Every Grievance Has Its Cause, Every Debt Its Debtor

Chapter 26: Every Grievance Has Its Cause, Every Debt Its Debtor

After Pierce made his case, they ultimately decided to handle the matter in secret, conducting small-scale, batch-by-batch confidential reviews of internal personnel. To ensure fairness and secrecy, both the investigators and those being investigated would be selected at random each time, and no one involved was allowed to disclose the contents of the review, either before or after it.

Satisfied with the outcome, Pierce left Nick Fury's office. Not long after, he "coincidentally" ran into Agent Sitwell in the hallway, and the two immediately began discussing official business.

"Sir, General Ross is extremely dissatisfied with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands-off attitude and has threatened to file a complaint with the World Security Council," Sitwell said as he walked up beside Pierce and adjusted his plain glasses. His voice was neither too loud nor too soft—not enough to draw attention, but enough for everyone passing by to hear what he was saying.

"If he wants to complain, let him. He can also explain exactly who created Hulk while he's at it," Pierce replied at the same volume, utterly unconcerned.

The two walked side by side, continuing to discuss Hulk and General Ross until there was no one nearby. Only then did Sitwell anxiously ask, "Sir, what do we do next?"

Pierce looked to either side before speaking. "Secret, small-scale, batch-by-batch reviews. Do you know what to do?"

Sitwell let out a breath and nodded. "Yes, sir. I know what to do."

A secret review, a black-box operation—given the current situation, it was indeed a very suitable approach, and Nick Fury agreed. But Fury could never have imagined that S.H.I.E.L.D. had already been riddled with Hydra infiltration. It was far more than just a few spies.

Secret operations also gave them plenty of room to manipulate things. Whenever Hydra members were among those being investigated, they would replace the review team with Hydra members as well. Whenever there were none, they simply left it alone. At that rate, they could investigate until the year of the monkey and still find nothing.

In truth, this was not the best solution. If there were no results for too long, Nick Fury would not let the matter rest. The best course at this point would have been to throw out one or several expendable pawns, have them take all the blame, and put an end to the matter quickly instead of dragging it out.

But the Hydra members within S.H.I.E.L.D. were too closely connected. No matter whom they sacrificed, it would expose a whole chain of others. So for now, all they could do was stall. As long as they could delay things until their plan succeeded, everything would be fine.

At that moment, they arrived at Pierce's office. Sitwell stepped ahead to open the door, waited respectfully for Pierce to enter, then followed him in and shut the door tightly behind them.

"Tell me, how were those Deadlock Gang people exposed?" Pierce dropped into his chair and gestured for Sitwell to sit as well.

Every grievance had its cause, every debt its debtor. The Deadlock Gang had been exposed and caused so much trouble, but how exactly had they been exposed? It could not have been that God Himself appeared in Nick Fury's dreams.

Sitwell was somewhat nervous, sitting only on the front half of the chair. "We still don't know exactly how they were exposed, but I suspect it had something to do with Agents Coulson and Melinda."

"Suspect?" Pierce scratched at his hair. "Give me your reasons."

Sitwell immediately laid out his reasoning in detail. "It was like this. Yesterday's operation was extremely sudden. We can conclude that it wasn't a carefully planned operation, but a spur-of-the-moment decision by Nick Fury, which was why it seemed rushed. Before that, Coulson and Melinda had a long private talk with Nick Fury in his office under the pretext of reporting on a mission. Afterward, Nick Fury gave the order to raid the Deadlock Gang."

"Then that must be it. But how did Coulson discover that there were Hydra members in the Deadlock Gang?" Pierce accepted Sitwell's deduction, but he was puzzled as well. How had Coulson noticed? Had those people suddenly jumped out and tried to assassinate Coulson? Impossible. Even the shameless Young Turks would not do something that brainless.

"Coulson and Melinda carried out a mission the day before yesterday. The mission site was in Brooklyn, where the Deadlock Gang was entrenched," Sitwell continued.

"What mission?" Pierce pressed.

"A Level Six Clearance mission. I heard it involved an Inhuman. I didn't expect something like this to happen beforehand, so I didn't look into it too deeply." Although Sitwell had the clearance to know about the matter, it was not his mission. To avoid drawing too much attention, he had not concerned himself with it.

"An Inhuman? Look into this Inhuman. Find out what happened," Pierce said, as if he had noticed something was wrong.

"I'm afraid I can't, sir. After Coulson made his report, Nick Fury sealed the mission file. It now requires Level 10 clearance to access." If he had to wait for his superior to tell him what to do every time, then he would be a useless confidant. Before Pierce even asked, Sitwell had already looked into the suspicious mission, but aside from being told that he lacked sufficient clearance, he found nothing.

"Then the problem must lie with that Inhuman." Pierce narrowed his eyes. He had long known that Hydra outside S.H.I.E.L.D., especially Daniel Howitzer's branch, was deeply interested in Inhumans. He immediately concluded that the Deadlock Gang people had likely approached that Inhuman and tried to make him "submit," only to be rebuffed. Then, when Coulson came into contact with the Inhuman, the Inhuman told him about it, exposing the Deadlock Gang. Later, it became connected to Pierce's own branch. In fact, the latter half of his deduction was correct.

"Sir, if we really have to investigate, it isn't impossible even if it's inconvenient for you to view the files personally," Sitwell said, sounding as though he were seeking credit. "Although the file has been sealed, we can check Brooklyn's surveillance footage and trace the GPS records of Coulson's car. That way, we can find out..."

But before Sitwell could finish, Pierce cut him off. "Useless. If the matter was raised to Level 10 clearance, Coulson's vehicle records were surely deleted at the same time. And Brooklyn's surveillance footage was definitely dealt with during the raid on the Deadlock Gang."

They had raised it to Level 10 clearance. If anyone could still casually dig it up, what the hell would be the point of Level 10? Anything that needed to be handled had surely been handled long ago, and the people ordered to do it probably did not even know why they were disposing of those things.

"And even if you found that person, what would you do?" Pierce asked with a cold sneer.

P.S. Tomorrow's fantasy feature recommendation. One extra chapter.