The morgue's pale, cold light carried a chilling aura. Nick Fury's lifeless body lay silently on the mortuary table, a shroud covering most of his form. The air was thick with the mingled smells of disinfectant and a somber, oppressive atmosphere. As Natasha finished speaking, her gaze fell directly on Coulson, waiting for him to produce the relevant contingency plans Lynn had left behind.
Coulson's fingers, hanging slightly at his sides, tightened slightly. His gaze swept over Steve Rogers, whose expression was complex, then over Maria Hill, who had rushed over in her sharp combat uniform, before finally settling on Natasha, whose expression remained cold. People were coming and going, ordinary S.H.I.E.L.D.. agents patrolled the area, and the hospital was a melting pot of people; no secrets could be discussed openly here. He paused for a few seconds, as if making a decision, then slowly broke the deathly silence.
"Since we've come this far, all of you come with me. This matter is too complicated right now, and this hospital is full of people and eyes; it's not a good place to discuss this kind of thing."
Hill frowned, keenly sensing that the situation was far more dangerous Fury's assassination appeared on the surface. " Coulson, what do you mean by that? The director's assassination was just an isolated incident; is there something else going on behind the scenes?"
"Once we get to the safe house, I will tell you everything I know, exactly what it is."
Coulson didn't elaborate at this moment, gesturing for the others to follow him. "This location is a top-secret safe house known only to Fury and me. There are no surveillance cameras, and no information has been registered with the outside world. It's the only place where we can talk safely right now."
Steve's deep-seated suspicions intensified. Fury's sudden visit, his hesitant demeanor, and the USB drive Fury had slipped into his hand—all these unusual images kept flashing through his mind. He didn't say much, silently following Coulson, with Natasha and Hill close behind. The four of them avoided passing agents, leaving the hospital through a secret underground passage. They transferred to two civilian cars without any S.H.I.E.L.D.. markings, and drove through the secluded streets of the New York City, finally arriving at a small, unremarkable safe house hidden in the mezzanine of an old residential building.
The room was simply furnished with only a few simple sofas and a metal desk. The walls were specially soundproofed, and various signal jamming devices operated continuously 24 hours a day, isolating all listening and positioning equipment. Coulson locked the heavy alloy door with his backhand, and only after confirming that all doors and windows were locked and the jamming system was working properly did he turn to face the three people standing in the room. His usual gentle and composed expression had completely disappeared, leaving only heavy fatigue and worry.
He walked to the table, pulled up a chair, sat down, looked up at the three people in front of him, and uttered the secret he had kept buried for so long, word by word, with perfect clarity.
" Lynn approached me privately a long time ago and subtly warned me that the entire S.H.I.E.L.D.. was rotten to the core and contained a large number of hidden moles."
Steve, Hill, and Natasha were all stunned. Their tense nerves suddenly jolted, and they all looked at Coulson, their eyes filled with disbelief and shock. S.H.I.E.L.D.. was the organization they had dedicated themselves to, sacrificed their lives for, and entrusted with their mission. No one had ever imagined that such a huge hidden danger would grow within this organization that protected the world's safety.
Coulson, seeing the astonished expressions on the three men's faces, continued recounting their conversation from back then without pausing, each word clearly audible to everyone.
"Although he didn't say it explicitly, he only gave me three words: ' Serpent S.H.I.E.L.D.. ' At first, I couldn't believe it. I just thought he was being too pessimistic and had a prejudice against S.H.I.E.L.D.. Besides that, he specifically reminded me that, Steve, your way of thinking and your code of conduct are still stuck in the World War II era. Your mind is too pure and straightforward, making it difficult for you to see through the conspiracies and schemes hidden in the shadows. You are not suitable to stay in the turbulent S.H.I.E.L.D.. for a long time."
"I was incredibly conflicted during that time. I immediately reported everything Lynn had told me to Director Fury in its entirety." Coulson sighed softly, his fingertips lightly tapping the cold tabletop, his voice filled with helplessness. "But you all know that we've all worked together for years, carried out countless life-or-death missions together, and our colleagues and comrades-in-arms are spread across various departments. Even if we knew beforehand that there was a mole within our ranks, without any clues and only those three words, we simply couldn't tell who we could trust and who had already defected. A hasty, large-scale investigation would only alert the enemy and give them an opportunity to strike."
"So during that period, Fury and I had to suppress all information and not leak a single word. We secretly screened personnel in each department layer by layer in a very small-scale and low-key manner, collecting suspicious clues little by little. We finally managed to find some signs of an internal mole recently, but before we could identify the key person and formulate a plan, Fury was ambushed."
At this point, Coulson's voice lowered, his eyes filled with regret and anxiety. "The situation is completely out of control now. The Project Insight, which claims to be able to predict all global threats and is about to be fully completed, will be officially put into use in just a few days. The lines between friend and foe are completely blurred. We don't have enough manpower, we don't have complete evidence, and I don't even have a clue what to do next."
A brief silence fell over the room. The words "Project Insight" instantly made Hill's expression turn serious. As a senior commander at S.H.I.E.L.D.., she knew that once this plan was launched, the life trajectories and potential threats of everyone in the world would be locked onto by satellites in the air. If it fell into the hands of an insider, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Just as everyone was reeling from the Serpent S.H.I.E.L.D.. and Project Insight, Natasha broke the silence first. Her sharp gaze swept over everyone present, and combined with the long-buried memories of old missions in her mind, she calmly spoke, piecing together a key clue.
"If what you say is true, and there is a huge mole force lurking within, then I can probably guess who attacked and killed Fury."
The three men turned to look at her simultaneously, waiting for her to reveal the identity of the murderer behind her. Natasha lowered her eyes and recalled the mission five years ago that had nearly cost her her life. The harrowing scenes from the past vividly resurfaced, and she slowly recounted her experiences in a cold tone.
Five years ago, I was assigned to escort a nuclear weapons engineer out of Iran. On the return trip, someone suddenly fired at long range on the highway, puncturing the tire of my vehicle. The car went out of control, crashed through the guardrail, and plunged off a cliff. Fortunately, the engineer and I jumped out of the car in time, but the assassin who had been lying in ambush on the cliff edge had been waiting for a long time. That assassin was the Winter Soldier. He raised his hand and fired a shot that accurately pierced my abdomen, killing the nuclear engineer.
" The Negasonic Teenage Warhead left at the scene matched the weapon you described to me before perfectly: a specially made Former Soviet Union bullet, without rifling, making it impossible to track by ballistics. It was an assassination device specifically designed to erase one's own traces and create unsolved mysteries."
After recounting her past assassination experiences, Natasha turned her gaze to Steve, whose expression was tense beside her, and said with an undeniable seriousness, "Captain, Fury specifically sought out your apartment alone before his assassination attempt. He must have given you something. The situation is urgent now; you'd better hand over what he gave you immediately."
After listening to Natasha's explanation, Coulson looked at Steve again, added a key piece of information from Lynn, and continued to persuade him.
" Natasha is right, there's no need to hide anything now. Lynn left me a list of a few people I could completely trust, and all three of you are on that list. Now, I can only trust you. Captain, the director went to great lengths to find you before he died. If he gave you something, now is the best time to bring it out."
Steve stood there, his fingertips unconsciously gripping the cold USB drive in his pocket. Fury's dying words, "Don't trust anyone," kept replaying in his mind. On one hand, there was Lynn's pre-selected list of trustworthy people and his comrades-in-arms; on the other hand, there was the warning left by the director. These two thoughts kept pulling at each other in his heart.