Chapter 1546 - The Director Is About to Crack
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
At that moment, SHIELD’s D.C. headquarters was in a mess. “Send reinforcements immediately. Have the Maryland police charge in with their sirens on.”
“The rescue teams will board the plane in three minutes. ETA is ten minutes.”
“It’s too late. They’ve cut the feed.”
Many staff members paused in their movements. Looking at the cameras that were turning black one after another, they had a bad feeling.
“Wait, the feed hasn’t been cut. It’s a cover. They’ve just blocked visuals. I can still hear them,” a staff member with an earpiece suddenly shouted.
SHIELD, which had been quiet for a moment, was immediately noisy again.
The other party wasn’t firing, and the feed was still connected, so SHIELD could still determine what was going on from the sounds.
It was very likely that these 12 colleagues were only injured and not dead.
Nick Fury swept in and found a certain shiny bald head at a glance. He asked, “Have the rescue teams been deployed?”
Sitwell immediately replied, “Captain Rumlow has taken two of his best teams to the airfield.”
Nick Fury nodded and didn’t say anything.
Rumlow was the commander of SHIELD’s Strike force.
If ordinary SHIELD agents were patrol officers, then Rumlow was SHIELD’s SWAT captain.
The two teams directly under him were also the best in the Strike force.
Apart from certain special members, this was the strongest conventional combat force which SHIELD had.
Even Nick Fury couldn’t send out more men at the moment. After all, he currently didn’t have enough manpower
Five minutes later, there was another piece of news that caused the room to fall into a dead silence. “Two Strike teams on the border of Vermont were ambushed. Six of them are down… No, eight. Wait, 11…”
The staff members who were receiving the notifications were terrified. They could only stare at the images on the feed and listen to the cries for help on the team channel, and reflexively repeat what was happening.
These two teams… were there to catch the Joker.
Nick Fury’s face changed. “Have Rumlow turn around and go straight to Vermont. We have to catch the Joker.”
The director’s face was as black as the bottom of a pot, and he looked very angry. In his heart, however, he was feeling a little suspicious. Did I overthink it? Isn’t the Joker an actor hired by Hydra?
‘There were a total of 24 people in the two teams sent to capture the Joker, but it had taken a bit of planning to arrange them; they were basically all suspected of being Hydra.
Hydra probably wouldn’t let these members leave. After all, if they left SHIELD, they would only be a bunch of powerful mercenaries at most.
They had always been operating normally in SHIELD. It was practically impossible to kill them without arousing the suspicion of the other Hydra members.
At the same time, Brock Rumlow, who was on the Quinjet, gripped the armrests of his chair tightly and gritted his teeth as the plane swung around sharply.
Most of the members who made up the two teams on the border were his trusted subordinates. If they were lost at the Joker’s hands, he would lose at least a third of the Strike force which he controlled.
Although there were more than 4.00 people in the Strike force at HQ, it was easy for elite teams to make contributions and be promoted. After a number of years, they could be deployed to become team leaders or deputies.
With the 18 members dispersed, they would have some control over roughly 100 members of the Strike force, and could slowly infiltrate and nibble away at the force.
If they were taken down by the Joker now, this would never happen.
Regardless of how paranoid the two parties in SHIELED were, a “massacre” was taking place on the border of Vermont and Canada.
It was only a so-called “massacre” because no one was dead.
Since Luke needed these people as “acting props,” he naturally couldn’t kill them here.
Thus, he waited until a “brown bear” appeared soundlessly next to the two teams and sent two members flying with two swats.
Seeing that most of the Strike force members were distracted by the “brown bear,” Luke fired at the same time from high up ina tree, and sent out a reminder. “Shadow Bear, don’t use too much strength. If you kill or injure them, it’ll be hard to use them again.”
The brown bear paused for a moment and shook its head unhappily at Luke.
Luke fired two more shots unhurriedly before he continued, “Shadow Bear sounds great. Mm, someone will definitely like it.”
However, the Strike force members yelled, “It’s not a bear. It’s a disguise!”
Right after that, Shadow Bear curled up into a ball and barreled into two team members, sending them flying.
Luke smiled and pulled the trigger again. “Correct. She’s human! Hm, can’t she have the strength of a bear?”
Of course, Shadow Bear heard that, and kicked out at a tree.
With a loud rumble, the entire tree fell. The ball came rolling back and sent two more team members flying.
While Luke was mowing people down, Selina sent him a message. “Package is wrapped up. Come and get it.”
‘Taking down two more people with two shots, Luke replied, “Erase all traces. You and Skull Head evacuate as planned.”
Selina didn’t say anything else.
20 minutes later, two Quinjets arrived.
After circling the woods several times, one of the jets landed in a clearing, and a team got out.
The other plane flew out in expanding circles to search for the possible presence of Joker and his accomplices.
In SHIELD, various orders had already been issued.
It was the standard procedure for a contingency plan: Check if any aircraft had passed through the surrounding airspace, check nearby surveillance cameras, block off nearby roads, and so on.
Nick Fury simply stood coldly in SHIELD with his hands behind his back.
Nobody dared to talk to him. Everybody could tell that the director was furious.
Actually, Nick Fury really wanted to grin right now, if it wasn’t for the fact that he had also lost a team of special agents in Maryland.
It was a pity that Rumlow hadn’t been captured along with the others! Fury had sent him over, but the Joker hadn’t ambushed them again. Muttering to himself, the black-hearted man started plotting again.
It seemed that there was now an opportunity to get involved in the Strike force! He thought silently: As long as dozens of less suspicious people were added to the mix, it wouldn’t be easy for Hydra to use the Strike force to take action.
To put it simply, Hydra didn’t know that Nick Fury knew about them, so they couldn’t exclude non-Hydra members willy-nilly.
And Nick Fury wanted to make Hydra think that he didn’t know, so he couldn’t send them to their deaths on a grand scale.
Both parties were cautious.
Nick Fury didn’t know who Hydra was, and could only add some less suspicious people to the force.
If the other party wanted to take action, they had to kill these agents who weren’t Hydra to gain control.
But killing colleagues would undoubtedly cripple everyone else’s trust in them.
At that time, agents who weren’t Hydra members would be wary of them.
This wouldn’t save SHIELD, but there was a higher chance of dragging Hydra down with him. A cold light flashed in the black baldie’s eyes. He hated it when people treated him like an idiot..
