"Pierce isn't operating alone," Natasha said. "The Zola algorithm was on the Lemurian Star. Someone was sent to either recover it or deliver it to him. That someone accessed the ship through legitimate S.H.I.E.L.D. channels."
"Sitwell," Steve said.
"Sitwell was on that ship." She looked at Steve. "That's our thread."
Steve turned this over. "I'm Washington's most-wanted fugitive. I can't just walk up to a S.H.I.E.L.D. official and ask him questions."
"I'm not wanted," Natasha said. "But they're not going to let me near Sitwell alone. Not while I'm associated with you."
Sam came out of the kitchen with a folder and set it on the table between them. "There's a third option."
Steve picked it up and looked at the cover. "What is this?"
"You could call it a résumé."
Natasha took the folder and paged through it. Military service record, mission citations, commendations. She stopped at one entry. "You were on the Khalid Khandil operation."
She looked at Steve. "You didn't mention he was pararescue."
Steve looked at the group photograph clipped to the inside cover. A desert setting, flight suits, the particular casual ease of a team that had been together long enough to stop performing for the camera. "Is this Riley?"
"That's him," Sam said.
Natasha turned to the back section of the file. Her expression shifted. "I heard the airspace over that operation was too hot for helicopters. Surface-to-air rockets." She looked at Sam. "What kind of parachute addresses that problem?"
"Not a parachute," Sam said. "Keep reading."
Steve turned to the last section and looked at the equipment specification. He closed the folder and looked at Sam for a long moment. "I can't ask you to do this. There's a reason you retired."
"I need you to do something else," Steve continued. "Reach out to a colleague for me. It's a delivery, not a fight."
Sam looked at him. "Captain America shows up at my door needing help. That's reason enough." He tilted his head at the folder. "And it's not two separate things. Both can happen at the same time."
Steve said: "Where's the equipment now?"
"Fort Meade," Sam said. "Last unit. It's behind three security doors and twelve inches of steel."
Steve said: "That should be manageable."
Fort Meade's security doors held up for about forty seconds combined before Steve put the shield through the last lock. They were in and out before the response team finished mobilizing.
After that, Natasha laid out the plan and Sam suited up.
Sam used Captain America's shield to get Jessica Jones' attention and bring her to the safe house. The shield, apparently, required less explanation than a phone call would have.
Jessica looked at the three of them standing in the apartment and put the shield down on the table.
"You're a wanted man," she said to Steve. "The news is saying your whole operation with Nick Fury might be connected to how he died." She paused. "I know that's probably wrong. But I want to hear it from you."
"I don't know why Fury was targeted," Steve said. "I know who did it. And I know who ordered it."
Jessica looked at him for a moment. Then: "All right. I trust you. What do you need?"
Steve walked her through what Zola's basement had given them: HYDRA embedded in S.H.I.E.L.D. since its founding, Project Insight as their current major instrument, Pierce at the center of it. He told her about the algorithm, about the carriers, about Sitwell's presence on the Lemurian Star as the connecting thread.
Jessica said: "HYDRA. I thought you'd already burned that organization down."
"So did I," Steve said.
"Nick was decent to me." She said it plainly, the way she said most things. "That's reason enough."
Natasha looked at the room. "We have backup now." She looked at Steve. "We've tracked Sitwell's schedule for today. He's at a lunch that ends in twenty minutes."
"Then let's go."
Sitwell came out of the restaurant with a U.S. Senator whose name Steve didn't know but whose face he'd seen in coverage of the Security Council. The Senator was talking about a constituent situation as they walked, his body language the specific loose comfort of a powerful man who knows the conversation is private.
He stopped, looked at the pin on Sitwell's lapel.
"Nice brooch."
"Thank you."
The Senator pulled him into a brief embrace. "Hail HYDRA," he said into Sitwell's ear, quiet enough for the ambient noise of the plaza to cover it — and quiet enough that he didn't notice Steve Rogers had the hearing of a man built in a laboratory.
The Senator left with his security team. Two agents remained with Sitwell.
Steve, in the parked car fifty feet away, watched through his earpiece as Sam at the outdoor café — relaxed, a drink in hand, sunglasses, completely unremarkable — dialed the number they'd pulled for Sitwell's personal cell.
Sitwell's phone rang. He answered.
"Agent Sitwell," Sam said pleasantly. "Nice day. I hear the crab cakes here are excellent."
"Who is this?"
"The handsome gentleman at your ten o'clock."
Sitwell looked. Saw nothing. Sam said: "Other ten o'clock."
Sitwell turned the other direction and found Sam raising his drink in a friendly salute.
"What do you want?"
"There's a gray sedan in the second space on the next block. Go for a drive with me."
"I have no reason to—"
"That tie looks expensive," Sam said. "I'd hate for anything to happen to it."
Sitwell looked down at the tie. The red dot of a sniper's laser sight had appeared on the knot, perfectly centered.
He looked around the plaza. Open space, no cover, no angles to identify the shooter's position. His security personnel were fifty feet away retrieving the car.
He started walking toward the gray sedan.
When he got in, he processed the situation in approximately one second: Steve Rogers, who was supposed to be a fugitive in hiding, was sitting in the back seat. Jessica Jones was in the driver's seat.
He reached for the door handle. Natasha appeared on the sidewalk and got in beside him.
He sat very still.
They took him to the top floor of the adjacent parking structure, which was empty at this hour, and Steve walked him to the edge.
"Captain." Sitwell looked at the drop below the railing and kept his voice measured. "You're making a series of compounding errors. Each step is making the last one worse."
He turned to Jessica Jones. "You've put yourself in his situation by association. The organization injected you with resources, time, training. The director saved you from Kilgrave. Now the department has questions, and you're standing next to the person who knows the answers."
He looked at Natasha. "And you — they gave you the serum. Upgraded you. For what? To stand next to a fugitive?"
"Sitwell," Natasha said. "Is that really your opening position? Guilt trips?"
"I'm offering you a way out of this before it gets worse."
Steve said: "Smith Doyle became director."
Sitwell blinked. "Yes."
Steve looked at him. "And you think that's good news for you personally."
Sitwell adjusted his expression carefully. "The acting director will bring stability."
"What's on the Lemurian Star, Sitwell?"
"I have no idea what you're referring to."
Steve looked at him for a moment, then looked at Natasha.
Natasha kicked Sitwell off the ledge.
The drop was eight stories. For the duration of the fall, Sitwell's relationship with his own mortality was extremely clarified. He was still working through the second stage of this clarification when something fast and mechanical grabbed his collar from below and the ground started getting farther away rather than closer.
Sam brought him up and deposited him back on the rooftop in front of Steve without ceremony.
Sitwell was breathing at approximately twice the recommended rate.
On the rooftop, while Sitwell was airborne, Steve and Natasha had been continuing their conversation.
"Laura from accounting," Natasha said.
"I don't know a Laura."
"Lillian. The one with the lip ring."
Steve considered this. "The lip ring is a problem. And I've already got someone in mind."
Natasha's expression said she had more to say about that but Sam was coming back up over the ledge with their passenger, so she filed it.
Sitwell sat on the ground in front of them.
Steve said: "The Insight Project. Tell me what you know."
Sitwell set his glasses on his face and tried to look like a man who was not rattled. "I don't know anything about an Insight Project."
"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?"
"I was seasick. The whole time. Ask anyone."
Steve said nothing and just looked at him.
Sitwell folded after about four seconds of this. "You people realize what you're doing? Rogers, you injured a colleague. Natasha, you're throwing away an enhanced future. Jessica—"
"Sitwell," Steve said. "Are you Nick Fury's man or Pierce's man?"
Sitwell stopped.
"Because," Steve continued, "if you're Fury's man, you'd have gone straight to the director's office when Fury died. But Pierce's man would want to wait and see how the new structure settled before picking a side." He waited. "Which is it?"
"There's no difference," Sitwell said. "Fury is dead. Pierce is the senior council member. I serve S.H.I.E.L.D."
Natasha said: "Zola's algorithm, Sitwell. Purpose and target parameters. Now."
"I don't know what you mean by Zola's algorithm."
He looked at Steve and seemed to arrive at something. "My presence on the Lemurian Star was a standing order from Director Fury before his death — I was informed of the mission through Agent Hand. I am not the only person who has knowledge of that ship's cargo or operations." He paused, and something shifted in his eyes — the particular calculation of a man who's been cornered and is looking for something to offer instead of something to withhold. "Agent Coulson knows. He was on the original authorization chain. And the Inspectorate is involved — the whole operation grew out of an investigation into agents promoted by Level 8 agent John Garrett. One of the people under investigation is a member of Coulson's team."
He looked at Steve's face and apparently found what he was hoping to find there.
Steve said: "Wait. Coulson. Agent Hand. And the Inspectorate is investigating Coulson's team?"
Sitwell said, with the careful timing of a man who has just changed the subject: "Ward, specifically. From Coulson's team. Sharon Carter and Morse were building the case."
Steve looked at Natasha.
Natasha looked at Steve.
The plural of threads they were holding had just become significantly more complicated.