Thirty minutes in a room with Raina was enough to leave Coulson feeling exhausted. He hadn't gotten any actionable intelligence, just a lot of uncomfortable commentary that left him with the distinct impression that she – not he – was in control of the conversation.
"I don't think you can pretend to have moral qualms all of a sudden, Raina. How old was that kid you set on us in Manila? Fourteen? Fifteen?"
"I hear SHIELD takes them young, too, Director Coulson."
Coulson kept his face studiously blank. Applicants generally had to be eighteen before they would even be eligible for the Academy and the vast majority were a few years older than that – a recruitment policy that matched the US military. Yes, there were very rare cases, in SciTech only, of profoundly gifted minors accepted before the age of majority, but they were kept out of the field until adulthood. (Actually, they were usually kept out of the field indefinitely – lab monkeys, engineers, and theoreticians.)
"Your own seditious ex-Agent Ward was recruited as a teenager. He said the Clairvoyant," she put a hand over her mouth to cover the error, "I mean, ex-Agent Garrett lifted him up from hell."
The references to ex-agents were Raina's way of twisting the knife, mocking Coulson for having traitors right under his nose. It didn't help that she brought them up with a shy, flirty smile.
"You're changing the subject," said Coulson. "I want to know how you've been contacting the Doctor."
Raina was, at least, cooperating with their requests for biosamples. Simmons had assured him that having two cases instead of one would speed her analysis of alien biochemistry. He knew it was her intention to throw him off-balance with all sorts of little digs. She'd brought up his missing memories and implied he might have more that he didn't know about. And her talk about Ward was clearly designed to make him paranoid that spies might remain in SHIELD. At least she had the decency to leave Triplett's death out of it.
He poured out two ibuprofen and swallowed them dry.
There was a quarter-cup of coffee in the pot, clearly left there by someone who didn't want to make some more. Coulson's first guess as to the culprit was Hunter. Or, more charitably, Fitz, who might have shirked coffee-making duties due to his hand tremor. Coulson weighed the relative merits of reviewing the security footage and making a general announcement at the next meeting. Coffee was serious business.
May leaned into the break room. "There's an incoming transmission from the Treehouse."
"Hydra holds the Treehouse."
"Which is why I came to get you."
He jogged back to his office. This wasn't quite an emergency, but it certainly merited his attention.
May tapped at the computer's input. "It's audio-only," she said, and the message began to play. It was a fully synthesized voice, a cheap one, probably gotten from some free website.
"The Treehouse has been liberated," it said. "We are not your friends. We are not your allies. But neither are we your enemies. We will return to you what is yours. We hold nothing. We are the Cursed Soldiers."
"And then it repeats," said May. "I've sent it down to Fitz and Skye for secondary analysis."
"It's a little dramatic," said Coulson. "Cursed Soldiers. Sounds like something from a video game."
May looked skeptical. "Who do we know whose given us 'gifts' before and has a…complicated relationship with both SHIELD and Hydra?"
"You think it's him?"
"I think it's more than possible."
"I shudder to think why he's speaking in the plural," said Coulson. Was Ward building an army? "Can we trace it?"
"All we're getting is that it was sent from the Treehouse. I can ask Skye to-"
"Take Mockingbird and investigate. If the Treehouse has been liberated from Hydra, we should secure it – gather any useful information, technology, supplies. I'll do the math and see if we have the staff to hold it, or if we should raze it."
"This could be a trap," said May. "Whoever these 'Cursed Soldiers' are, they're upfront about the fact that they don't plan to play nice with SHIELD."
"That's why I'm not sending Skye. If it's a trap and if it was set by Ward, there's no reason to give him what he wants." Coulson paused. "You could take Simmons, leave her in the plane until you'd secured the ground. She could identify useful laboratory materials."
"If it's secured, there's no reason we can't make two trips. Let Morse and I run the first op."
"All right," said Coulson. He could feel a pleasant buzzing in the back of his head, the excitement of rebuilding what Hydra had demolished. "Let's take back the Treehouse."
An aerial view didn't tell them much, only that the outer power lines had been cut and the generator had been demolished. The buildings themselves were apparently still standing, and certainly looked to be structurally sound. Although the outpost was called 'the Treehouse', the main building was set into the ground, just like any other edifice. The name came from the trees planted densely around and on top of the building to provide camouflage.
The air conditioning unit had obviously been tampered with. Mockingbird picked up one of the heavy canisters attached to it via jerry-rigged hoses. "Isoflurane," she announced. "It's a sedative, dose-dependent. Won't knock everyone out, but it would have reduced their numbers."
They rounded the front of the building, back-to-back. May briefly wished Skye had been allowed to come. It would have been good for her to see the benefits of two people working in synchrony, by the book. But no, if this was Ward, it could very well be a trap, and there was no reason to play right into his hands.
The entranceway was blown open, clearly some kind of improvised explosive, judging from the nails and screws embedded jaggedly in the walls. There were three bodies, obviously Hydra grunts, neatly laid out near the western corridor. May knelt down next to the bodies. One was shot in the neck, one had a broken spine, and one appeared to have died from blood loss. They were fully dressed in tactical gear and still had their guns, though the ammunition had been removed.
Mockingbird looked down at the bodies. "You think this was your traitor?"
"I don't know yet."
They started down the eastern corridor, following the old rule 'When in doubt, go right.' There was no natural light and no electricity, so they were forced to work slowly, scanning each room with flashlights. There was a room full of hard-copy records, two labs, a kitchen, and a gym. They found two more bodies, both victims of gunshot wounds.
"This isn't enough," whispered Bobbi. "A facility this size and we've only found five dead?"
"They did gas the place."
"That's temporary sedation. They would have woken up by now."
It didn't really change their plans, but it did remind them to be careful. They passed the gym and made their way to the south atrium and storage space. There was an enormous Hydra symbol on the wall, desecrated with gunshots and some kind of blunt force instrument, possibly a hammer.
"That's what's been bugging me!" said Mockingbird, in surprised tone that managed to remain hushed. "Where are the Hydra symbols? They put it on all sorts of things. We've only seen a few. There should be-"
"Here," said May, opening a door off to the left. "They're right here."
Bobbi looked inside. It was a closet with thick concrete walls. The door was reinforced steel. She wondered what it had been used for before the Uprising. It was clear what the Cursed Soldiers had used it for: the space had burnt hot, but a few tattered Hydra symbols were still visible amongst the melted plastic and brittle paper.
"They wanted these things gone," said Bobbi. "But they did it in a way that preserved the building."
They moved on, heading up the west corridor. There was a com center. Here, there had clearly been close-quarters combat. There were busted computers scattered across the floor and blood smeared over desks. There was a chunk of bleach-blond hair stuck on the corner of a desk.
May examined the debris. "Hydra was trying to get a message out. They obviously didn't succeed."
Across the room, there was a car battery rigged up to the transmitter that had sent out the repeating message to Coulson.
Mockingbird looked at the hard-copy schematics, posted on the wall. "There's a helipad outside, about 300 meters off," she said. "Should we…?"
May nodded. They would come back to this place, pick through it carefully. This was just a first pass, to see what these so-called Cursed Soldiers had done. They obviously hated Hydra, but this wasn't a massacre. In all honesty, May wasn't sure SHIELD had the manpower to actually hold this base, but just knowing Hydra didn't have it, that was a win, not to mention all the intelligence they would gain.
It struck May that she was hoping Ward wasn't involved because she really didn't want to be grateful to him.
They smelled the helipad before they saw it. It was a human stench, bad but not terrible – the smells of sweat and excretion, rather than decay and rot. It was hot, but then, it had only been one day. There was a steel shipping container, painted a faded blue, covered by an enormous camouflage tarp and sealed shut with a heavy padlock. There was a man hogtied and handcuffed, attached to the outside.
There was a handwritten note on the container, taped up with a cheap cell phone.
May unfolded the note. It was handwritten and very sloppy, not Ward's usual neat script.
We are the Cursed Soldiers.
There were 32 living souls in the blue container when we withdrew from the base. If they died, it was not by our hands.
We have separated the surviving scientist with knowledge of the Faustus method. If he is amenable to interrogation, we ask that you share your findings in return for the liberation of this base. The attached phone will lead you to a convenient drop point.
We are the Cursed Soldiers.
May passed the note to Mockingbird. She took out her satphone to contact Coulson and explained that they were now in possession of a number of enemy combatants as well as a moderate collection of corpses.
"You still don't know what went down there?" asked Coulson.
"I have a general idea, but there was no power during the siege so there's no video."
"Offer the crated soldiers a chance to surrender to you if they have information about the assault. Then move the whole damn crate three hundred miles in any direction and we'll tip off General Talbot."
"So we're bringing in the scientist?"
"Just because someone else suggested it doesn't mean it's not a good idea."
May sighed and pocketed the phone. She signaled to Morse and they approached the blue crate. May banged on the door. "You are being transferred to the custody of the United States military. If you are prepared to cooperate with SHIELD, put your hands behind your head, open your mouth and stick out your tongue." It was the best set of commands she could think of, and even so, there were probably one or two activating cyanide capsules in response.
May gestured a countdown from three as Mockingbird dismantled the lock. They pulled back the heavy steel door and looked into the blue shipping container. There were about twenty-five corpses, hands and feet bound in zip ties. A few were pale – they must have been injured during the incursion and died from blood loss. Most of the dead had the characteristic cherry red, mottled look that accompanied cyanide poisoning. One was still convulsing. May ignored him. They didn't have the medical resources here to save him. It was interesting, thought May, that more died from suicide than from the actual Cursed Soldiers attack. Toward the back of the container, there were a handful still alive. None had their hands on their heads due to the zip ties. Only one had her mouth open and her tongue pressed out.
Mockingbird approached the surrendering woman. She was black and bald and looked more confused than calculating.
"I cooperate! I cooperate to SHIELD!" the woman cried, careful to leave her mouth open at the end of the phrase.
Mockingbird wasn't ready to remove the zip ties yet, and helping the woman walk over the corpses seemed unlikely, so she simply picked the woman up and carried her across both arms. Not something she wanted to do for long distances, but she could manage for forty feet. She put the woman down on the helipad as gently as she could.
The other living captives were stoically silent. May sealed the container and reattached the lock.
Morse knelt down next to the woman, who seemed far too distraught to be a Hydra soldier.
"I am not! I am not them. They take me because I speak Kwese. English only very little."
"Okay," said Bobbi. She was trained to question witnesses through a language barrier. "Tell me your name."
"Narolie."
"Good. Now, tell me what happened." Commands were less polite than requests, but they were more easily understood.
"I do not see much. I hear crash. I hear fight."
"How many attackers?"
"Two."
"Two in charge?"
"Just two. All I see is two."
"And what do they look like?"
"Man is white, tall."
Mockingbird pulled up a series of six men's faces on her tablet. "Do you see him here?"
"That is him." She tapped Ward's face.
"Okay. And the other?"
"Woman is…like her." The witness pointed to May.
"Asian?" asked Bobbi.
"No. Yes. Face is…very same."
"The woman looked exactly like May?" echoed Bobbi, to make sure she was understanding.
"Like her," said Narolie, "but broken here." She indicated her cheek.
So Ward and Agent 33. Well that was interesting. "What did they do, the man and the woman?"
"They fight. They break things. They tie people up and put them in the box." Narolie indicated the shipping container. "They check the teeth, take the bad ones. The bad teeth are…I don't know the word, make you dead."
"Poison?"
"Yes. They take the poison teeth. But then one of the men here, the ones in the box, he say something about a man called Daniel. And then the woman, she change. She start to…I don't know the word. When your heart is," Narolie tapped her chest rapidly with her palm to signify a rapid pulse, "and you look every place."
"Panic."
Narolie nodded. "The woman panic. The woman try to run, but the man stop her. They fight. He say many things, hard to hear. But he say something about rewards and the woman get calm."
"Something about rewards? Would you recognize it if you heard it again?"
Narolie nodded, but looked uncertain. "Maybe?"
"Was it, 'Stick with me and you'll get your reward'?" Bobbi knew better than to start with the answer she was looking for; that would make the interview too leading.
Narolie shook her head.
"Was it, 'Victory is always rewarding'?"
"No, not that."
"Was it, 'Compliance will be rewarded'?"
"Yes, yes, that was it."
"And then what happened?"
"They don't go back to teeth. They just put the rest in the box and they shut the doors. I don't know what happened after that."
"Thank you, Narolie."