Washington Metro News assistant news director Joanne Phelps is among many seeing footage of a mysterious hitman after he is filmed firing on a black SUV that has eluded an orchestrated attack by marked police vehicles, on the driver. As the news te...
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The ringing of Joanne's phone woke her up and she reached for it, seeing it was the night editor, Bill. Sliding the notification to answer she sighed.
"This better be good. It's the middle of the night."
"Does a massive explosion at Camp Lehigh count?" he asked. "I've already spoken to a contact in the army. It was caused by a cruise missile."
Joanne sat up. "Confirmed?"
He huffed. "Of course not, but I trust my source. Someone deliberately targeted that base. That's where SHIELD was formed, right?"
"Yeah, and it was an active base until the 1970s." She thought for a moment. "Do you have anyone headed out there?"
"Yes, but there is a no-fly zone overhead and they have roadblocks set up several miles away. Someone doesn't want the press to be there. Officially, they are saying it was an accidental detonation of stored explosives." He was quiet for a moment, then he spoke again, in a low voice. "Several people have sent doorbell videos of something streaking across the sky towards the base. That's why I called my contact."
"Save the videos onto two different USB drives," said Joanne, "then delete the files from our servers." She hesitated. "Monitor the other networks. I'm on my way."
Quickly, she got up, washed, and moisturized her face, brushed her teeth, and got dressed. She was glad she took the time to place the USB drive from before in her bank safety deposit box, after she uploaded the content to a private cloud drive. It looked like she would have to do the same thing again today. Down in the parking garage, she unlocked her car by remote and started it up. As the security gate went up, she noticed a message notification on her phone. With a sigh, she drove out and parked, opening the message.
Unknown: The man is Brock Rumlow, a former gang leader and mercenary. He is the top operative of SHIELD's Strike team, placed there by Alexander Pierce. He's extremely dangerous and rumoured to be a double agent for an unknown agency. Avoid him. Delete this message.
Double agent? Who for? It didn't make sense. Why would the top anti-terrorism agency in the world have such a man on their payroll? With a sigh, she deleted the message and began driving towards the station. Halfway there she noticed a dark vehicle following her, but just like before, it turned at a corner several blocks away from the station. She was getting jumpy over this whole SHIELD business, for good reason, but it made her wonder if she was being targeted. Still, it wasn't something she could really do anything about as she had no self defence skills, or security detail.
Maybe you should get one.
That thought bothered her but considering what happened to Jack .... A sinking feeling filled her belly as she wondered if this Rumlow man had anything to do with Jack's death. He did pull a gun on him, in front of witnesses. It didn't take a lot of imagination to connect him to more, especially considering how he looked during Alexander Pierce's address to the nation about Nick Fury's death. That was another thing, as Pierce was Secretary of the World Security Council. Rumlow said the order to make the videos top secret came from a source higher than the President. Would that be Pierce? If so, were they trying to kill Fury during that chaotic car chase because he found out and threatened to expose them? Where was Steve Rogers in all of this? Had he gone underground? By the time Joanne pulled into the station parking she had more questions than answers.
