For instance...
S.H.I.E.L.D.!
"What?"
Nick Fury had just finished a meeting with the European branch and was preparing for some sleep when he stepped out of the conference room and was met head-on with news that left him utterly shocked.
The life signs of Agent 83—Megan Walsh, the recruit he had high hopes for—had vanished over an hour ago. The implications were self-evident.
Nick Fury's voice sank. "Why wasn't I told immediately?"
The agent replied, "Director, you gave orders that during the meeting..."
Because the meeting was high-level and required a strict degree of confidentiality, Nick Fury had explicitly stated before entering that he was not to be disturbed unless it was an absolute emergency.
Nick Fury cut him off. "What about the surveillance team tailing Number 83?"
He had assigned a team to follow Megan Walsh specifically to prevent a situation like this.
"We're still looking for them."
"What did you say?"
"The signal for Surveillance Team Five has also disappeared. The commander is currently utilizing S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites for emergency positioning."
"..."
Nick Fury took a deep breath.
Megan Walsh's life signs were gone.
The surveillance team was missing.
"The Peerless Assassin!"
Nick Fury recalled what Megan had said in the van. He snapped back to reality. "Deploy all agents. Order Senior Specialist Natasha Romanoff to New York immediately. Have the tech department find the surveillance team's trail as fast as possible!"
"Yes, sir!"
The agent took the order, glanced at Fury's face—which was now terrifyingly dark—and turned to leave immediately to avoid being the target of the Director's wrath. He was just an ordinary agent; there was no need to endure the big boss's fury.
...
Command Center.
*Ding!*
The silver double doors slid open, and Nick Fury, clad in his signature trench coat, strode inside. This command center operated like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange or a NASA mission control hall, filled with agents busy and tense.
God knows what they were all so busy with—after all, the Continental Hotel was only three blocks away.
"Commander."
"Director."
Victoria Hand, the current Commander of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York Operations Center, turned her head to look at Fury and gave a polite nod.
In terms of rank, the Commander of the New York Center was theoretically only half a level below the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters. Furthermore, her position, much like the Director's, required a joint vote from the five members of the World Security Council for appointment. Consequently, a nod was enough of a greeting; there was no need for the subservient behavior of a lower-level officer.
Fury didn't mind. He stood with hands on his hips, looking at the large screen where lines of code flickered and jumped. "Status?"
"The moment we received the notification of Agent 83's vitals flatlining, we initiated tracking on the surveillance team," Commander Hand said, shaking her head. "But it appears the team's signals were jammed."
Just then.
"Commander!"
An IT specialist agent's eyes lit up as she spotted something. She stood up from her station and shouted toward Hand, "The signal for the Surveillance Team Five vehicle just pinged!"
*Whoosh.*
Hand turned toward her. "Where?"
The agent fed the signal—which had appeared briefly before vanishing again—onto the main screen. "Signal pinged... just outside Manhattan Harbor. In the Hudson River."
As she spoke, the signal for Team Five's vehicle reappeared.
This time, it stayed steady.
Position...
Deep within the Hudson River.
Clearly, HYDRA had kept their promise. After scrubbing their own traces, they had followed the agreement and "released" the surveillance vehicle that could have otherwise vanished without a trace.
However, Sunil Bakshi couldn't quite understand the logic behind doing this.
...
Manhattan Harbor.
*Splash!*
A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in a wetsuit broke the surface of the water, taking a radio handed over by an agent on a rubber dinghy. "Sir, the surveillance vehicle is confirmed submerged."
Standing on the shore, Nick Fury closed his single eye. "Peerless Assassin."
This was basically the Peerless Assassin's calling card.
Megan Walsh had found a lead on him, but had been outmatched and killed. Then, the surveillance team had arrived only to be slaughtered as well. The killer had then destroyed the evidence by driving the car into the Manhattan river.
As for why the vehicle's signal was appearing now? Likely, the signal jammer submerged with the car had been washed away by the current, allowing the positioning signal to come back online.
Fury was furious, but also confused.
To this day, they had no information on the Peerless Assassin's age or origin. Megan had been at school all day; how was she so certain she could find him tonight?
"Locke Broughton?"
A spark of realization hit Fury. He directly patched into Commander Victoria Hand. "Pull all surveillance footage from Midtown High involving Agent 83 today."
With that, Fury turned and left.
By the time he returned to the New York Operations Center, the footage was ready, and the critical moments had been filtered out.
On the screen:
Locke walked out of the classroom holding a prepaid burner phone and headed straight for the stairwell.
Then, Megan Walsh walked out of the classroom, followed him to the stairwell, and hovered nearby as if listening to something.
Clearly, Megan was eavesdropping on Locke's phone call.
"As I thought," Fury said solemnly. "This Locke Broughton definitely has some connection to the Peerless Assassin."
Otherwise, Megan wouldn't have had that look of joyful surprise on her face while hovering there, and she wouldn't have claimed she was confident she'd catch him tonight.
Ten minutes later—around 5:30 AM, just as the first light was touching the horizon—the agents analyzing the retrieved chip from Team Five's vehicle successfully reconstructed its travel path.
"Put it up."
"Yes, sir."
On the large screen, the route of the Team Five van appeared.
Without a doubt, the van's final destination was the Star Tower.
Nick Fury's eye narrowed.
Solid proof!
Half an hour later.
Having received Fury's message and spent two hours on a Quinjet to reach New York, Agent Natasha Romanoff was already leading a team. They pushed past the Star Tower security and entered the building.
Moments later.
The door to Locke's apartment on the 28th floor was violently breached.
A group of fully armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents swarmed inside.
***
No goals met but I'll drop a bonus anyways
***
Read 30 Chapters early on P-atreon.com/Redestro666