Chapter 622

In the end, none of Coulson’s infiltration plans were particularly convincing.

Ward suggested landing him near the edge of the island and giving him a week to blend in, learn the layout, and work his way inside.

Coulson shot that down immediately.

"A week? We don’t have a week."

The stolen cargo wasn’t gold, weapons, or some other piece of hardware they could afford to wait for.

It was Dr. Hall.

A living person.

And Hall wasn’t just any scientist. He taught at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy and had been named one of its top lecturers for years. He’d published numerous papers, including groundbreaking work on the very antigravity technology Quinn had apparently acquired.

That was what worried Coulson.

Ian Quinn already had the device. Now he’d kidnapped one of the foremost experts in the field.

There was a very real possibility that Quinn intended to force Hall to cooperate through threats, bribes, or something considerably uglier.

Waiting a week could mean arriving to find Hall barely alive.

And even if Hall managed to resist until the end, that created another nightmare. If he died, S.H.I.E.L.D. would lose a brilliant scientist. Tragic, certainly, but at least contained.

If he broke under torture and gave Quinn everything he knew, however, the consequences could be far worse.

A single scientist’s knowledge getting into the wrong hands could trigger a catastrophe.

So they couldn’t wait.

Unfortunately, they also couldn’t get past Quinn’s laser security grid.

Fitz had even suggested sending a monkey through the defenses.

The little primate’s flexible hands, he argued, might be able to reach the switch and shut the system down.

Even Evenson stared at him.

"What kind of monkey is that smart?"

He shook his head.

"King Kong?"

Fitz’s idea was ridiculous enough on its own, but the laser grid was dense enough that there was another problem.

"Forget a monkey. You couldn’t squeeze a mouse through that thing."

He considered that for a moment.

"Not even one that’s been overfed for years."

The argument went nowhere.

Everyone had a suggestion. Nobody had a solution.

Then Skye, who had been quietly listening from the side, suddenly spoke.

"Guys, I can get in."

Every head turned toward her.

For one brief second, the room went completely silent.

Then everyone lowered their heads and went right back to arguing.

No one acknowledged her.

Skye stared.

"Seriously? Come on. I’m not joking."

She was getting annoyed now. The synchronized reaction had been almost insulting.

Ward finally looked at her.

"What makes you think you can get in?"

As Skye’s designated handler, he felt obligated to point out the obvious.

"You’ve had no formal field training. You don’t have the necessary skills or experience. Hell, you might not even understand everything that’s happening here."

The unspoken part was obvious.

The rest of them had been working on this problem for hours without a solution. If the newest recruit walked in and solved it with no training whatsoever, what did that say about the rest of them?

Skye didn’t seem bothered.

"Oh, maybe."

She pulled out her phone and held it up.

"But I do have this."

The screen displayed an electronic invitation.

"An official invitation to Quinn International’s shareholders’ meeting."

Ward closed his eyes.

His pride hurt.

Coulson, meanwhile, seemed to be seriously considering the possibility.

Ward wasn’t ready to accept it.

"That won’t work, sir. She hasn’t been trained for this, and she has no experience in this kind of operation. Sending her in now could go very badly."

If this had been an ordinary party, there would have been no issue. Skye could attend, mingle, and leave.

But this wasn’t a social event.

She was going in undercover.

Without the necessary skills, there was a good chance she wouldn’t complete the mission. Worse, she could expose herself while trying.

That would warn Quinn and put Skye in immediate danger.

And Malta was no place for a captured S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had no legal authority there. If one of their agents was caught conducting an unauthorized operation, the Maltese government could execute them on the spot.

That made Coulson hesitate.

He trusted Skye. He wasn’t opposed to giving her a chance in the field.

But making her first real operation something this dangerous?

That was a harsh introduction.

"No problem."

Evenson was leaning against the doorframe, casually tapping away at his phone.

"I’ll go with her."

He barely looked up.

"She’ll be perfectly safe."

Melinda frowned.

"I don’t doubt that you can get through the laser grid. But it’s almost certainly wired to sensors. If you damage it, Quinn will know immediately. That defeats the entire purpose of a covert infiltration."

"I know."

Evenson kept staring at his phone, apparently waiting for something.

"That’s why I’m not planning to break through it."

"Then how are you getting in?" Melinda asked.

Her brow furrowed.

"Are you going to turn invisible and sneak in behind Skye?"

She knew Evenson had concealment abilities, but she also knew how they worked. He could surround himself with a cloud of dark smoke, which was useful enough in poor lighting.

In broad daylight?

Not so much.

Nobody was going to miss a giant cloud of black smoke following Skye through the front gate.

Evenson suddenly stopped tapping.

His eyes lit up.

"I was thinking something simpler."

He turned his phone around with a grin.

"I’ll walk in through the front door."

Another tap.

"And I’ve got an invitation too."

"What?"

The entire group reacted at once.

Phones came out. Messages were checked. Accounts were verified.

Finally, Coulson set his phone down on the table and stared at the others.

"Does Quinn International send invitations to everyone on Earth except us?"

Skye’s invitation wasn’t especially surprising. With her connections to Rising Tide, getting something like this wasn’t difficult.

But Evenson?

Why would Quinn invite him?

Was Ian Quinn the kind of man who believed he needed a fortune-teller at every major business event?

Even then, Evenson wasn’t exactly a household name in the fortune-telling business.

Far from it.

"Normally, I wouldn’t have had a ticket."

Evenson slipped his phone back into his pocket.

"But I asked Mr. Malick to help."

That earned him a few confused looks.

"Mr. Malick?"

Coulson exchanged a glance with the others.

"You mean Gideon Malick?"

"The one and only."

Evenson nodded.

"Former member of the World Security Council. While you were relaxing in Tahiti, Nick Fury asked me to visit his house."

He shrugged.

"So Malick and I have a little history. Getting an invitation shouldn’t be difficult for him."

That was putting it mildly.

Quinn International might have been a major international corporation, but compared with Gideon Malick’s network of contacts and influence, it was small fry.

Malick wouldn’t need to beg for an invitation.

He could simply mention that he wanted to send someone, and Quinn would probably scramble to accommodate him.

Malick was also more than willing to do it.

His cooperation with Evenson was currently going extremely well, and he’d noticed something interesting about Quinn International. The company appeared to have aligned itself with one of Malick’s strongest competitors.

Malick saw no reason not to pluck a few feathers while the opportunity presented itself.

There was one other detail that had encouraged him.

Evenson’s request had arrived through official channels.

And at the end of the message, Evenson had casually asked whether Malick’s daughter was doing well.

Malick couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a second message hidden beneath the first.

Your daughter is wonderful.

No, wait.

Your daughter is in my hands.

So you might want to take care of this invitation.

Whatever the case, Gideon Malick had responded with enthusiastic patriotism.

He might have left the World Security Council, but that didn’t mean he’d stopped caring about the safety of the world.

He certainly wasn’t going to tolerate some minor criminal deciding he could run wild under the Council’s nose.

An invitation?

Consider it handled.

With that problem solved, the atmosphere relaxed considerably.

Melinda, in particular, had little reason to worry.

Of everyone there, she probably knew Evenson’s capabilities best.

With him personally accompanying Skye, the mission was unlikely to go off the rails.

Unless, of course, Dr. Hall had somehow become so fond of being tortured that he refused to leave.

Or the island suddenly developed an unfortunate tendency to sink.

Melinda almost laughed at the thought.

Neither was going to happen.

This mission would be fine.

Absolutely fine.