Chapter 154: Does Anyone Need to Go Out Before We Start?
Pierce strode into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base with a darkened expression.
He truly hadn't expected that he had already taken Nick Fury very seriously. To take him down, he had not only dispatched a small assassination team this time but also brought out all sorts of weapons.
He had even deployed the Winter Soldier, who had been frozen for many years.
Yet, he still managed to escape.
Finally, when the car, which had been bombed but whose outer frame hadn't changed much, was brought before him, he realized just how much funding Nick Fury had embezzled!
Damn it!
Tanks aren't this durable, are they?
However, Pierce didn't have much mood to dwell on trivial matters like funding right now.
His assassination plan had failed. Nick Fury not only didn't die but was rescued by the Green Goblin, Harry Osborn. Even the Winter Soldier had fallen into the hands of the Osborn Corporation.
This series of unexpected events immediately made Pierce anxious.
If Nick Fury returned to S.H.I.E.L.D., the entire situation would change.
Pierce knew his former subordinate too well. After an assassination attempt, Fury would inevitably suspect that there was a mole within S.H.I.E.L.D., and it wasn't impossible that he would investigate all the way to him.
For this reason, he had to act quickly before Nick Fury could contact S.H.I.E.L.D.
Pierce arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D. with a group of people in a hurry, which immediately attracted a lot of attention.
Agent Hill, the deputy director, thought Pierce was looking for Nick Fury and immediately stepped forward, saying:
"Mr. Pierce, the Director is not here right now."
"Of course, I know he's not here."
Pierce remained as steady as an old dog.
His serious gaze swept over all the agents present. Although he had retired, his prestige within S.H.I.E.L.D. was not low.
Not to mention that most of the agents here were Hydra, who already followed his lead. Moreover, he had only handed over the position to Nick Fury in the past few years, and those true S.H.I.E.L.D. agents respected him greatly.
"There won't be a Nick Fury anymore, Agent Hill."
He said, shaking his head coldly.
"What?" Hill was stunned.
Then, Pierce immediately handed her a document. Before Hill could even look it over, he said on his own: "Nick Fury has been confirmed as a high-ranking official of Hydra."
"How is that possible?"
Coulson was full of surprise.
Pierce immediately said with regret, "If I could, I wouldn't want to believe it. After all, I was the one who promoted Nick Fury to the position of Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Who would have thought he was hiding so deeply?"
Even so, people like Coulson, who were direct subordinates of Nick Fury, still found it hard to believe what Pierce was saying.
"I have obtained sufficient evidence." Pierce didn't say much more, just gestured to the documents in Hill's hand.
The contents were half true and half false, or rather, most of it was true.
This was because the content of the documents was almost entirely about the shady research Nick Fury had secretly conducted.
That Egghead thought his actions were very discreet, but in an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D., where eight or nine out of ten people were Hydra, how discreet could they really be?
In fact, from the very first day Nick Fury took office, Pierce had been closely monitoring him.
Agent Hill looked at it with a sense of shock.
In fact, she had participated in many of these projects, but there were also many that she didn't know about.
"This is all research that Nick Fury has been doing behind all of our backs. And where are the results of the research?" Pierce retorted, "Not in S.H.I.E.L.D., so where?"
The answer was obvious.
The name Hydra flashed through everyone's minds. Instead, the genuine Hydra members were confused.
At this moment, the agents with higher positions within S.H.I.E.L.D. who had already been contacted by Pierce stepped forward to set an example. One by one, they stood behind Pierce with serious expressions.
"Deputy Director Hill, regardless of whether Director Fury is truly Hydra or not, we can only detain him for now and conduct a thorough investigation. If he is innocent, I believe he can provide a reasonable explanation for this research. If he is truly Hydra, we will not let him off!"
Humans are easily swayed. When the majority of voices in a group believe that Nick Fury is Hydra, even if he isn't, he won't be able to clear his name.
As for the agents who were not Hydra, they were initially confused, but seeing that most people had already stood behind Pierce, they gave up thinking and followed suit.
Agents only need to obey orders.
What's more, Pierce was, first and foremost, the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a member of the Security Council. How could his words be false?
Nick Fury isn't Hydra, so is Pierce Hydra?
If Pierce were Hydra, why would he have passed the Director position to Fury and then come out now to purge obstacles?
Wouldn't that be a redundant move?
It didn't make sense logically.
Therefore, with Pierce's appearance, most of the agents immediately believed that Nick Fury was a Hydra mole.
Pierce's gaze swept over everyone like a camera, silencing anyone who harbored doubts and wanted to speak up for Nick Fury.
Even though Agent Hill and Coulson and the others didn't believe it, they were powerless now.
Because the people Pierce brought had already pressed their gun barrels to their foreheads.
"I believe that after Nick Fury has been in S.H.I.E.L.D. for so long, there must be other spies among those present."
"I apologize, but you were all Nick Fury's most trusted agents. For safety reasons, we must conduct a thorough investigation of you."
"Take them away!"
At Pierce's command, several agents immediately escorted Coulson, Hill, Natasha, and Barton to the detention room.
Strictly speaking, Pierce's attitude towards them wasn't that of a prisoner, which made many people believe even more that Pierce was genuinely just purging traitors.
In just an instant, Pierce regained most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s power.
But he didn't let his guard down.
Because Pierce knew better than anyone that those agents weren't the hardest to deal with; the truly difficult ones were those so-called Super Heroes.
Especially Captain America!
But he still wanted to try, to see if he could maintain the current situation temporarily, make Captain America continue to work for him, turn Nick Fury's Avengers into Hydra's Avengers, and turn Captain America into Captain Hydra!
Therefore, he summoned Steve.
At this moment, Captain America, who had just communicated with Ben for a while, was lost in thought.
He still didn't know what had happened. Seeing Pierce in Nick Fury's office, he was stunned.
"This is the first time we've met, Captain."
Pierce said.
Captain America frowned and said:
"I thought Fury was looking for me."
"There is no more Fury, he is a Hydra." Pierce sighed, then sat tiredly in the chair, completely ignoring the surprised expression on Captain America's face.
"I made a mistake, which was not seeing Nick Fury's true face and handing over the director's position to him. I never expected that he would actually be a traitor."
"It is because of him that we have found almost no intelligence on Hydra remnants in the past seventy years, because he has been tipping them off.
"It is precisely because of him that S.H.I.E.L.D. has long ceased to be pure internally. Everyone could be a Hydra spy planted by Nick, and people lived in constant fear, unable to trust anyone."
'Did you betray me too, Nick Fury? Or... is the person in front of me the real Hydra?'
Captain America clenched his fist in surprise, lowered his head, and wailed in his mind.
'Which side is real, I really can't tell!'
"I know it's hard for you to believe." Seeing the lost and confused expression on Captain America's face, Pierce thought he had a chance and said, "Because the first person who left a deep impression on you after you woke up was Nick Fury. This is like the duck effect; you would subconsciously think he is reliable. But it was all premeditated."
"Then can I trust you?"
Steve retorted.
At this moment, he remembered what Ben had told him before.
The world had become complicated.
This was no longer an era where you could just charge forward with a shield. Sometimes you were full of ambition and wanted to make a grand move, but you didn't even know who the enemy was or where they were.
What was the point of injecting a serum?
Clenching his fist, he didn't even know who to hit.
Hearing Steve's question, Pierce realized that it was probably hopeless to get Captain America to work for him.
He hid the murderous intent in his eyes, turned his back, and didn't immediately turn hostile towards Captain America, not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't defeat Captain America.
"I believe time will tell you the answer, Captain."
"I hope so..."
Captain America turned and left. The second he walked out of the office, Pierce immediately picked up the phone and dialed the Special Task Force.
"Arrest Captain America and the other Avengers immediately!"
Unlike the other agents who were deceived and misled, the Special Task Force, led by Crossbones, was actually completely loyal to Hydra.
Therefore, upon hearing Pierce's command, they did not hesitate to pick up their weapons and head towards Captain America's location.
Inside the elevator.
The tall Steve stood in the middle, surrounded by several groups of people in different attire.
The elevator stopped several times. First, members of the Special Task Force squeezed in, and then several employees in suits came in.
Back and forth, Steve realized he had been surrounded.
These people looked normal, but at this sensitive time, Steve still noticed something was wrong.
Crossbones subconsciously placed his hand on the gun at his outer thigh, while the other Special Task Force members were clearly nervous, sweat beading on their foreheads.
However, the agents in suits wore combat boots incongruously, clearly indicating that the suits were just a disguise.
He understood immediately.
These people were here for him.
At this point, Steve was clear that whether Nick Fury was trustworthy or not, Pierce certainly wasn't.
And as for the people sent to capture him, were they true Hydra agents, or just operatives following orders?
Steve didn't know.
He had long since stopped being able to distinguish friend from foe.
At this moment, he remembered a conversation he'd had with Ben not long ago.
Back then, he'd asked Ben how they could completely eradicate all of Hydra.
Ben had said: Become Hydra.
At first, he'd thought Ben was a Hydra mole too, but after Ben's explanation, Steve finally understood his meaning.
Only by becoming Hydra could one fight Hydra in Hydra's own way.
If he became the boss of Hydra, would he still worry about not getting the list of all Hydra members?
If the members in those Hydra nests knew that even Captain America was one of their own, they would probably immediately hail him as king, making him Captain Hydra and leading Hydra to greatness once more!
And all he would have to pay was a simple, lighthearted phrase.
"Hail Hydra."
"Actually, people in Hydra are quite simple," Ben's voice seemed to echo in Captain America's ears.
"Every one of them believes they're well-hidden within S.H.I.E.L.D., and with many factions, they avoid being wiped out in one go. This means that even important figures don't know the identities of every Hydra member. This also means they aren't sure of your identity, Captain."
"And more importantly, no one would believe the real Captain America would say that phrase, unless you truly were Hydra."
Precisely because of this, when Steve uttered that "Hail Hydra," it would have such a devastating impact on the real Hydra.
Before Ben suggested this plan, Steve had never considered such a method.
But he couldn't do it.
He couldn't say that phrase, couldn't say: Hail Hydra.
The Captain America of today wasn't the Steve Rogers who had experienced countless crises, watched the world shatter, and returned from Avengers: Endgame.
Just a few months ago, he had been rescued from the ice.
World War II, Hydra, Nazis...
To modern people, these had become distant history, but to him, they were events that had happened not long ago.
In comparison, the experiences of the past few months felt more fantastical, like a dream he couldn't wake from.
In his subconscious, the war had never ended. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the sound of artillery fire, hear the cries of pain; if he closed his eyes, he could see his fallen comrades, see Bucky, Peggy...
How could he say that phrase?
How could he betray himself, betray those who had died?
Steve swore that he would rather die, die outside, jump out of an elevator, than ever say "Hail Hydra!"
So he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.
When he opened them again, his eyes were filled with resolve.
Then let's fight.
He'd already died once, anyway.
He thought.
"Before we begin, does anyone want to get out of the elevator?"
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