Sorcerer in the Marvel Universe

They fled before the raid.

They left booby traps behind.

Then one of them shouted "Hydra" directly into the face of a SHIELD agent before dying.

Were they trying to expose the organization as thoroughly as possible?

At this point, they might as well have marched into Nick Fury’s office, saluted, and announced, Hi. I’m Hydra.

As Silvet finished his report, Alexander Pierce felt genuine rage building beneath his composed exterior.

If those idiots had been standing in front of him, he might have strangled them with his own hands.

He forced himself to breathe.

Slowly.

Painfully.

Finally, he asked, "Can we confirm someone from our division warned them?"

Silvet swallowed before answering.

"Sir... Fury assembled the operation with almost no notice. There wasn’t enough time for information to leak through ordinary channels, so..."

"So..."

Pierce’s restraint snapped.

"Those shameless little fools!"

He slammed a fist onto his desk.

"They’re worthless!"

"If they’d learned about the operation, they should have stayed exactly where they were and died protecting Hydra’s secrets!"

"Instead they ran like cowards and exposed the organization to SHIELD!"

"Cowards!"

"Traitors!"

"Garbage!"

He jabbed a finger toward Silvet.

"Do you understand me?"

"They’re garbage."

"Yes, sir."

Silvet wiped sweat from his bald head.

"They’re absolute garbage. I couldn’t agree more."

The outburst left Pierce breathing heavily.

Age had begun catching up with him. The burst of anger made his temples throb.

He closed his eyes and massaged them.

"Who?" he asked quietly.

"Which idiot contacted those street punks without my authorization?"

The younger generation wasn’t under Pierce’s authority.

He had never wanted responsibility for them.

But someone within his Hydra network had transmitted highly sensitive intelligence without consulting him.

That wasn’t merely insubordination.

It had produced consequences severe enough to expose an entire Hydra division.

Whoever had done it had the judgment of a walnut.

People that reckless couldn’t be allowed to survive.

Silvet felt another bead of sweat roll down his neck.

"Sir... we can only narrow it down to someone connected to the tactical teams."

"We still don’t know who."

Strictly speaking, even that wasn’t confirmed.

It was simply the most likely conclusion.

Pierce opened his eyes.

His cold stare made Silvet’s stomach tighten.

The message was unmistakable.

That’s all you’ve got?

Silvet hurried to explain.

"Sir, compartmentalization limits what we know. We didn’t even know those exposed operatives existed before today."

"We don’t know whose branch they belonged to."

"They could have answered to Daniel Howister... the Chieftain... the Countess... the Banker..."

"Any of them may have had indirect ties to the tactical teams."

"You know how... complicated those units are."

Pierce looked away again.

That explanation, unpleasant as it was, happened to be true.

Complicated barely described the situation.

SHIELD’s tactical divisions had long been Hydra’s most heavily infiltrated departments.

More than half of their personnel secretly served Hydra.

That wasn’t accidental.

When it came to men carrying rifles, Hydra preferred them under Hydra’s control.

Ironically, those same divisions worried Pierce more than any other.

Their turnover was simply too high.

Unlike field agents, tactical operators lived on the front lines.

Their enemies weren’t pickpockets or smugglers.

They fought terrorists willing to die for their cause.

Professional mercenaries armed with military-grade weapons.

Foreign special forces.

Occasionally, enhanced individuals whose abilities ignored conventional battlefield logic altogether.

Casualties were inevitable.

Deaths.

Permanent injuries.

Psychological trauma.

Entire squads could disappear because of one faulty intelligence report or a single tactical mistake.

Hydra couldn’t afford to spend years recruiting loyal operatives only to lose them days later.

Instead, they recruited finished products.

Former soldiers.

SWAT officers.

National Guard veterans.

Private military contractors.

Professionally trained personnel with clean records who could step into combat immediately.

The downside was equally obvious.

Pierce controlled only Hydra’s SHIELD division.

Other Hydra branches maintained their own recruitment pipelines.

Many of the Hydra operatives serving in SHIELD’s tactical teams ultimately answered to different regional leaders.

Their loyalty to Hydra was unquestioned.

Their loyalty to Pierce...

That was another matter.

If one of them had secretly warned the Dead End Gang out of personal connections elsewhere in the organization...

It would explain everything.

Silvet finally broke the silence.

"Sir... if we investigate internally, we should be able to identify who leaked the information."

"No."

Pierce answered immediately.

"Not now."

He straightened in his chair.

"After today’s disaster, Fury already suspects there’s a mole inside SHIELD."

"If we start digging around ourselves, we’ll only attract attention."

"What we need now is silence."

"And invisibility."

His expression hardened.

"Effective immediately, this division enters complete lockdown."

"No new recruitment."

"All communication with other Hydra branches is suspended."

He fixed Silvet with a piercing stare.

"And tell Rumlow to keep the tactical teams under control."

"If something like this happens again..."

A thin smile crossed Pierce’s face.

"I’ll throw you off the roof myself."

"Understood, sir."

Silvet answered without hesitation.

He knew Pierce wasn’t making an empty threat.

After a moment, he hesitated.

"There’s one more concern."

"Coulson has already been placed under investigation."

"I think Fury may expand the inquiry to all of SHIELD."

"Not may."

Pierce corrected him.

"Will."

"I was the one who promoted Fury to Director."

"I know exactly how he thinks."

"He never abandons an investigation once he’s convinced he’s onto something."

Silvet’s composure faltered.

"We have to stop him."

"If SHIELD launches a full internal investigation, we could all be exposed."

He understood exactly what those investigations involved.

Polygraphs.

Chemical interrogation.

Endless questioning.

People confessed things they didn’t even realize they remembered.

"I know."

Pierce leaned back, thinking.

Then something occurred to him.

"The police commissioner."

"The one they found."

Silvet nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"He’s dead."

"Even better."

Pierce smiled faintly.

"Do we have anyone assigned to the evidence room?"

"We do."

"Excellent."

His smile widened.

"Forge a document."

"It should show that the commissioner had already planned a symbolic crackdown on..."

He paused.

"What was the gang called?"

"The Dead End Gang, sir."

"Right."

"The Dead End Gang."

"The paperwork should state that he intended to launch the operation on the exact same day as SHIELD."

Silvet frowned.

Pierce continued.

"That way, he wasn’t warning Hydra about SHIELD."

"He was simply telling the local gang to disappear for a while because of his own police operation."

"The timing was unfortunate."

"Nothing more."

"No leak."

"Just coincidence."

"Understand?"

Silvet slowly nodded.

"I understand."

After another pause, he asked carefully,

"Do you really think Nick Fury will believe that?"

Pierce chuckled.

"Of course not."

A cold smile lingered on his face.

"He isn’t an idiot."

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