Chapter 770

Nick Fury paced across his office, his unease growing with every turn.

Ghost should have been back by now.

He had sent her to gather intelligence, and judging by the time that had passed, the mission should have been finished hours ago. Yet there had been no report, no message, nothing.

Fury’s unease had slowly hardened into something colder.

Ghost had never failed a mission.

But this one was different.

The target was Evenson Richter.

Fury knew exactly what kind of man Evenson was. On the surface, he looked like a shameless, broke idiot who could barely take anything seriously. But beneath all that?

He was ruthless.

Every mission he’d been involved in had followed the same pattern. Before things turned violent, Evenson was remarkably easygoing. If his opponent surrendered and stopped resisting, he was perfectly happy to let the matter end there.

Once he decided to fight, however, all bets were off.

His targets usually ended up dead.

Worse, Evenson’s instincts for surveillance and counter-surveillance were exceptional. Fury had monitored him before, but that operation had been carried out with Evenson’s tacit approval. The man had known exactly how many agents were watching him, where they were positioned, when shifts changed, and what the surveillance teams were doing between reports.

Ghost’s particular method of infiltration was far more sophisticated.

But would it be enough?

Fury stopped pacing.

If Ghost had been discovered and captured, there was a good chance she wouldn’t be coming back. And if her identity had been exposed, the consequences could be even worse. Evenson would know someone was investigating him, which could make him far more cautious—or push him into taking action before Fury could understand what was happening.

The thought made Fury’s skin crawl.

Then his office door suddenly flew open.

Fury didn’t bother turning around.

It obviously wasn’t Ghost.

Ghost never used the front door.

Who the hell walks into my office without knocking?

His already foul mood somehow managed to get worse. Fury took a deep breath, gathering enough patience to verbally dismantle whoever had just interrupted him.

Before he could turn around, a furious voice beat him to it.

"You deployed Ghost without consulting me?! Have you completely forgotten the rules?"

Fury’s carefully prepared motherf—

"Cough!"

He swallowed the rest of it.

His face tightened as he turned around.

Pierce.

Of all the people in S.H.I.E.L.D., Alexander Pierce was the only person who possessed the same Level Ten clearance as Fury.

Pierce slammed the door behind him.

The man’s usual polished composure was nowhere to be seen. His pale eyes were practically blazing, and his gray-blond hair looked ready to stand on end.

"Ghost’s missions are supposed to be registered with me," Pierce snapped. "Do you remember that rule at all?"

Ghost occupied a unique position within S.H.I.E.L.D.

There was a simple way to describe the kind of work she handled.

Black operations.

And not merely the sort of covert operations that could be hidden behind layers of bureaucracy. Ghost was sent after the things S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t touch publicly.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was a global security organization. Its enemies were rarely simple criminals. Many were intelligent, careful, and experienced enough to leave little evidence behind.

Without evidence, S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t openly arrest or eliminate them.

But simply ignoring the threat wasn’t an option either.

That was where black operations came in.

They existed outside the normal boundaries of law and procedure, allowing S.H.I.E.L.D. to quietly remove threats that couldn’t otherwise be dealt with.

The privilege was undeniably effective.

It was also dangerous.

Giving an organization the authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner without ordinary accountability was a double-edged sword. In the wrong hands, such power could easily become a tool for eliminating rivals and consolidating authority.

That was why S.H.I.E.L.D. treated black operations with extreme caution.

And Ghost—the organization’s most valuable asset in that field—was treated with even greater caution.

Neither Fury nor Pierce had the authority to deploy her independently.

They were supposed to discuss the matter, agree on the mission, and jointly authorize her deployment.

That was the rule.

A rule Fury himself had established.

Which made his current position rather difficult to defend.

Damn it.

He had always known Ghost was valuable. What he hadn’t anticipated was that the rule he’d created would eventually come back to bite him.

And Pierce clearly wasn’t going to let him forget it.

Fury looked at his furious former superior and sighed.

He was in the wrong.

"That’s not what happened. I didn’t ignore the rules. I just didn’t have time to report it. I intended to brief you once the mission was finished."

Fury walked toward the liquor cabinet and reached for a bottle of his private collection.

A little expensive whiskey might help.

"Stop."

Pierce’s voice cut through the room.

Fury froze.

Pierce looked almost offended by the mere suggestion.

"Report afterward?" he said. "If you genuinely think that’s an acceptable answer, then one of us has clearly lost his mind."

Fury slowly lowered the bottle.

Pierce continued, "What exactly am I supposed to do after the mission is over? Stop you from killing someone you’ve already killed? Sew their head back on?"

"Ghost wasn’t sent on a black operation."

Fury finally managed to get Pierce to sit down. He poured him half a glass anyway.

"I sent her to investigate something. It’s unusual, and she’s the only agent capable of doing it properly."

Pierce gave him a cold laugh and pushed the glass aside.

"Isn’t that what you say about every mission Ghost gets?"

Fury nodded reluctantly.

"Yeah. That’s fair."

Then something occurred to him.

He frowned.

"How did you even find out about this?"

Pierce’s expression hardened.

"That isn’t your concern. I have my own channels."

He leaned forward.

"Now tell me exactly what you sent Ghost to investigate."

Fury hesitated.

Pierce hadn’t known beforehand.

That much was true.

But he had learned about it somehow.

In fact, Pierce had been sitting in his own office only moments earlier, happily going over the details of his Insight Initiative. He had been considering which contractor would be best suited to building the infrastructure he needed—someone who could get the work done quickly without sacrificing quality.

Then his phone had rung.

It was fortunate Pierce exercised regularly.

Otherwise, the shock might have killed him on the spot.

"Ghost was investigating—"

A flicker of distortion appeared in the room.

Fury stopped.

Pierce stopped.

Ghost materialized between them like a ghost in the literal sense.

Fury nearly crushed the glass in his hand.

Now you show up?

He’d been waiting for her for hours, and she’d chosen the exact moment when Fury was trying to explain her mission to Pierce to appear.

Pierce, meanwhile, recovered immediately.

"Mission report, Agent."

Ghost didn’t move.

She simply turned her head slightly toward Fury.

Pierce’s expression darkened.

He slapped a hand against the armrest.

"I said mission report, Agent."

Ghost finally raised one hand.

She tapped the side of her helmet.

A small compartment opened beside one of her mechanical eyes, revealing a tiny storage device. She removed it and placed it on the table.

"Everything is here."

"Good."

Fury picked up the device.

His unease returned.

Whatever Ghost had discovered, he was about to find out.

"You can go," he told her. "Get some rest. I’ll have the people working on your treatment push harder."

"Thank you."

Ghost’s voice remained completely emotionless.

Cold, almost mechanical.

Then she flickered out of existence.

Pierce watched the spot where she’d disappeared for a moment before turning toward Fury with a strange smile.

"You’ve trained her well, Fury."

Fury covered his face with one hand.

Oh, come on.

Ghost had been acting strangely today.

Yes, he’d assigned the mission personally. Yes, she’d been waiting for his orders.

But when the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. demanded a report, she could have simply answered him.

Instead, she’d looked at Fury.

Now Pierce was going to think Ghost was Fury’s personal asset and nobody else was allowed to touch her.

Wonderful.

"Let’s see what she found."

Pierce pushed the storage device toward him.

Fury inserted it into the terminal built into his desk.

The office’s projection system activated almost immediately, reconstructing the footage in three-dimensional detail.

The first thing that filled the room was—

A thunderous snore.

Fury and Pierce stared at one another.

Then slowly looked back at the recording.

The footage shook slightly. Ghost had apparently been recording from inside the wall, but she’d chosen an excellent angle. Almost the entire room was visible.

It appeared to be a conference room.

Three people sat around a small white circular table.

Two women and one man.

The women were striking, both sitting quietly against their chairs with their eyes closed.

The man was much harder to miss.

Evenson.

The footage immediately confirmed that Evenson was in contact with the Gospel Company.

And judging by the circumstances, the relationship was clearly more significant than Fury had assumed.

Yet there was something almost absurd about the sight.

Evenson had his head buried against the table, both arms hanging beneath it.

He was sleeping in a posture that looked disturbingly similar to someone awaiting execution.

His mouth opened and closed with every breath.

The snoring continued.

And then Fury noticed the drool.

A considerable amount of it had pooled beside Evenson’s mouth and was slowly running down the edge of the table.

It was disgusting.

Pierce stared at the recording.

Then rubbed his eyes.

"You violated protocol and deployed Ghost to investigate him?"

"Yeah."

Fury cleared his throat.

"That’s why I said it was a special situation."

Pierce scratched his head.

"I thought you trusted him."

"You should understand this."

Fury turned his attention away from the projection.

Partly out of respect.

Mostly because he didn’t want to look at Evenson sleeping anymore.

"The more you trust someone, the less you tend to investigate them. And when someone you trust betrays you, that’s when it hurts the most."

Pierce nodded.

"You’re absolutely right."

The two men reluctantly continued watching.

Neither particularly wanted to.

Fortunately, the situation didn’t last much longer.

A loud bang suddenly echoed through the recording.

Both men looked up.

One of the women had apparently reached the limit of her patience.

She slammed a hand against the table.

Evenson shot upright.

"Oh... huh... what?"

He looked around in confusion, apparently startled out of a very deep sleep.

The woman in blue closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I told you, this isn’t a place for you to take a nap."

Pierce narrowed his eyes.

"Those two women..."

He studied the footage.

"They look familiar."

"The twin directors of the Gospel Company," Fury said.

"They keep a low profile, but I looked into them. Their influence is considerable."

"Oh."

Recognition dawned on Pierce’s face.

"So you discovered their connection to Evenson and sent Ghost to investigate him."

"Exactly."

On the recording, Evenson finally seemed to wake up properly.

He wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and glared at the two women.

"Do you people have any humanity? I just got back from Asgard, and you drag me into a meeting. Don’t I get to recover from the time difference?"

Salorass sighed.

"If you hadn’t just returned from Asgard, we wouldn’t have called you here."

Evenson responded with an irritated grunt.

He grabbed a tissue from the table and wiped the last traces of drool from his face.

"Ugh. How did I end up working with you two?"

"What did you say?"

Oureseis’s temper flared immediately.

"If you don’t want to be here, go home and eat your instant noodles."

"You think I want to be here?"

Evenson crumpled the tissue into a ball and tossed it behind him.

"If Claire finds out I’m sneaking around with you two, she’ll cancel my allowance for the rest of my life."

"Watch what you’re saying!"

Salorass clenched one fist.

"You make it sound like there’s actually something going on between us."

"Yeah... nothing going on."

Evenson’s exhaustion finally seemed to disappear.

He propped his chin on one hand, a mischievous smile creeping across his face.

"Just a matter of knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses..."

Smack.

He didn’t even finish the sentence before a disposable cup bounced off the table beside him.

Oureseis was bright red, practically halfway across the table.

"Don’t you dare bring that up!"

She looked ready to strangle him.

"Everybody does something stupid at least once in their life! I was practically blackout drunk, I hitched a ride with you once, and you took advantage of me. I’d rather have been bitten by a dog!"

"Curse my life."

Salorass covered her forehead with one hand.

"It was supposed to be one night. I never imagined we’d end up working with you afterward."

She looked toward the ceiling.

"What is that man even thinking?"

Evenson laughed.

"Hey, watch what you say about him. That gentleman is a very capable man."

Then his smile faded.

"Although... I didn’t exactly expect him to arrange something this awkward."

The recording continued.

And Fury’s expression slowly became more serious.

Because whatever relationship existed between Evenson and the Gospel Company, it was clearly far more complicated than he’d expected.

...