If this mysterious organization really was S.H.I.E.L.D., then this was a deal with zero overhead.
After Locke agreed, he tapped the table. [Give me a copy of the files you have on these two—the Roman Brotherhood and this mysterious organization.]
Red said on the other end, [They are already prepared. Dembe will give them to you.]
Locke hung up and looked at Dembe.
Serious, stoic, Dembe pulled two files from his coat and handed them to Locke. "Be careful, Mr. Peerless."
Locke smiled and took the materials. "If I wanted to be careful, I wouldn't have chosen to be an assassin."
With that, Locke nodded to Dembe, grabbed the two files, stood up, and headed toward the elevators.
Although Locke had not had any dealings with the Snake Shield Bureau in this life yet...
Even if they came, Locke was not afraid.
Because Locke understood S.H.I.E.L.D. better than Nick Fury did.
...
Leaving the hotel, Locke scanned both sides of the street and then began walking in one direction.
Thirty seconds later.
Two burly men, heads lowered, also stepped out of the hotel. They spotted Locke not far ahead and began to follow.
Walking in front, Locke raised an eyebrow, turned right, and entered an alleyway.
Ten seconds later.
The two men also turned into the alley.
But...
The messy, filthy alley was empty.
"Where is he?"
"Where did he go?"
After watching the two men walk past his position, Locke jumped down from the wall. "Hi. Looking for me?"
The two turned around.
*Puff!*
*Puff!*
The two fell to the ground instantly.
Locke put away the Silver Dancer, walked up to the two men who had gone straight to the pavement, searched them, and pulled IDs from their coats.
Then...
He threw them away.
Fakes! Useless.
Locke stood up, glanced at the two corpses on the ground, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
So impatient?
These two were either assassins or government agents.
Locke leaned toward the first option.
Government agents might carry fake IDs, but for them, a "fake" ID was essentially real—at least the kind that could be verified within a system. Only assassins carried truly authentic fake IDs.
Back home, while showering, Locke thought about the two men in the alley. To be certain, however, he would have to wait for tomorrow's news.
If there was news, they were official. If there was no news, they were assassins.
Perhaps freelance killers, perhaps from an organization, likely following him in hopes of stepping over his corpse to move up.
In this day and age, as social trends became increasingly impetuous, a large wave of people had rushed into the assassin world to get a piece of the pie. Little did they know that most who entered were mere cannon fodder. How many assassins actually managed to make a name for themselves?
The number of killers in New York City was roughly between several thousand and over ten thousand, but all told, those with a recognizable name numbered no more than a dozen.
Stepping on others to rise—this tradition existed in the assassin circles as well.
Just like Locke. Hadn't Locke successfully risen by stepping over the remains of the New York Fraternity?
...
In the study.
Locke first opened the files on Victoria and the mysterious organization Red had mentioned.
The first thing to greet his eyes was a photo of a great beauty.
Victoria Knox.
"Good grief," Locke muttered, looking at the beautiful shot, raising an eyebrow. "How did Red manage to shove a camera in front of Victoria's face to take this?"
In terms of mystery, Locke was far inferior to Victoria. Locke's rise followed a traceable path: starting in Texas, then moving to New York to wipe out the Fraternity.
But Victoria Knox—no one knew what she did originally. Even in the files provided by Red, the top intelligence man, her background was marked as "Unknown."
By the time people noticed Victoria, she was already an arms smuggler with significant influence.
Rumors claimed Victoria Knox was previously an assassin. After all, besides being an arms dealer, she also took on various assassination contracts. If one didn't come from an assassin background, this industry wasn't that easy to break into.
Others said Victoria Knox was a "straight hook" cast by the authorities to fish for criminals.
But after several of Victoria's battles, that theory vanished.
That left one last possibility: Victoria was once an assassin for some government organization who defected to start her own business. The skills Victoria displayed all seemed to corroborate this theory.
Mhm. Her experience seemed quite similar to Red's.
Half a month ago, Victoria Knox had found a few arms dealers in Chechnya who were competing for her market share. She ran into trouble while preparing to execute them.
A mysterious female, approximately sixteen years old, disguised herself as a hostage. Taking advantage of Victoria's lowered guard, she took Victoria down directly.
Then, before Victoria's subordinates could arrive, an aircraft from that organization roared past. The mysterious girl brought Victoria directly onto the plane, though she herself accidentally fell into the river, and her remains had yet to be found.
Good grief.
Sixteen years old.
A young girl?
Mysterious organization?
Naked Weapon?
Locke's first thought wasn't of the Snake Shield Bureau, but of an organization that liked to use young girls as killing tools, known as the "Naked Weapon" organization.
But the next second, Locke shook his head.
The Naked Weapon organization had already been dismantled; supposedly, they met their Waterloo in Hong Kong.
But... did the Snake Shield Bureau have this kind of business?
Weren't there only a few "kittens" in S.H.I.E.L.D.?
After finishing the scattered data Red had collected over the past few days, Locke still couldn't definitively confirm if the organization was the Snake Shield Bureau.
After all, although Locke had seen Marvel, he watched the superheroes. A "pull-crotch" organization like the Snake Shield was better left ignored—it was supposed to be a global organization formed by the five major powers.
And the result?
The mere fact that Hydra had been lurking inside for so many years without S.H.I.E.L.D. knowing—until Hydra exposed itself—was enough to prove how incompetent the organization was.
Moreover, comparing the combat power of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, Hydra's combat power could outstrip S.H.I.E.L.D. by five city blocks.
If Hydra weren't the "destined villains," S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't just fail to survive—it wouldn't even have a chance to struggle.
To put it bluntly, if Hydra staged an uprising now, they would have a chance to conquer the world.
But unfortunately...
Hydra was also laying low, thinking they should wait a bit longer. Little did they know that in another four years, Hydra's chance would be completely GG.
***
Read 30 Chapters early on P-atreon.com/Redestro666