Chapter 620

"Honestly, your deductive work at the scene today was terrible."

Back aboard the aircraft, Coulson had brought everyone into the mobile laboratory so the science team could analyze the strange device recovered from the ambush. They needed to determine what it was and, hopefully, find a lead to whoever had orchestrated the attack.

Melinda May, having nothing else to do for the moment, had apparently decided to make Evenson’s life worse.

"Go ahead and laugh while you can," Evenson said, his face grim. "You might not get another opportunity."

He had already decided that once he got back, he was going to find Sherlock Holmes and figure out exactly how a proper detective was supposed to use deductive reasoning.

May wasn’t finished.

"I do feel sorry for Mack, though," she said dryly. "Ten years of doing his job without complaint, and then you accuse him of being a traitor out of nowhere. He practically had to threaten to quit before anyone would let him transfer."

She shook her head.

"Looks like his glorious career as a professional driver ended with you."

SHIELD really is impossible.

That was more or less how Mack felt about the whole thing.

He’d worked hard. He’d kept his head down. He’d driven carefully. He’d spent years doing a thankless job for the organization, and then one lunatic had casually accused him of selling them out.

Nobody had defended him, either. They’d just tried to smooth things over.

Fine.

If that was how things worked, he was done.

He’d heard that Agent Sitwell was recruiting for a special unit.

Maybe it was time to find somewhere else to work.

Ended the life of a professional driver?

Evenson consoled himself with the thought.

Someone, somewhere, will thank me for this.

At least civilization might.

As it turned out, Coulson was absolutely right about one thing: he was far better at investigating the case than Evenson was.

The science team hadn’t even finished analyzing the strange device when Coulson found a useful lead.

The tire tracks left by the excavator at the scene gave them enough information to identify its model. It was a type manufactured in 2010.

An excavator was large, slow, and notoriously difficult to transport without attracting attention. That meant the machine probably hadn’t been brought in after the attack began. It had almost certainly been positioned ahead of time.

Coulson’s team searched for everyone within a five-hundred-mile radius who had purchased that particular model.

Then they narrowed the list further.

People with criminal records.

People in financial trouble.

People with a tendency toward risky behavior.

In the end, only three names remained.

Three suspects were much easier to investigate than hundreds.

Coulson took Ward and went to question them.

Meanwhile, Skye wandered over to Evenson.

"Hey, liar."

She nudged his arm with her elbow.

"Why do you still call me that?" Evenson complained. "I only cheated you out of a hundred dollars. I’ll pay you back."

"Really?"

Skye immediately brightened.

Her eyebrows shot up.

Evenson pretended to pat himself down.

"Actually, I rushed out this morning and didn’t bring any cash. We’ll settle it later."

He paused.

"And I never use online banking, so I can’t transfer it."

Skye slowly rolled her eyes.

"Of course."

This time, though, she hadn’t come to collect her money.

"You know what Ward told me today?"

She crossed her arms.

"He said SHIELD doesn’t actually have a truth serum."

Her expression collapsed into an aggravated pout.

That mattered to her more than she’d expected.

Evenson had been the one who convinced her that SHIELD wasn’t simply a secretive government conspiracy and that its work was, in many cases, necessary.

But what had truly made her trust the organization was the incident with Ward and the supposed truth serum.

She’d watched Coulson inject him, watched Ward start spilling what seemed like completely unguarded thoughts, and somehow that had convinced her that SHIELD was an organization worth joining.

Only this morning had she discovered the truth.

She hadn’t realized that Ward hadn’t actually revealed anything important at all.

She’d basically been tricked aboard the SHIELD train without even noticing.

"So there really isn’t a truth serum?" Skye asked.

"No."

Evenson shook his head.

"There is."

Skye blinked.

"But the injection Ward got wasn’t one, was it?"

Evenson grinned and raised both hands, bending his fingers into little V-shapes.

"Nope."

He looked delighted.

"Surprised?"

"Not even slightly."

Skye stared at him with dead eyes.

"I joined SHIELD because I believed that was real. And now I find out the whole thing was a setup."

She folded her arms tighter.

"If I’d known that beforehand, I would’ve jumped out of the aircraft without a parachute rather than join this place."

Evenson sniffed.

Something about Skye’s current predicament smelled suspiciously like the classic I hate it here... except I don’t actually hate it here routine.

"You have to admit, though, this team isn’t exactly terrible," he said. "From where I’m standing, you’re enjoying yourself."

"Yeah..."

Skye’s defiance lasted approximately two seconds.

"Yeah."

She lowered her head.

"And the deception was partly for your own protection," Evenson added.

He casually brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

"Think about what would have happened if they’d actually given Ward the truth serum. You would’ve learned a bunch of classified information, then decided you didn’t want to join SHIELD."

He gave her a pointed look.

"What do you think would have happened then?"

Skye didn’t answer.

"You would’ve spent the rest of your life in the Sandbox."

Evenson smiled.

"You’ve seen it already, haven’t you?"

Skye shuddered.

The Sandbox was SHIELD’s specialized prison, and after visiting it, she had come to one conclusion.

Unless SHIELD collapsed or someone launched an actual prison break, she wasn’t getting out of there.

"A few days ago," she admitted. "Coulson took me there."

Evenson nodded.

Knew it.

He knew Coulson reasonably well by now.

The man looked serious most of the time, but underneath that professional exterior was a shameless show-off.

He liked displaying his toys.

His red convertible was one example. The giant SHIELD eagle painted across the back of this aircraft was another.

And apparently, giving new recruits guided tours of the organization’s secret prison was another.

Still, Evenson had to admit that Coulson was good at his job.

The man hadn’t been gone long before he returned with Ward.

And the first thing they did upon entering the laboratory was dump eight rough gold bars onto the table.

Evenson stared at them.

"What the hell did you two do? Investigate a crime or rob a bank?"

The gold, as it turned out, was stolen property.

Coulson and Ward had found the man who sold the excavator.

Unfortunately, the trail had nearly ended there.

The seller knew practically nothing about the buyer.

And the payment hadn’t come through a bank transfer, a check, or even cash.

It had been eight crudely processed gold bars with no serial numbers.

"Paying in gold."

Evenson scratched his chin.

"That’s certainly one way to make an impression."

What he had really been thinking was that the buyer must have been loaded.

"Feels a little like the Old West, doesn’t it?" Ward said.

After all, they were in Colorado.

Evenson shook his head.

"No."

He looked at the gold bars.

"Not really. If this were the Old West, you wouldn’t get eight gold bars."

He smiled.

"You’d get one bullet."

The romantic image of the Old West portrayed cowboys as rough but honorable adventurers.

Evenson knew better.

A lot of them had been ruthless outlaws willing to kill for money.

"In any case," Simmons said from the other side of the laboratory, "these aren’t technically pure gold."

She had finished analyzing the bars.

"They’re an alloy. The gold content is only ninety-two percent."

She looked up.

"Looks like someone tricked the cowboy."

"Really?"

Evenson examined the bars.

Judging by their size and weight, even at ninety-two percent purity, they were probably worth more than a secondhand excavator.

Still, he had to admit the seller had suffered a rather unfortunate deal.

He’d sold the machine, received what he thought was valuable gold, and then had SHIELD confiscate the payment.

Evenson could only hope the experience didn’t push him into becoming a supervillain.

Simmons, meanwhile, was already moving on.

"I’ve finished analyzing the mineral composition."

She hurried to the computer.

"I can use these characteristics to determine which mine the material originally came from."

Evenson stared at her.

You people are insane.

They could have simply paid normally.

Even if the buyer didn’t want to reveal a bank account, there were plenty of ways to avoid creating a trail.

Cash.

Cash was right there.

But no.

Apparently, someone had decided that paying for heavy machinery with unmarked gold bars was a much better idea.

And now they’d handed SHIELD an enormous lead.

"You couldn’t just conduct a normal transaction?" Evenson muttered.

"Who pays for an excavator with gold?"

Nobody answered.

Simmons was already searching through mining records.

Evenson sighed.

The investigation had barely begun, and the idiots responsible had practically delivered a map to their doorstep.

...