Shadows of Riga

Rain pounded against the abandoned factory's corrugated iron roof, dense as countless tiny drumbeats.

Su Ying stood in the shadow of a load-bearing pillar on the east side of the main workshop. Rain dripped through gaps in the damaged roof, pooling into a small muddy puddle at her feet. She wore a dark gray waterproof tactical jacket, its collar pulled high to cover the lower half of her face. Beneath it was a lightweight ballistic vest. A Glock 19 and two spare magazines hung at her waist, while a tactical dagger rested in a sheath on the outside of her right thigh.

The air reeked of rust, damp concrete, and diesel exhaust drifting in from the distant harbor.

Wolf crouched five meters to her left behind an abandoned stamping press. He wore similar gear, though he carried an extra black backpack. Equipment inside it was running, emitting an almost inaudible low-frequency hum. His right hand rested at his waist, his fingers only two centimeters from his pistol grip.

The other two team members—codenamed Grey Falcon and Anvil—were positioned at broken window openings on the south and north sides of the workshop. Both had once been Hydra peripheral operatives before Lin Xiao selected them for the core team. Grey Falcon specialized in sniping and long-range observation, while Anvil was an expert in close combat and had spent seven years fighting illegally in Eastern European underground rings.

Lin Xiao's voice came through the earpiece, encrypted and slightly distorted but still clear:

"Three minutes remaining. Report on the perimeter?"

Su Ying swept her gaze across the workshop. This had once been a Soviet-era machinery factory, covering more than two thousand square meters. Steel trusses rose fifteen meters overhead, many of their beams rusted and warped. Abandoned machine bases, broken conveyor belts, and heaps of corroded metal parts littered the floor. Three enormous windows lined the western wall, their glass long shattered, leaving only twisted frames. Rain drifted in through them, casting patches of wet darkness across the ground.

"Interior is secure," she said quietly, her voice transmitted through a bone-conduction microphone. "Grey Falcon reports vehicle lights approaching from the western dirt road. One black van, eight hundred meters out, traveling at roughly forty kilometers per hour."

"Received." Lin Xiao paused for a second. "Nightingale, drone feed?"

Nightingale, far away in the base's technical room, answered at once. "The drone is three hundred meters above the workshop. Thermal imaging shows three heat signatures inside the van. Outside the workshop... wait."

Her voice sharpened. "At the northwest corner, in an abandoned stack of shipping containers roughly fifty meters from the main building, there are two stationary heat signatures. Their temperature patterns indicate they've been lying in wait for over twenty minutes."

Su Ying's pupils narrowed slightly.

An ambush.

Just as expected.

"Coordinates?" she asked.

"Sent to your tactical tablets," Nightingale said. "Do you need me to mark them?"

"No." Su Ying looked toward Wolf. He had already pulled a palm-sized tactical tablet from the side pocket of his backpack. Its screen displayed a 3D structural map of the workshop and two blinking red dots—the exact positions of the ambushers.

Wolf made a hand signal: they were on high ground in the container stack, with a clear view of the entire western entrance.

Su Ying nodded and tapped the side of her earpiece twice—a signal meaning received, stay alert.

"Lin Xiao, they have an ambush in place. Two men, northwest container stack," she reported.

The communications channel went silent for three seconds.

Then Lin Xiao's calm voice returned. "Expected. Proceed according to the original plan, but raise the alert level. Wolf, is the scanning equipment ready?"

Wolf lowered his voice. "In position. The directional scanner is hidden in the backpack's inner compartment, effective range five meters. As long as they're carrying electronic storage devices, I can steal the data in three seconds. But they need to open the briefcase, or at least expose the device to open air."

"They'll open it," Lin Xiao said. "A man like Ivan Vanko will inspect the goods first. He'll demand to see samples while showing his own 'sincerity'—part of the blueprints. That's the basic logic of a transaction."

The rain grew louder.

Outside the workshop came the sound of tires rolling across muddy ground, followed by the faint scrape of brakes. A vehicle door opened, then shut. Footsteps rang through the rainy night, splashing across waterlogged ground with soft pattering sounds.

Three figures appeared at the western entrance of the workshop.

The leader was a bearded man about one meter eighty-five tall, wearing oil-stained dark blue work pants and a brown leather jacket. His beard was thick enough to nearly cover the lower half of his face, but his eyes remained sharp even in the dim light—gloomy, wary, like a wolf that had survived too long in the wilderness.

Two people followed behind him. One was tall and thin, wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled up over his hair, both hands shoved into his pockets. The other was shorter and sturdier, wearing a camouflage tactical vest with a noticeable bulge at his waist—the shape of a holster.

All three wore rain hoods, but Su Ying could still make out the details of their movements. The bearded man walked with his left shoulder slightly forward, a habitual posture formed by years of delicate manual work. The tall, thin man's right hand never left his pocket, likely gripping some sort of weapon. The shorter man constantly scanned the workshop, his gaze lingering over every patch of shadow.

A textbook professional team.

Wolf's breathing grew quieter in her earpiece. Su Ying could feel her own heartbeat, steady and powerful, as adrenaline began to flow slowly through her body, sharpening her senses. She could smell machine oil, tobacco, and the cold dampness of rain coming from the other side.

The bearded man stopped in the center of the workshop, roughly fifteen meters from the pillar where Su Ying had been hiding. He raised his head, swept his gaze through the building, then spoke in English with a heavy Russian accent.

"Come out. I know you're here."

His voice echoed through the hollow workshop, mingling with the rain and sounding especially abrupt.

Su Ying stepped out of the shadows, her pace steady. She did not fully expose herself to their line of sight, instead stopping behind an abandoned milling machine with only her upper body visible.

"Did you bring the goods?" she asked in fluent Russian.

The bearded man's eyes narrowed. He had clearly understood, yet he replied in English. "I brought them. What about yours?"

Su Ying gestured to Wolf. He took a silver metal case about the size of a shoebox from his backpack and opened it. Inside lay more than a dozen precision-machined metal components arranged neatly in rows. They were samples Nightingale had manufactured on the base's CNC machines according to blueprints provided by Lin Xiao. Their material and precision fully met the requirements, but they were, in essence, nothing more than a pile of useless parts.

The bearded man nodded at the tall, thin man. He stepped forward and took a portable microscope and a set of electronic calipers from inside his jacket. Crouching before the metal case, he began carefully examining every component.

The process lasted around five minutes.

Rain dripped through a hole in the roof, splashing tiny droplets against the metal case lid. The tall, thin man's fingers were steady, his movements professional and swift. He measured three parts, then used the microscope to inspect their surface finish. Finally, he looked up and nodded to the bearded man.

"The precision meets the standard," he said in Russian, quietly, but Su Ying heard every word.

A nearly imperceptible smile appeared on the bearded man's face. He clapped his hands, and the shorter, sturdier man immediately pulled out a black hard-shell briefcase from behind him. Its surface had a waterproof coating, causing rainwater to slide straight off. At its center was an electronic combination lock, its screen glowing faint blue.

"Now, let's see your sincerity," the bearded man said. "I want to see the original test reports for the palladium ingots, along with the examples of 'processing experience' you mentioned."

Su Ying did not move.

Her gaze passed over the briefcase and met the bearded man's eyes. There was something fanatical in them—not greed for money, but an obsession with technology. She had seen that look before in the S.H.I.E.L.D. archives, in photographs accompanying files on Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and every other top scientist.

This was Ivan Vanko himself.

Or at least one of his core agents.

"The reports are here." Su Ying pulled a transparent waterproof document bag from the inner pocket of her jacket. Several printed pages lay inside. "But as agreed, you should show us the blueprint index and summary first."

The bearded man stared at her for two seconds, then laughed. The sound was brief and hoarse.

"You're cautious," he said. "Fine."

He nodded to the shorter man. The man crouched down, laid the briefcase flat on the ground, and entered a string of numbers into the electronic lock. The lock gave a soft beep and sprang open.

The briefcase was divided into two layers. The upper layer contained a thick stack of paper blueprints, yellowed and curled at the edges from frequent handling. The lower layer held a black encrypted hard drive, several USB drives, and memory cards.

The bearded man drew a blueprint from the upper layer and unfolded it.

It was a hand-drawn mechanical schematic, its lines delicate and complex. In the lower-right corner was a messy signature: И.В. (I. V.). Written in Russian across the top was: "Arc Reactor Device—Second-Generation Prototype Structural Overview."

Su Ying's heart jolted.

Arc Reactor Device.

The Russian variant name for the Arc Reactor.

Wolf's breathing quickened for an instant in her earpiece. The scanner in his backpack had begun working, its directional antenna aimed at the unfolded blueprint. Data began flowing across the screen as the image was broken into pixels, then reassembled into a digital file.

"This is part of the index," the bearded man said, tracing a finger over the blueprint. "We have complete reverse-engineering blueprints, from the first-generation through the fourth-generation prototype. We also have twelve variant designs for a new Whiplash device, as well as..." He paused, his eyes fixed on Su Ying. "Some theoretical deductions concerning energy system miniaturization."

He folded the blueprint and returned it to the briefcase.

"Now it's your turn."

Su Ying tossed the document bag over. It arced through the air and landed beside the bearded man's feet. He did not pick it up immediately, instead looking at Wolf.

"That case only contains samples?"

"Only samples," Wolf said evenly. "The real goods are in a secure location. If the deal goes smoothly, they can be delivered within twenty-four hours."

The bearded man crouched and picked up the document bag. He opened it, pulled out the papers, and quickly skimmed them under the faint light filtering in from outside. Rain dampened the edges, but he did not care.

Su Ying's peripheral vision drifted toward the workshop's northwest corner.

The two ambushers still had not moved. But Grey Falcon's voice came through her earpiece, low and restrained.

"There's slight movement in the container stack. One of them adjusted position, possibly taking aim."

"Received," Su Ying said.

Her fingers were curled around the pistol grip inside her jacket pocket. The weapon was cold, but the textured grip beneath her hand steadied her.

The bearded man finished reading the test reports. He looked up, his gaze falling on Su Ying's face.

"The reports are fine. But what about the examples? You said you handled similar projects."

Su Ying took out another, smaller document bag. Inside were several photographs—fabricated by Nightingale—showing the interior of a fictional Eastern European factory, where workers operated CNC machines to manufacture precision components. The backgrounds had been carefully edited so the location could not be identified, but the professionalism was convincing enough.

She tossed the document bag over.

The bearded man caught it, pulled out the photographs, and flipped through them one at a time. His brow furrowed slightly as though he were evaluating their authenticity.

Time passed second by second.

The sound of rain seemed endless.

The scanner in Wolf's backpack had finished stealing the blueprints. The screen displayed: 87%. Ten more seconds were needed.

The bearded man reached the final photograph. He stared at it for several seconds, then looked up, his eyes turning sharp.

"These photos are fake."

Su Ying's heartbeat did not speed up. She had expected him to be suspicious.

"How can you tell?" she asked.

"The angle of the light." The bearded man tapped a finger against the photo. "In this picture, the reflection on the machine's control panel indicates that the light source is coming from the left. But the shadow on the wall shows it coming from the right. A professional team wouldn't make such a basic mistake."

He stood and threw the photographs onto the ground.

"Who are you?" His voice turned cold. "People who genuinely wanted to make a deal, or thieves trying to steal technology?"

The shorter man's hand moved toward his waist. The tall, thin man also pulled his right hand from his pocket, gripping a pistol fitted with a suppressor.

The air inside the workshop froze instantly.

Wolf's scanning progress: 92%.

Lin Xiao's voice came through Su Ying's earpiece, calm and decisive.

"Operation canceled. Create chaos, prioritize securing the scan data, then withdraw."

Almost at the same instant, Su Ying spun toward the northwest corner of the workshop and shouted in Russian.

"Ambush!"

Her voice exploded through the workshop, reverberating again and again between the steel supports.

The bearded man's expression changed. He instinctively turned toward the northwest corner. The shorter man had already drawn his gun, but Su Ying moved faster—she kicked over an abandoned toolbox beside her. Metal tools clattered across the floor, rolling and colliding on the concrete with piercing noise.

The chaos began.

Wolf seized the opportunity and pulled a palm-sized black device from the side pocket of his backpack—a directional electromagnetic pulse jammer. He pressed the switch, and an invisible high-frequency pulse shot from its front, striking the briefcase by the bearded man's feet with precision.

The briefcase's electronic lock screen went dark at once.

The combination lock had failed.

The bearded man roared and bent down to grab the briefcase. But Wolf had already rushed forward, stopping three meters away and aiming his scanner at the open case. The final eight percent of the progress bar rapidly filled across the screen.

The tall, thin man fired.

The suppressor turned the shot into a muffled thump, like a wet towel being slapped hard. The bullet struck the machine base beside Wolf, spraying sparks.

Su Ying had already drawn her gun. She did not return fire, instead retreating toward the east side of the workshop while shouting into the communications channel.

"Grey Falcon, Anvil, withdraw according to plan! Route B!"

"Received!"

"Received!"

Footsteps rang out from the north and south sides of the workshop at the same time. Grey Falcon vaulted through a broken window opening, slipped in the mud upon landing, then immediately steadied himself and sprinted toward the designated extraction point. Anvil charged out from the other side, holding a steel pipe torn from abandoned equipment, and swung it viciously at the shorter man who tried to intercept him.

The steel pipe struck the pistol with a sharp metallic clang.

Wolf's scanner emitted a soft beep.

100%.

Data theft complete.

He turned and ran, his backpack swaying violently as he sprinted. The bearded man had picked up the briefcase, but its electronic lock remained dead, leaving him to try forcing the lid open with brute strength. The tall, thin man fired three more times in succession. The bullets chased Wolf's retreating figure, striking the workshop pillars and sending concrete fragments flying.

Su Ying had reached the eastern exit. Rain poured through the damaged roof, forming a curtain of water before her. She looked back once—

The bearded man stood in the middle of the workshop, briefcase in hand, his face twisted with rage. He shouted something in Russian at Su Ying. The rain swallowed most of it, but she heard it clearly.

"You'll regret this!"

She did not answer and turned to charge into the downpour.

The rain instantly soaked her hair and clothes, its icy chill seeping through her tactical jacket and into her skin. Muddy dirt road stretched beneath her feet, and every step splashed up filthy water. An engine started in the distance—their van—but Grey Falcon had already laid spike strips along the escape route. They would not be able to catch up.

Lin Xiao's voice came through the earpiece.

"Everyone, report status."

"Grey Falcon secure. Reached Point A."

"Anvil secure. En route to Point C."

"Wolf secure. Data intact. En route to Point B."

Su Ying took a breath. Rainwater ran into her eyes, stinging sharply. She wiped her face and said,

"Su Ying secure, withdrawing. Three hostiles, plus two ambushers. Confirmed Ivan Vanko's team. Data acquired successfully, but they are now alerted."

"Received." No emotion could be heard in Lin Xiao's voice. "Return to the rendezvous point according to plan. Nightingale will clear surveillance along the route."

"Understood."

Su Ying kept running. The rain striking the ground, her own ragged breathing, and the faint roar of engines in the distance blended together into a strange rhythm. Her heartbeat gradually steadied, though the thrill of adrenaline still coursed through her veins.

They had succeeded.

The transaction had collapsed, and their identities had been exposed, but they had gotten what they wanted.

She crossed an abandoned parking lot, rounded a pile of rusted shipping containers, and finally stopped beside a gray van parked by the roadside. Its sliding door opened. Wolf sat in the driver's seat, soaked through but smiling.

"Get in," he said.

Su Ying climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. The cabin smelled of wet clothes and sweat. She took off her tactical jacket, wrung out the hem, and rainwater splashed onto the floor mat.

Wolf started the engine, and the van slowly drove into the rain-soaked streets.

Outside the window, Riga's lights blurred into hazy patches through the downpour. In the distance, near the abandoned factory, scattered gunshots and angry shouts could still be faintly heard, but they were soon swallowed by the rain.

Su Ying leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.

Lin Xiao's voice sounded one last time through her earpiece.

"Mission complete. Team, return."