87 Kill Like A Spider
Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker sat at the small breakfast table on the balcony of his chateau. The coffee was delicious, the scrambled eggs were fluffy, and the toast was just barely on the side of burnt, just the way he liked them. He raised his coffee cup to his lips and took a deep drink...
*WHHHHTHOOOP!*
The coffee cup shattered as the high velocity sniper round blew through it and Strucker's head exploded in a blast of gore that coated the wall behind him. The lifeless body slumped down in the chair and then slowly slid to the floor.
*
“Target eliminated.” The scout said and folded down the range viewfinder. “Great shot, Greg.”
“Thanks, Hank.” Greg said and quickly broke down the rifle before the pair ran over to their escape vehicle. “What's the word on the lab raid?”
Hank tapped his earpiece and spoke with a sad tone of voice. “It's being cleared out right now.”
“It's that bad?” Greg asked as he drove them down the road towards their rendezvous point.
“They found kids inside.” Hank said and looked sick. “You don't want to know.”
“Damn right I don't.” Greg said with a scowl. “I'm glad I never feel guilty after a job. Hearing even some of that makes me thankful I helped stop it.”
“I hear you.” Hank said and took out his earpiece. “I don't want to hear that.”
Greg nodded and stepped on the gas. The sooner they were at the egress point, the sooner they could leave this cesspool behind. “Remind me to thank whoever sent us in for this.”
“I'm buying him a case of beer.” Hank said. “You can help me drink it.”
“Hoo-ahh!” They said at the same time.
*
“What's this supposed to be again?” One of the agents asked as they approached an underground bunker.
“It's a safe house for a terrorist bomber named Baron Zemo and his cell.” His partner said. “I don't need to know more than that.”
“Me, either.” The first agent said and waved everyone forward.
The door breaker was brought in and a single solid hit later, they were through and littered the entire place with automatic machine gun fire. It was a little excessive and completely preemptive, because they had been warned about not waiting to be shot at first.
They went through the place in under a minute and killed everyone with only one enemy actually getting several shots off. Thankfully, their auto-deploying arm shields took the bullets easily and they cleaned up the rest of the stragglers.
When they took a more detailed look around, they were grateful for the warning, because the place was filled with rifles, guns, and grenades, thirty dead men and women, and several tables and walls covered with the plans to bomb the United Nations building.
“We owe whoever planned this a good stiff drink.” One of the other agents said and everyone nodded.
“Start identifying the bodies.” The mission's leader said. “Careful of booby traps, too. These bastards wouldn't think twice about leaving shit like that around, even inside their own base.”
Sounds of agreement came from everyone and they all pitched in to gather all of the evidence. It would reveal tons of connections and more enemies to hunt down and kill, just like the other crew had with Baron Strucker and his Hydra connections throughout Europe and the middle east.
*
I was not surprised to see that my guide was Natasha Romanoff. “Black Widow.” I said with a nod. “I assume you're my pilot for the mission.”
Natasha nodded and waved at the exit door. “After you.”
I knew what was coming, even if my spider-sense hadn't warned me. I stepped by her and pretended to reach for the door handle, then I dropped to one knee and jammed an elbow into her kidney as her fist hit the door and sparks scattered. She grunted from my hit and then her BWSuit started to deploy, so I reached up and slapped my left hand over her mouth and held on. The helmet failed to engage with my hand in the way and Natasha's eyes widened.
“You didn't think I'd let you have a suit I designed and not know how to bypass it, did you?” I asked and my right fist slammed into the side of her head.
After all the practising I had been doing, the hit was solid and just at the limit of peak human. It rang her bell pretty hard and she looked dazed and her eyes were a little glassed over.
“I thought we worked this out.” I said and moved my left hand down to grip her neck. “I thought you were smart enough to not try to cheap shot me before my very first official mission!” I exclaimed and hit her again and again.
Natasha's eyes fluttered as they opened and closed several times.
“That's enough.” Clint's mechanical voice said from down the hallway. He wore the HESuit and hadn't drawn his bow, thankfully. “She was only going to knock you out. We were going to drop you off and see how you did on your own.”
“I'm going on my own anyway.” I said and then realized what he meant. “You were going to leave me there and see how I would handle getting back to civilization.”
Iron Hawk nodded.
“Was it officially approved?” I asked and he shook his head. “More hazing? Was my training mission not enough to satisfy you?” I looked at a still stunned Natasha. “I see. You really shouldn't let her come up with the ideas.”
“Let her go.” Iron Hawk ordered.
“I had no intention of keeping her.” I said and punched her one more time to make sure she was actually unconscious before I let her neck go and pushed her away from me.
Natasha fell backwards onto the floor with a clang and her helmet finished deploying.
“Thanks for the offer; but, I think I'll be flying myself this time.” I said as I stepped backwards and opened the door without taking my eyes off of Clint, stepped through the doorway, and closed the door. “Morons.” I muttered and climbed into the driver's seat of the van.
I drove out of the parking garage and used the onboard GPS to take me along the same route to get to the docks. Using the memory recall function on the device was smart of me, because it took me right to where I needed to go. I drove the van up the ramp and came to a stop next to the Quinjet.
“Where are the other two?” The flight crew chief asked me.
“It's Widow's time of the month and Hawkeye volunteered to stay behind to help her deal with it.” I said with a straight face.
The guy stared at me for a couple of seconds and then laughed. “She's all prepped. Have a safe flight.”
“Thanks.” I said and walked up the rear ramp. I did a quick physical check of the plane and then went to the cockpit. It wasn't that difficult to double check all of the procedures by myself and verified everything was up to specs. I powered the bird up and notified the tower that I was ready for launch.
“You're cleared for departure, Too-Far.” The woman's voice in the tower responded.
I chuckled. “I'm not even going to ask who assigned me that call-sign.”
“You're better off not knowing.” She said with her own chuckle. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I said and lifted up from the tarmac and eased the transport out over the water. Unlike when I was showing off, there were specific procedures for flying near population centres as well as not breaking the sound barrier near the captain's quarters. That was only for air shows and if you wanted to piss him off.
I flew the transport low over the water until I was far enough out into the bay and then poured on the speed to get myself up to international flight height. I wouldn't kick in the afterburners until I was well into the cloud cover. I checked the fuel and nodded. There was more than enough for me to have a bit of fun visiting a particular museum in Britain before I headed for South America for my mission.
*
The museum curator wasn't sure why the customs official was shouting at him about proper decontamination protocols for an exhibit. It wasn't his job to ensure the ancient ceremonial wooden masks and weapons from Africa were fumigated before entering the country.
In any case, Agent Parker ordered the small display to be packed up and he would return it to the rightful owners, then he would yell at them for loaning out items that could destroy the local ecosystem.
The museum curator was happy to comply and he stared at the donation check for 20,000 pounds he was given, because of the inconvenience the agent had caused for his museum losing an entire display. The curator thanked the agent profusely and promised to check the customs papers personally next time.
*
That evening, Carlos Mwumba was a very happy man as he toured his jungle villa. He had just pulled off the biggest heist of his career and made out like a bandit. That thought made him laugh, because he had started out as one. It had taken him years to work up through the gangs and to earn a reputation for taking risks and receiving big payoffs.
This last job was the biggest of his criminal career and he expected his reputation with the other cartels would rise, to either match them or maybe even surpass them. He greeted a few of his men as he walked through his house and even patted one on the shoulder. They had all appreciated getting a cut of the profits and sharing the cheap prostitutes he had paid for.
Carlos entered his bedroom and went over to his overly large bathroom. When he flicked on the light, he paused, because all of his drug paraphernalia was there on the side of the tub. It was also well prepared, which surprised him, because even he wasn't so meticulous. He didn't notice the figure dressed in black as it approached and he didn't struggle when the cloth doused in chloroform covered his mouth and nose.
He wouldn't be found until two days later when his weekly whore showed up for their appointment. Before anyone could say 'this is a raid', his own gang members had split up the man's illegally gained fortune and his drug stash before they abandoned the hidden base to join one of the other more popular gangs. No one would remember his name, not even his weekly whore who had been paid to do so.
*
I was glad that May had accepted my work excuse to stay overnight and Saturday, because now that I had refuelled and was outside the physical jurisdiction of SHIELD, I had a few more things to take care of. My first stop was in a middle eastern country that had too many consonants to pronounce. I had quickly arranged for Eric Stevens, Navy Seal, to be in the area to clean out a nasty gang infestation.
I hung around and waited for him to slaughter them all, because I knew of his penchant to mark himself for every kill he did. He would be busy as he added twelve new branding marks to his mostly covered torso, so I snuck up on him and dropped a canister of sleeping gas on him. It was hilariously easy. He didn't even have his door locked.
I tied him up and tucked him into the cargo area of the transport, after removing all of his weapons of course, and flew to where Ulysses Klaue had set up his weapons distribution network. SHIELD knew all about him and had even used him several times to supply a warlord or two that started a destabilizing conflict, in order to get the UN invited in to help the country recover from all the fighting.
I didn't bother trying to make an appointment or anything and trusted my spider-sense as I systematically hunted down all of his mercenaries around the old tanker and removed them from their criminal lives. Once again, just a small modicum of stealth was all that was needed to wipe them all out and not one of them managed to raise the alarm.
I did the same thing with Klaue as I did with Killmonger and dropped a canister of sleeping gas into the room, tied him up, and brought him back to my transport. I wasn't going to leave empty-handed, either. No, sir. I flew the transport over to Klaue's beached container ship and landed nearby, then proceeded to raid his weapons cache for everything it had.
It was a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I had to fold up all of the seats in the cargo area to fit all of the crates inside. It was ridiculous how many weapons the man had horded over the years. That wasn't why I was there, though. I went to his main vault and chuckled at the severely over-engineered vault door and locking mechanism.
I ignored the obvious entrance and went to the floor above. A quick application of a portable plasma torch and I was through the much weaker roof of the vault. Inside was exactly what I was looking for.
Vibranium and stacks of cash.
I almost giggled like a little girl at the applications I could put that sweet precious metal to and proceeded to empty the vault into the transport into the sole remaining area that it would fit. Right where the co-pilot's seat used to be. I had unbolted it and secured it to the ceiling to get it out of the way.
When I was done, I brought the bodies of all the mercs into the main hold of the ship and then dropped a mix of several grenades into the pile. It didn't really matter if I left them where they had fallen or not, because I had been careful about leaving any evidence behind. I just wanted to see what a bunch of fragmentation and incendiary grenades would do, which was a literal explosion of burning body parts.
Yeah, I'm not doing that again. I thought with a chuckle and refuelled at the closest SHIELD detachment before I left in the transport to head to where my Modern History teacher had described where Wakanda was in South Africa. I really liked that versatile class, because it had helped me a lot.
*
The advance Wakandan Guard posing as a lowly farmer knew something weird was going on when a young man dressed completely in black from head to toe, walked calmly down the main road in the small village.
He waved to people and spoke in English to them. “Hello! Hi! Greetings!”
Then to the guard's shock, he spoke in stilted and accented Xhosa.
“Mholo! Unjani?” The white man asked, which was 'hello' and 'how are you' in their native language.
The guard stared at him until the young man suddenly came to a stop as if frozen, then he turned and looked directly at the guard.
He smiled and walked right over to what was supposed to be a lowly farmer. “Please tell me you can speak English. I'm getting nothing from anyone else.”
The guard didn't respond and his hand tightened on the wooden staff in his hand. He needed to somehow get away and send word back to the others, so a preemptive attack on the interloper would be necessary. Just as he tensed his muscles to quickly swing the staff, a pistol was pressed into his belly.
“I asked you nicely, so there's no need to attack me.” The young man said with a blank face.
“You will not get away if you fire that gun.” The guard said.
“Why not? It's not like there are any other guards in the village.” The young man said.
“How do you know that?” The guard asked before he could stop himself.
“I walked through nearly the entire village and you were the only one to keep staring at me.”
The guard sighed at being so easily spotted.
“Next time you see someone of interest, pretend you don't care. Act aloof. You could even yell at the new guy to leave.” The young man said and put the pistol away. “Not reacting at all is a dead giveaway.”
The guard looked down at his belly and back at the young man's face.
“I only did that because you intended to hurt me.” The young man said and smiled. “Do you have a communication device on you or do you have to meet up with someone that does?”
The guard looked surprised at the question.
“What? I want you to call them. I've walked through three villages now and you're the first I've found that cared I was here.” The young man chuckled. “I even tried to offer money at the first village and I was laughed out of there.”
The guard smiled. As Wakandans, they rarely used money and had a barter system in place.
“I was tempted to offer a few pistols as collateral, then realized I would have to provide ammo and probably lessons on how to shoot, so that was out.” The young man said with a shrug. “Do we need to enter a hut or something? Are you hiding from the villagers as well as outsiders?”
The guard took a breath and let it out. He gave the young man a pointed look and reached into his tunic to take out a fancy walkie-talkie. He turned it on and spoke several code phrases and waited for a response. It was as he expected. He was to deny any knowledge of anything and ask him to leave. If he didn't, he was to force him to leave.
“May I?” The young man asked and held a hand out for the device.
The guard handed it over, just to see what would happen.
The young man examined it and hit two switches, which took the handheld radio from a specific signal to a blanket broadcast. “My name is not important. I have Ulysses Kraue and a Lost Son of Wakanda as hostages. Unless I am brought to see King T'Chaka immediately, I will release both of them and you will never regain the country's honor.”
The guard's mouth dropped open and he stared at the idiot in front of him. “You are a dead man.”
“By the way, if you try to kill me, I won't turn over the two and a half tons of Vibranium I recovered from Kraue's vault.” The young man said with a smirk. “I hope that's enough motivation to pass the word along. You have twenty minutes to make a decision and I eagerly await your response.”
The guard kept staring at the young man as he reset the communicator to the default and handed it back. “Are you insane?”
The young man chuckled. “I don't see any point in delaying the inevitable. If that doesn't stir up the Wakandan Defense Force, nothing will.”
The guard couldn't argue that both statements would definitely stir things up.