What If...? Rumlow Turned Against Hydra: Book One

32

The flight landed without incident, allowing Michael Fleischer to make his way through the crowded yet surprisingly modern airport. The mission was nothing to him, he wasn't expecting to find out anything of any value in a place most people didn't know about while the rest would actively avoid it if they had a choice. The sheer number of people in the airport made him curious as to why such a large number of people chose to come and go from Madripoor. There were far better places to be. He wished he could be in one of them rather than walk the streets in any part of the supposedly lawless city. He had his orders however, and he would carry them out in full.

A part of him resented that he had been sent on the mission, if only because Hydra was taking the final steps to be where they were meant to be after so many years of careful, secret planning. He was lucky to be a part of Hydra in that moment when so many had died of old age before their vision could be realized. Pierce was being overly cautious in his opinion. Nothing of any interest ever came out of Madripoor and nothing ever would. Certainly, there was no reason to think there could be a threat to Hydra lurking in the drug addicts, dealers and prostitutes. His expertise was needed, he would obey, but he didn't have to be happy while he did it.

He sent the message to Pierce that he'd arrived in Madripoor on schedule, traveling into the city to the location the archived files had indicated in Lowtown. The files were a decade old at least, all had been closed out, so he wasn't expecting to find anyone or anything of interest. Whatever project Hydra had had in Madripoor was long since abandoned, with good reason. Hydra had no need to have anything in Madripoor, especially not when their power was growing exponentially. The files he'd been given had indicated the project in Madripoor had been carried out by their best, most trusted asset anyway, not someone who would turn on Hydra at the first opportunity. The only thing he expected to find would be proof the project had been terminated with only one problem to be solved: who had dropped the ball by not creating a report to document that fact.

As he'd expected based on the information he'd found regarding Madripoor, none of the cabs wanted to drive him to Lowtown. The files had been very explicit that the headquarters of the erstwhile organization had been in Lowtown, not Hightown as anyone would have preferred. He sighed, glad that he'd only packed a small bag and resigned himself to the walk into the worst part of the worst city in the world. To his further dismay, the disgustingly warm drizzle became steady rain as he walked. It was so warm it was like being in a shower with his clothes on, soaking everything while not allowing him to cool down. Only a madman would live in Madripoor by choice.

                                                                              ***

Boryslav Shevchenko had at one time been a mercenary, though he hadn't liked the term. His talents had been for sale to the highest bidder in a market the world didn't know about unless it was inside one of the intelligence agencies or militaries that kept track of such things. His story was very common in the Winter Soldier's organization; the end of it was even more common. He'd valued his independence and the money it could earn him, until he'd found a place to belong that would make the most use of his skills with regular pay while also providing him something he hadn't even known he needed: a sense of purpose. When offered a place in the organization by the Winter Soldier himself almost eight years earlier, he hadn't hesitated to accept it. His loyalty was unquestioned, which could still amuse him when he'd actively avoided loyalty to anyone for most of his adult life.

Boryslav had been a mercenary because it was the only way he could continue to hone his skills while on the run from the Soviet Union, until it had crumbled completely. The jobs he preferred were the ones that allowed him to kill anyone associated with that regime, even if they called themselves the Russian Federation later. He was under no illusions that it was all still the same group just using a different name. He enjoyed killing them, setting them up to be killed or getting every piece of information he could from them before revealing what he'd done and allowing the vindictive government they served to kill them for their stupidity. The Winter Soldier had kept him in that line of work, until he'd been offered a change of positions. He would work in Madripoor, one of the ones who kept track of anyone that needed to be watched, killing those that could be a potential threat to the organization in the future. He worked directly with Chief of Police Lestari, enjoying the idea that he was helping law and order in a place that resisted law and order as a matter of principal. In reality, he was a form of security, not part of the police force that existed mostly for show. He took his job very seriously, protecting the organization that had given him his purpose in life, allowing him to become wealthy and respected.