"Fury, I need an explanation. We've already lost four agents over this 084 item, and now the decision is to shelve it?"
Level 7 Agent Victoria Hand pressed Nick Fury for answers. The mission had failed, and she had lost so many subordinates, yet she still could not even access intelligence on the other party. Victoria Hand found this very hard to accept. Such a failure should not have been left on her record.
"The explanation is that I don't know the truth of this matter either. All we know right now is that a third party unknown to both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Wakanda is causing trouble. Agent Hand, go attend to your own work."
Nick Fury said this to Victoria Hand, then refused to disclose anything further.
Although Wakanda had provided an explanation, Nick Fury was suspicious of everything. He suspected both third-party interference and the possibility that Wakanda had staged the whole thing itself. His wariness of this closed-off technological power had never diminished.
Their technological level and isolationist policies were simply too formidable. Even S.H.I.E.L.D. could not infiltrate the country to gather intelligence. Nick Fury had only become aware that such a country existed on the African continent when Wakanda took the initiative to contact the outside world.
Not long after Victoria Hand left, Nick Fury received a message from Alexander Pierce, asking him to come to his office.
Pierce was the former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He now served as the liaison between the World Security Council and S.H.I.E.L.D., as well as S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secretary-general, with the same clearance as Nick Fury. In truth, however, he belonged to Hydra and was indeed the person in charge of the operation against Wakanda that Malick had planned.
Pierce and Malick, one the secretary-general of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the other a member of