Chapter 781

"It’s too windy out here. We should go inside and talk."

A firing range was, by definition, an open space. With nothing to block the wind, the gusts were naturally stronger than elsewhere.

Apparently, strong enough to blow the last bit of common sense right out of someone’s head.

Because otherwise, why would anyone say something like that?

Recruit followers for Hela?

Right. Sure.

Still, Evenson had given Hela his word. He had agreed to help her gather a group of believers who could rally behind her and spread her influence. Now that he’d made the promise, he intended to follow through.

Evenson wasn’t the sort of man who treated every promise as sacred. If circumstances changed, he was perfectly capable of reconsidering his words.

But there was a difference between breaking a promise and making a terrible business decision.

Hela might be released from prison within a few years. Once she was free, her strength would gradually return, and she would eventually become even more dangerous than she had been during their previous encounter.

If she discovered that he’d been stringing her along, she’d almost certainly come looking for him.

By then, Evenson would be stronger as well. He wouldn’t be fighting alone anymore, either. With the Eredar Twins and his other assets, he wasn’t exactly helpless.

But Hela wouldn’t be alone, either.

Her army—and Hela’s own forces—would return with her.

Besides, there was an old saying: more friends meant more options, while more enemies meant more walls.

If he could maintain a good relationship with Hela without compromising his core interests, why deliberately turn her into an enemy?

Fortunately, Evenson already had a potential source of followers in mind.

Hydra.

More specifically, Gideon Malick’s faction within Hydra.

Unlike the newer faction led by Alexander Pierce, whose members had largely abandoned any meaningful ideology beyond power, Malick’s old families already possessed a complete belief system. They had traditions, convictions, and generations of people willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believed in.

Everything was already there.

Evenson only needed to convince them to redirect their faith toward a different figure.

That would save him a tremendous amount of work.

Unfortunately, when he’d casually mentioned the idea earlier, Malick had simply assumed he was joking. The older man hadn’t taken the bait at all, instead warmly inviting Evenson inside.

Evenson hadn’t pressed the matter.

There was no need to rush.

He was confident that, sooner or later, Malick and his people would come around.

Once they entered the house, Malick led Evenson straight to the dining room.

Good food. Good wine. Plenty of both.

The conversation flowed easily, but it was all harmless small talk. Neither man touched anything remotely resembling serious business.

Even Stephanie’s desire to take on the role of executioner never came up.

That was understandable.

The executioner’s primary responsibility was handling internal purges and maintaining discipline within the organization. Evenson might have been the one who had originally proposed the idea, but the details involved far too many internal secrets.

Stephanie wasn’t stupid enough to discuss them in front of an outsider.

Eventually, the meal came to an end.

A servant who had been waiting nearby entered to clear the table. Once everything had been removed, he left and quietly shut the door behind him.

He didn’t return.

Evenson understood immediately.

Finally.

They were ready to discuss business.

He wiped his mouth and deliberately adopted an expression of sincere gratitude.

"Mr. Malick, I’m not sure how to properly thank you. My mistake last time drew SHIELD’s attention to us and created a serious security risk for our cooperation. In the end, you were the one who had to step in and help resolve the situation."

He lowered his head slightly.

"And now, instead of holding it against me, you’ve gone out of your way to entertain me like this. I really do owe you another sincere apology and thanks."

Malick waved a hand dismissively.

"Please. You’re giving me far too much credit. I only nudged things in the right direction. You were the one who came up with the solution."

A strange smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Though now that you mention it, that incident reminds me of Peggy Carter. Your company actually managed to bring one of SHIELD’s founding members into your orbit. Quite an impressive achievement."

Evenson had already prepared an answer.

"Agent Carter has been working with us for some time. Given her previous relationship with your organization, however, I thought it would be better not to disclose her identity immediately. I wanted to avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings."

Malick nodded.

"Understandable. Caution is rarely a bad thing."

"Since we’re already discussing that incident, though, there’s another person involved who deserves some attention."

Evenson carefully steered the conversation toward his real objective.

"The Ghost."

Malick’s expression remained relaxed.

"You’re familiar with her, aren’t you?"

"Ghost is a difficult operator. She’s never failed a mission."

Malick had once served on the World Security Council, so he was naturally familiar with SHIELD’s most sensitive assets.

"Her deployment requirements were extremely strict, though. Sometimes she even required Council approval. I didn’t expect Nick Fury to deploy her without authorization."

He gave a disdainful snort.

"Apparently the Council has become more useless since I left. Fury certainly seems to have grown bolder."

He’s not wrong.

Evenson had to admit that much.

Back when Malick had still been on the Council, simply mentioning the organization’s name had been enough to give Nick Fury a headache.

Since Malick’s departure, however, the Council’s influence had steadily declined. These days, it sometimes felt as though it existed only because someone had remembered to put it in the script.

Apparently SHIELD wasn’t the only global organization that had benefited enormously from Hydra’s influence.

Even the World Security Council seemed to function better when Hydra was pulling the strings.

So why can’t you people just keep cooperating peacefully?

Why does everyone have to go off and make things complicated?

"Fortunately for us, Nick Fury’s reckless decision also worked in our favor," Evenson said casually. "Ghost is working with us now."

Malick wasn’t surprised.

"I know. The reason that whole situation disappeared so cleanly was because Ghost switched sides and fed Fury false information."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Your company must have found a way to treat her condition. That gives you considerable leverage over her."

"That’s something we’re quite good at."

Evenson smiled.

"Apparently Ghost was eager to prove herself and earn a chance at redemption. Not long after returning to SHIELD, she sent us some extremely sensitive intelligence."

He paused.

"I thought you should know about it."

Malick’s smile froze.

Sensitive intelligence from SHIELD? And he thinks I should know?

That could only mean one thing.

Have they noticed one of the old families?

The possibility wasn’t as far-fetched as he would have liked.

Malick hated admitting it, but compared with Pierce’s faction, the old families had become far too complacent. They lacked ambition. They lacked urgency.

The current generation of leaders could still keep things under control, but the younger members were another matter entirely.

Few of them were as reliable as his own daughter.

The rest seemed determined to find new and creative ways to expose Hydra.

The Baron’s idiot son was particularly impressive in that regard.

Every day, that boy seemed to discover a new way to bring the organization dangerously close to being exposed.

Malick was already preparing himself for the worst when Evenson finally revealed the subject.

"The intelligence concerns a classified project being developed by Alexander Pierce."

He paused.

"Codename: Insight."

"Oh."

The tension vanished from Malick’s body almost instantly.

That’s it?

He’d been preparing for a disaster.

"You already knew about the Insight Initiative?" Evenson asked, noticing his sudden relaxation.

"Pierce’s people insist on doing everything under SHIELD’s name," Malick replied dismissively. "A project that large naturally had to pass through the Council."

He leaned back.

"Pierce submitted the proposal to the Council some time ago. He even approached me privately and asked me to help push it through. He claimed the project was essential to Hydra’s revival."

"And did you help him?"

"Of course not."

Malick scoffed.

"What, was I supposed to do him a favor?"

Helping each other with minor matters was one thing. Covering for fellow Hydra members was part of the game.

But something this important?

Absolutely not.

Hydra would rise again.

But it would rise under his leadership and according to his vision.

Pierce could take his own grand plans and go play somewhere else.

Still, Malick couldn’t help sighing internally.

His own mistake during the Battle of New York had cost him dearly.

Pierce had convinced him that overwhelming force was the key to victory. Malick had supported the proposal to use nuclear weapons against New York.

The result had been a political disaster.

He’d eventually been forced to resign from the Council.

What he hadn’t expected was that, not long afterward, Pierce’s relentless lobbying would actually succeed.

The Council had approved the Insight Initiative.

Apparently, removing its most capable member had consequences.

"Then..." Evenson frowned slightly.

Something didn’t add up.

If Malick truly knew about Insight, he shouldn’t have reacted with such complete indifference.

"Would you mind explaining the Insight Initiative in greater detail?" Evenson asked. "I’d like to compare what you’ve heard with the intelligence we’ve received. If there’s a discrepancy, we should probably identify it."

Trying to fish for information?

Malick’s eyes sharpened.

He didn’t particularly care.

If Evenson wanted to fish, let him fish.

Whatever Pierce was planning was Pierce’s problem.

"There’s really nothing particularly impressive about Insight," Malick said. "As far as I understand it, Pierce wants the Council to grant SHIELD even greater authority and authorize the construction of several heavily armed, virtually invisible Helicarriers."

"The idea is to use them as a deterrent against the world’s governments."

He smiled coldly.

"Then, once he has enough military power, Pierce can climb to the top of the political hierarchy, discard SHIELD’s facade, and openly transform Hydra into a world power."

"It’s essentially the same strategy the Red Skull used with the Tesseract all those years ago. Threaten the entire world with overwhelming force."

He shook his head.

"Decades later, they still haven’t come up with anything better."

So that’s what he thinks Insight is.

Evenson immediately understood.

Malick genuinely had no idea what the project really entailed.

That made sense.

Why would Pierce reveal the real plan to a potential rival?

"I have to admit, Mr. Malick, there’s a rather significant discrepancy between our intelligence."

Evenson leaned forward slightly.

"The Insight Initiative I’ve heard about isn’t quite that simple."

Malick raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"What is it, then?"

He sounded genuinely curious.

He’d love to know what kind of madness Pierce had managed to come up with this time.

"For starters, you’re correct that it involves Helicarriers."

Evenson held up a finger.

"But there are only three of them."

"And they require a specialized guidance satellite."

"Only three?"

Malick frowned.

"What good are three ships?"

"Quite a lot, if they’re used properly."

Evenson’s voice became quieter.

"Let me tell you something you don’t know."

Malick’s expression gradually changed.

"The first stage of Insight is to collect information on every person in the world."

"Everything from academic records and voting history to credit ratings."

Malick’s brow furrowed.

"What do they need all that information for?"

Before Evenson could answer, he pressed on.

"Are they trying to build a Gestapo? Identify people through their records and start arresting them?"

"It’s considerably more ambitious than that."

Evenson shook his head.

"The Insight Initiative requires insight. The twenty-first century is essentially one enormous code. Every piece of information is a clue."

"Those clues can be analyzed to identify targets."

He paused.

"Arnim Zola developed an algorithm specifically to interpret all of it."

"Zola."

Malick’s expression hardened slightly.

"The man living inside a computer."

Even after all these years, he still remembered the Red Skull’s former right hand.

"What does his algorithm actually do?"

"And what kind of targets are we talking about?"

"Dissenters."

Evenson’s voice was flat.

"People who would resist Hydra."

"People who might resist Hydra."

"People dissatisfied with Hydra."

"And people who might eventually become dissatisfied with Hydra."

Malick’s expression slowly disappeared.

"All of those targets are uploaded into the Insight satellite."

"Once the satellite identifies them, it guides the Helicarriers’ weapons systems directly onto those targets."

Evenson’s eyes hardened.

"Then they eliminate them."

"All of them."

Silence filled the room.

"The weapons aboard the three Helicarriers can operate simultaneously. Within a single minute, they could kill tens of millions of people."

Evenson continued without changing his tone.

"Conservative estimates put the eventual death toll at twenty percent of the world’s population."

"Possibly more."

"And the entire purge would be completed within an hour."

Crack.

Malick’s face had gone ashen.

His breathing became ragged.

Then he seized the glass in front of him and hurled it against the floor.

It shattered.

"So that’s the real Insight Initiative."

For the first time, genuine shock was visible in Malick’s eyes.

He’d always considered himself ruthless.

Hard.

Willing to do things other men couldn’t stomach.

But this?

A plan capable of eliminating every existing and potential threat to Hydra in a single hour...

Compared with whoever had designed this, Malick suddenly felt almost charitable.

"That’s what makes the plan so dangerous," Evenson said.

He didn’t give Malick time to recover.

"Officially, the purge is supposed to eliminate Hydra’s enemies."

"But in reality, it’s eliminating anyone who might oppose Alexander Pierce personally."

He smiled faintly.

"Although, by that point, there wouldn’t be much distinction between Pierce and Hydra."

Malick’s expression remained grim.

"And of course, Mr. Malick, you’re a member of Hydra yourself. Zola’s algorithm wouldn’t identify you as a target."

Evenson paused.

"But there’s a problem."

Malick looked at him.

Evenson’s eyes gleamed.

"The timetable."

"With only one hour to process an operation on that scale, how likely do you think it is that the system makes a mistake?"

"How likely is it that someone gets killed by accident?"

Malick said nothing.

For the first time that evening, the room felt very cold.