Coulson's side finally realized that Ward was a problem. Though he still couldn't be certain, once they returned to the completely deserted base, found that the Air Bus was gone, discovered the message Skye had left behind, and found Koenig's corpse, the truth became clear. The process itself was utterly unremarkable, so there was no need to go into detail.
As for Skye, after she left with Ward, she gave an extraordinary performance, practically forcing herself into becoming a master-level actress and skillfully luring Ward into a restaurant.
This truly made Ward uneasy. Both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra were under intense worldwide manhunts now, and he carried both identities at once. Casually showing his face outside like this was downright unsafe!
But Skye's reason was especially convincing. She said the hard drive they needed to crack was location-encrypted and could only be decrypted from a specific location. Even changing the IP address wouldn't work!
There was actually such a thing? Ward was skeptical after hearing that, but he genuinely knew less about this than Skye did. This was the price of being uneducated! Besides, Skye said that from a tactical standpoint, it was a public place with dense crowds and many exits.
That put Ward somewhat at ease. Even if their identities were exposed in a place like that, with so many civilians around, headquarters wouldn't immediately blanket the area with special forces and heavy firepower, right? This was an American restaurant, not a Russian one!
And if he sensed anything wrong, he could use the dense crowd to escape. At worst, he could grab a hostage to shield himself first. Considering all that, he agreed.
That was indeed a place where it would be easy to escape. It was true for him, but it was also true for Skye!
Over