บท 107: Chapter 107: The Death of Whitehall (Part 1)
If anyone else had tried to strike a deal with Fury, he would have outright ignored them. But given that Daniel Davis had previously provided critical intelligence about the Captain, Fury decided to hear him out.
"This," Davis said as he tossed a badge onto the table in front of Fury.
"No way," Fury's eye, the one not covered by the patch, nearly bulged out at the sight of the badge. The emblem on it was a Hydra. Anyone else might have dismissed it as mere mythology, but Fury knew exactly what Hydra represented.
"They were wiped out years ago," Fury stated firmly.
"Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place. I believe you haven't forgotten that saying?" Davis replied with a smile. Since Alexander Pierce had decided to target him, Davis wasn't about to let him off easy. Besides, this would keep Fury too busy to keep an eye on him.
"Where are they?" Fury demanded urgently. When Davis remained silent, he quickly added, "If it's really them, I agree to your terms."
"Do you recognize this man?" Davis said, pulling out a photo and placing it in front of Fury. The image showed a suave, middle-aged man in a tailored suit.
Before Fury could speak, Davis continued, "His name is Daniel Whitehall. He's the chairman of a high-tech company."
"He's with Hydra?" Fury asked after a long, scrutinizing look at the photo. As the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., his initial panic at the mention of Hydra had quickly subsided into his usual calm demeanor.
"He has another name I think you might find interesting," Davis said, ignoring Fury's question, and sipped his drink with a knowing smile. "Werner Reinhardt. I'm sure that name rings a bell."
"What did you say?" Fury shot up from his chair, his eye nearly popping out. Ordinary people might not react to the name, but for Fury, it was different. Werner Reinhardt was second only to the Red Skull in the Hydra hierarchy.
"Werner Reinhardt," Davis repeated, enunciating each word clearly.
Fury paused briefly, then grabbed the photo from the table and turned to leave. As he walked out, he quickly dialed a number on his phone.
"This could get interesting, Pierce. Let's hope you won't get too caught up in the mess." Davis chuckled to himself. Whitehall's exposure would undoubtedly stir up trouble within S.H.I.E.L.D., regardless of whether Fury managed to catch him or not.
Originally, Davis had intended to deal with Hydra slowly, like a hen laying eggs. But since Pierce had decided to act against him, the situation had changed. If not for the three Insight helicarriers that Fury had managed to prevent from being destroyed, he might have even exposed Pierce's involvement directly. Those carriers had cost billions, perhaps even tens of billions of dollars.
"Fury, what brings you here?" In a modest apartment in New York, Captain America and Peggy Carter, who were enjoying their time together, were surprised to see Fury appear. Thanks to Carter's regained youth, the Captain was finally living a peaceful life.
For Fury, leaving a powerhouse like Captain America idle was a colossal waste. He could always find some grand cause to get the Captain back into action. But Carter's presence had disrupted all his plans.
Captain and Carter, reunited after over sixty years, had planned to travel the world together.
"There's trouble," Fury said with a grave expression.
"Trouble? You go deal with it. You're the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Why are you here looking for us? Do you expect us to go to war at our age?" Carter retorted irritably. They had both given their lives to the world, and now that they had a second chance at life, they weren't eager to waste it.
"Werner Reinhardt," Fury said the name directly.
"Why are you bringing him up?" Carter looked at Fury with confusion.
"Is this him?" Fury handed her the photo he had gotten from Davis. Given his suspicions about internal issues within S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury had decided to bypass the agency and go directly to Carter, who had personally captured Reinhardt in the past.
"What's going on here?" Carter, upon seeing the man in the photo, slammed her hand down on the tempered glass table, cracking it in several places.
"This is from..." Fury started to explain the intel he had gotten from Davis.
"You, go, see him," Carter said, pointing at Fury before standing up.
"Uh, you're back," Davis said, somewhat surprised when Fury returned with the Captain and Carter. He quickly guessed the reason for their return.
"What's this all about?" Carter, clearly agitated by the mention of Reinhardt, demanded.
"Oh, this? It's just some intelligence I overheard from a visiting senior during my travels. I thought you might find it interesting," Davis replied.
"How many people came over, and why?" Fury pressed for more details.
"How is that any of your business?" Davis shot back, expressionless.
"You..." Fury was taken aback by Davis's blunt response.
"You should know the kind of people you're dealing with. If their abilities get exposed, imagine the consequences," Fury said after taking a deep breath.
"So, what do you want? For them to apply for tourist visas?" Davis smirked. "Even if they needed tourist visas, they wouldn't go through S.H.I.E.L.D. To be blunt, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have the authority. You don't represent Earth."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. is authorized by the United Nations. We absolutely can represent Earth," Fury retorted firmly.
"Do you know what bothers me the most about S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Davis asked, smiling at Fury. "It's your arrogance. You think you know everything and control everything, but you don't. You can't. The times have changed. Do you know how many aliens are on Earth now? Go find them all and get them to apply for visas."
"Enough. This isn't the time for this," Carter interjected before Fury could respond.
"What other intel do you have on him?" Carter asked Davis.
"Nothing more. That's all I know."
"Thanks," Carter said, leading the Captain and Fury out. The Captain remained silent throughout.
"People are so greedy and insatiable," Davis muttered at Fury's retreating figure.
"Are you satisfied now?" Carter sighed deeply as she looked at Fury on the Quinjet. She knew exactly why Fury had pushed Davis – he was testing the limits. But the outcome had surprised him.
"Alright, Peggy, what's next?" the Captain asked.
"We'll deal with this later. For now, we need to catch Reinhardt," Carter replied, sighing again. She didn't want to get involved, preferring to spend her time with the Captain. But with Hydra and Reinhardt in the mix, she and the Captain couldn't turn their backs.
"Fury really does prey on the nice guys," Davis thought to himself after Carter and her team had left. Fury had a track record of manipulating people. Coulson, even after death, had been dragged back to work for him. Others, like Black Widow and Hawkeye, were constantly on missions.
But with people like Stark or Banner, Fury had to resort to persuasion and reasoning.
Fury had been testing Davis's limits because Davis had always seemed cooperative, like when he provided the Captain's location or the intel on Reinhardt.
"What? You must be joking," Daniel Whitehall, savoring a vintage wine in his lavishly decorated mansion, almost dropped his glass upon hearing the news over the phone.
"Do you think I'd joke about this? Get out now. We can't hold them off for long," said the voice on the other end before hanging up. Whitehall angrily threw his glass and began organizing his escape.
Even though Fury and Carter had planned their actions with extreme caution, they had no way of knowing how deeply S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated. Their plans were leaked almost immediately.
"What's happening, boss?" Sunil Bakshi, Whitehall's trusted assistant, asked after receiving urgent instructions to evacuate.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. has found us. Destroy all the files and get ready to leave," Whitehall ordered, hanging up the phone.
"Carter, it's always you," Whitehall's usually composed demeanor twisted into rage. He couldn't believe that even with his low profile, he had been discovered.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was not yet in its dismantling phase, so Whitehall had stayed mostly out of sight, conducting his research from his mansion.
Now, just as his work was reaching a critical point, S.H.I.E.L.D. had shown up. Moving to a new location would mean starting over, which infuriated him.
"Damn it, I should never have listened to him," Alexander Pierce muttered, pacing anxiously in his office at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Triskelion headquarters. Pierce was stressed out, knowing that if not for his deep infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., his agents, and action teams, he would be in deep trouble. If Whitehall were captured, it could expose a vast network, possibly even implicating Pierce himself.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s various divisions had different leaders and different goals. Pierce's division aimed to use the Insight program to control the world.
Whitehall, on the other hand, was obsessed with the Kree's Inhuman creation myth, believing it would give him unparalleled power to rule the world.
Baron Strucker was focused on researching superpowers, later creating the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
Gideon Malick
's faction aimed to bring back Hive, an ancient Hydra leader, and use his power to dominate the world.
Different methods, but the same goal: world domination.
Initially, Pierce hadn't been too concerned about Carter's sudden return to youth. In fact, he preferred if she and the Captain stayed away, as it avoided complications.
As for their grudge against Hydra, Pierce felt it didn't concern him. He wasn't part of Hydra back then and had no obligation to avenge the old members killed by the Captain and Carter.
But he couldn't resist Whitehall's persuasion. After all, the prospect of regaining youth was too tempting. For the elite, once they had power, they wanted longevity to enjoy it. That's why Pierce had risked freeing Whitehall from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody and provided him with resources to find the Inhumans – a way to potentially achieve eternal youth and continue ruling.
But now, all those plans were unraveling. Whitehall's exposure threatened to undo everything.
Roxxon Corporation, a high-tech company based in the USA, seemed small on the surface but was, in fact, a formidable organization. During S.H.I.E.L.D.'s downfall, Roxxon openly flaunted its Hydra connections, which baffled Davis. However, in a capitalist society, this was normal.
Roxxon wasn't the only one; other companies with ties to Hydra, like Pickham's firm, also operated openly. They had even tried to buy Ant-Man's suit.
As long as the profits were substantial, even an organization as malevolent as Hydra could find partners in the USA. Just like later, Ian Quinn and Garrett tried selling Centipede soldiers to the military, and there were generals willing to negotiate.
"Hurry, get moving!" On the top floor of Roxxon, employees were frantically destroying documents in the records room. Even setting them on fire couldn't quickly eradicate all the paper files.
Hydra's efforts to stay under the radar were intense. Despite the digital age, they kept using paper to avoid leaks through computers.
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