Special Agent 2: The Dark Soldier

Chapter 40

"You're who?" Kate demanded. She and Sivil – or apparently not Sivil, but rather Torres – stood on a deserted bridge, overlooking the water. There were no cameras anywhere nearby, which only eased her tension a little. HYDRA would come looking for her soon enough.

Torres sighed, leaning on the railing. "I'm NCIS Special Agent Nicolas Torres. Several years ago, I was assigned to work deep undercover within SHIELD to get to the underbelly of the organization, as Paul Sivil. That led me to INTEL and HYDRA." He paused for a moment, glancing at Kate. "That's how I ended up as your handler."

"Was that intentional?" Kate asked.

"Sort of, yes," Torres admitted. "I needed to find the bottom, the real underbelly, and INTEL is pretty much at the very bottom of SHIELD. Only a few of its operations are SHIELD related – Captain Jacklin, for example, started as experimentation approved by Fury. But you, and Barnes – you fall into the fully HYDRA category of operations." He sighed, glancing out over the dark, calm water. "HYDRA's rooted in deep, Sni – Todd. And it's been there, all this time, without anyone noticing. Not Fury, not Enigma, not Rogers, not anybody. Fury knew something was up – that's why he got me to go deep undercover. But he had no idea how bad it was, how much of SHIELD was really just...HYDRA."

"Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place," Kate muttered, her mind seizing on the name Enigma. She had heard the rumors of the agent, considered the most highly classified piece of SHIELD data. He – or she – had carried off many operations for SHIELD in the late nineties, silent and stealthy and never seen by any. No one knew what had happened to Enigma – just that they had seemed to vanish, as suddenly as they had appeared, and nothing had been heard about them since.

"Exactly," Torres replied. "So for the past several years, I've been gathering information on HYDRA, focusing specifically on INTEL. Operation Agency, the whole super-agent plot...well, you know about it. You're a part of it."

"How did you know I was Kate Todd?" Kate asked.

"Your file," Torres said. "Dr. Aadland considered it relevant information that you had previously been a part of NCIS, both to make sure you weren't recognized and to keep a run-in with any of your former teammates from rattling your brain."

"So what now?" Kate asked, looking at him. "Fury's dead, so it's not like you can report back to him."

"Fury had a contingency plan for this," Torres said. "I'm to go to Director Vance, and if he's not available, I'm to find Agent Gibbs. Those were the only two other people he trusted enough to share this information with."

"So we go to NCIS," Kate stated. "And talk to Vance." He hadn't been there back when she was an agent – Tom Morrow had been the director during her two years. Now, he was the director of Homeland Security and part of the World Security Council, a new addition following Loki's attack on New York.

"Yep," Torres said, resting his hand on the gun at his hip. "And we hope we can stop the INTEL's super-agents before it's too late."

****

Abby sighed as she switched her music off, staring at her monitor. Ever since they received the news of Gibbs, DiNozzo, Bishop, and Loki being regarded as enemies of the state, NCIS had been really quiet. Even SHIELD sending agents over to "protect" the Navy Yard hadn't caused much uproar. It seemed everyone was waiting for the storm to hit.

Abby hadn't known what to do, especially with the Morris case being handed over to SHIELD. And now the agents she looked on as family were on the run for something they hadn't done. The SHIELD agent who had delivered the information had only said they were connected with the death of Nick Fury, nothing else.