1962 Following the Vine to the Melon, Happenstance

While Luke was living a peaceful life in New York, the Level 1 clone had assumed the Joker persona and was taking Dr. Haley around Europe.

Before this, Haley couldn't do anything to arouse suspicion; she could only investigate in secret, and had found traces of Whitehall in Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Compared with Haley's scientific-based hypnosis, Luke's superpowered Hypnosis was explosive.

Most of the time, he just needed to be close to the target for a few minutes to obtain the information he wanted.

Based on what he learned from Whitehall's underlings, Haley's intelligence was already a little outdated.

Half a year ago, Whitehall disappeared with a few trusted subordinates, and the personnel in the three countries went into hiding.

Luke didn't kill them, but left them with no memory of having leaked Hydra secrets.

Besides, the Hydra members at the bottom of the hierarchy had limited abilities. A certain "head" had to come out and gather them together. Without permission, nothing big would happen.

After he killed Whitehall, there might be other "heads" who would take over.

At that time, Luke might be able to find another lead.

…

Luke and Haley followed the trail from the three Scandinavian countries to Austria, and then from Austria to Lyon, France.

On a hill on the outskirts of Lyon stood a luxurious French manor.

The big main building in the classic style, the neat, wide lawn, the thick woods, and the clear stream which flowed through it all demonstrated the extravagance of the manor's owner.

At that moment, Luke and Haley were disguised as a rich couple. They had polite smiles on their faces as they listened to the woman tell them what they wanted to know. "I'm sorry, but Werner had something on and left some time ago. Is there anything I can help you with?"

Luke didn't say anything. In any case, Stephanie Malick was already under the influence at Pheromone Control.

As long as the female doctor, who was proficient in communication, didn't ask anything too sensitive, Stephanie Malick would answer.

Ten minutes later, they drove away from the manor.

Watching the gate close in the rearview mirror, Haley turned around and asked, "This Malick family has a big secret. Why didn't you let me ask the woman a few more questions?"

Luke turned the wheel lazily as the car drove along the winding mountain road. "We have to figure out the problem slowly. It would be boring to scare the players away at the beginning."

Haley blinked. "Really? Gideon Malick is a former member of the World Security Council. He's not someone to be trifled with."

Luke glanced at her. "So?"

The female doctor leaned over and kissed his face. "Playing games with a bigshot like that is too exciting."

Luke said, "That's right. He's indeed an interesting bigshot."

The Malick family was one of the oldest families in Europe. It was said that they had a history which went back thousands of years, and they had connections in various European countries.

Like many big families, it inevitably contained internal factions, a complicated distribution of power, and a lot of internal conflict.

However, there had always been a key group which held most of the core power in the family.

In this generation, the leader of this key group was Gideon Malick, who was Miss Stephanie's father.

After the incident in Washington, Gideon resigned as a member of the World Security Council to avoid suspicion.

During the investigation, Luke didn't find anything suspicious about him.

To be more precise, there were too many suspects similar to Gideon, and there was no value in investigating all of them.

The Malick family was based in Europe, and Gideon's withdrawal was more like the American government pushing the blame to Europe.

The American government didn't feel guilty about doing this at all, since it could take some of the pressure off them.

Luke hadn't expected his search for Whitehall to lead him to Gideon.

Luke had found out in Austria that Whitehall had met a young man called Werner von Strucker.

When they met, Whitehall's capable subordinate, Bakshi, seemed quite familiar with this Werner.

How could a young man be familiar with a Hydra bigshot and his subordinates? This was an interesting question.

There was no telling where Whitehall was at that moment. Luke investigated this Werner in passing, only to discover that the tycoon had a few Hydra spies protecting him.

Their leader was Baron Strucker.

The Hydra members were protecting Werner because he was the Baron's son.

This Baron was a Hydra "head."

He was the one who had stolen Loki's scepter from Tony, and created Wanda and Pietro.

Baron Struckker was very good at scheming and research, but it was a pity that he wasn't very lucky.

Tony took the Avengers with him to Sokovia to retrieve the scepter. When he charged in, he had killed Strucker with one blast from his palm cannon.

It wasn't until after the battle that the tycoon learned that he had killed the mastermind behind the theft of the scepter.

After the Baron died, Mr. Werner, who had never participated in Hydra's affairs, inherited part of his father's legal assets.

It was enough for him to at most live life as a small magnate without worries.

During that time, Werner suddenly became closer to Stephanie Malick.

On the surface, they had known each other since they were young, and were indeed family friends.

But there were also 300 to 500 other young ladies like Stephanie whom Werner knew growing up.

Luke had noticed the Malick family because of Werner, and he realized that the father and daughter had been in private contact before with Whitehall's subordinate, Bakshi.

At this point, most of Luke's attention had already shifted from Whitehall to the Malick family.

Whether or not this family was Hydra was another matter, but when Luke came into contact with Stephanie just now, her name was bright red in the system.

This young miss of the Malick family was in the news every now and then.

In the news, she was enthusiastic about charity, actively participated in volunteer work, and called for environmental protection, animal protection, equal rights for women, and so on.

This person who did good deeds everyday had a bright red name, which only proved that those 'good deeds' were just for show.

More importantly, anyone with a red name wasn't protected by the system.

Thinking that, Luke smiled wickedly. "Let's go back and make preparations first. We need more suitable identities. When the time comes, we'll invite this young lady and her father to play a 'game'."

Haley also laughed out loud. "No problem. I'll design enough exciting games this time. This young miss will definitely be moved to tears."

After they left, Stephanie left the living room and went to the garden behind the main building. "Daddy, I've sent off Werner's two friends."

A solemn old man with white hair and a square face turned around and nodded. "Hm, find out later why they came here."