“Green tea? Really?”
Banner nodded.
“It improves concentration, but it’s also calming.”
“Seriously? Green? The joke writes itself, Doc.”
“Maybe that’s really why I’m drinking it. Maybe I have a sense of humor you haven’t even begun to appreciate.”
McHale raised his eyebrows in a way that said he didn’t think that was particularly likely. He ordered a diet soda. He was a tall, powerfully built man, blond and good-looking in a dark-blue suit and open-necked white shirt. He took off his Aviators.
“You’re late,” said Banner.
“We’re on Madripoor time now,” said McHale. “You have to get used to it if you want to do business here. Even the most formal appointments are… flexible. Just the way the island works. It’s taking a little longer to set things up.”
McHale’s soda arrived. McHale paid in cash, and then took out his smartphone and diligently made a note in his expenses app.
“If there’s a problem, I’d like to know,” Banner said softly.
McHale shot him a look.
“Seriously, Doc. No problem.”
Banner raised his left arm slightly, just enough to allow his linen sleeve to slide back and reveal the edge of the plastic cuff.
“At the slightest sign of unduly elevated heart rate, adrenal response, or even flushing, this thing will start pumping sedative into my skin. Strong sedative, McHale. I couldn’t not stay calm if I wanted to. But it’s worth remembering basic psychology.”
“Such as?”
“Speculative anxiety is worse than actual anxiety. Which is to say, if there’s something wrong and you tell me, I can deal with it rationally and calmly. If I sense there’s something wrong and suspect you’re not telling me for fear of upsetting me, then I will naturally assume that it’s something really upsetting. And therefore worry much more. Unnecessary agitation is not our friend.”
McHale nodded.
“Okay, point taken. What do you want to know, Doc?”
Banner hesitated. Then he leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially.
“Is your name really Dale McHale?”
McHale laughed in surprise.
“What?”
“I’m just saying, it sounds like a made-up name,” said Banner, sitting back with a shrug. “Like a super hero.”
“What now?”
“A super hero’s alter ego. In a comic book. ‘Dale McHale.’ You rhyme. You actually rhyme.”
“Well, you alliterate!”
“What I do isn’t the issue here. You rhyme. It’s made up, right? You chose it. Was there a book of S.H.I.E.L.D. cover names? Did they come complete, or were there mix-and-match forename/surname sections? Did you go down column A and then column B, and say, ‘Hey, that works’?”
McHale grinned and shook his head.
“It’s my name, Doc,” he said. “I was born with it. No cover, honest to god. My pa was Marine Corps like me—his pa, too. Guadalcanal. The name’s been handed down with honor.”
“You’re Dale McHale the Third?”
“No less.”
“It’s a wonderful world,” said Banner, sipping his tea with a sly grin. “So, what’s the problem?”
Agent Dale McHale III pursed his lips and toyed with his drink.
“I see what you did there, Doc. Breaking the tension. Establishing rapport.”
“I firmly believe that two individuals should bond as closely as possible as often as possible.”
McHale sniggered.
“Okay,” he said. He leaned forward. “We’ve got feet on the ground, but the initial contacts have melted like snow. A little bit of improvisation is going on. Expert improvisation. We think we’re back on track. A location’s being watched right now. I expect we’ll get the ‘go’ inside thirty minutes. If it’s clear, I’ll bring you in. We’ll move from there.”
“Am I going to get any kind of thorough brief at all?”
“We’ve brought you in because of your special expertise. High-spec consultation.”
“In which field? Biology? Chemistry? Engineering? Physiology? Nuclear physics? Technology? You recruit me as a special expert, you’re getting more than one person.”
McHale looked at him.
“Appreciate the sense of humor, McHale,” Banner advised. “So which is it?”
“All of them,” said McHale.
Banner glanced at his cuff. He took a cleansing breath.
“So what’s the other thing?” he asked.
“The what?”
“The logistical holdups are nothing. They’re not alarming, so you had no reason to withhold them. You’ve just given up that information to avoid something else.”
“Boy, you’re smart, Doc.”
“That’s probably why I’m here.”
“All right, here’s the deal,” said McHale. He didn’t look very happy suddenly. “We’re getting some chatter. Stuff going down. Something in the Russian Federation. Siberia. Also an event in Berlin. Both Condition Beta. And East Coast United States. Washington. That last one’s the most troubling. Reports of a Condition Alpha.”
“In Washington?” Banner swallowed. He felt his heart start to beat a little faster.
“Yup.”
“What’s the chatter?”
“That’s the thing. There is none. Not from the U.S. side. Comms are down. All comms. Shut out, blocked. We’re trying to figure out if it’s our end or theirs, but it looks like Washington. Field stations globally are reporting the same thing. We’re considering our options. We may abort and pull out. Homeland takes priority.”
“Can you route via S.H.I.E.L.D. secure links? The Avengers?”
McHale looked at him.
“Not at this time,” he said.
Banner nodded.
“You okay there, Doc? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” said Banner. He took another sip of tea. “Better to know these things. Three major crises, all on one night. That’s quite a thing.”
“Four.”
“What?”
“Four,” said McHale. “Madripoor. This thing we’re doing. It just got upgraded to Beta.”
Banner sighed. He reached over with his right hand and applied gentle pressure to the cuff under his sleeve. He felt a tiny, soothing rush of sedative.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly. But I’d like to talk to Stark or Cap as soon as possible.”
“So would we.” McHale wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I’ll let you know as soon as we have an uplink.”
They were interrupted by a raised voice. Something collided with Banner’s chair.
It was the boy. The street kid selling postcards. He looked at Banner.
“Apologies, apologies,” he said, and ran off. The angry steward was pursuing him. The boy had come back to the terrace for another pass around the tables, and he’d bumped into Banner on the way out when the steward appeared to chase him off.
Or had he?
Banner rose.
“Doc?”
“The boy was here before. He knows there’s no chance of panhandling here, but he came back.”
“What? It’s just a kid.”
Banner checked his jacket.
“He’s got my wallet and my phone.”
“Dammit!” McHale said, rising to his feet. Banner was already hurrying across the terrace, heading into the street after the boy.
“Doc!” McHale ran to catch up. “It’s just a wallet. Just a phone. They can be replaced.”
Banner kept moving, pushing into the crowd. He brushed past tourists, businessmen, workers, beggars.
“He came back, McHale. He picked me. A hundred people on that terrace, and he picked me. I was a target. Someone wants my I.D. and paid the kid.”
“Dammit!” McHale said again. “Are you being paranoid?”
“Always,” replied Banner. They were both run
ning now. “But this is Madripoor. This is Condition Beta. And this isn’t my first rodeo. We may have just been blown wide open.”
“Dammit!” McHale repeated. He pulled out his smartphone. He rose up as they wove through the packed crowd and, with an outstretched arm, captured snapshots of the jostling nightlife ahead.
“Got him,” McHale said. He opened some shots, enlarged them with thumb and forefinger, then linked.
“This is McHale. We have a situation. Lowside of Chantow, west of the Straits Royal. Squirting you pictures of a suspect. Anyone close?”
“McHale!”
Banner grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him away from a collision with a food cart. McHale had been so busy with his phone he’d stopped looking where he was going.
“He went down there,” Banner cried, pushing through the crowd toward the mouth of a side street.
“I’ve got your phone tracked,” McHale replied, dashing after him.
The side street was dirty and barely paved. It was lined on both sides with cook-stands and stalls. Grubby awnings swung overhead, weighted down by lanterns. They could feel the heat of the stoves as they ran past. There were strong smells of meat and rice. People shouted at them. Some entrepreneurs tried to block their path to sell goods. They backed off just as fast when they saw McHale’s size and expression.
They reached a corner. A night-shadowed warren of streets. Sacks of trash were piled up like a wall of sandbags. Steam boiled from a gutter, rising to spin in the draughts of rattling extractor fans.
“Which way?” Banner asked.
McHale checked his phone.
“Left!”
They started to run again.
“Thirty meters. He isn’t gaining much.”
They came around another corner. Banner spotted the boy. He was up ahead, engaged in an agitated exchange with a tall, dark figure in a hooded coat. Banner saw the boy passing a smartphone to the hooded shape.
“Stay calm, Doc!” McHale ordered. “Let me do this.”
McHale moved forward.
“Hand it over!” he called out. “Right now!”
The boy saw them and ran. The hooded figure turned.
It was big. As it turned to face them, Banner realized just how big. Over seven-and-a-half feet tall, and broad. The figure’s clothes were dirty and ragged, as if they’d been taken from a thrift shop and then slept in for weeks.
It had Banner’s phone and wallet in one gloved hand.
“Drop them!” McHale yelled. He reached to the back of his waistband and drew his sidearm—a long, slender, brushed-steel needlegun.
Banner’s pulse was racing, too hard. He fought to stay calm. He felt sedative pumping into his arm. He wanted it to stop. Wooziness was the last thing he needed.
“McHale—”
“The wallet and the phone! Now!” McHale ordered, aiming his pistol in a modified Weaver stance.
The figure raised its free hand and pulled back its hood. Its face, its entire skull, was only vaguely human. Someone had gone irresponsibly crazy with canine DNA.
The figure bared its fangs. It growled, the sound of an angry mastiff.
McHale uttered an expletive. Banner knew the agent was about to take the shot.
Before he could fire, the monstrous figure roared. It was the brute sound of an attack dog. Banner winced as he felt the unmistakable slap of psychic powers being unleashed.
A crackling psionic aura flickered around the huge dog-man’s brow. A spear of hard blue light spat from the middle of its forehead and lanced down the alley. It struck McHale. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent flew backwards through the air as though he had caught a fastball in the gut, and collapsed.
“McHale!”
Banner felt his pulse soar. An adrenaline rush swept through him. The cuff was working at maximum.
He trembled with the frantic beat of his blood. A pulse in his temple throbbed. Sour fury welled in his throat. His skull felt like an unnecessary constriction. His metabolism was swimming with sedative, but he could feel something uncoiling inside him, something made of rage and abominable strength.
Banner could feel his other self waking up.
The psionic aura flashed again. The creature launched another bolt of electic-blue psychokinetic force.
Banner felt the impact and a searing pain in his chest. He was hurled backwards, the wind knocked out of him. The back of his head struck the dirty cobbles.
He blinked, dazed.
He saw tattered awnings, the black cliffs of tenements rising above him, a sliver of amber night sky.
Then an all-consuming, green darkness.
SIX
BERLIN
18.12 LOCAL, JUNE 12TH
AT DUSK, the ruined limousine came up out of the river.
Torrents of water gushed from the car’s interior and wheel wells as it rose, glittering like cascades of silver coins in the glare of floodlights. The crane was a massive, orange-chevroned unit with a telescoping hoist. It had extended hydraulic feet to keep it stable on the towpath.
The limousine swung slowly. Mauled and scarred, it looked like an unidentified deep-sea life form, blind and snarling, hooked and raised up unceremoniously from an ocean abyss.
The banks of the Spree were crowded with onlookers and press. The Polizei had erected crowd-control barriers to keep them back, and several uniformed officers in high-visibility vests were shouting instructions to marshal the audience.
There were specialist divers in the water. They clung to bright yellow floats every time they surfaced, exchanging remarks and pointing before submerging again.
Other figures walked the banks and searched the riverside areas. They wore dark utility clothing that displayed no rank pins or agency identifiers. They were mapping the area with compact cameras and communicating urgently via throat-mics.
Captain America stood on the towpath under the bridge span. He took another look down at the river.
“Thought you could use this.”
He turned. Gail Runciter had a carry-out coffee in each hand. She held out one, and then hesitated when she saw a cup in Cap’s hand already.
He waggled the disposable cup to show it was empty, tossed it into a trash can, and took the one she was offering.
“Thanks.”
“You okay?” she asked. “You were in the water a long time.”
“I’m fine. I was trying to find him.”
“That water’s damn cold, even at this time of year.”
He popped the tear-tag on his cup lid and took a sip.
“I’ve known a lot colder,” he replied, “and for a lot longer.”
Runciter shrugged. She was a good-looking woman with intense, searching eyes and neatly tied-back brown hair. She was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most tenacious operatives, and she had worked on operations with Cap a handful of times before.
“They’ve recovered the driver’s body,” she said.
“I.D.?”
“Not confirmed, but we believe he was an exspecial-forces contractor named Gustav Malles. Pretty impressive sheet. Wetwork in Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Belize. Zero scruples, and not a hint of national affiliation or loyalty.”
“Ideal Hydra material. Any trace of Strucker?”
Runciter shook her head.
“He could be on the bottom,” she replied. “We’re dredging, and the divers are down. Current’s pretty fast here, so he could have washed several clicks downstream.”
“Strucker doesn’t die that easily.”
“Which is why we’re combing the banks and the riverside zones. There aren’t many exit points, and few of them would be easy to manage if he was injured. The banks are high. We’re going site-to-site, canvasing homes and businesses and searching empty buildings. Of course, he could have had retrieval in place.”
“He was running,” said Cap. “There wasn’t much of a plan. And he definitely didn’t intend to end up in the river. Pre-arranged exfil seems unlikely, and we’d have seen some signs of an em
ergency extraction. You were on me at the time.”
“Yep. Recorded the whole thing. Playback isn’t showing anything, even on area zoom-out.”
Runciter paused, and then said, “What’s on your mind?”
Cap shrugged.
“Nothing.”
“I know that look, Steve.”
He smiled at her, a quick smile that faded as fast as it came.
“It’s disordered. Messy. The whole thing, especially by Hydra standards. By Strucker’s standards. He’s meticulous. This was…hasty.”
“You busted his op.”
“Not fast enough. People died.”
“Six, not counting Gustav,” she replied. “Two G.S.W. fatalities at Auger, and four others. Bio-hazard.”
“Is Auger secured?”
“Yeah. The site’s locked down. The contaminant seems to have been neutralized.”
“Strucker had a case with him. A carry-box. It was clearly important.”
“We’re looking for that, too.”
“Arrests?”
She shook her head.
“Strucker’s men had fled Auger by the time we had feet on the ground.”
They left the towpath via a flight of steps. Police officers parted the crowds to let them through the cordon. Three big, steel-sided container trucks stood on an open lot beside the bridge approach. Mobile command centers. A S.H.I.E.L.D. whisper-copter was parked beside them, its blades hanging heavy like folded wings.
They entered the blue gloom of the first truck. The long interior of the container was packed with workstations where S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sat at glowing touchscreens. There was a constant chatter of activity.
“Let me show you what we found,” Runciter said, and she led him through to the back area. Behind reinforced glass screens and silent force fields, agents in hazmat suits were analyzing evidence in sealed lab chambers. Touch-screen monitor plates displayed hazard conditions. The indicators were green across air quality, temperature, particulates, and biological trace elements.
“Auger is a precision-engineering firm,” Runciter said. “Strucker, under the name Peter Jurgan, contracted them five weeks ago to commission the design and construction of a dispersal unit.”
“Dispersal?”
“For agricultural use, allegedly. The device was designed to efficiently distribute cultured GM enhancement materials in aerosol form. We’re talking large-scale use.”