Collateral Damage

Approx. 2001
Moscow, Russia

In a pale dim room a group of teenage girls were waiting in a perfect single file line. The first girl in line was Natasha, her red hair was a little longer than her shoulders, she had fine red bangs covering her forehead and her hair was pulled back away from her face in a neat braid as required. They were each about to be tested in a course. Natasha hated these, something unexpected always happened, sometimes it was just targets and sometimes it was live people they had to eliminate. A widow never knew what was coming in one of these random courses. Natasha was exceptional at them, never letting herself show she was thrown off, despite the challenges that were presented at her. She knew Dreykov was watching, he watched every move she ever made. No matter how perfect she was he was always looking at her so closely like she couldn’t escape his eye. She tried under performing before, and he was so angry at her that she figured it was better to just do her best.

“Whoever is the slowest is going to be bait for the dogs.” Dreykov threatened watching from his secured back room. It wasn’t an empty threat either, the girls in this class had seen some brutal punishments for failure, if you couldn’t escape the dog pen your role as bait turned into food for them and it a still pretty harrowing memory for those of them who had seen it happen in the past. Dreykov didn’t think there was anymore powerful incentive for them to be fast and accurate.

As Natasha waited for the timer to set so she could enter this obstacle course like structure her heart pounded. She hated these as there was always something awful inside. The indoor structure was a labyrinth of steel beams, a laser grid that sometimes would cut into their skin and sometimes was just light, sometimes it was an alarm and set something worse on you, you could get trapped inside and if you couldn’t get yourself out the fate could be worse than death, it really just depended on Dreykov’s mood that day what happened to the failures.

But Natasha never failed, she had a mission, even though she didn’t know what was going to happen inside, she had a mission, complete it fast without missing a beat. No second guessing, no fear.

She watched the red clock get down to zero and a loud buzzer rang out and her heart pounded as she leaped into the entrance without thinking, immediately jumping over a trap door that would have sent her deep inescapable hole. She hadn’t even seen it she had just jumped right in and missed it. As she started to run succeeding her first hurdle she was almost tripped by a rows of electrified wires that were activated by her motion, she jumped up into the air twisting in a ballet like move just missing the wires that tightened into the wall that would have blocked her path. She couldn’t catch her breath she had to keep going. She kept going down the path and a target popped in front of her face which she shot instantly without second guessing, another came and a projectile came as well, she fired and dodged instantaneously. Her shoulder was bruised as it crashed into the wall but she didn’t make a sound despite how much it hurt. As she kept moving down the hall she noticed it was narrowing and as she stepped on the floor the floor boards started to tip up. She realized they were pressure sensitive and she had to speed up as the longer she stood on one they were starting to cradle under her, she sprinted across the boards that caved into a trap underneath. She got right to the end of the narrow hallway balancing on a single beam there was a wall in front of her slightly deep grooves spaced out, she jumped up clasping onto the groves the best she could and started to force herself up the wall but there were fewer and fewer groves, and they became more and m ore shallow as she got closer to the top. She was so tired already and this was so hard and as she propelled herself up to the top of the wall onto the platform she didn’t have a moment of relief because the platform was a steep and slick slant that went straight down into the darkness and if she rested on it even for a moment she would slide down it. She balanced herself on the edge of the platform before it slanted and then found a minor panel in the side wall and started to crawl up to the ceiling. Once she got up to the ceiling beams she was able to jump from beam to beam to get to the other side. On the last one she almost missed and she caught herself pulling herself upward and over the beam. Then she crossed them beam to the end of the ceiling and climbed down the other side of the wall. As she got onto the floor she was ready to collapse, she could see the exit but she knew she had to do more than just walk to it.

Natasha tried to assess the situation her breath was so heavy as she moved through maze course. Just as she went to move, red lasers illuminated all around, Natash’s sore exhausted body was not going to be able to do this dance but she iddd’t have time to think she carefully weaved her body around the beams careful not to get burned or set off any alarm based traps and she got closer to the exit she realized she could see refracted light in front of the door, the exit was covered in a completely glass as she approached she realized it was probably bullet proof and even if she broke it it would set off the alerts in the lasers. What did she do? Did she have to go backwards? Could she scale it? Natasha noticed a weight and rope placed on the edges of the wall just a few steps into the lasers, she’d have to go back just a few turns, and she did the weight was so heavy but she couldn’t go back for the rope she had to carry both and not set off the alarm. As she weaved through the lasers again and got to the glass blocked door she tied the rope around the weight but getting that weight over the top of the glass wall was going to be really hard, how was she going to get the momentum and how was she going to do it without accidentally setting off an alarm behind her? The clock was ticking, she had to keep going. She could definitely be the slowest if she didn’t get it together right this second.
Natasha screamed like a warrior as she used all of her strength to throw the weighted rope over the glass wall, she watched the weight start to crash on the other side but then she realized the rope was going to be short and she grabbed onto it using the push to get herself up on the smooth clear glass and climb over it, she jumped right down on the other side and then she thought she made it, that she was free, it had to be over, but two targets came right at her firing projectiles and she dived and fired at both of them knocking them off their posts and then ran for a sliding exit door that had a sharp edge and looked like it could cut her in half if she didn’t get out of it before it closed. She made out it out the door and the buzzer rang. Her time was locked in. She wanted cry and collapse on the ground, but she shook it off and tried to keep a serious, yet exhausted face.

“Natasha, the fastest ever to complete this course in the entire history of the Red Room, you all need to aim to beat her, don’t let me down.” Dreykov said from the back dim lit observation room, attached to the room of the practicing widows. It was protected with bullet proof glass and shadowy to prevent the widows from seeing anyone who was inside, but generally someone was always watching them, they never knew when it was or wasn’t Dreykov, but he did pop up often and suggest he was there.

As Natasha heard the announcement that he challenged all of them to try and beat her time she groaned to herself but she did feel somewhat confident that she had at least been the fastest of all the widows before. Natasha returned to the area of the course where the other young widows in the room. Then she gave a slow almost dead eyed glance over to Dreykov in the observation room wondering if she had to be here, but she didn’t say a word.

“Natasha, you’re dismissed.” He grumbled into the intercom.

Natasha tossed her gun on the floor and walked over to the locked exit waiting to be allowed out of the room. She needed a drink of water and to lay down. Even she couldn’t believe her own success, only days before planned ‘graduation’ from her intensive training with all these other widows. Natasha started walking slowly down the wall taking some deep breaths and trying to mentally recover.

“Natasha…” Dreykov’s voice came from behind her and she stopped immediately standing in perfect posture as she turned to face him but her eyes dropped to his feet as she stood there silently and so well trained. She was not expecting him, was he not even watching the others? He did that sometimes, he wanted them to think he was watching even when he wasn’t.

“Go into the consulting room down the hall.” He ordered and Natasha gracefully walked with purpose to where she was told to go, despite how tired and sore her body was. As she entered the empty room there was a table with chairs to sit at but she did not sit down she stood against the wall waiting for direction. No one followed her to to the room and she stood there against the wall, poised and silent she could see the cameras in the corners of the ceiling that were all watching her. She wanted to sit down and rest so bad but she didn’t dare.

Natasha stood there silently against the wall waiting for 45 minutes. Then she could hear Dreykov’s shuffle down the hall and he entered the room and sat himself right down, he had a folder with him.

“Come.” He motioned with his hand and Natasha walked over to the end of the table still standing there as he took out the information in the folder, there photos of an older man in his mid 50s, a white business man. “Sit.” He commanded like a dog and Natasha complied.

“This man, Dmitri Sidorov. He runs a company ‘Bogavato’ it’s a global finance and investing firm out of Moscow, Mr. Sidorov has been making plans with some others to try and squeeze out our friends in the Kremlin and steal billions from the motherland. We also found evidence he is working with some agents from England, and the United States. Upon our research we discovered that he has a certain ‘unique’ proclivity for young girls. Girls a little younger than you, but I don’t have widows that young I can put out there to get this job finished quickly and correctly. I need a young one who I know can succeed. I know you’re seventeen now, basically an adult, but make yourself look fifteen, innocent, you know what I mean? Like you aren’t the garbage off spring of some worthless street whore.”

Natasha silently nodded although it gave her a pit in her stomach.

Dreykov made a face as Natasha had not had her ‘graduation ceremony’ or more accurately — a forced hysterectomy to signal her immersion as a full widow into the world. It was coming very soon, it was going to happen any day, after the performance she just gave? She was ready and he knew it. She was days away from being his number one agent. It was this very situation that made Dreykov think he needed to do these surgeries on his girls earlier, maybe even as kids, but even in his mission of making widows it was hard to find a doctor who would perform hysterectomies on children, they seemed to have less cares if they were in there late teens about seventeen years old. He didn’t have time for her to have this surgery right now he needed Natasha to take care of this before she ‘finished’ her training.

“You know, you are very talented, only one other widow has finished that course without falling into one of the traps, Melina, but she was not as quick and as clever as you.” Dreykov smirked remembering Melina in the older days.

Then Dreykov pulled out box the sizee of Natasha’s palm, he pulled an object out of the box.

“Do you know what this?” He held up a small silicone dome shaped object with a narrow rim on one side. It was bright soft pink, a stark contrasting color to the stale and bleak colors of the training rooms she had been in and out of. It was the same pink of the some of the clothes she wore in tearful, painful ballet lessons. The color was actually a bit triggering for her internally but she had no visible reaction to it.

She shook her head no.

“Good, why would you. I assume you have maintained your purity. This, this is a diaphragm, it prevents pregnancy.” He explained casually.

Natasha tried not to react but her top teeth bit her bottom lip.

“I don’t have time to prevent it another way, right now. So you will have to use this, this time. You don’t know what it is so you don’t know how to use it.” He scoffed at her as if she was dumb and her whole life and education had not been controlled by him and his program. He didn’t really feel the need to educate them on sex or pregnancy prevention because he had a fool proof method that prevented it for all of them when the time came.

“You put this gel, into it, then you squat down, spread your legs like your slut mother did all day, open your ..” He hesitated to say the word for a moment “open your cavity, fold this in half and push it up deep into you so he won’t feel it.”

Natasha was in a bit of still shock for a moment as she listened to this awful old man describe how to do this intimate thing as if it was just another part of her training.

“I have to be … intimate with him?” Natasha asked trying not show any hesitancy but it was clear from her question.

“You have to do whatever you need to do to get the mission done correctly.” He snarled at her and Natasha felt small and she stood there with her shoulders raised afraid of the tone in his voice.

“If it was just a bullet in the head dear, I could send anybody, you have to make it look like an accident, an overdose, he over indulged in all his desires, maybe a little too much. You understand?” Dreykov asked her and she nodded again cautiously.

“It’s okay, Natasha. You look a little worried, I thought you were my star? It doesn’t mean anything like you’ve read in books or movies. That’s just a lie. The only reason you even exist is because men will stick it in anything that’s available. Being a beautiful woman is a great, great power. All men fall to their knees for a girl like you—except the faggots, but I am sure even you could turn a few of them back straight.” He laughed at his own joke as he twirled the diaphragm in his fingers like he was taunting her with it.

“Do you need me to find someone who can put that inside of you?” He held the diaphragm up again.

“No, sir, I can do it.” She answered without hesitation.

“I knew you would be the one.” He put it back in the case and then slid the case across the table to her.

“All I ever want to do is protect you, you are my favorite asset, and if you weren’t the dirty worthless blood of a whore, you could be my own daughter. I think of you as one, and I’d do anything to protect my own, that’s why I am giving the diaphragm.” Dreykov suggested in a rather kind tone, pretending he wasn’t just doing it to keep one of his assets unencumbered by a surprise pregnancy or any trace of the man she would be killing. The first seduction for a widow could be dangerous and could soil his assets.

Natasha nodded like she believed him.

“I know you have helped us and done some great work even as a kid, but those were structured environments, this one, you will be alone. No widow has ever gone on a mission like this before her graduation ceremony, alone. Do you understand the significance of this? Do you understand how special and how talented you are?”

“Yes, thank you.” She said quietly, she felt sick though.

“What would have become of you if I hadn’t saved you? If I hadn’t given you this home and honed your skills and abilities? Can you believe someone as special as you came from the pathetic, disgusting vermin of a mother you had?”

“No.” She shook her head no. If anything had been drilled into Natasha more it was that her mother tossed her aside like garbage, was a whore, a worthless woman who lived on the street, some low class good for nothing whore who never wanted her. Dreykov was her savior, not just a teacher or a leader, someone who wanted her, cared for her, could tell she was special, she was not just like the other girls she grew up with, she was here for a reason, he recognized Natasha’s talent even when she was a mere infant. This was what he told her, brainwashed her to believe. She believed it as true, it was the only reality she ever knew but still her fraught and rebellious tween years lingered deep inside of her. As if the smallest, tiniest part of her, knew something wasn’t true, but she had no reason to believe anything else. This was her life, this was her home, there was no escape, there was nothing but this and she had to be proud to do it.

“No loose ends. Clean it up, quick and neat.” Dreykov pointed his wide stout finger in her face.

“Yes, sir.” She nodded.

———

Natasha stood in the bathroom staring at herself in the mirror as she brushed her bangs in front of her face. She brushed her red hair over her shoulders brushing out these barrel like curls that formed soft natural looking waves in her hair. She took a handful of her hair that was on the top, brushing it out nice and smooth and pulled an elastic into it, leaving her hair down but just the top pulled back, a popular way that wealthy Russian school girls wore their hair. She put just a small amount of natural looking make up on her face, trying to appear even more youthful than she already was. Was there really such a big difference between fifteen and seventeen? For her, there clearly was.

She took the empty diaphragm case and hid it in her bag. She actually did struggle a bit to get inside of herself, She wasn’t prepared for how uncomfortable it would be and how much it would hurt. She buttoned and zipped up the pleated black skirt that went from her waist to a few inches above her knees. It was a blue and white plaid with some dark red lines in there. She had a white button down blouse with a Peter Pan collar and short sleeves, and she wore a navy blue cardigan over it, as girls did in the elite schools she was supposed to pretend to be from. She already felt so uneasy about this, but she knew deep down if she didn’t meet Dreykov’s expectations then she’d go back through another miserable training cycle. The more she had to do the less and less of her she had left. She often didn’t feel like a person at all with all the conditioning she went through. She never asked any of the others about it, they all seemed dead behind the eyes but she wondered how many of them pretended some days. If they just went along because it stopped the pain and the terror or if she was the only one who still had some deep grounded personal morals within her. She could never ask any one or talk about it because reporting on someone who wasn’t acting like everyone else was encouraged, it was a way to make them feel watched even when they weren’t being watched. No one ever knew who was truly brainwashed and devout to Dreykov, and who was just surviving. As Natasha lived through it she felt more and more confident that she was slowly and reluctantly giving her whole self to Dreykov, and was she watched herself get dressed to complete this task, in a rather degrading way, she knew she only had one option, succeed.

She pulled her white knee socked up her legs and then pulled on a pair of black slip on school shoes. She took a deep breath and grabbed her bag, she was ready to go.

Lake Oswego, Oregon - approx. 2000

Lake Oswego Oregon is heavily wooded Portland suburb, it is exactly 2,135.5 miles from Chicago, Illinois. It is a town that is mixed between middle working class families to the upper, upper middle class from those families who work in the city at large firms or businesses. Very wealthy people owned lavish houses that decorated a large deal of the lake. It was kind of like Portland’s little secret suburb, quietly protected by trees and a large lake, it had both a small town feel and yet so much space.

Nine years ago in 1991 when Maria Hill was 8 — almost 9 years old, Maria just showed up in the middle of the school year, enrolled into the class. She was a subject of great mystery to parents, teachers, and kids in the school as she was very quiet and very smart. Everyday after school, she walked across the street to the public library where she stayed until 5:30 PM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she walked next door to her junior rock climbing class, her mother picked her up at 7:30. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she stayed at the library until her mother could get out of work.

It was challenging for Elizabeth to figure out child care in an entirely new city where she did not know anyone and she didn’t want Maria to go home alone. She figured the public library was safer, they had after school programs she could join for free and do until the rock climbing class that Elizabeth signed Maria up for without asking. She just signed her up for it because it was right next door and it had a class a time that worked for them.

The school did not realize this was happening for quite a long time. However, eventually, months after Maria had an established routine, one of the teachers started to notice when she had stayed at the school late, and saw Maria walking to the rock gym a few doors down from the library. The teacher observed the pattern a few times before raising a flag that something was strange.

Maria had very good grades, she was a polite quiet girl, who showed up to school on time everyday, with a packed lunch and a snack, in clean clothes, her mother dropped her off without issue. So, she wasn’t immediately on anyone’s radar for any problems, but eventually the concerned teacher asked Maria about what she did afterschool. The teacher determined that Maria was ‘vague’ and ‘cagey’ with her responses because she answered “she did her homework.” Which was true.

Maria went to the library and did any homework she had before finding a book to read or something to do there then she ate a quick dinner that was packed with her lunch, changed in the library bathroom and went to her climbing class. The librarians who worked at the library didn’t think it was unusual for a kid to be there for a few hours after school an Maria was quiet, polite, helpful, and never bothered a soul, she was certainly their preferred attendee.

Eventually, Maria told the principal who was a rather forceful male figure that she went to the library to do her homework before her class three days a week. And he decided this wasn’t a big deal as it seemed challenging for a single mother to get Maria from school back home and then back to the school within a few hours. Maria was purposefully vague though as she did not mention that she also went to the library and stayed there from 3 to 7 on the other two days until her mother got out of work. It wasn’t ideal, but it was only temporary until Liz could get some kind of childcare situation figured out—-an affordable one figured out. She really didn’t know that many people in the area and it was hard to know who to trust, but she had to get Maria to school, and she had to go to work so they had money to live off. She didn’t want Maria to be alone or unsupervised for all the time, but eventually she would figure out something. For now, this was the best they could work out with what they had. It all ended up being fine, but the paranoia it raised for Maria was staggering and she was already on edge about what had happened. Liz told Maria not to talk about it school or tell anyone about where they were from, or who her dad was, or where she used to live. Maria felt the seriousness of it, despite her young age. She had witnessed and experienced some awful things so it made sense to Maria why they were going but the scariness of it didn’t entirely weigh on her the way it did on her mother.

When Maria was a sophomore in high school she once again found herself under the attention of others despite her quiet nature. As a freshmen, Maria joined a junior Reserved Officers Training Course program her high school offered. The Officer who taught the courses which counted as classes was a retired marines officer who knew Elizabeth. Maria actually really loved her JROTC program because it offered a lot of subjects that were not available to her in the regular school course curriculum. It also had military training practices that were appropriate for kids in high school.

Maria was one of two girls who were in the JROTC program, the other girl a blonde girl was kind of ‘rough.’ She was a senior and at her house she liked to do target practice at effigies of Hillary Rodham Clinton. She wanted to be friends with Maria and she was excited to show her that she already knew how to use a gun and that she did training at her house. Maria was not interested in being her friend, she actually put Maria on edge. During Maria’s sophomore year, a rumor circulated among some students that she had an inappropriate relationship with the JROTC instructor, because he was very supportive of Maria. It was actually really awful and uncomfortable for her. The guidance counselor, Mrs. Reeves, caught wind of the rumor, and interviewed but Maria and the teacher, but once again, it turned out just to be nothing, the sad part for Maria was that she did really love that teacher, he was really kind and supportive and was helping to fill a missing paternal void that she had even though they only talked during school and there was nothing inappropriate about it. It really made Maria lose a lot of trust in her surroundings and she couldn’t fathom why anyone would even make up a rumor about her.

In her sophomore year, she had one friend in the senior class a girl named Andrea who went by Andy and lived on a Christmas tree farm. She was grungy and cool and Maria was infatuated with her at a deep level. Andy’s class had been the group that had heavily circulated the rumor about Maria and it largely died out when they finally graduated. Andy told Maria it was the girl in JROTC who had started the rumor and Maria believed that was definitely the case.

In Maria’s junior year, she spent most of it off campus attending college courses that she qualified for with her grades in high school. She could walk to the state college that offered the program, however the following year there were so few high school kids in the surrounding area who qualified for the program that that the program was re-located to a more centrally located college and it required a car for Maria to get there and she didn’t have one. So, Maria’s senior year of high school was kind of a snooze for her. She knew what all her homework for the class was going to be before she even had it, she’d get her homework done at 9 AM sometimes. Besides JROTC, all she had was rock climbing, which required expensive shoes and accessories, so she ended up getting a small part time job at a local bookstore afterschool whose manager, Deb, had become friends with Maria’s mother, through a survivor support group they were both secretly in.

One day after school, Maria was working at the medium sized book store putting books away on the shelves from inventory bins. When a man only slightly taller than Maria asked for her assistance.

He was about 5’9 and a bit stout, he was balding, older and looked very unthreatening, he looked exactly like the type of man you’d see in a bookstore.

“Excuse me, miss.” he asked for attention and Maria stopped what she was doing to assist him.

“How can I help you?” Maria asked in a kind customer service tone.

“I’m looking for something to read, do you have any recommendations?” He asked.

“Well, what do you like to read?” Maria asked, this wasn’t very unusual, people asked for employee recommendations all the time, but she couldn’t recommend anything without knowing what they liked.

“Mmm non-fiction, or I love a political biographies, do you have anything new?”

Maria didn’t know of any new political biographies off the top of her head, talk about a dry read but she walked the man over to the table of new releases that was right in the front of the store to show him where all the new books were. He looked both embarrassed and a bit offended.

“Yes, I saw this table, but have you read any of these?”

“This one.” Maria held up a book called ‘A River in Darkness’ the true story of a man’s escape from North Korea. The man made a face.

“Seems, dark… was it good?” He asked looking at the grim cover of the book.

“Yeah.” Maria said supportively, she read it one day.

“I apologize for being forward, but this seems like kind of a mature book and are you what in high school?”

Maria made a face like she didn’t appreciate the age fishing but again she didn’t find it so strange because some men were men, you know, and she just kind of navigated it with being as polite and friendly as possible, it was kind of tough, the bookstore needed its customers and Maria didn’t want to offend anyone even if the comments made her stomach turn.

“I’m actually graduating high school in a few weeks.” Maria replied.

“Locally?” He asked and Maria tilted her head again because she did not love that comment either.

“Mmhm…” she mumbled to herself.

“Well, an early congratulations.” He said and jokingly tipped a fake hat. “And you’re already working? Saving for college? Do you know where you’re going?”

“Uh… not yet. Maria shrugged and feigned a polite smile.

“Wow, really cutting it close to the wire.” He said looking over the book Maria had read which had a red barbed wire image on the book cover.

“Well, I guess.” Maria shrugged. “I hope you find something you like.” Maria said as she was done with this conversation and she walked back to where she was unloading the new books from the inventory cases.

Awhile later, Maria took a break and went into the back room. She didn’t know why, but as she recalled the conversations she had with that customer it kind of made her feel a bit strange. When she looked at the closed circuit security camera screen on the wall she noticed that man was still here sitting in one of the lounging areas of the store and reading. It wasn’t that strange, people read that area all the time that’s what it was for. She just couldn’t tell if it was some guy being friendly and talkative or if it was something else.

“That guy is still here?” Maria mumbled to herself uncomfortably.

Brie, a college aged girl who attended the local state college was also working at the store and was taking a break in the back, she looked up from her graphic novel, as she heard what Maria said and she looked at the screen that Maria was looking at.

“Have you seen him before?” Maria asked Brie.

“Nah. Maybe.. I can’t tell. All boring old white dudes look the same to me.” She smirked and paused. “Why did he say something to you?”

“No, he just asked me .. like a lot of questions, kind of personal…yet not…”

Brie looked Maria up and down and rolled her eyes as this was the happening the store manager Deb came in and was listening to their conversation. She was protective of Maria having known what her mom went through.
“Well, you’re a pretty girl who is young and working in retail, old dudes are gonna ask you personal questions, it’s part of the gig. Just smile, laugh, and forget about it.” Brie shrugged. Maria was very focused on the screen, the man was just sitting there reading, but Brie was probably right. It was just nothing and Maria wasn’t going to say anything more about it and she definitely wasn’t going to tell her mom about it because she knew it would cause her to over react. This is what made trying to have a normal life so hard, trying to figure what was just normal interactions and what was something to be concerned about.

“Why? What happened?” Deb interjected and Maria shook her head no like nothing happened.

“Nothing.” Maria answered quickly because if Deb knew the story her mother was also going to find out, Maria knew that for sure.

“Some guy was weird with Maria.” Brie said not looking up from her manga.

“Weird in what way? Who?” Deb insisted.

“No, it wasn’t weird, he was fine, very polite, I just, I don’t know, I just never saw him before, he just asked a few questions.” Maria shrugged like it was nothing.

“Like what?”

“Oh god, Deb is going full mom-ager.” Brie mumbled, noting how Deb was protective of her employees especially the younger girls like Brie and Maria.

“It really wasn’t anything.” Maria assured and Deb made a face like she wasn’t going to push it.

When Maria was done for the evening at work, she noticed that the man was still just reading his book and having some coffee in the lounging area. Again, she couldn’t tell I this was unusual a lot of older men sat in that section, got their coffee and read and met with friends, it was a popular spot for that. But Maria decided she didn’t really want to walk home after her shift. She had about a 15 minute walk home, and it was a gorgeous spring evening but she still felt a little on edge about.

When Deb came into the back room when Maria was punching out she asked Deb for a ride home but Deb told Maria she was going to work until close for a few more hours. Maria said she didn’t mind waiting because she didn’t ‘feel like walking’ this seemed suspicious to Deb that a 17 year old would wait around at her job instead of taking a fifteen minute walk home, and Deb could tell that the situation from before must’ve made her uncomfortable.

“Maybe Brie can take you home.” Deb suggested as she didn’t want Maria to wait around at work for no reason.

“No, it’s okay, I can help Luca in the stock room.” Maria offered. Maria loved working in the stock room organizing it as so quiet and she got along very well with this college sophomore Luca who worked there in the evenings. He was well read and he was cute too but they mostly talked about books and current events.

“You can use the phone in my office and ask your mom to come pick you up…”

“She’s won’t be back until 10 or 11 tonight.” Maria made a face.

Liz had actually found a great federal job in Veteran’s Affairs, when she first got to Oregon she was working two jobs, one as a paralegal, and another at a community center. Eventually, she met some fellow marines in a veteran’s group who were able to help her get a more secure job, a federal job with great benefits for Maria and herself. Pay was good, healthcare, time off etc, but one thing about this job was that she had to travel a lot for events and veteran’s programs. She was compensated for all the travel but it did make her job a bit tough for being a single mom. Luckily, one of Liz’s sister’s ended up moving about 30 minutes away from Lake Oswego, and Maria would go there whenever Liz had to travel for a few days, but sometimes she just got back late, and nobody really wanted Maria to be home alone. It was actually a big fear for Liz’s that Maria would be home alone and something would happen, so she was constantly trying to find things for her to do, sports, community events, a job.

Maria ended up staying late and working in the back with her friend Luca. She didn’t know why talking to that guy raised her alarm for a moment. Sometimes her mother’s paranoia took over her as well. Her mother had good reason to be afraid and Maria wasn’t that worried about herself, but she was always worried about her mom even though it had been ten years since they left a Chicago suburb in the middle of the night without a word.

Deb drove Maria home around 10 P.M. at night. She could tell something was up but Maria was just very quiet. Deb knew even more details about what Maria’s mother went through than even Maria did because they shared stories and information in their recovery survivor group.

“Are you sure you are ok? You didn’t walk home because of what that man said?” Deb asked and Maria shook her head no. She really didn’t want this to be made into a big deal, it was absolutely nothing, Maria was sure of that now.

“No, I just didn’t want to walk.” Maria shrugged.

“You didn’t want to do a fifteen minute walk, so you worked for four more hours?” Deb asked skeptically. “What did he say to you?”

“He just, he asked what I liked to read, and if I was in school and if I was going to college, it wasn’t weird.” Maria said like she was trying convince herself. “I didn’t care about walking home I just wanted to hang out with Luca for awhile.” Maria added and Deb pursed her lips to one side.

“He doesn’t like to hang out with me outside of work because I am still in high school.” Maria shrugged adding another cover to protect herself.

“Okay…” Deb didn’t seem like she believed her but she walked Maria inside and they could see that Maria’s mother just got home too.

About one month prior to the above events, a group of democratic political talent scouts had identified a contender for federal political office, a man by the name of Tom Walsh. He was forty-four years old attorney in a progressive leaning business law firm but was active in local community politics, and his father had been heavily involved in Chicago democratic politics, just like his father before him. Tom was the head of a politically active group of business leaders, he was charismatic, smart, handsome, went to the best schools yet he seemed down to earth. He currently had a fiancee who was about 28 years old but they had no set date for their wedding.

Once meeting with Walsh family and identifying Walsh as a strong candidate for office—upon which his father William Walsh agreed, everything seemed to run smoothly. The coordinators who identified people for office, also ran opposition research on them so they wouldn’t be surprised by information floating out there. It was a major shock to the scouts working on the Walsh case to discover that he claimed a dependent daughter on his taxes by the name of Maria Walsh. As in their initial meeting, no mention of a child came up. It wasn’t that unusual for high powered wealthy men to have secret kids but they generally didn’t claim them as dependents on their taxes. So, Leslie and Michael, the two talent scouts who work with candidates before they run for federal office went back to the Walsh’s, as they had specifically asked if there was anything they should know about, an out of wedlock child, that was a big one, not unrecoverable, but not something you want to get hit with on surprise. The scouts did think it was a little strange that this child never came up, but these wealthy men did send their kids off to fancy boarding schools, but they didn’t recall seeing any photos of her in the house or anything.

Upon the their return to the Walsh’s residence, Leslie, the female talent scout started observing all photos in the house and she did clock one photo on a shelf of a little girl with brown hair with Tom, she looked to be about five or six years old, and it was a photo of the two of them petting a giraffe at a zoo. She looked exactly like her father, brown hair, blue eyes, just like him. That seemed like a happy father photo with his daughter, but Leslie was quick to notice that there were not any other photos.

As the two scouts, William Walsh and his wife, Marian Walsh (Maria’s grandmother), and their political hopeful Tom Walsh all reunited for another meeting, the Walshes could tell on the looks of the scouts’ faces that something was not quite right.

“What?” William practically growled at them, he had been delighted by the prospect of Tom’s political career. That’s what he had always wanted for his son.

“Who is Maria Walsh born April 2, 1983?” Leslie asked the room and William groaned loudly.

“My daughter.” Tom said casually.

“We didn’t even know you had a daughter… where is she?” Michael the other scout asked.

“Oh, she lives with her mother.” Tom shrugged like it was nothing and the two scouts exchanged a look.

“But you claim her as a dependent on your taxes and claim that she lives with you.”

“That’s a mistake, an accounting error or something, I’ve never claimed that personally.”

“Oh, okay, so you had a child with someone years ago, almost 18 years ago, and you support her financially and everything is good between you and your daughter?” Leslie asked.

“Yes.” William answered like this was nothing story.

Tom made a face and both Michael and Leslie observed the reaction.

“Uhm.” Tom paused as he didn’t know a way to explain that didn’t look bad.

“It’s really not that big of a deal that you have an out of wedlock child, it’s not the 1950s, but it is a big deal though, if you are not supporting your child. The headline will run nonstop, congressman Walsh is a deadbeat dad. That is not acceptable— at least not for democrats, maybe in the republican party.” Leslie scoffed a bit to herself.

“I can’t support her, I don’t know where she is.” Tom shrugged.

Leslie and Michael were quiet again. This was a man of great means, financial means, he lived in a beautiful house, and so did his parents, he went to Princeton and Yale, and this story felt fishy to the scouts and they dug up dirt on people all the time, that was part of the job. This was not even the first time they found someone with a ‘secret’ kid.

“Why don’t you know where your daughter is?” Michael asked and William was offended by the tone this question implied.

“It’s not his fault. He’s respecting the wishes of her mother.”

“Oh.” Leslie said. “You have an issue with her mother?”

“No. Her mother has issues.” William corrected.

“She struggles with her mental health.” Tom tried to say in a political correct way.

“But you let your daughter go live with someone who you have serious concerns for her wellbeing?” Leslie asked as this was all so strange, as a mother herself she felt like something was not right here.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Tom shrugged.

“What’s the mother’s name?” Michael asked.

“Elizabeth Hill.” Tom answered.

“And you have no idea where she is or where your daughter is?” Leslie asked because this was blowing her mind Tom just shook his head no.

“Did you ever try to find them.”

“He is respecting her wants and needs, if he didn’t then these feminazi’s would come after him for stalking her or something.” William answered. “What’s he supposed to do, huh?”

Leslie bit her bottom lip, although these were democratic party members, major players and donors, they were still from a different era than where the party was heading in 2000.

“When’s the last time you saw or heard from your daughter?” Michael asked Tom.

“When she was eight… so…”

“Ten years ago!?” Leslie gasped. “How do you even know she’s alive!”

“She’s alive.” William answered. “It’s better if they’re not here, out of sight, they don’t really belong in this world.” William tried to dismiss them.

“What.. what the hell does that mean?” Leslie asked and she looked right at the only other woman in the room, Marian, who had been very quiet this whole time.

“They’re from a different class.” William snapped.

“You know you’re a registered democrat, the party of the working class…” Leslie huffed back at him.

“Is Maria not Tom’s biological daughter?” Michael asked in confusion from this classist statement.

“It’s a diverse party, lady.”

“She’s my biological daughter.” Tom asserted.

“I don’t know if you should brazenly make that statement without dan proof.” William attempted to correct his son.

“If she’s his biological child, why would she not ‘belong’ here or not be part of your ‘class?’” Michael asked William.

“She’s not his legitimate child.” William spelled out slowly for the younger talent scouts and Marian sighed, Tom bit his bottom lip because that sounded really, really bad. Maybe you could say that in the 80s and 90s, but it was millennium now, you couldn’t degradingly call kids ‘illegitimate’ now.

“I know you’re from a different era, Mr. Walsh, but, if you want your son to run for federal office, in a national campaign, against a ruthless republican political machine, there is no way in hell that he can have a disregarded, dismissed, unsupported, child and especially not one that he has been claiming on his taxes as a dependent for ten years.” Leslie said in a frustrated voice, she was ready to dump this potential candidate especially with the way his father was acting.

“Lady, do you even know who I am? Who the hell are you?” William asked.

“I just got the last three democrats elected to the US House and one democratic senator…” Leslie huffed back at him and Michael just shook his head. This was all very sad, Tom as a political talent just waiting for his chance and he was getting sidelined by his father’s old school, classist, sexist, improper views.

“You cannot run a federal political campaign without reconciling this.” Michael said looking right at Tom.

“If it’s reconcilable at all…” Leslie mumbled.

“You’re daughter is going to be 18 in a few weeks, she’s going to graduate high school, assuming she goes to school at all, and that’s fair game for the press to find her and talk to her because she’s considered in an adult. They are going to dig around every aspect of your life looking for things about you, looking for dirt, going after your family. So you need to tell us what happened between you and Elizabeth and what made her take your daughter away from for you ten years with no contact or information about where they are. This looks horrible, it is horrible.” Michael explained in a calm tone. People really did not realize what these big federal campaigns did to families, especially with the rise of news media in the recent years. After the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal all politicians or potential politicians were fair game to be scrutinized, there was no such thing as privacy anymore once you opened the door.

“Look, a long time ago, a met a woman through a friend, she was beautiful, funny, smart, athletic, she had traveled the world in the military, she was great, we dated, we were engaged…”

“You were engaged to her?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, that’s better.”

“We had a surprise… uh.. a unplanned .. I don’t know what the politically correct term is but Liz got pregnant and she had some serious complications with the pregnancy and we had to call of the wedding and just make sure she got through that and then after Maria was born it was just a lot, and busy, and hard, we didn’t get along and she had some …mental health… lingering issues maybe from her time in the military, she would go crazy at me, she would accuse me of all kinds of things, schools got involved, the police came once, and everything was fine, she had to go through a medical evaluation and they said she had severe PTSD, she accused me of trying to take her daughter away and have her committed and then she took Maria and left without a trace, I didn’t want it to escalate, she was also good with Maria, I wasn’t worried.” Tom explained in a story that seemed rather rehearsed Leslie thought as if he had prepared his whole life to explain where his daughter went.

“And you weren’t upset about this…?” Leslie asked

“He was very upset.” Marian finally said something.

“And not one of you has every heard from them, her school didn’t ask about her?” Michael was surprised little wealthy girls usually didn’t just disappear without anyone noticing.

“They did, and we told them she moved and relocated with her mother to another school district.” Tom answered.

“We’re going to have to figure this all out.” Leslie sighed.

“Some child that he has nothing to do with is not going to ruin his political career.” William growled at Leslie, he was so done with this woman.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Walsh, your son having a child that you encourage him to intentionally have nothing to do with because she’s not in the same ‘class’ as you while he’s claiming her as a dependent on his taxes and not supporting her financially, won’t be the end of his political career, he won’t have one to start…” Leslie warned forcefully and she stood up and Michael stood up with her.

“It’s not going to be a problem.” William angrily said back to her. “You women, you’re ruining the party, just look what they did to Clinton.”

“I think we are going to put a pin in your potential for federal office right now, Tom.” Michael said to Tom and Tom sighed.

As Leslie and Michael walked back to their car by the concerning conversation that they just had with one of the wealthiest families in Illinois, they both felt pretty gross.

“Do you think…” Leslie started to ask Michael quietly and then she stopped and Michael just looked at her with his brow raised.

“Why am I getting this horror movie vibe that his daughter and her mother might not be alive?” Leslie asked Michael and Michael nodded.

“I don’t know if it went that far, but right now I can certainly say there’s a non-zero percent chance that they aren’t dead.” Michael said with a minor half aghast laugh under his breath.

“Why is it that these smart, charismatic, handsome political stars who can give a great speech and move people always have big dark awful secret that destroy their careers? Why can’t men just be normal.” Leslie mumbled. “I mean, clearly something happened, a woman doesn’t take her daughter away from a life of means without a reason.” Leslie added and Michael face because Leslie was correct. “If she did at all.” Leslie whispered.

“These rich men are shameless and unaccountable, yet they are the only ones who can afford these campaigns so, we get stuck.”

“He really thought that we wouldn’t find out or no one would care about this.”
“It’s a post Lewinsky scandal political world, and some folks are not ready for it.” Michael said as he started to drive away.

Moscow, Russia

Natasha pulled on some latex gloves with the passed out business man on the floor of his hotel penthouse. Her blouse was untucked and her hair a bit of a mess. She pulled a syringe from her bag and injected a substance between his toes. He groaned a bit, and his body contorted briefly, he shook and gagged a bit and then laid flat and lifeless on the floor. She forced him to overdose.

She opened his brief case and started taking documents to give back to Dreykov. Natasha then started removing anything she had touched. On her way into the room she grabbed a house keeping uniform and stole a universal keycard in order to escape without detection. She went to change her clothes and she pulled her skirt up she noticed some bruises on her inner thigh and she had some on her upper arms as well. Before she could change, she heard a keycard swipe at the door and she paused as she wasn’t expecting someone and there was no knock like housekeeping would do. Natasha grabbed her gun and then slid along side the bathroom wall where she was changing. She could hear the men laughing as they came into the penthouse, they hadn’t found their friend yet. They called to him, asking him ‘where his pretty one is?’ and Natasha made a face. So much for quick, clean, and no loose ends, she thought to herself.

She debated sneaking out the door before they found him, but she just couldn’t be sure if this was a test. Dreykov loved to test her or at least she thought he did. She had to get rid of them all, but she didn’t know how she was going to ‘keep it clean’ that was code for no blood. She was going to have to keep her little act up until she could get rid of these two men. She hid her gun and she made a noise in the bathroom so they would know she was there.

One of the men started to yell, but the other heard that someone was using the bathroom he could hear the shower on.

“She’s in the shower…”

“I think he overdosed! I’ll call for help.”

“Wait… we have to…” he nudged his head toward the bathroom, they definitely had to get rid of the girl before anyone arrived, given the age they presumed she was. He pulled his gun out of his side holster.

“A gun? It’s a little girl.” The other man scoffed.

“I”m just going to keep her quiet.” He laughed as he went over to the bathroom. He could hear the shower running as he got closer and closer. He slowly and quietly opened the door with one hand, his gun in the other as he stepped inside as silently as possible. Then he pulled the shower curtain open and went to grab the girl inside but it was empty he paused from the shock of it but he could barely process sit as Natasha jumped on him from behind and injected him with a syringe right in the neck, he struggled for a moment and then fell to the ground.

The other man heard the struggle.

“What the hell? Not a little girl then!” He yelled over and getting no response. “What the fuck.” He mumbled as he grabbed his gun as well and headed toward the bathroom, he could see his friend on the floor, lifeless just like the man he came to see, he pointed his gun around the bathroom looking for what happened, the shower was still on and no one was there. Here was no one in the bathroom with him.

“Hello?” He growled. “Come out wherever you are!” He yelled knowing someone was there but he couldn’t find anyone.
“If you ever want to see the light of day again, you better…” he stepped out into the living space as he started to threaten the attacker but he was tackled from behind, Natasha wrestling the gun out of his hand and then she grabbed his gun and pushed it up under his chin as she pinned him to the ground.

“What the hell is this!” He yelled afraid to move, shaking as he felt the force of the gun pressed against under his jaw. He was looking at a young girl, it was shocking. “Girl! What are you doing! Get off me!”

Natasha’s eyes looked evil as she squinted over him like she was calculating on what to do with him.

“I have a family! I have daughters! I’m a father!” He started to plead as he could tell she was about to kill him.

“And what do you let your friends do to them?” She asked in a monotone unimpressed voice.

“Nothing! Ever! Nothing!” He pleaded passionately.

“No, you just like other people’s daughters?” Natasha tilted her head and gave a bit of sly smirk.

“I wasn’t going to do anything!”

“You said, ‘let’s see your pretty one’ when you came in…” Natasha reminded and he shook his head no.

“I didn’t he said that!”

“You think I can’t tell the difference between his voice and yours?”

He was quiet as he was the one who said that he was coming back expecting a nice time with a young girl, like his friend.

“Where’s the key to the safe?” Natashas asked sternly.

“I don’t .. I don’t have it…”

“Then I don’t have a use for you.” She moved like she was about to shoot.

“It’s in my brief case, in my case!!”

“If I check and you’re lying…” Natasha scowled at him.

“I’m not lying, it’s in there. I promise. Please don’t kill me, please. I won’t tell anyone about you.” He pleaded.

“I know.” Natasha shrugged as she used her other hand to inject him with the overdosing agent. His eyes raised as she pricked him quickly and he started to choke and gag, his pupils widened and then shrunk as the life left him and Natasha just watched and waited for it to be over. She pulled herself off his limp body and found his brief case, opening the safe with the from his brief case. She found a secret satellite phone, money, gold, more documents. Natasha took it all. She loaded up her fake school bag and then walked right out the door. She had a lot of conflicted emotions and feelings about the situation. She was surprised at how easy it was for her to kill these men, but she wasn’t sad about it. She thought they deserved it, she knew they deserved it.

When Natasha returned to Dreykov, he couldn’t have been happier with everything she brought back to him.

“My wonderful girl.” He smiled as he looked over all of the documents, and Dreykov put the watch that Natasha had taken from the safe right on his wrist like a trophy.

“Any problems?” He asked looking up over the edge of his glasses rim at her.

“There was more than one.”

“Well, that’s not really a problem for you, is it?” He glared at her and she shook her head that it wasn’t. He smiled at her reaction, so well trained that was how he liked them. Natasha was a star, she could change the world, and Dreykov already knew that.