Chapter Two: Nothing is As It Seems
Her phone rang at 1:25 a.m. jarring Rebecca out of a deep sleep. Thoroughly startled, she fumbled clumsily for the still ringing device before answering. "Callahan." She rasped, using her other hand to rub the sleep from her eyes.
"Director Fury has been assassinated. Report to Secretary Alexander Pierce at the Triskelion immediately.." A business-like male voice informed her before ending the call.
Any last traces of sleep vanished as Rebecca processed the words and felt her stomach drop. The message had been conveyed as casually as someone stating the weather conditions, but it's meaning ran so much deeper.
Nick Fury was dead. How was that even possible? She'd just seen him yesterday afternoon. He's been as sharp and as calculating as ever. His presence had commanded attention like that of a true leader. He'd pulled her out a literal hellhole when she'd been seventeen years old, a prisoner in her father's care. He'd given her an opportunity to make something of herself, to do some good to offset all the bad her family had caused. And now he was just gone? It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense.
She threw back her covers and rose from her bed. She hastily put on a pair of clean jeans and a white long sleeve henley shirt. She brushed her golden brown hair back up into a ponytail and donned her S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket and boots. She paused only long enough to brush her teeth and grab her phone, keys, sidearm, and wallet before leaving her apartment.
This early in the morning, or late at night depending on perspective, there was little traffic and Rebecca made it to the Triskelion in a record time of fifteen minutes. Members of the STRIKE team and to her surprise, David were waiting for her in the entrance lobby, all wearing grim expressions on their faces. The mood in the building was somber and uneasy.
"What happened?" Rebecca demanded of her friend, who looked exhausted and worried. He must have been roused from sleep just as she had and called in.
"Far as I know, Fury was hit with a sniper rifle from outside Captain Rogers' apartment." David fell in step beside her as they started for the elevators. "Shooter managed to escape. They rushed Fury to the hospital but he died on the table around 1 a.m. You were one of the last people he met with yesterday other than Captain Rogers. They're probably just going to question you about your meeting."
"It was a short debrief about my last mission." Rebecca frowned, thinking back to the conversation, trying to remember if anything had stood out. She and the now deceased Director weren't close. She understood questioning the last people who'd seen him alive, but she wasn't sure there was much she could tell them.
"Just answer their questions honestly and you'll be out of here in no time." David gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze, stepping into the elevator with her. "It'll be fine, Beck. World Security Council."
"Confirmed." The computerize voice replied.
"It's not fine, David. Director Fury is dead." Rebecca reminded him as the glass box began to ascend floors of the building. "I can't believe it."
The elevator glided to a stop and Rebecca found herself on the same floor as the World Security Council's offices. David gave her a little nudge forward. "It'll be okay, Beck."
Rebecca stepped out into the hallway, right into the path of Captain America himself, Steve Rogers in full uniform barring the helmet. He stopped his forward march two feet from her and they both paused to glance at one another. He towered over her five foot four frame at six foot two. His blonde hair was cut in a shorter, spikier, more modern style than the old photographs she'd seen of him but his blue eyes were sharp and currently filled with a myriad of emotions.
"Captain." She gave him an incline of her head in greeting.
"Agent." His arm made a gentlemanly gesture of after you, and she stepped in front of him heading for Pierce's office. He fell in behind her and Rebecca felt her suspicion grow by the seconds that ticked by. David had said she and the Captain were the last people Fury spoke with yesterday, but the Captain had been with Fury when he died. Wouldn't they have questioned him already? She answered her own internal question, he'd probably been with Fury at the hospital.
When they rounded the corner that led to the offices, Secretary Alexander Pierce stood in the open doorway, conversing with a tall, willowy blonde woman who's back was to them. She turned when she heard their approaching foot falls and Rebecca recognized Sharon Carter. They'd been in the Academy around the same time as each other. Sharon was friendly enough but Rebecca didn't know much about her. They hadn't exactly run in the same circles.
"Captain Rogers. Agent Callahan." She greeted them both with a nod as she passed them, making her exit.
"Neighbor." There was a hint of snideness in the tone of the man behind Rebecca and she lifted her brows a fraction. Clearly, there was a story there, considering the way he'd chosen to greet Sharon contrasted with the politeness he'd showed Rebecca.
"Good, you're both here. This makes my job easier." Alexander Pierce gave them a wane smile. "Captain, Agent Callahan. I'm Alexander Pierce."
"Sir," Captain Rogers shook his hand. "It's an honor."
"The honor's mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Agent Callahan," Pierce turned to her. "Your docket is filled with good things about you. Please, come in. Both of you. It'll be easier to talk to you both together since a lot of my questions for you relate to your situations."
Again, Rebecca shared a glance with the World's First Superhero before they both followed Pierce into his office, wondering what either of them had in common in regards to Nick Fury's assassination. The office was a spacious one, full of modern decor. Pierce looked right at home in the space in his three-piece suit. On one of the tables, he had set out several photographs of Nick Fury, which the Captain ambled closer to peruse.
"That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met," Pierce explained of the one he'd chosen to pick up for closer inspection. In the photo, a much younger, still with both eyes, Nick and Secretary Pierce were shaking hands. "When I was at State Department in Bogota."
Unsure what to do with herself, Rebecca took a seat on one of the leather couches and opted to bide her time. If she had to sit through some small talk first she could manage, even with her own thoughts going a mile a minute inside her head.
"E.L.N. Rebels took the embassy, security got me out, but the rebels took hostages." Pierce went on. "Nick was deputy chief of the S.H.I.E.L.D. station there, and he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, "No, we'll negotiate." Turns out the E.L.N didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order."
Secretary Pierce picked up a file he'd set aside and walked over to join them. "They stormed the basement, and what do they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order, and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil, saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
"So you promoted him?" Captain Rogers lowered to sit down beside Rebecca when Secretary Pierce sat down adjacent to the couch.
"I've never had any cause to regret it." Secretary Pierce gave a rueful smile. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
Rebecca shot a curious look at the man beside her, noting his pause before he shook his head. "I don't know." He answered in a soft voice.
"Did you know it was bugged?" Secretary Pierce pressed on.
"I did." Captain Rogers sighed. "Because Nick told me."
Rebecca's eyebrows shot up into her hairline, but she kept her mouth shut.
"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?"
"What?" It was Rebecca who blinked and uttered the surprised exclamation at that piece of information. She knew Fury was the Spy of all spies and that left room for paranoia but to bug the Captain's apartment? That was taking it to an extreme.
"Yours was bugged as well," Pierce told her with a little shake of his head and at this news, her eyes boggled, furthering her confusion. "Agent Callahan, can you tell me why you spent nearly a month in Algeria on your last mission?"
"I was to track and report intel on Georges Batroc. I was reporting to my Supervisory Agent Cortez while I followed Batroc from Oran to Algiers." Rebecca told him. "Because Batroc is a hired mercenary, I was supposed to discover who he was working for, but I was unsuccessful. I alerted S.H.I.E.L.D. when he left Algiers to hijack the Lemurian Star, though I was unaware his target was the Lemurian Star until I'd returned Stateside, Sir."
Captain Rogers shot her a surprised look as he connected the dots to how she'd been linked to the events of the last forty-eight hours.
"And debriefed with Fury himself, yesterday." Secretary Pierce said casually as he sat back. "You'd been sending your mission reports to Cortez. Why did you debrief Fury yesterday?"
"I was as surprised as you when I was ordered to report to him. He said he wanted my impressions as well my intel. I told him I thought Batroc was scum and should have been locked up long before now." Rebecca shrugged helplessly. She really didn't have much else to tell him, in her eyes her mission had been cut and dry.
"Can't argue with you there." Secretary Pierce reached for a remote on the corner of his desk. "I want to show you both something."
They both turned to the television monitor he turned on and at once the face of Georges Batroc filled the screen, Rebecca recognized him immediately having dogged his footsteps for several weeks. He was sitting solemnly in an interrogation room, eyes downcast to the table he was cuffed to while a man in the black STRIKE uniform paced behind him, asking him questions in French.
"Is that live?" Captain Rogers asked, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the screen behind them.
"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not so safe house in Algiers." Secretary Pierce nodded and shot Rebecca a wry look. "Thank you for that."
Rebecca couldn't help it, the corners of her mouth ticked up. "My pleasure." Despite everything, she was pleased to see Batroc in custody even if they hadn't found who hired him. Men like Batroc belonged in cages, not on the streets causing harm to other people.
"Are you saying he's a suspect?" Captain Rogers refocused their attention back on the screen.
"Assassination isn't Batroc's line, is it Agent Callahan?" The Secretary glanced over at her, the first hint of amusement twinkling in his eyes. He must have read her reports and known she'd profiled Batroc while gathering intel. She was an adequate criminal profiler when the need arose, had considered joining the Behavioral Analysis Unit in the FBI if S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't hired her out of the Academy.
Rebecca met the Captain's gaze when he twisted to look at her. She shook her head at his previous question. "Batroc's bloodthirsty. A sniper rifle would not be his style. He'd use it as a last resort and I don't believe he's that good a shot. He likes close quarter combat and is a master of La Savate, which is a French form of kickboxing. When he kills, it's not from a distance. He revels in the fight and you could say he gets off seeing his victims die up close. An assassination like Fury's would be out of character for him."
"Someone did her homework." Pierce gave a slight chuckle. "It's more complicated than that. Batroc is a mercenary and was hired anonymously to hijack the Lemurian Star. He was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer, and then the money was run through 17 fictitious accounts. The last going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."
"Am I supposed to know who that is?" The Captain asked, accepting the file passed over to him, while confusion flickered over his facial features.
"Not likely. Veech died six years ago." Pierce informed him, as the Captain began to rifle through the file. "His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick, his mother lived at 1437."
"Wait," Rebecca looked up from where she'd been reading over the Captain's shoulder, piecing together what the Secretary was trying to say.
"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?" Captain Rogers paused, coming to the same conclusion she had and sounding just as dubious about the idea as she felt.
"The prevailing theory?" Pierce shrugged. "Was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death."
"That makes no sense." Rebecca sputtered, indignant on Fury's behalf. "Why would Nick try to sell classified information? You think he was turned? That's ridiculous!"
"If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true." Captain Rogers sounded resolute in his statement and Rebecca relieved she wasn't the only one seeing the theory as ludicrous.
Pierce nodded soberly. "Why do you think the three of us are here talking?"
Pierce got to his feet and began to walk towards the window. "See, I took a seat on the council not because I wanted to, but because Nick asked me to because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy, and the hand shaking and the rhetoric, to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies."
Both Rebecca and the Captain got to their feet as Pierce turned to face them.
"Those people that call you dirty because you've got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today," Pierce shoved his hands in his pockets. "Makes me really, really angry."
Rebecca couldn't help but agree with him on that point. Nick Fury was not perfect by any means, there was blood on his hands, no question, but the idea of anyone celebrating his death didn't sit right with her. Not when at the end of the day, Fury was trying to make the world a better, safer place.
"Captain, you were the last person to see Nick Fury alive. I don't think that's an accident." Pierce said matter-of-factly. "And I don't think you do, either. So, I'm going to ask again. Why was he there?"
Rebecca looked up at the Captain, anticipating as well as dreading whatever answer he had.
"He told me not to trust anyone." Honesty rang true in the Captain's voice this time.
Pierce made a humming sound in his throat. "I wonder, if that included him."
There was a contemplative moment of silence before the Captain spoke again. "I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse me," He turned to leave, picking up his shield that he'd set down and attaching it to the harness on his back.
"Captain," Pierce's voice halted him midstep. "Someone murdered my friend. I'm going to find out why. Thank you Agent Callahan. That's all I needed from you at this time."
"Sir." Rebecca forced a smile and went to follow the Captain out.
"Anyone who gets in my way is going to regret it." Pierce's voice rang out again, a pointed look in the Captain's direction. "Anyone."
For his part, the Captain simply opened the door for her. "Understood."
Once they were clear of the office, Rebecca felt the Captain's hand on the base of her spine as he nudged her along towards the elevators. She turned her head to say something, but the quick shake of his head had her snapping her mouth shut.
So the Captain did know more than he was letting on and now apparently Pierce wasn't the only one who wanted to question her. Rebecca opted to play along, for now. There was a reason Nick Fury had turned to the Captain in his last moments and she would trust his judgement. Besides, Captain America was a renowned Superhero, the leader of the Avengers, a War Hero. That had to mean something.