The Red-Haired Woman

Lynn closed the news page.

He had no intention of seeking out Tony.

Besides, with Tony Stark's personality—arrogant, suspicious, and distrustful of strangers—

a small-clinic doctor with no reputation showing up uninvited would most likely be taken for a con artist or a spy.

He needed his name to reach Tony naturally.

Batman, Daredevil, Punisher, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones—these people formed the beginnings of a social network.

Information flowed through that network.

The name of the Miracle Clinic would pass from one superhero to another.

Sooner or later, it would reach the man living on the top floor of Stark Tower.

Lynn picked up his coffee cup and found it had gone cold again.

He poured himself a fresh cup and opened the medical journal in front of him.

He still had 90 reputation points to earn.

Outside the clinic, Frank's folding chair creaked.

A voice so familiar he didn't need his Super Senses to recognize it—Frank was getting to his feet.

Then came footsteps.

A lot of footsteps.

At least six people, coming from the east.

Frank's canvas bag zipper opened.

Lynn put down his coffee cup.

Six people.

Lynn moved slowly as he put down his coffee cup, but his mind raced.

In a single second, he locked onto all the details: six heartbeats approaching from the eastern street corner, spaced in pairs.

Their paces were synchronized, about 1.2 steps per second—not the rhythm of ordinary pedestrians.

Their hard leather soles struck the ground with crisp, deliberate steps.

But there was no clinking of metal.

No guns.

Frank had stood up.

The canvas bag zipper opened a little farther.

Lynn walked to the doorway and looked outside.

Six people.

All in dark suits, with earpieces in their ears. They moved with precision: the first two split off to either side of the street while the next two covered the blind spots behind the last pair.

A standard VIP security formation.

But the person they were protecting wasn't in the middle of it.

"They're not here to fight," Lynn told Frank.

Frank didn't let go, but he didn't draw his gun either.

He watched the six people stop on the sidewalk outside the clinic and spread out, leaving a space between them.

Then a woman stepped out from the street corner.

She was alone.

Rather than joining the six bodyguards, she approached from another direction by herself.

A gray sweatshirt, ordinary jeans, and deep reddish-brown hair tied back in a casual ponytail.

She walked with an easygoing air, like an ordinary woman out for a stroll on her way to buy groceries.

But Lynn's eyes began working the moment she stepped onto the stairs.

Heartbeat—sixty-two beats per minute.

Resting heart rate.

The number didn't change at all when she faced Frank Castle.

A normal person who saw the Punisher sitting outside the door would have a heart rate of at least eighty.

Gait—her weight was on the balls of her feet, with her heels barely touching the ground.

This wasn't a walking gait. It was the stance of a fighter ready to sprint or dodge at any moment.

Calluses—when she opened the door, her right hand was exposed for 0.3 seconds.

The calluses at the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, the second joint of her index finger, and the outer heel of her palm were all completely different.

The callus between her thumb and forefinger came from gripping a gun. The one on her index finger came from drawing a bowstring or pulling a trigger. The one on the outer heel of her palm had formed from years of striking drills.

And then there was her scent.

She had three different perfumes on her—not mixed together, but layered.

The outermost layer was an inexpensive supermarket perfume, the middle layer was a classic Estée Lauder fragrance, and the bottom layer was a limited-edition Dior perfume.

The three scents meant three different outfits.

She had changed at least three times before coming here.

Counter-surveillance.

One last detail—there was an extremely tiny bump on the inside of her right ear.

It was on the cartilage inside her tragus, so small that it was almost impossible to spot unless you looked closely.

A micro earpiece.

Someone was listening in live.

The entire analysis took less than a second.

This woman wasn't an ordinary patient.

She was an agent.

And a high-level one—the kind who didn't need bodyguards for protection. The bodyguards were there because she'd arranged them to mislead others.

A name flashed through Lynn's mind.

Natasha Romanoff.

Black Widow.

Someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. had finally come.

"Hello." The red-haired woman stepped through the door and gave Lynn a polished smile.

"My name is Natalie Rushman. Lately, I've felt like something's wrong with me, but none of the tests I've taken have found anything. I heard you were good, so I thought I'd give this place a try."

"Have a seat, Ms. Rushman."

Lynn kept his warm expression as he showed her to the chair in the examination room.

He quickly reviewed the situation in his mind.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent Black Widow, not to get treatment, but to test him.

Fury wanted to know just how capable the Miracle Clinic was.

Sending a top agent disguised as an ordinary person for a "checkup" let them observe his diagnostic skills up close, while the earpiece transmitted information in real time.

Clever.

But not clever enough.

Fury didn't know that Lynn had already seen through everything.

He had two choices.

First, play dumb, treat her like an ordinary patient, and give her a perfunctory examination.

That would be safe, but it would waste a perfect opportunity to make an impression.

Second, show her something real.

Don't expose her identity, but diagnose secrets even she didn't know—send her back with a report powerful enough to change the entire course of their negotiations.

He chose the second.

"Ms. Rushman, let me give you a full examination first."

Lynn moved behind her and picked up his stethoscope.

This was for the person listening through the earpiece: a routine procedure, entirely reasonable.

But he didn't need a stethoscope to make his actual diagnosis.

All-Things Diagnosis automatically initiated a full scan.

The surface-level information appeared first: multiple old scars across her forearms, ribs, and outer thighs, all left by combat.

Her bone density was unusually high, 41 percent above the average for women.

There was a faint surgical scar on her lower abdomen—a hysterectomy.

All of that was expected.

Standard Red Room procedure.

But when the scan delved deeper, to the microscopic level—

A red warning burst across the System Panel in his field of vision.

[Warning! Abnormality detected!]

[Unknown micro-capsule found beside the target's seventh cervical vertebra! Diameter: 0.3 mm! Composition analysis: slow-release neurotoxin micro-capsule! Release cycle: approximately 15–20 years! Current release progress: 72%!]

[Assessment: Artificially implanted. Suspected function—control device for Red Room defectors. Once fully released, it will cause acute nervous system failure. Mortality rate: 100%!]

Lynn's hand paused for an instant.

The Red Room had planted a ticking time bomb beside Black Widow's cervical vertebra.

A slow-release toxin capsule, only 0.3 millimeters across, buried deep in the soft tissue beside her seventh cervical vertebra.

No conventional scan could detect something that small.

It had already released 72 percent of its toxin without anyone noticing.