The men stood around them with their weapons but didn't speak.
'I could kill you out here and leave your bodies for the carrion feeders.'
One of the women looked up. 'Please, I have a child. She needs me.'
'You disgrace your child,' Taburova said. 'You disgrace God. And you think only of yourself.'
The woman wept openly.
Taburova stepped forward and kicked the woman in the side. She screamed and tried to get away. He kicked her again.
'Be still,' Taburova ordered. 'And stop crying or I will kill you, instead of offering you a chance to avenge your husband and yourself, and to make your daughter proud of you.'
The rest of the women watched him fearfully. They knew what he was talking about, and they knew that — in the end — they had no choice.
'I'm going to offer all of you that chance.' Taburova stared at them while the woman he'd kicked shuddered on the ground. 'Like God, I don't have to be merciful. You have lost your husbands fighting the Russians. Your sons. Your fathers.'
Tears tracked down the faces of all the women.
'Those brave men gave their lifeblood fighting for your freedom,' Taburova went on. 'You can do no less. Your country needs you.'
'My daughter,' the woman on the ground wailed.
Anger spiked within Taburova as he turned to look down at her. 'Your daughter is an orphan.' He pointed the AK-47 at her head and pulled the trigger.
The bullet exploded through the woman's head and the detonation caused the others to jump. Her blood was the only thing that moved on the ground.
'Death became your fate when your husbands, brothers, sons and fathers died,' Taburova told the rest of them. 'All of you have sinned. You know you have sinned. It stains your hearts, and it brought the bad luck that has left you here.'
His words left them shaken. What he told them was nothing new. They had grown up steeped in such beliefs. And Taburova knew that no one who had ever dealt with misfortune felt they were without sin. Every person, eventually, blamed themselves for where they were in life.
These women lived hard lives even before they'd been left without guardians.
'I will give you the opportunity to redeem yourselves,' Taburova said. 'And to strike back at the Russians.'
He paced in front of them, searching the dirty faces for the one who could be the leader he needed among these women. They couldn't all be sheep. God willing, there was a lioness among them.
'Don't you want to make the Russians pay in blood for all that they have taken from you?' Taburova demanded. 'They have stripped you of everything. You have no one to speak for you. Stained by sin as you are, you have no chance to get into heaven. I will take you there.'
A young woman stepped forward, but she ducked her head fearfully as she faced Taburova. 'I will go. I will bring death to the Russians.'
Taburova walked toward her. Her resolve lessened as he got closer. She stood on shaking legs with her chin trembling and tears streaming through the dirt on her face.
'Who are you?' he asked in a soft, nonthreatening voice.
'I am Roza.'
'That is a fine name.'
She bowed her head. Upon closer inspection, Taburova doubted she was sixteen years old. In some ways, she was still a child. Dirt streaked the dark tangles of hair that hung below her headscarf. Sadness and defiance gleamed in her dark eyes. She was thin, but she had a figure.
'My mother's name was Roza,' Taburova lied. 'She was a fine, brave woman.'
Roza nodded.
'Why do you wish to kill the Russians, Roza?'
'My husband was a soldier. He died fighting the Russians in March.'
'You loved him?' Taburova was only mildly curious. Some families sold their girls as early as they could to rid themselves of daughters.
'I did.' Pride hardened Roza's eyes. 'He was a very fine man. A good man to me.'
'Did he have no family for you to take shelter with?'
'No. His father and brother died in the same battle. Only his mother and I were left.'
'She would not take you in?'
Roza pointed her chin at the dead woman. 'She is there. She had no place to go, either.'
Taburova stared at the young girl and knew the eyes of all the other women were on them. 'Were you a good wife to your husband?'
'Yes.'
'And you say you loved him.'
'I will always love him.'
'Then I will give you a way to honor his memory and once more be with him. Do you want that?'
Roza answered without hesitation. 'Yes.'
'Then come.' Taburova turned to look at the other women. 'If you want vengeance for everything that has been taken from you, if you want to strike back at our enemies, come with me.'
None of them said anything, but they were all aware of the dead woman at their feet.
Taburova turned and headed down the hill to where Bislan waited. Roza stepped in behind him. He glanced at his men. 'Shoot any of these women too cowardly to follow Roza.'
'Yes, sir.' The soldiers readied their weapons.
Taburova stole a glance to the side where he spotted the squat shadows left by the noonday sun. A row of shadows followed him out of the mountains.
23
'It appears I've made a mistake,' Samantha said softly. She wore an earwig that connected her to Kate Cochran in New York through a heavily encrypted line.
'CardinalSin might not have been the best choice,' Kate agreed. She was also logged on to the website, but Samantha didn't know what name she was using.
'Given the arena in which I'm to play,' Samantha said, 'I thought the name fitting.'
Almost as soon as Samantha logged in to the chat room, a dozen invitations to go to a private area had popped up on the screen. She didn't know how she was supposed to tell which one was Ajza Manaev.
More invitations hammered the screen with text blocks.
The digital clock at the bottom of the monitor clicked over to ten o'clock.
Samantha scanned the names. All of them were offensive and suggestive. None looked like it belonged to Ajza Manaev.
C'mon, Samantha thought angrily. She couldn't believe she'd made the situation harder than it had to be. Some of the people who'd extended invitations became irritated and lashed out at her for ignoring them.
'Do you see her?' Samantha asked.
'No,' Kate replied.
'Did anyone log on at ten?'
' Seventeen new names at ten. More are jumping in now.'
'This is ridiculous,' Samantha lamented.
'She's counting on the volume of users working for her,' Kate said.
'Currently they're working against her. I'm not going to be able to tell when she tries to contact me because of all the other invitations.'
'Then you're going to have to contact her,' Kate said.
