Chapter 894

Agent Blake threw himself into the mission with a very specific goal in mind.

Whatever secrets this operation concealed, one thing was clear: for the first time, SHIELD was launching a full-scale manhunt for the Clairvoyant. This was supposed to be their first genuine confrontation with the mysterious figure who had been manipulating events from the shadows.

And if Blake’s suspicions were correct—if Agent Coulson really was the Clairvoyant—then the entire operation was an elaborate trap designed by Coulson himself.

The ideal way to deal with a trap was to flip the table before the game began.

Unfortunately, this particular table appeared to be bolted to the floor.

Blake had no choice but to play along and see where the game led.

Besides, no matter how carefully someone concealed their actions, they always left traces. If Blake investigated thoroughly enough, he was confident he could uncover the truth.

The first order of business was dividing the agents into teams.

SITWELL had unexpectedly received new orders, while Victoria Hand had returned to headquarters. That left them with only three field teams.

To make things less predictable, they abandoned their usual partnerships and randomly reassigned everyone. If the Clairvoyant was monitoring their movements, familiar team configurations might give him an advantage. Mixing things up would make it harder for him to anticipate their actions.

The final arrangement was as follows.

Coulson and John Garrett would work together. They had been partners years ago, and although they hadn’t worked together in quite some time, their old chemistry would hopefully still be there.

The second team consisted of Grant Ward and Garrett’s protégé, Antoine Triplett.

Ward might be relatively junior, but experience was the only thing he lacked. His actual abilities were excellent.

Triplett, meanwhile, was a good man with an easygoing personality and a talent for conversation. He was also a Black agent whose grandfather had served in the Howling Commandos alongside Captain America and Peggy Carter, earning considerable distinction during the war.

Despite that impressive family history, Triplett rarely brought it up. He didn’t want people treating him differently because of his grandfather’s accomplishments.

Blake considered that a commendable quality.

The final team consisted of himself and Melinda May.

Blake couldn’t have been happier with the arrangement.

And no, it wasn’t because he had any romantic intentions toward May.

His reasons were entirely professional.

For starters, he didn’t want to work with John Garrett. Like Blake himself, Garrett had only recently been assigned to the operation. He was unlikely to know anything about the secrets Coulson was concealing, which meant there was little useful information Blake could extract from him.

Being paired with Garrett would bring him no closer to the truth.

Working directly with Coulson was even less desirable. Coulson was Blake’s primary suspect, but investigating him while standing right under his nose was practically an invitation to get caught. A senior agent like Coulson would notice even the slightest irregularity in Blake’s behavior.

One careless move, and Blake could alert his target before uncovering anything useful.

Ward was another possibility. The younger agent might know something about Coulson’s habits or daily activities, but he wasn’t part of Coulson’s inner circle. In fact, he’d been reluctant to join the team in the first place. Given his relatively low rank, there was a good chance he knew nothing about the Clairvoyant’s true identity.

May, however, was a different story.

SHIELD agents weren’t exactly known for gossiping, but plenty of people knew that May and Coulson shared a complicated history. May had even left fieldwork for an administrative position before Coulson personally persuaded her to join his team.

Considering her abilities, her seniority, and her close relationship with Coulson, she was an excellent candidate for someone who might know his darkest secrets.

For all Blake knew, she might even be helping him.

And if she wasn’t actively conspiring with Coulson, she almost certainly knew things he didn’t want getting out. Perhaps Coulson had simply used their emotional connection to mislead her, preventing her from realizing how far he’d fallen.

Either way, May was Blake’s best lead.

He practically swaggered toward the deployment area, feeling as though the universe had finally decided to throw him a bone.

Once the teams had been finalized, the agents were dispatched to their assigned locations.

Skye remained at headquarters, handling communications, intelligence distribution, and mission coordination.

Watching so many senior agents wait for her instructions, Skye felt a surge of satisfaction.

She was coordinating an operation involving some of SHIELD’s best field personnel. Everyone was looking to her for information and direction.

This was it. She had finally made it.

"Looks like they’ve started moving," Claire remarked from the seat beside her.

Claire had insisted on staying close to Skye to protect her. Given the possibility that the Clairvoyant could read minds, Skye might be vulnerable even at headquarters.

But Claire didn’t seem particularly interested in the operation itself.

While Skye stared intently at her computer screens, Claire seemed far more interested in the young woman sitting next to her.

"I heard you and Evenson grew up in the same orphanage."

"That’s right, I think," Skye replied absently, without looking away from her screen.

"Oh? So you were childhood sweethearts?"

"Not even close." Skye smiled faintly. "We lived in the same orphanage, but we barely knew each other."

"Really?" Claire raised an eyebrow. "I would’ve thought a guy like him would leave a lasting impression wherever he went."

"Well..." Skye shrugged. "Now that I think about it, he was pretty antisocial back then. He’d lock himself in his room for hours, and the nuns thought he might have some psychological issues."

She paused.

"Looking back, he was probably secretly practicing magic."

Claire gave her a curious look.

"From the beginning, we were practically living in different worlds. Besides..."

Skye rarely encountered people who knew anything about her life at the orphanage, so she found herself talking more than usual.

"There was someone else there who was much more interesting than Evenson."

"Who?"

"A blind guy."

Skye tilted her head, recalling the memory.

"He was actually pretty handsome. Apparently, some chemical accident damaged his eyes, but he was fiercely independent and didn’t like relying on other people."

She frowned, trying to remember his name.

"What was it again? Matt Murdock. Yeah, that sounds right. I wonder if he’s changed his name since then."

Then Skye turned to look at Claire properly.

"Speaking of which, you..."

Her gaze drifted downward.

She stopped mid-sentence.

For a moment, she stared at Claire’s chest, then glanced down at her own.

The comparison was brief, but devastating.

So that was why Evenson had always joked about her being flat.

Skye swallowed the rest of whatever she’d been about to say.

"All right," she announced abruptly, straightening in her seat. "Time to get to work."

She turned back to her laptop and focused on the operation, sending each team the identities, locations, and background information of their assigned targets.

Then she glanced at Claire.

"Are you sure you should be sitting here?"

Claire blinked.

"You’ve got powerful abilities, but instead of fighting on the front lines, you’re hiding in a secure command center. I know you’re Evenson’s girlfriend, but you don’t have to copy everything he does. That man is practically allergic to hard work."

"He’s not lazy. He’s just a coward," Claire replied automatically.

The words were out before she could stop herself.

She hesitated.

"Fine. He’s a little lazy, too."

"Exactly."

"But staying here is the most practical choice."

Claire snapped her fingers.

A small burst of golden sparks flashed at her fingertips before disappearing.

"My magic lets me teleport wherever I want. If I stay here and monitor everyone’s situation, I can respond immediately whenever someone needs help. That’s far more useful than charging into a fight without knowing what’s happening."

"Magic really is convenient," Skye muttered enviously. "You must have a lot of passports."

"Actually, I don’t. Our usual means of transportation don’t involve going through customs."

As Skye returned her attention to the operation, Claire began studying the information scrolling across the monitors.

Then she opened a psychic link.

"Moira, prepare to receive intelligence."

She intended to transmit everything she could see back to the Black Seal Bureau.

The organization had originally been established and trained by the Eredar Twins, but it was also part of Evenson’s enterprise. As its mistress, Claire saw nothing wrong with cooperating with the organization.

"Thank you."

At the Black Seal Bureau’s command center, Moira sat alone before a bank of monitors.

Her responsibilities were much the same as Skye’s: gathering intelligence, assessing developments, and assigning personnel to their objectives.

The situation presented an unusual opportunity.

SHIELD’s major investigation was taking place on American soil, and the Black Seal Bureau had little business interfering in another organization’s domestic operation.

Moira understood that much.

However, the mission had barely begun when she received Claire’s intelligence and reviewed the situation in detail.

She immediately made sweeping changes to the bureau’s objectives.

Initially, she’d planned to do what they usually did: reach the Clairvoyant first or capture him at the same time as SHIELD.

Now, she had to abandon that plan.

The Black Seal Bureau had spent considerable time competing with SHIELD, but SHIELD didn’t truly consider them an enemy. In fact, the agency barely took them seriously.

Moira was under no illusions about the difference in their capabilities. The bureau was growing rapidly and had made significant progress in strengthening its organization, but it still couldn’t compete with SHIELD on equal terms.

In the past, the bureau had occasionally managed to take suspects away from SHIELD. That wasn’t because they had somehow outmaneuvered a vastly superior organization in a fair contest. It was because those particular suspects hadn’t been important enough for SHIELD to fight over.

The Clairvoyant was different.

From what Moira knew, he was responsible for several incidents that had left SHIELD with a substantial blood debt. He was also deeply entangled in the agency’s internal power struggles and hidden agendas.

SHIELD wasn’t going to let someone like that slip through its fingers.

If the Black Seal Bureau tried to snatch him first and failed, they’d only embarrass themselves.

Fortunately, abandoning one target didn’t mean losing the entire opportunity.

There were other ways to profit from the operation.

For instance, SHIELD had identified numerous individuals with unusual abilities whom the agency had attempted to recruit before eventually giving up on them.

Some had refused to join. Others had serious psychological problems that made them difficult to manage.

Moira wasn’t particularly concerned about the latter category.

After all, who in the Black Seal Bureau didn’t have psychological issues?

And if someone somehow arrived perfectly normal, the organization could probably fix that problem soon enough.

Unfortunately, after investigating the available candidates, Moira discovered that the selection was less promising than she’d hoped.

A completely paralyzed patient in a vegetative state?

A serial killer sentenced to two hundred consecutive life terms?

What exactly was she supposed to do with people like that?

Moira was about to abandon the idea altogether when she finally found someone who looked reasonably promising.

Meanwhile, Coulson was driving toward his assigned target when he received the woman’s dossier.

He passed it to John Garrett, who sat in the passenger seat.

"Noriko Sato," Coulson said. "Nineteen years old. Junior at Ball State University."

Garrett scanned the file.

"I remember her. The college student."

He gave a low whistle.

"She’s brilliant. Every time we sent agents to investigate her, she ran circles around them."

"That’s one way to put it."

Coulson kept his eyes on the road.

"She claimed she didn’t want to join SHIELD, but the truth is that we decided not to recruit her after investigating her background."

"I know." Garrett continued reading. "Her family has some suspicious connections to the yakuza, doesn’t it?"

"More than suspicious. I find it hard to believe she came to America simply to attend university. A lot of her information is fabricated, including her name."

"Changing your identity is practically standard procedure for organized crime." Garrett shrugged. "Still, if she’s the Clairvoyant, isn’t she a little young? You’re telling me a nineteen-year-old girl has been running circles around SHIELD’s senior agents?"

He turned another page.

"And the Clairvoyant’s activities don’t exactly resemble organized crime."

"We’ll find out soon enough."

Coulson continued driving.

Then he spotted a roadwork sign ahead.

With the road blocked, he turned left and took a detour into a narrow side street.

Unfortunately, a heavy construction vehicle was backing into the road ahead, completely blocking their path.

Before Coulson could react, another vehicle pulled up behind them.

Garrett slowly looked from the truck ahead to the car behind.

"Well, isn’t that convenient?"

He drew his pistol.

"Think we’re about to have one of those legendary roadside shootouts?"

The setup was familiar enough. A vehicle got boxed in, masked gunmen jumped out of surrounding cars, and suddenly everyone was firing machine guns.

Coulson, however, simply rolled up the windows.

SHIELD’s standard field vehicles came equipped with bullet-resistant armor. They weren’t as heavily protected as the director’s personal car, but they could handle ordinary firearms without much trouble.

The logistics department had recently upgraded the entire fleet, too. The air-conditioning systems were particularly impressive now.

Still not as good as the director’s car, naturally.

Some perks came with the job.

Coulson waited.

And waited.

No gunmen appeared.

Eventually, he frowned and looked toward the construction vehicle.

"Honestly, I don’t see the problem. A construction truck unloading equipment near a roadwork site isn’t exactly suspicious."

Garrett lowered his pistol slightly.

Neither man looked entirely convinced.

But with no attackers in sight, they had little choice but to continue waiting.

At the same time, Melinda May and Blake arrived at their assigned location.

Their target was Thomas Nash, a man who had suffered a catastrophic accident four years earlier.

Since then, he’d been completely paralyzed and confined to a hospital bed, where he’d remained under long-term care.

Blake examined the dossier.

"So we’re looking for a man in a vegetative state?"

"That’s what the file says."

May’s expression tightened.

"I’m going to speak with the hospital director. You find his room number."

She offered no further explanation, but something about the situation clearly bothered her.

"Understood, ma’am."

Blake headed to the reception desk and began searching through the hospital records.

He was taking this operation extremely seriously.

In fact, he was increasingly convinced that his team had the best chance of finding the real Clairvoyant.

If his theory was correct, Coulson would need a decoy to conceal his own identity. The operation would culminate in SHIELD capturing a conveniently selected suspect, allowing everyone to believe the Clairvoyant had finally been brought to justice.

But Coulson couldn’t personally lead the search for his own fabricated target. That would be far too suspicious.

Ward’s team was also unlikely to uncover anything significant, given the younger agent’s limited rank and influence.

Eliminate those two possibilities, and Blake’s team was the obvious choice.

He was getting closer.

Once they captured their target, he intended to question the suspect thoroughly. If the man was a decoy, Blake would find out who had put him there and why.

Then he could finally expose Coulson.

Blake was still contemplating his brilliant plan when Skye’s voice suddenly erupted through his earpiece.

"Get out of there! Now! I’m detecting a high-heat object moving toward your position at incredible speed. It looks like a missile!"

"Shit!"

Blake swore and immediately looked around for cover.

The attack confirmed one thing: they were probably very close to the Clairvoyant’s operation.

Unfortunately, being close to the truth wasn’t particularly useful if he died before uncovering it.

He needed to move.

He barely had time to react before the ceiling exploded.

A dark figure crashed through the debris and dropped into the room.

Michael Peterson.

Or what remained of him after his transformation into the Deathlok project.

Silver armor covered his body, giving him the appearance of a machine ripped from a science-fiction nightmare. Severe burns disfigured his face.

He didn’t bother speaking.

He simply drew his pistol and opened fire.

Blake returned fire immediately.

Every shot struck Peterson’s armor and ricocheted away harmlessly.

To be fair, the two men were standing less than ten meters apart.

Blake could have aimed for Peterson’s head.

Instead, he fired six rounds directly into the man’s chest plate.

Six.

Apparently, even in the middle of a potentially fatal firefight, professional courtesy had its limits.

The bullets accomplished absolutely nothing.

Peterson advanced without hesitation, seized Blake by the throat, and lifted him off the ground.

Blake struggled to breathe.

"Mr. Peterson..." he managed to choke out. "Don’t listen to them. We’ll help you."

Really?

That was his pitch?

A moment ago, he’d been shooting Peterson with everything he had. Now that he was dangling helplessly in the man’s grip, suddenly they were on the same side.

Blake’s survival instincts were impressive, if nothing else.

Fortunately, May arrived before Peterson could finish crushing his windpipe.

She took in the scene, her expression hardening as she watched Blake struggle in the cyborg’s grasp.

Her hands clenched.

Green flames erupted around her fists.

With the power she now possessed, defeating Michael Peterson shouldn’t have been particularly difficult.

She was just about to attack when the wall beside Peterson suddenly collapsed.

A second figure emerged through the enormous breach, surrounded by flickering flames.

He wore a black punk-style biker outfit, complete with chains draped across his shoulders, a sword strapped to his back, a knife at his waist, and fishnet fabric wrapped around his body. In one hand, he carried a sharpened length of rebar that burned like a torch.

But none of those details was nearly as alarming as his head.

There was no flesh left on it.

Only a bare skull, engulfed in roaring flames from the depths of Hell.

Johnny Blaze.

The Ghost Rider.

May stared at the flaming skeleton.

Her eyebrows rose slightly.

"Oh, that’s bad."

She looked at the Deathlok holding Blake by the throat, then back at the Ghost Rider.

"Yeah. We’re completely screwed."