Tate and Geode watched as Gauntlet got into final position the camera mounted down the scope of his gun. Suddenly off-screen a device could be heard beeping and Gauntlet could be heard talking to someone.
"Yes, yes I understand." Gauntlet said, "Okay I understand." There was a click of a device being turned off before Gauntlet picked up the rifle camera and stared into the lens. "Looks like we have a new target." he stated, "So let's finish up here." he sneered putting the rifle back in position and realigning the shot.
"That basted is still going to pull the trigger." Tate spat, "James move your not the target anymore."
"Tate?" Victoria said on the other line, "Why isn't she in the panic room?"
"The assassin master isn't after just her, it's all of us, you need to get James out of there. He's just lined up to be assassinated by Gauntlet." Geode explained. "Where are you?" she asked.
"Just outside the security room, the DSM was a bust it only downloaded part of the information before shutting down." Victoria explained, "Toxin I need you to go and get James out of the line of fire." she told him.
"Yes Ms. Hand." Toxin sneered, "We didn't even get to play." he added.
"Just go, James's life is in danger." Victoria replied.
James Rhodes stood by the gates to the compound as sirens in the distance grew louder and louder. He'd said the words that Janissary had wanted but still he was waiting for the shot, he could see where the sniper was by the occasional glint of his weapon's scope in the light of the passing cars stalled in traffic underneath his perch. Then came the shot, James cringed and then realised that he had registered the bullet's noise, if that was the case then he was alive but he wasn't sure. Suddenly something black and sticky covered his face apart from his mouth and he felt his head sting as he fell backwards.
"What's going on?" he asked angrily his head throbbing.
"Cornel Rhodes are you okay?" Toxin asked, the words seemed faint and James felt his strength begin to waver.
"Toxin what happened?" he heard Victoria say her voice muffled by the hazmat suit she wore.
"He's been shot." Toxin replied the words barley audible, "My webbing slowed the bullet but it didn't stop it." As sirens began to drown out the voices, James couldn't here anymore but he could smell the mix of burnt webbing and leaking blood as he closed his eyes.
Elizabeth and Nijo arrived back at base the detour to the emergency hospital in Wisconsin, an unwelcome reminder of the end of their first mission where nobody had escaped unscathed.
"Is he going to be okay?" Toxin asked, it was clear from the charred welts on the Symbiote's arms that he had seriously beaten himself up about not being able to save James from Gauntlet's shot completely.
"He's in a coma, your webbing took the brunt of the impact but it's likely that James will have some memory loss and maybe even permanent brain damage." Elizabeth explained, "Victoria is trying to convince Osborne to help pay for James's medical bills and insurance but it looks like that Norman is playing the whole disposable asset thing. Plus he's got bigger problems at the moment I presume you saw the local news." she asked.
"If you are referring to the continuing attacks by Asgardian forces on San Francisco and Camp Hammond in conjunction with the terrorist attacks in the city. Not a good day to be the Director of HAMMER." Geode stated.
"And yet nobody looks to see if they are related." Ghost proposed, "Doesn't it seem a little too coincidental that the attacks happened within twenty minutes of each other. At least the attacks didn't affect too many people, from the footage I was able to scavenge from the security at the locations, it appears Janissary put nano containers of the gas in his men and then spread them across the city. Only they were affected but it was still enough to cause panic just like it was intended to"
"It gets weirder, we believe we have a lead on who our assassin master is." Nijo added, "This is the Kephi AKA The Emerald Scarab." he told the others as a hologram of the Avenger in question appeared as the briefing room projector stirred into life, "An Ancient Egyptian God trapped in the body of a mortal woman. She signed the transfer papers for Bile, Sandman and Gauntlet all of whom have us in their line of fire."
"It's unlikely that she's working alone if she is indeed the master of these assassins." Ghost stated, "While I was a member of Osborne's Thunderbolts I bugged Avenger's Tower. Kephi has trouble with technology and the selection process for targets is highly complex as well as being protected by some hard-core encryption."
"She could have got Janissary to rig that for her, the high tech nature of part of the selection process doesn't rule her out as a suspect." Elizabeth explained.
"There's something else." Tate told them, "In Gauntlet's footage he fired two shots, the first is intercepted by something before it can reach James, the second hits the mark but is stopped by Toxin's webbing. After that the feed went dead as Gauntlet legged it from the scene of the shooting. After some clever computer simulations from Ghost and just a little illegal hacking into local cameras and the recorders in James's armor you get this." she clicked the projector and a 3D image of the scene of the attempted assassination appeared.
"James is here." Ghost said pointing to a tiny War Machine standing by the gates into the complex. "And Gauntlet is here, from what we saw in the video by watching it frame by fame, the intercepting force comes from here on an adjacent roof to Gauntlet's assassin perch."
"The trouble is that area isn't covered in cameras, but then we had an idea," Tate announced, "there was a camera floating over the city at the time. From what we heard on the armour's recording and Toxin's and Victoria's statements, there was a UAV in the area that Janissary stole from the US Air Force. After hacking into Janissary's 'back door' Ghost was able to remotely download the footage and send the drone back to the nearest air base. When we added that footage we got our mystery shooter." A hologram appeared of the third shooter, an armoured figure their face covered in a gas mask.
"We split the image into three categories," Geode explained, "Armor, Weapon and the Logo on the chest plate. After running them through the International Arms and Armor databases we got a few matches. The armor is custom made but has a resemblance to the MACH 1 armor worn by Abner Jenkins in the first incarnation of the Thunderbolts. The weapon was found however, it's a Serbian M92 Black Arrow Anti Material Rifle, a very rare weapon over here, the actual gun itself hasn't been created yet, it's due to come off the assembly line in November this year. We found traces of temporal energy at the scene suggesting out shooter is from the past or the future, from what we know about the logo we would suggest the latter."
"Why, how can you know that?" Toxin asked.
"Because that logo is the Eagle flare found on Songbird's Uniform." Elizabeth explained, "And both Songbird's have been listed as Killed In Action. The real one died shortly after reeking havoc as Carrion, and the second, according to Scourge's report was killed by a Lindworm in the retrieval of evidence for the death of the first Songbird."
"I hate to agree with Ghost but this does seem like more then a coincidence." Nijo voiced, "I think that something larger is going on."
"So our next course of action is?" Geode asked, "We can't go up against the mad-one, even as a team up against her all by her lonesome we wouldn't stand a chance in capturing or even killing her." There was a beep and everyone looked at Tate who removed a mobile phone from her belt."
"Who knows the number to that phone?" Elizabeth asked her eyes narrowing.
"Nobody it's the back-up disposable for the call we made to Utopia on the last mission, it hasn't even been activated." Tate told her.
"Well somebody knows because they sent you a text." Elizabeth told her, "Answer it, Ghost get ready to track the messages."
Tate read the message, "Cygnus are you on the grid?"
"Who is this?" she typed back, three seconds later another text arrived with a single word, "Au."
"Au is listed as dead." Tate typed.
"I am." the reply told her, "How is the condition of WM."
"Stable," Tate replied, "How did you get this number."
"Not important, sending coordinates and dates to aid in investigation." Au answered. Behind Tate a computer beeped and displayed the coordinates for Paris before showing the image of a green scarab amulet with golden edging. Underneath the words Bargaining Chip were scrawled in hand written text. The image shrunk before a date appeared; 10:33PM, 22/08/11 while six mug shots were displayed underneath with a label connecting them claiming them to be the Insidious Six.
"What is this stuff?" Tate asked.
"Window and Opportunity, Kephi has information that will aid in investigation. Amulet is an ancient token bewitched by a Necromancer declaring his love for Kephi. She lost it when she was banished from France at the end of the Napoleonic War. Dates are an attack by group looking to steal brief case, Kephi will be separated and vulnerable to questioning." Au told them before adding, "From there you are on your own, beware Nike. Au out." the phone went silent, with no more messages coming from Au.
"Where did the call originate?" Elizabeth asked Ghost.
"Each call came from a different tine and place, the first originated in Santiago, Chilie at 22:09PM yesterday" Ghost said, "the second came from Manchester, England at 03:20AM tomorrow, a third came from Latveria, two weeks in the future at 15:18PM, the image of the Scarab came from Paris, France at 09:01 five days ago, the data about the heist came from Utopia of all places from the 22nd December 2012 at 08:01AM and the last message was sent from Cape Town at 14:04PM today."
"That fits with footage from the roof top, one minute the second shooter is their then he or she isn't." Geode stated, "Who or what is Au?" she asked Tate.
"Back in 2005, back when I was in SHIELD custody I was deployed along with a group of volunteers from the Raft to help the relief effort, a sort of community service." Tate explained, "Anyway it turned out a villain known as King Coral was planning to summon a monster known as Charybdis into this dimension to swallow the state of Louisiana. Jericho Drum found about the plan and lured the team I was with to him to help stop the summoning. Coral had a powerful witch Sarcen in his employ who could kill you just by saying your name. To counter this we had alternate code names to keep us safe. Mine was Cygnus, the Latin for swan, since my first name is Odette the main character from Swan Lake."
"So Au was?" Toxin asked.
"Gold, Melissa Gold, she was the group leader, the others were Gamma or the Radiation Man, Big Game or the Rhino, Crystal or Diamondback and Heartbeat or Cardiac. There was one other as well, a SHIELD supervisor by the name of Nike, we never got her real name." Tate informed them.
"Songbird warned you about Nike, could she have been Kephi?" Elizabeth asked, "Think hard this could be the break we're looking for."
"I don't think so, Nike was tough but if she was a goddess then it was news to me." Tate replied.
"Doesn't make her or Kephi innocent, she could be the technical brains behind the attempted assassinations." Ghost warned them, "I would suggest closing that data now, we have company." he said pointing at the security monitor which showed Norman Osborne, Victoria Hand, Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel accompanied with a HAMMER Commander entering the base. Quickly the team assembled in the main living quarters as their guests entered. Norman Osborne had a look of thunder on his face while Victoria looked terrified.
"I had to come down to this shit hole because of you actions tonight. Apart from Commander Monroe and Nijo none of you were authorized to leave this base yet two of you did leading to Cornel Rhodes being hospitalized." Osborne bellowed, "I had to explain how a dead man, an escaped prisoner was still alive and free in the company of a top HAMMER agent. And then I here that you triggered a city wide chemical terror attack in the process and blew up a fucking warehouse. Now somebody explain before I have all of you thrown into the Negative Zone just because I feel like it."
"It's not there fault." Tate answered her voice carrying more authority then the others had ever heard, "It was mine, previously we had a break in by an assassin that was trying to kill me, everyone was so focused on protecting me that they didn't realize that the target had been changed to James, he and Toxin went out to save Victoria not knowing the danger he was in."
"I see, Ms. Williams I want you out of my city in five hours and back to whatever wretched country you came from. As for the rest of you consider yourself lucky that I don't rip you apart with my bare hands." Osborne threatened before cackling manically.
"But sir we're already a man down we can't afford to loose anyone else." Victoria said timidly as Osborne cackled.
"Rhodes will make a full recovery?" Osborne asked
"Hopefully," Elizabeth informed him, "Toxin saved his life but he might have some amnesia." she added.
"Good, as for being a man down," Osborne stated, "I brought a replacement for Ms. Williams who should fit in very well, isn't that right Raven?" he asked the HAMMER Commander whose armor and clothes transformed into blue skin as long red hair framed her face, yellow eyes piercing whatever they saw.
"Oh I'm going to fit in just fine." Mystique answered as Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel cuffed Tate and dragged her out of the base.