This is the prologue, just a brief teaser. Unusually for me, I have the whole plot planned out and new chapters should be posted regularly and often.
Grant Ward was unhappy.
Not miserable. Miserable was how he felt when Kara had died in his arms. That was grief. This was just…unhappy. He wasn't sure why. He had minions. They did his bidding. He had an entire criminal enterprise – admittedly one that was weaker than it had been, but the infrastructure was there. It could be rebuilt stronger, better than before. Right?
His men were thugs. They obeyed him because he was dominant, because he was stronger, because he was the alpha wolf. He beat them as needed to reinforce this premise. He shot Gunner in the foot for insubordination. After that, they started playing the game without so much hesitation. But they still weren't enthusiastic, except insofar as methamphetamine was concerned. (Grant tried a few hits of meth with them, hoping to learn that it was a valuable tool. He found it unsatisfactory. It lifted the unhappy mood briefly, but it limited his thinking, made it repetitive and paranoid. And when the drug wore off, he felt worse than ever, as if he would never have energy again.)
He didn't want fearful obedience, he wanted loyalty. And he wasn't going to get loyalty by taking over someone else's team. He would get it by building a team of his own.
"Mead, Oklahoma," said Coulson as he clicked the projector, "is a town of about five thousand people. Its largest industry is a residential school for the blind. There were two felonies committed in Mead last night: a murder," he said, as a crime scene photograph of a mutilated elderly man appeared, "and a bombing." A second photograph popped on the screen next to the first. It showed the smoldering ruins of an enormous farmhouse.
Skye opened her mouth in shock. Who would bomb a school full of children? "How many-"
"None," said Coulson. "The school was closed for fumigation. Interestingly, the local police have been unable to determine who it was exactly that ordered the fumigation."
May was looking at the old man. He had clearly been whipped with a belt or some other sort of wide strap. "Cause of death?" she asked.
"Gunshot wound to the back of the head." answered Coulson. It was a quick, relatively painless way to die. Which was odd, because whoever had killed the man had obviously wanted him to suffer. The whipping was pre-mortem.
"Sir," said Morse, "this is obviously awful, but I'm not clear on how it's SHIELD business."
"Because of a video obtained from the only security camera in town, outside of a convenience store."
Gas station surveillance, good quality video, obviously intended to catch those who filled up without paying.
Skye watches. She is not prepared.
A small bus pulls up. It's nondescript, deliberately so. There is an outline of a person's head in the back window. It is familiar. It does not move.
An older man climbs out of the passenger's seat to pump gas. He's on the high side of middle age, but not elderly.
Two women and a boy follow him, passing the camera on their way into the convenience store. The first woman is white, perhaps thirty years old. Her hair is braided and her gait is confident. The second woman is African American and much younger, probably not a teenager, but not much older than that. She has short hair and she glances from side to side as they enter the store. She is nervous. The boy's age is difficult to guess as he is somewhere between childhood and adolescence. Maybe eleven? Maybe fourteen? He has olive skin. He absently bites the tip of one finger before hurrying after the women.
A young man gets out of the driver's seat, taking the older man's place so the older man can step away and have a smoke. The young man leans on the bus. He looks weary. He turns, he faces the camera and- no. No, that doesn't make any sense. He's made mistakes, sure, but he's not evil. He wouldn't bomb a school, even an empty one. He's just not that kind of…
What the hell was Miles Lydon doing in Mead, Oklahoma?