The Soldat, The Captain and The Asset

2.5: The Mole

Before Steve had gone back to the hospital and picked up the USB, STRIKE had taken him back to SHIELD where Steve is brought to Alexander Pierce who is currently talking to Agent 13. "For whatever it's worth, you did your best." Pierce reassured her.

"Thank you, sir." She replies before turning to leave, only to stop when she sees Steve standing there. "Captain Rogers." She nods her head slightly in respect to him.

"Neighbour." Steve replied coldly before walking over to Pierce.

"Ah, Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce." He introduces himself.

"Sir, it's an honour." Steve tells him, shaking his hand firmly.

"The honour is mine, Captain." Pierce replies. "My father served in the 101st. Come on in." He opens the door and they enter Pierce's office where he shows Steve an old photo of Fury with Pierce. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate.' Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorised military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."

"So you gave him a promotion." Steve smiles slightly.

"I've never had any cause to regret it." Pierce admits, sitting back. "Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"

"I don't know." Steve answers.

"You know it was bugged?" Pierce asks.

"I did, because Nick told me." Steve replies.

"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce said smoothly and Steve just stands still, obviously having not previously known this information. "I want you to see something." He presses a button on the computer, bringing up footage of Batroc being interrogated.

"Who hired you, Batroc?" The agent on the footage asked, his hands gripping the table.

Steve looks back at Pierce. "Is that live?" He wonders.

"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers." Pierce answers.

"Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line." Steve argues.

"No, it's more complicated than that." Pierce admits. "Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Steve wonders, raising an eyebrow when Peirce hands him the file.

"Not likely." He replies. "Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick; his mother lived at 14-37."

"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?" Steve asked.

"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death." Pierce explains, slipping up slightly.

"If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true." Steve tells him.

"Why do you think we're talking?" Pierce questions. "See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry." He stops talking, waiting a moment and looking back up at Steve. "Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"