what they called a zombie retreat.

The zombies were . . . unusual.

They weren’t half as creepy as Isis.

Seeming totally freaked out, Sally-Forth and Tally-Ho tugged me to our apartment underneath my shop. The building was on a steep slope, so the apartment was mostly aboveground.

I gave the dogs extra treats, praised them, and, with Sally’s help, gave my half-grown black-and-white tuxedo kittens, Mustache and Bow-Tie, an outing in the backyard. Sally had taught the kittens from an early age to stay close to her when outside. She supervised them while they did their duties, and then herded them to the patio door.

For once, I was too worried to relax, wind down, and play with my four pets.

Isis had just threatened Edna, who was one of my favorite people.

And Isis was Edna’s houseguest.

2

Maybe I was being irrational, but for my own peace of mind, I needed to warn Edna about possible threats from her guest. I forced myself outside again, into the sinister, foggy night, and ran up through my sloping side yard.

My friends’ Threadville shops and apartments were in a row of stores on the ground floor of a Victorian building on the other side of Lake Street. Under the streetlights, the building’s red bricks looked almost black.

Like the other shops, Edna’s notions boutique had large front windows. Edna’s lights were on, and I could see her inside Buttons and Bows. Gord was there, also, on a ladder, apparently helping his fiancée arrange reels of trims on upper shelves, packing them together upright like books in a library. I ran across the street and opened the door, setting off Edna’s Buttons and Beaux tune, an old vaudeville one that had, I’d been told, slightly risqué lyrics. As always, Edna’s shop dazzled, with buttons totally covering one wall, ribbons, braids, lace, and fringe covering the other, and an aisle down the middle between glass display cases.

From high on his ladder, Gord waved a bolt of purple ball fringe at me. “Hi, Willow! I’m having a ball up here.”

Edna hugged me. She was a cute little birdlike person, short compared to my height of almost six feet. She was barely over fifty, and though her hair was still naturally brown, she had colored it silver for her wedding. Not the silver of graying hair, but metallic silver. She’d grown it to a shoulder-length bob. At the moment, she’d added nothing sparkly to it besides the color, but I was sure that on the day itself, she would be a vision of crystal, an ice princess in October. She asked. “Did you come to help us, Willow?”

“In a way.” I felt my forehead crease. “I just saw something disturbing.”

Gord took a step down the ladder toward me. “What’s wrong, Willow?” I half expected him to whip out a stethoscope and rush the rest of the way down the ladder to check my heartbeat.

In Edna’s cheerful shop, my story sounded a little silly, and I couldn’t blame Edna and Gord for their skepticism.

Still on his ladder, Gord peered toward Edna’s front windows. “Fog?”

Our section of Lake Street was high and free of fog at the moment. I mumbled, “There’s plenty of it down by the river.”

He felt his way down another step. “Yes, some evenings are like that. Romantic, right, my little chickadee?”

Edna beamed up at him. “Right. And I’m not worried.”

Gord inched down to the next step. “I’m not, either, but thanks for your concern, Willow.”

Edna’s Buttons and Beaux tune played again. Isis dashed into the store, pulled the door shut faster than it wanted to go, and stood panting, her back to us and her palms on the door frame as if she were trying to prevent a wild animal from coming inside with her.

I couldn’t see anything on the other side of the door.

She turned around. She was older than I’d first believed, in her late fifties. Maybe she only looked older because the corners of her mouth were turned down and her pupils were dilated. “Gord!” she shrieked. “I just had the most unspeakable fright!” Her gown was made from a light nylon knit, as if she’d taken a nightgown and dressed it up with a scratchy gold cord tied around the empire waistline.

Again the picture of concern, Gord took another step down the ladder. “What happened?”

Isis took a deep shuddering breath and clutched at her throat. “A zombie attacked me.” Apparently, the fright hadn’t been entirely unspeakable.

Gord put his left hand up to his ear and hung on to the ladder with only his right, which, considering that I was standing below him, was about to give mean unspeakable fright. Not that Isis’s sinister curses on the riverbank hadn’t already scared me enough.

Gord asked her, “Did you say a zombie? Attacked you? Want us to call the police?”

She trilled a little laugh that seemed incongruous after her unspeakable fright. “He didn’t attack me physically, but he had some notion that I might be casting a spell on him, and he told me to stop it or he would . . . I’m not sure what, but he looked violent.”

I should find this zombie as a possible ally to help me convince Gord and Edna to be wary of Isis. Maybe the zombie was the big-shouldered one I’d seen in the dark suit. Or had zombies been all over the park while Isis was shouting into the fog, and I hadn’t seen the others? While the dogs and I were fleeing Isis and her curses, someone else, apparently not the zombie in the 1930s suit, had run through the bandstand and away from the park.

Gord reassured Isis, “The zombies visiting Elderberry Bay aren’t real.”

“I know that,” she said seriously. “But this guy’s threat was.”

Gord asked her again if he should call the police.

“No, I guess I was just being a big silly-pie.” Her coy smile showed off a dimple in her cheek. “What are you doing up there on that ladder, Gord?”

“Coming down.”

She cooed, “That ladder doesn’t look safe.” I could have sworn she batted her eyelashes at him.

He patted his belly. “You mean I’m too portly.”

Her “silly-pie” laughter put my teeth on edge. “I mean that ladder looks flimsy.” The woman was an accomplished simperer.

I felt ill.

Edna was obviously miffed. “It’s a perfectly good ladder.”

Isis shaded her eyes against the shop’s sparkling beads, buttons, sequins, and crystals. “Oh, hullo.”

Maybe Isis hadn’t seen me, either, beside Edna on the other side of Gord’s ladder. I stepped into the center of the aisle. “Hi, I’m Willow. I own the machine embroidery boutique across the street, In Stitches.”

Isis covered her mouth and tittered. Where had she learned these old-fashioned mannerisms? “Willow! What an apt name for such a beanpole. Do you weep, too?”

I was about to . . . Or hurl.

Edna stepped closer to me. “Willow is lovely and slender.”

Isis eyed me up and down. “Yes. I see. Is she another of your ‘daughters’?” She made air quotes with her fingers.

Edna smiled. “She does look a bit like Haylee, doesn’t she—tall, slender, and beautiful? But no, my girlfriends and I didn’t raise Willow, though we’d gladly take credit for her.”

I flashed Edna a smile.

Gord said, “In Threadville, they’re all like family.”

Edna’s chin came up. “They?”

He let out his warm boom of a laugh. “We. I guess we’re done here, Edna, and we should let you and your guest get some sleep. C’mon, Willow, I’ll walk you home.”

His message was clear. I wasn’t supposed to confront Isis about what the zombie, whoever he was, and I had seen. I wasn’t sure what it meant, anyway, and I wasn’t about to embarrass Gord and Edna by starting an argument. In a way, Isis was the guest of all of Threadville, and as the owner of one of Threadville’s shops, I should be hospitable.

But I still wanted to hurl.

The little tune started when Gord opened the door for me. I thought I heard Isis ask something like, Didn’t she say her shop was only across the street?

After the door closed and we were in the middle of Lake Street, I turned to Gord. “She was flirting with you!”

He stopped walking. Luckily, no traffic was around. “Was she?”

“You didn’t notice? Being flirted with must be an occupational hazard for doctors.”

“I suppose so.”

It had to be a hazard for Gord, anyway. He was genuinely thoughtful, and couldn’t help being charming. And almost grandfatherly toward both Haylee and me. He was considerably older than Edna.

“She was,” I insisted.

“The woman barely knows me. She had dinner with us last night. She was in Edna’s apartment when I picked Edna up, so I invited her, and she came. The woman spent one entire evening in my company—hardly enough time for anyone to work up a proper crush.”

I teased, “You’re fishing for compliments.”

He staggered playfully, hand over heart. “You’ve wounded me.”

Laughing, I pulled him to the safety of the sidewalk in front of my shop. “You’ll be responsible for all of your injuries if your dramatics get you run over.”

“Good thing I’m a doctor.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

He pointed. “Your shop looks great.” Trying to distract me, no doubt.

He succeeded, at least for a moment. I loved In Stitches. Night-lights inside the shop drew my gaze away from the building’s classic Arts and Crafts architecture and through the windows to the merchandise inside—sewing machines and their embroidery attachments, natural fabrics, racks of embroidery thread, and all the other supplies and accessories needed for machine embroidery. Still, I made one last attempt to sway Gord. “I’m worried about Edna alone with that woman.”

He patted my shoulder. “My little chickadee is one of the strongest people I know.”

“Yes, but . . .” I spoke the rest of the sentence in a rush. “What if that woman thinks she can harm Edna and have you for herself?”

“She can’t.”

“She may not know that.”

“Willow.” The kindness in his voice softened the rebuke I suspected was coming. “Isis, or whatever her name is, can go to the river in the fog and mutter all the curses she wants. None of them can harm Edna or anyone else. Besides, some zombie obviously thought that Isis was casting a spell on him, not on Edna or me.”

So much for the zombie, whoever he was, helping me convince Gord that he and Edna could be in danger from Isis and her incantations. “I suppose you’re right. But I’ll be glad when you’re married and that woman is gone from town.”

His smile outshined the streetlight above us. “I’ll be glad when Edna and I are married, too. You have a good night, now.”

“You, too.”

He strode down the street. As he passed Edna’s shop, he raised his head and sang toward the windows of her second-floor apartment. Gord loved opera and had an amazing voice.

I hoped that Isis didn’t think his love song was aimed at her.

If it hadn’t been late, I might have let myself into my shop and spent a few hours playing with software, thread, and fabric. Instead, I opened the gate and walked down the hill toward my apartment door.

Below my apartment, Blueberry Cottage, a curlicued Victorian gem painted dusty teal, brooded in the darkness. The cottage had been moved up the hill from its original 1890s position, which had been too close to the river. Now that it was finally safe from possible floods, I could rent it to tourists as soon as the renovations were done. The interior had been taken down to the bare studs.

Farther down the slope, my yard disappeared in low-lying mist. I couldn’t see my back gate, or the riverside trail leading to the park where Isis and an unknown number of zombies had been, or the Elderberry River, or the backdrop of the state forest rising on the opposite bank.

My pets greeted me with their usual zeal. Settling the two dogs for the night was easy. They’d spent the day upstairs in their pen in the rear section of In Stitches, where they’d watched everyone browsing and learning. The two kittens, however, must have snoozed most of the day in my apartment. After I got into bed, they tussled with each other and pounced on my head.

But that wasn’t all that kept me from falling asleep. Unease drifted through my mind like the swathes of fog down by the river. What was Isis up to? How could anyone dislike Edna or want to harm her? And why had a zombie taken Isis’s curses personally? Had the zombie really threatened her, or had she only been flirting with Gord?

Eventually, I managed to sleep. And then the sharp ringing of my phone startled me. A phone call in the early morning usually meant I needed to respond to an emergency with the village’s other volunteer firefighters. But the siren on the fire station’s roof was silent.

Who was calling me? The clock beside the bed said six thirty. I could have slept another hour and still had plenty of time to shower, dress, walk the dogs, have breakfast, and open In Stitches for the day. Mentally muttering, I fumbled for the phone.

“Willow?” My mother. Why was she phoning me at this hour?

Was something wrong? My breath caught. Was my dad okay? He was quiet and uncomplaining, but I always feared he would hurt himself in his workshop way out in their woods, and no one would realize for hours that he was missing.

My mother purred, “I need a favor.”

I’d learned not to grant my mother a favor before asking questions. Whenever she was in the midst of a political campaign, she seemed to forget that I couldn’t abandon In Stitches and run home to arrange a dinner party or fund-raiser.

“What?” Between my caution and grogginess, my question undoubtedly came out sounding surly or peeved.

“I need you to let someone stay with you this week.”

“Here?”

“Where else?” She sounded amused.

“This week is, um, kind of busy. Our village is putting on a pre-Halloween craft show, and helping friends with their wedding.”

My mother’s Southern accent became as thick and sweet as corn syrup. “I don’t ask much of you, Willow, honey, now do I?”

Well, she did, but I’d had to decline, again and again. I clutched the phone tighter and gulped. “No.”

“And you’ve often told me that you have a guest room where you could put your father and me up.”

“I do, but—”

“Brianna Shrevedale is coming to see you, and she needs a place to stay, so you’ll want to be her hostess,” my mother said.

“Who is Brianna Shrevedale and why is she coming to see me?”

My mother was good at patient encouragement. “Brianna’s a thread distributor.”

I pointed out, “Sales representatives aren’t usually the houseguests of shopkeepers.” In my early years, my mother had drilled Southern hospitality into me, so of course I felt guilty. Apparently, I’d lost some of those old Southern attitudes, along with most of my accent, while living in New York City, and I hadn’t regained them up here in northwestern Pennsylvania.

“Don’t you follow my career even the itsy-bitsiest bit?”

I could tell she was trying to hide her disappointment in her only child, which made me feel worse, but I managed to defend myself, more or less. “I know you’re in the South Carolina House of Representatives and that you’re running for the state senate.”

“And can you guess who has been instrumental in my success so far and, with luck, will help me get into the senate, and possibly beyond?”

Not me, I feared. “Brianna Shrevedale?”

“Her father. Todd Shrevedale is my biggest financial supporter. He’s done so much for me! We can pay some of that back now by giving his daughter a hand up. She can start her business by selling her threads to you and your customers. You’ll want to buy lots to help her out.”

I repeated, “It’s busy here right now. The Threadville Get Ready for Halloween Craft Fair starts Saturday, and—”

“How perfect is that? Brianna can have a table at your fair and sell her threads for people up there to use in their costumes. You’ll like her. She’s a nice kid.”

I could tell that as far as my mother was concerned, the matter was settled, but I went on with my fruitless objections. “And Edna’s wedding is Monday, and—”

“Who’s Edna?”

“A friend. All of us in Threadville are helping with her wedding.”

“Threadville? That’s not really the name of the village where you’ve set up shop, is it?” I heard her mouse click. “Aha. Found it. Your address is Elderberry Bay.”

“Threadville is a nickname because of all the textile arts shops here.” I was sure I’d already mentioned this in e-mails and phone calls.

“How adorable. And it’s so perfect! Brianna would probably love to help you with the wedding. It will be a good way for you two girls to bond.”

Girls? I was over thirty. However, I didn’t exactly come across as mature when I tried one more time to avoid hosting a guest during this extra-busy week. “The wedding’s being held at the Elderberry Bay Lodge. It’s a wonderful hotel. Brianna could stay there.”

“It’s full. They’re having some sort of weird convention—werewolves or something.”

“A zombie retreat.”

“Whatever. It’s solidly booked.”

That wasn’t surprising. The restored Victorian lodge was beautiful inside and out, but it wasn’t huge, and in addition to the zombie in the park the night before, I’d already encountered lots of zombies wandering the streets and beaches. Some of them had even rented tables at the craft fair. I wasn’t certain that I looked forward to finding out what their crafts might be, but I’d been assured that it was all harmless fun.

Because the lodge was small, many of the Threadville shopkeepers besides Edna had opened their homes to people renting tables at the craft fair, but no one had been keen on staying in a two-bedroom apartment with two largish dogs and a pair of adolescent kittens.

I relented, not that I had a choice. “If Brianna’s not allergic to dogs or cats, I suppose she can stay with me.” I added in somewhat warmer tones, “When’s she coming?” Surely, she wouldn’t stay long and wouldn’t expect me to entertain her. My co-conspirators and I had a lot to do to finish Edna’s wedding gown—the one that Edna didn’t know about.

My mother gave her politician’s tinkle of a laugh. “She’s parked outside your store as we speak.”

3

The guest my mother wanted me to host was outside In Stitches this very minute? Couldn’t my mother have warned me sooner?

She asked, “Your store is called In Stitches, right?”

“Right.” The way I drew the word out, I almost sounded like I was reverting to my Southern accent.

“Go outside, Willow, honey. She could use your help unpacking and moving in.”

Moving in?

Before I could say anything else, my mother, State Congresswoman Wanda Vanderling, MD, disconnected the call.

I threw on a bathrobe, slid my feet into slippers, and took the stairs two at a time. All four of my pets rumbled up the stairs as fast as their legs could take them, and they all, except Bow-Tie, who stopped to bat at something that only he could see, reached the top before I did.

The mischievous kittens would have to mellow a little before I could give them the run of my boutique. Undoubtedly, they would view spools of embroidery thread as rows of kitty toys that should be removed from their racks and chased all over my vintage walnut floor. I managed to let the dogs into the shop and close the door before the kittens could join us.

I shut the dogs into their large pen in the back of the store, then trotted past sewing machines with samples of embroidery displayed in hoops in their embroidery attachments. I rounded my cutting table without bumping into a corner, rushed between bolts of beautiful fabrics, unlocked the front door, and stepped out onto my porch.

Out on Lake Street, a small blonde dragged a heavy sales case out of the trunk of an old, dull red sedan. The October morning sun must have been in the woman’s eyes. She squinted toward me as if at a loss about what to say.

Who could blame her?

My mother, who tried to be kind but often came across as overbearing, may have forced the woman to barge in on me at this peculiar time of the morning. Taking pity on the obviously embarrassed woman and hoping that none of my friends would look out their windows or drive past and see me wandering around in my fuzzy pink robe and slippers, I ran down the porch steps.

Up close, I understood why my mother had referred to Brianna Shrevedale as a “girl.” Brianna must have been barely out of college. She had that pulled-an-all-nighter look, with her makeup flaking, her lipstick mostly chewed-off, and her single braid losing wisps of hair.

I asked her, “Are you Brianna?”

“Yes.”

“Can I help you carry anything?”

She pointed at the sales case at her feet. “Your mother said you’d like to see my thread samples.”

“She was right. Come on in. My guest room is ready for you.” Fortunately, I kept it neat most of the time, unless I was working on a sewing project. At the moment, I was, but not in my apartment. I couldn’t help a fleeting grin at the thought of how Edna would react when she saw the surprise wedding gown we were creating for her.

Brianna hesitated. “Is there a place to park near your apartment?”

I offered her an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid this is as close as you can get. My apartment is beneath In Stitches.”

I followed her glance to the front of my shop. I loved the deep, wide front porch, invitingly sheltered under a roof. These early October days were still warm, and I had not yet put away my rocking chairs, tables, books, magazines, and potted flowers. I’d chosen deep red mums for autumn and had added cornstalks, pumpkins, and strangely shaped gourds to the décor.

Brianna frowned.

I picked up the case. “I’ll show you how to go downstairs from my shop to my apartment, and then you can settle in while I get ready for work.”

Usually, when sales reps first saw the inside of In Stitches, they made appreciative comments. Brianna didn’t say anything until we got to the racks of embroidery threads—almost every color imaginable in silk, rayon, cotton, nylon, and polyester. “You already have thread.” Her voice was so flat that I couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or happy. She could have even been angry. Or scared.

I turned to look at her. The top of her head barely came past my elbow. “I should hope so! But I love thread and trying new kinds and colors.” I set her sample case beside my racks of threads and headed for the dogs’ pen. “I hope you don’t mind dogs.”

“Do they bite?”

Who could look at Sally’s and Tally’s sweet faces and possibly think the little charmers would bite? At the moment they were whimpering and clamoring for attention, and their tails were wagging at about a hundred miles an hour. “No. The black-and-white one is Sally-Forth and the brindle-and- white one is Tally-Ho. They’re brother and sister. I adopted them from a rescue organization when they were about a year old. They’re very friendly.” I opened the gate and told the dogs to sit. They did, but their tails swished across the floor, and their mouths hung open in happy grins.

Brianna hunched her shoulders and pulled her fists to her collar. “They have a lot of teeth.”

I showed her how to let the dogs sniff the backs of her hands, but she wouldn’t try.

Sally closed h