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Chapter Thirty Five
Melinda May spoke to Air Controller in Chinese as Ward looked on only halfway understanding the conversation. Right after lunch, after Natasha finally got the feed Skye, Melinda finally found something. While reading manifests of the Chinese airports she noted a strange manifest at an airport an hour away from the lab. It was possibly a lucky break but maybe nothing. An airplane carrying wild cats as cargo had departed the airport a few days ago. The team was here to find out if they had arrived by helicopter and if any of the basic info matched what they knew about the male baby shifter's evacuation and re-location plan.
Right upon landing, Agent May had questioned an airport groundskeeper if he had seen any helicopters in the area the last few days. He had pointed out one in the hanger so while May and Ward went in the control tower, Coulson and Fitz went to check out the helicopter.
To Coulson, it looked like a basic military helicopter from the outside. When he and Fitz looked in it, they saw no cages or papers that would lead them to believe it had been at the secret Hydra shifter facility. Fitz's keep eye did spot something in the cargo area. It was hair. It looked like shed animal fur.
"Look sir," Fitz told his superior. "I would like to take sample of this. We may be able to take dna and determine if this in animal hair and if so what kind."
"Do it," Coulson told him, "But Agent May may be able to detect something on it by smell. She will be over here after she questions the air traffic controller."
"Sure glad she can speak the language," Fitz said. "I am afraid in the academy I only got through Spanish and French."
"Yes, May is well versed with languages and dialects," Coulson told the younger agent. "That has helped her on many an op over the years. Here she comes with Ward."
"Controller says this helicopter came in three and a half days ago," Melinda told her superior and Agent Fitz. "Took off in a good size plane heading East. I asked for a copy of their flight plan. It may be bogus but it's worth checking out."
"Did you find anything on the helicopter?" Ward asked the other two male agents.
"Yes, look I found this," Fitz told Ward and May proudly as she showed a clear baggie with hairs in it. "It was in the back all over the cargo bay floor."
"Melinda?" Coulson asked. "What can you smell?" he asked appealing to her leopard shifter keen sense of smell.
"Hairs smell animal, definitely leopard." Agent May told the group. She got into the copter herself and walked around using her senses. "Air is too old to tell you if there was any that was a shifter. I can tell you however that due to the volume of hair, the animal or animals that shed did so because of great anxiety and stress."
"My cat did that every time he went to the vet growing up," Fitz volunteered looking forward to looking at the sample under the microscope to let science verify Agent May's sense of smell.
"I looked all over the hangers and buildings. I don't see any cameras," Ward remarked as the four agents walked back to their plane.
"That's because the air-port is small and remote," Melinda told him. "They probably don't have the money for that type of thing."
"We will have to see if we can pull some satellite images from 3 or 4 days back," Coulson told the team walking up the gangway.
"So back to Macau?" Melinda asked wondering where he wanted to take the bus for the next two days.
"For now," Coulson replied. "It's just an hour and half away. Fury will expect us to remain there until we meet up with Barton's team. Fury told me before we landed that Hill has something and will be calling us in about two hours."
"May get us back in the air and Ward can co-pilot so you can check on Romanov and Skye once we are air-born," Coulson told Melinda.
"Fitz, take the sample to Jemma to check to see if it could be a cloud leopard," Coulson told the young scientist. "I want images from the air on this airport from the last 5 days."
"I will be in my office and write up our mission interview report for Hill and Fury," Coulson told the team as each left to do their assignments.
Natasha Romanov felt more curiosity than anything when Melinda excused herself to go see Coulson regarding some "Intel" regarding a mission he needed to know.
Her curiosity grew further when 15 minutes later the plane was in the air. If she had not been so tired and if not for the damn pain medication, she could have stayed awake after "little one" dozed off in her arms. But Natasha knew that plane engines always lulled her to sleep. The Russian did wake when the plane bumped the airstrip for a landing. She had no idea how long they had been in the air or where they may be and she hated that.
"Agent Romanov you stay in that damn bed and don't you dare wake the baby," a voice from the cock-pit came into the room through the comm.
Natasha cursed, how did she did that? Must be a camera in here. I got to figure out where so I can turn it off.
"And don't you even think about disabling our surveillance system in the bus," Coulson's voice now came through the comm.
"Tag Teamed, great," Natasha muttered. The red-head wondered if Melinda was leaving the baby in her arms to keep her in bed. She would not put it past her. She said all of her curses silently to herself because she did not want to curse in front of the baby, even if she was a newborn and wouldn't know what she was talking about.
It seemed the entire team left for the Commande Center for a while and then Melinda was popping her head in the medical pod, telling her to behave and then she was gone. Natasha still saw Simmons in the lab probably her and Skye's baby sitter. She hated this, really hated this. She hated being in pain and injured. Natasha hated not knowing what was going on.
Then Dr. Simmons came in and checked her wounds. The shoulder was healing but the doctor warned her to stop trying to move it so much or she would be forced to take measures to tape her left arm to her body to immobilize it. The doctor then told her that her temperature was holding a high normal so she needed to rest. Natasha was really trying to be good for the doctor but she had about all of her limit of the touching and doctor instructions. Dr. Simmons seemed to know this so she took Skye on the premise of changing her diaper and getting her a bottle and left Natasha alone.
At least Melinda had left a cell phone in the room. Clint called her and they spoke a few minutes. He seemed to evade anything she asked or subtly probed about his mission. He did tell her he was not that far away. Fury called also to check on her but he again shared absolutely nothing. He did ask her to verbally debrief with him either which was a first. The man always wanted answers the minute he saw you stand in front of him and she had been gone an entire year on deep cover. All Fury had given her that were anything similar to orders was she was on Phil's team for now and Melinda was to oversee her rehab and she better follow her orders. Fury then told her in no uncertain terms she best follow those orders because it would be up to Coulson and May's evaluation that she would be placed back in the field.
The baby did not return to her room. The team had returned shortly after the phone calls from where-ever they had been and then everyone was upstairs in the Commande Center. She could hear voices. A few minutes later, the plane was once again in the air. She did not go to sleep this time. She was to frustrated. Melinda had not come back to the medical bay. She thought for sure she may come in or at least speak through the comm with her after they landed for the second time. Nobody was around on this level of the plane.
They were definitely in a meeting of some sort. Only an idiot would not realize it was related to her year undercover and it was dealing in relation to Dr. Malus and the baby shifters. And she had not been invited, asked to contribute, or even briefed.
Natasha's patience were gone. She had felt a simmering frustration that seemed to be heating to a boil since they landed at yet another place. Nobody had returned and she was still alone. And damn it, it was past dinner and she was hungry. Fury was placing her body and future in Melinda and Phil's hands. Nobody was talking to her and telling her what was going on and even the baby was gone.
Her emotions surged, her head hurt like before. Then unintentionally like before, she shifted. This time fortunately she did not freak out but she was not going to hide in the corner to see if somebody would come with a tranq gun to knock her out. She slipped from the bed and the hospital gown fell away. Fast as lightening, Natasha climbed back to her perch from the night before in the common area.
There was nothing except the stairwell to get her where she could observe the meeting in the Commande Center, so Natasha decided to stay here and sulk. She could have a bad mood up here as easy as in that hospital bed and she was rebelling from all of this right now. She felt utterly useless. She wanted to be angry but it was not really anybody's fault and after yesterday she knew they really did not trust her deep down. She wanted to go outside but Melinda must have thought of the possibility of that because the damn plane was locked tight, even the windows. The snow leopard shifter could not even smell the fresh air from where-ever they were.
As she sat there sulking, her leopard tale swung back and forth wildly. When she heard her name called by Coulson, she lost it. She did not have to behave if they did not feel she was a part of this team anyway. And the thought that Coulson and May were tag team S. O.'s burned her. They had purposely kept everything from her. Fury and they had taken away her mission to safeguard the baby male shifter. It had been her op, she was to get him back. There was a light overhang that looked promising to land on. Then maybe she could push of it and get in the corner on the other side of the plane. It was a little higher and she may be able to get a visual of this secret mission briefing she had not been invited too.
Melinda had not come down when she shifted so obviously whatever was going on must be more important than her being a snow leopard at the moment. So in an act of total frustrated rebellion she launched herself to the lighting system and pushed off of it till she hit the other wall of the plane. She had sort of miscalculated her power as a leopard and the power of her jump. She tore a set of curtains over a window and she dug her claws into the cloth to push herself up. But she was higher and she could see. Success she told herself.
Maybe not, she realized. Agent Melinda May's brown eyes bore into her amber shifter ones then shifted first glowing, going Amber and finally violet. Romanov the leopard was busted.