Salomon still maintained the build of an ordinary man, but his two-meter height paired with such conspicuous weapons still exerted incomparable pressure. The moment Natasha Romanoff saw that equipment, she knew today's conversation would be difficult. There would be no champagne, no bed, no pleasure. The one standing before her was not Salomon, but the sovereign of the City of Immortals. His actions had prevented the US Navy's Office of Naval Operations from immediately noticing that three carrier battle groups had gone missing. By the time others discovered that the chain of command had been severed, the three most important nuclear-powered aircraft carriers had already vanished, and wreckage from two of them had just been found. An investigation was underway, and the news was being kept tightly under wraps. Yet the White House did not dare inform the media, fearing that the public—capital—would lose faith in the nation. Latveria was one of the primary suspects, but because of this operation, the White House had yet to sign off on its economic sanctions plan against Hungary.
The preliminary report Maria Hill had obtained indicated that many people had been shot through with large-caliber bullets. The military suspected someone had stormed Naval Command carrying a large-caliber machine gun never before seen on the market, but even that could not explain the penetrating wounds and cuts that had sliced through human bodies. Forensic examiners and trace evidence technicians could not reasonably explain how the bloodstains on the walls had formed, nor could they identify the composition of the propellant residues left at the scene. More fatal still was the disappearance of a Navy lieutenant general. No one knew how much classified intelligence his captors had obtained. The entire Ministry of Defence had become tense, as though the attack had struck them senseless. Aside