The Infiltrating Hydra Agent

Li Chuan had initially wanted to pick a relatively mild-looking subordinate to double as his secretary.

But there was no helping it—everyone was a crack shot at killing and fighting, but when it came to handling documents, scheduling itineraries, and other secretarial work, they basically hit a wall.

Instead, it was Xiao Liu, the one with the fiercest face of them all, who turned out to have a real knack for it, even rivaling actual secretaries, and he was extremely patient to boot.

Actually, that worked out fine. At least the small-time schemers who might have tried to pull something on him took one look at Xiao Liu trailing behind him every day and thought twice, too intimidated to make a move.

"Hurry up, hurry up—I want to see our new home already."

Wanda cut off her brother and husband's conversation, bounding ahead excitedly.

Li Chuan and Pietro, laden with bags and boxes of all sizes, could only shrug and hurry after her.

"Seriously, sis, did you really need to bring all this stuff? Didn't Chuan say he already had Jack buy everything we'd need in advance?"

Pietro, backpack slung over one shoulder and a suitcase in each hand, looked utterly baffled.

Since Li Chuan had told him ahead of time that everything was arranged, he'd just thrown a backpack together with some essentials and left the rest behind.

"You wouldn't get it, being single. A lot of this stuff is full of memories between me and Chuan—gifts we've exchanged for holidays, photos together, souvenirs. Those had to come."

Wanda stopped, turned around, and saw Li Chuan struggling with an armful of bags. She immediately hurried back to take some off his hands.

Pietro felt like two knives had just been stabbed straight into his heart.

"Good thing I'm not sharing a room with you two. Looks like I need to find a girlfriend soon!"

Just then, four burly security guards suddenly appeared, blocking their path. Pietro instinctively let go of his suitcase and stepped in front of Li Chuan and Wanda.

"Something we can help you with?"

The lead guard grinned. "I'm the security captain for this complex. You folks new residents?"

"That's right. We just moved in today," Li Chuan replied with a smile.

"Welcome to the neighborhood. We offer free moving services for new residents—just leave your stuff to us."

The security captain waved his hand, and the three guards behind him immediately stepped forward with enthusiasm, taking all their luggage.

"Well, thanks a lot."

Pietro and Wanda blinked, both silently thinking how great the service was in this complex.

So, with the enthusiastic help of the security guards, all the luggage was quickly delivered to the two adjacent apartments Li Chuan had bought.

But just as the guards were about to leave, Li Chuan quietly said to the security captain, "Xiao San, send someone to look into Obadiah Stane, a shareholder at Stark Industries."

Right—the security captain was, of course, one of his men.

The difficulty of the mission to rescue Dr. Ethan wasn't the terrorists themselves. With his current strength, dealing with them wasn't that hard.

The hard part was finding where they were.

Li Chuan only remembered that the terrorists' base seemed to be somewhere in a desert, but he had no idea exactly where.

He didn't know, but someone else definitely did: Obadiah Stane, the Stark Industries shareholder.

Because he was the one who'd hired the terrorists to kill Tony Stark and take over the whole company.

He just hadn't counted on the terrorists breaking the deal—instead of killing Tony, they'd tried to use him to build weapons.

Late at night, as Li Chuan and Wanda fell asleep in each other's arms in their new home, an uninvited guest arrived at the complex gate.

Grant Ward, S.H.I.E.L.D. Level 7 agent, action and weapons expert. As a teenager, he'd been locked up in juvenile detention for trying to burn his brother and parents to death. Later, John Garrett discovered him and molded him into a top-tier double agent.

Two days ago, he'd received an assignment from Garrett: secretly kidnap Li Chuan, chairman of the Li Group, and extract the Power Pill formula from him to perfect the Deathlok Program.

He'd originally planned to make his move in Sokovia, but after investigating, he found out Li Chuan was moving to New York with his wife. So he immediately changed the plan and set the operation in New York.

The Li family had been entrenched in Sokovia for years, and under Li Chuan, they'd reached their peak. Kidnapping this tycoon quietly in Sokovia wasn't that easy.

The key issue was that the explosion at the Hydra base in Sokovia had caused a huge uproar, and things still hadn't fully settled down. Hydra's intelligence network there was still crippled.

But in New York, it was different. He could leverage both S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence and Hydra's systems to craft a perfect operation plan.

Case in point: before Li Chuan had even moved into New York, Ward already knew the exact complex and apartment number.

He didn't understand why the guy hadn't chosen a villa and instead picked an ordinary residential building, but for now, tonight was the best window of opportunity.

Checking all his gear, Grant started the car and drove toward the complex gate.

His plan was simple: get in, park, go upstairs, pick the lock, sneak in, knock Li Chuan out, stuff him in a suitcase, load it back into the car, and head to the Hydra base to use a hypnosis device to extract the information.

If all went smoothly, he might even have Li Chuan back before dawn. At worst, the guy would wake up with a headache the next day.

"Something's off—those two guards aren't in the intel!"

As he swiped his forged access card and slipped into the complex, Grant glanced at the two guards dozing in the security booth and his pupils contracted.

He'd memorized the complex's security personnel files yesterday: four middle-aged men, two elderly men, their names, backgrounds, and histories—he knew them all by heart.

But these two guards, whose builds alone were explosive, weren't in the files at all.

"Coincidence, or is it related to Li Chuan?"

Grant leaned toward the latter. The security guards had been replaced right on the day Li Chuan moved in—calling it a coincidence was too much of a stretch. Still, that didn't mean he would abandon the mission.

Even if the new guards were Li Chuan's men, it wasn't a major issue.

Physical strength doesn't equal combat prowess. As a top-tier operative, his hand-to-hand skills were formidable—he could take down over a dozen burly men bare-handed. If he was armed, that number only went up.

Besides, he wasn't looking for a direct fight. This was just a stealth infiltration; he'd do his best to avoid being spotted by the guards.

As Grant's car turned toward the parking lot, the two security guards who had been dozing off in the booth immediately snapped awake, grabbed their walkie-talkies, and reported:

"Third Brother, a non-resident vehicle has entered the compound. Black Chevrolet, license plate EVJ4329."