"Forgive me for asking, but what kind of plan nearly got you killed?"
"That's a long story. Remember when I had you use Divination on the contents of the Insight Program?" Nick Fury said meaningfully. "You told me fate showed you a rather dated Military Base."
"New Jersey." Hill took a deep breath. "Captain America's birthplace. Coulson thought of that place immediately."
"Just to be safe, I asked Stark to help us hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system and provide enough cover for our operation." Coulson looked slightly embarrassed. "It's not that I don't trust Skye, but she's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent now, and she's also close with Ward."
Aaron nodded in realization. "Understood."
"We found Arnim Zola there, Red Skull's scientist," Natasha said. "He had been dead for many years, but he preserved his consciousness in a database.
After World War II, during Operation Paperclip, S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists of strategic value. He was one of them.
Zola had always believed in Hydra's creed and became a parasite within S.H.I.E.L.D."
"I need to emphasize that this wasn't my fault. I hadn't joined S.H.I.E.L.D. yet back then!" Nick Fury said weakly. "Operation Paperclip was the decision of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s old guard, its founders, perhaps even those above them."
"Zola wrote an algorithm that screened targets using bank records, medical histories, voting tendencies, emails, spending records, grades, and more," Natasha continued. "This program could use the past to predict the future, identify anyone who might threaten Hydra, and then the three Helicarriers in the sky would kill them outright."
"That was the Insight Program." Nick Fury forced himself to remain calm. "It would kill millions in one go, yet that bastard Piers dressed it up so grandly. How was his acting so good?"
"No matter how good his acting was, didn't you still fool him?"