Special Agent 2: The Dark Soldier

Chapter 30

Kate drummed her fingers on the wooden surface of the table, glancing around at the other super agents and the one super soldier in the room. Thalia Mars, Isaac Connor, and Barnes were all here, with their newest teammate sitting with them, dark and stony.

Captain Hayden Jacklin was his name, Kate had been told. An ex-Marine, he had been dishonorably discharged for unnecessarily killing locals during a skirmish when overseas. Jacklin had been drafted for experimental treatment seven years ago, his death being faked to aid his disappearance, and he had been undergoing the conditioning ever since.

Kate wondered idly if NCIS had investigated his "death." If they had, Ziva David would have been on the team during the case, taking her place and her desk and Tony and McGee and the entirety of her old life. Kate had watched her a couple times in the past, from the skylight looking down into the squad room, and she had grown to dislike the Israeli agent, the girl who had stolen her life away from her while Kate had had to endure the conditioning, the lies, the horrible sensation of realizing one had gone from hero to villain without any choice in the matter.

The worst of it, looking back, was her acceptance of her new role, her submissiveness to INTEL's plans, her willingness to do such things as track and kill.

Her agreement to kill Gibbs.

Jacklin had curled his fingers into a fist, which he surveyed impassively. The other four enhanced watched him curiously, unsure still of what powers he possessed. His light skin had a slightly darker, unnatural cast to it, as if ebony blood ran in his veins. It made him look partly insubstantial, like a shadow.

The door at the other end of the conference room opened and James Mitchells, the head of the super-agent initiative, entered, several scientists and handlers accompanying him. Sivil was one of the handlers with the group and he nodded briefly at Kate as he took his seat at the table, Mitchells assuming a position at the head of the table.

"I assume you've all been introduced to Captain Jacklin?" Mitchells asked, pressing his fingers together. When the other agents all nodded, he looked to Jacklin. "You stated in your mission report that STRIKE destroyed the Blackout satellite, despite orders to Agent Rumlow for his team to stand down, for him to divert them to different targets in case Fury caught on."

Jacklin nodded. "The girl destroyed it. The blonde one."

Agent Eleanor Bishop.

"Yes, she's annoying," Mars said dismissively. "I almost killed her, a couple days ago."

"That's certainly a delay," Mitchells said grimly. "But another satellite is under construction, a stronger, more impervious one. Once it is completed, once you are synced up to it, Captain Jacklin, we will officially launch Operation Blackout. And then Phase One will be completed – HYDRA will take its rightful place among the leaders of the free world, emerging after years of preparation from the shell of SHIELD.

"And Phase Two will commence."

Kate glanced around at the other agents, whose expressions were impassive. Phase One was the infiltration of federal agencies by enhanced agents, whose true loyalties were with HYDRA and its super-agent program, INTEL. Phase Two, on the other hand, had been kept closely under wraps – almost none of the agents here had been read in to it.

As Mitchells continued to talk, Kate's vision suddenly flared dark red, the strands cutting across her eyes and burning into her eyelids. When the red vanished, she was no longer sitting in the conference room, but looking down at a large bed with a golden headrest, an unconscious figure lying in the center on his back, and two more figures sitting on either side of the bed.