To turn the screws on Sitwell, Pierce raised a hand toward the shadows.
A tall man in a black Kevlar combat suit stepped out, goggles on, hair a tangled mess. The metal arm settled it. Sitwell knew refusal was no longer on the table. His chest filled with dread, with a thin streak of resentment he didn't dare show, and he bowed his head in submission.
—
In gratitude for sending Doom packing to Hell, Hammer Industries was now the Department of Defense's golden child. The five-year contract was theirs.
The original twenty Hammer Drones expanded into a major new package. Army, Navy, Air Force, plus Naval Special Warfare—four model variants, ten units each. Delivery in six months. A 2.0 upgrade promised before year's end.
Walking through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s underground parking garage, Daisy was on the phone. She'd already directed Danger to draw up a research plan that would slow-walk Hammer's engineers into building something marketed as 2.0 but in practice closer to a 0.2.
Stark had become the world's richest man, but no amount of spin could change one fact: the Stark family fortune had been built on war.
The generals only cared about results. Money was barely a constraint for them. Daisy had stopped pitching flying rifles and walking bombs—if they wanted robots, fine, robots they would get. The margins were so generous she'd already started thinking about what model of private jet to buy.
Mid-daydream, her peripheral vision caught a familiar bald head walking toward her.
"Agent Sitwell? Need something?" She wrapped up her call quickly and asked, mildly puzzled.
"Got a couple of things, actually." Daisy held nominal authority over Sitwell's Operations Department, so professional contact was routine. He wasn't short of pretexts. He picked a complicated assignment and ground his way through five minutes of busywork.
Daisy was confused. What is going on with him? On her frequency band, his pulse was pounding. If the timing weren't off, she'd have suspected he'd dosed himself with the Extremis virus.
Pierce, monitoring remotely, was getting impatient and sharper by the minute. Sitwell, meanwhile, was cinemating an entire scenario in his head about sniper rifles trained on him at this very moment. Out of options, he gritted his teeth, abandoned every doubt, and muttered, "Hail Hydra."
Daisy blinked.
By any standard logic, HYDRA cells operated on strict compartmentalization. The whole cut off one head, two more grow back model meant cross-cell contact was rare and mutual recognition was the exception. Viper had assumed nobody at the gala had recognized her, and Daisy had agreed. They'd both forgotten about Sitwell's ambition—the man had personally memorized every senior file Pierce had on hand. That single oversight had triggered the chain reaction now playing out in front of her.
Daisy didn't yet know any of the underlying reasoning. But shouting two words back? That cost her nothing. She'd actually rehearsed it in private, just in case she ever needed to wrangle this particular crew.
She lit up like a long-lost member finally finding her family. "Hail Hydra!"
The words came out laced with excitement, a partly-concealed thrill, and the perfect Bavarian accent. Authentic. Resonant. There was even a faint vibrational charge under the syllables, giving them an extra magnetic kick. Even Red Skull himself probably couldn't have pulled it off better. That said, she wasn't an idiot—they were standing in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s parking garage. She kept the volume low.
Sitwell heard every word and felt his heart sing. Her pronunciation was cleaner than his. There was real power in her voice. That was a HYDRA operative. He even thought about asking her later for tips on delivery.
Sitwell relaxed. Through the bug wired into his collar, however, Pierce's expression went pure thundercloud.
He wanted to drag Daisy in front of him and yell. Young, brilliant, a future ahead of you—what in the world could possibly possess you to throw in with HYDRA? What did you even see in them?
He clamped down on his emotions, faked enthusiasm, and ordered Sitwell, "Bring her out. We'll talk in person."
Daisy had no idea Pierce's persecution complex had progressed to terminal stage. She read Sitwell's friendly face, registered the talk of a mysterious figure who wanted to meet, and decided to play it straight—roll with the situation and see what Pierce was actually thinking.
"All right, lead the way." She'd been keeping a low profile lately, so she'd shelved her sports car in favor of the Chevrolet S.H.I.E.L.D. had assigned her.
She drove out of Washington, chatting idly with Sitwell along the way.
When Sitwell mentioned Viper, with a faint edge of I'd like to defect to her side, the pieces clicked into place for Daisy.
"You know Viper? That doesn't track—get down!"
She broke off mid-sentence. A streak of light shot in from the roadside—a rocket-propelled grenade.
She swerved hard. Her timing was good and her car control was elite. The RPG grazed the side of the car and kept going.
Sitwell flew into pure panic. Daisy started hunting for the source of the ambush.
A wave of gunfire cut in. Two SUVs surged in from either side of the road, three shooters in each, all running M16s, all clean form. Nobody talking. Six men opening up on the Chevrolet at full automatic.
Behind her, a police cruiser came roaring into the chase. The driver's killer expression instantly told Daisy this was no cop.
The cruiser was accelerating like mad while the two SUVs angled inward to box her in.
Her car wasn't Nick Fury's bulletproof tank. It went from sedan to colander in seconds. She kept her right hand on the wheel, drew her sidearm with her left, and started returning fire.
At highway speed, line of sight was awful. Three rounds. One kill.
Daisy was getting genuinely confused. Who is attacking me? She'd just confirmed she was HYDRA. Why would HYDRA be hitting her? Were these guys some kind of anti-HYDRA crusader?
"Aaah!" She was still mid-debate over whether to drop the disguise and start mass-killing or just run for it when Sitwell screamed. He'd taken a round to the shoulder.
At the same moment, two more vehicles caught up from behind. In one of them, riding shotgun, sat Grant Ward—who turned out to be just as good with a gun. He shredded the fake police cruiser in passing. Tall, sharp-featured, he leaned out and shouted, "Go! I've got cover! Go!"
He'd brought five or six men with him. Combined fire from his crew briefly suppressed Pierce's shooters.
Daisy was now thoroughly disoriented. She had no idea where Ward had come from. The whole situation was reading wrong from every angle.
Are these clowns running an elaborate group performance to fool me? She wouldn't put it past them—every person here was an Oscar-tier liar. But Sitwell's bared-teeth expression said no...