Hydra had existed in one form or another for centuries.
Throughout its long history, one obsession had never changed.
Power beyond science.
Ancient relics.
Forgotten myths.
Artifacts whispered about in legends.
Many of those stories turned out to be nonsense.
Some, however...
Were very real.
The Red Skull had followed the trail of Norse mythology and uncovered the Tesseract, harnessing its power to create weapons capable of reshaping the world.
Daniel Howister had once possessed something equally extraordinary.
The Kree Obelisk.
Long ago, during one of the Kree Empire’s endless wars, a radical military faction arrived on Earth.
Their armies were suffering catastrophic casualties at the front.
They needed expendable soldiers.
Their solution was simple.
Create them.
Using primitive humanity as test subjects, the Kree began altering human genetics in hopes of producing enhanced warriors to throw into the war.
The project was halted before it reached completion when another Kree faction intervened.
But the key to those experiments...
The artifact the Kree called the Diviner...
Remained on Earth.
Hydra eventually discovered it.
The Red Skull believed it was a weapon capable of changing the world and entrusted it to Daniel Howister for safekeeping and research.
Then World War II ended.
Peggy Carter and the Howling Commandos dismantled Howister’s Austrian branch of Hydra, captured him, and seized the artifact along with everything else.
For nearly sixty years, Howister had dreamed of recovering it.
He never truly understood what the Obelisk was.
He only believed its power could be transformed into the ultimate weapon.
That belief had become an obsession.
"You know about... that artifact?"
Howister’s normally calm voice trembled.
For the first time in decades, someone had spoken directly about the object that had haunted him for most of his life.
"If you’re referring to the Obelisk..."
Evenson smiled.
"...then yes."
"I do."
Howister leaned forward.
"Who are you?"
Anyone capable of knowing about the Obelisk, let alone offering assistance in retrieving it, could not possibly be an ordinary businessman.
Evenson stood and extended his hand once more.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly."
"Albert Wesker."
"Executive Director of the Umbrella Corporation."
Umbrella Corporation...
The name meant nothing.
Howister searched his memory and found no intelligence reports, no financial records, no whispers from Hydra’s informants.
It was as though the company had appeared from nowhere.
Ordinarily that would have concerned him.
Today...
He couldn’t have cared less.
Only one question mattered.
"Very well, Mr. Wesker."
"How exactly does your company intend to help us?"
His tone had become noticeably more courteous.
Evenson smiled.
"If I simply offered you the Obelisk’s location..."
"...you wouldn’t be interested."
Howister gave a slight nod.
He already knew where it was.
"Exactly."
"So why haven’t you taken it back?"
"The answer is simple."
Howister folded his hands.
"The warehouse sits inside a U.S. Army installation."
"An entire division is stationed there."
Knowing where something was and successfully stealing it were entirely different problems.
Breaking into a military base protected by tens of thousands of soldiers was impossible.
"So what you lack..."
Evenson said softly,
"...isn’t information."
"It’s strength."
Howister laughed.
"Strength?"
"The kind needed to fight an entire Army division?"
His amusement was genuine.
A modern U.S. Army division fielded nearly thirty thousand soldiers.
Tanks.
Armored vehicles.
Attack helicopters.
Artillery.
Attempting to challenge that force head-on bordered on insanity.
Evenson remained perfectly calm.
"I believe you’ve made a mistake, Mr. Howister."
"We don’t need to defeat an Army division."
"We only need to understand how it works."
He leaned forward.
"Yes, a full division is stationed there."
"But the warehouse itself isn’t guarded by thirty thousand soldiers."
"Normally, only two companies are assigned to perimeter security."
"If your team infiltrates at night, you’ll encounter scattered sentries first."
"Even after you’re detected, assembling the nearby response force and moving them to the warehouse will take approximately five minutes."
"Until then, you’ll only be dealing with isolated resistance."
Howister listened without interrupting.
Evenson continued.
"Suppose those defenders realize they can’t eliminate your strike team."
"They’ll request reinforcements."
"But that won’t happen immediately."
"They’ll first try to solve the problem themselves."
"When reinforcements finally arrive..."
"...your operation should already be about twenty minutes in."
Howister slowly shook his head.
"Twenty minutes isn’t enough."
Sending a small elite infiltration team was feasible.
Holding off two companies...
Perhaps.
But twenty minutes wasn’t enough time to search the facility, secure the Obelisk, and escape alive.
Evenson smiled.
"I wasn’t finished."
"The first reinforcements arrive after twenty minutes."
"But think about what they’ll send."
"How many soldiers does the Army dispatch against a single infiltrating squad?"
"Another two companies."
"No commander wants to admit that four companies can’t handle twenty men."
"So they won’t ask for additional support unless they absolutely have to."
"And by the time they swallow their pride..."
"...roughly an hour will have passed."
Military commanders had reputations to protect.
Calling for overwhelming reinforcement against a tiny infiltration team would be embarrassing unless the situation had already deteriorated badly.
By the time higher command realized the seriousness of the attack...
The clock would be well past the one-hour mark.
"One hour."
Evenson spread his hands.
"That’s enough time to fight a small battle."
"Isn’t it?"
Howister nodded slowly.
"The time would be sufficient."
He frowned.
"But your premise isn’t."
"A team of twenty men cannot hold off four American companies."
No matter how elite they were.
It simply wasn’t realistic.
"Exactly."
Evenson smiled.
"That’s why you need us."
"If Hydra could accomplish this alone..."
"...I wouldn’t be sitting here."
He reached into his coat and removed a tiny glass vial.
Inside sloshed barely a milliliter of thick, emerald-green liquid.
He placed it gently on the desk.
"The infiltration team can’t become larger."
"So they have to become stronger."
"Much stronger."
He tapped the vial with one finger.
"This..."
"...will improve the quality of your soldiers."
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