Stan Edgar sat at his desk, the glow of his tablet illuminating his face in the dim pre-dawn light.
He was looking at a live feed of the cleaning crews scrubbing blood out of the carpet in Black Noir's quarters.
Knock. Knock.
"Enter."
Graves stepped inside. He looked worse than he had the day before. His suit was rumpled, his tie slightly askew and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead that the building's climate control couldn't mitigate. He carried a physical file folder.
"Sir," Graves said, his voice tight. "We have an urgent situation. The threat assessment has... evolved."
Edgar took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly with a silk handkerchief. "Evolved. That is a polite way of saying 'deteriorated,' Graves. Tell me."
Graves placed the folder on the desk. He opened it to the first page. It was a low resolution printed photograph taken from a CCTV camera.
The image showed a dive bar in Omsk, Siberia. The lighting was poor, but the figure standing at the bar was unmistakable. He was wearing stolen clothes, but the man underneath was a ghost Vought had buried decades ago.
"Soldier Boy," Edgar said, his voice dropping to a dangerous chill.
"Confirmed," Graves said. "He escaped the Russian containment facility at Omsk 45. We don't know how. The facility went dark. Satellite thermal shows a massive energy discharge, consistent with a nuclear event, but localized."
Edgar stared at the photo. "Why is he still alive? The Russians were paid billions to keep dissecting him, not letting him walk out the front door."
"It appears they failed, sir. And he killed everyone."
Graves flipped the page. The next photo was high definition, taken from a bystander's smartphone in Newark, New Jersey.
It showed a parking garage. It showed a man in a dark green tactical suit holding a heavy brass shield. And it showed what was left of the Supe known as Gunpowder.
"He's here," Graves said. "He made landfall yesterday. He retrieved his gear from a storage unit in the East Village. Then he went to Newark."
"And Gunpowder?"
"Dead, sir. We suppressed the footage online, scrubbed the social media uploads and paid off the witnesses. The official story is a gas main explosion in the parking structure. The public doesn't know Soldier Boy is back yet."
Edgar stood up, walking to the window. He looked out at the city.
"We are fighting a war on three fronts, Graves," Edgar said softly. "We have a rogue General building a Supe army. We have a psychotic Homelander who just murdered Black Noir. And now... now the ghost of the Cold War has returned to haunt us."
He turned back to Graves. "Keep monitoring his location."
"We have a lock on his general trajectory," Graves said. "He seems to be hunting his old team."
"Let him," Edgar said coldly. "They are depreciating assets. If he kills them, he saves us the severance packages. But we need to be ready to put him down when he's done."
"The tactical team?" Graves asked.
"Are they ready?"
"Yes, sir," Graves nodded. "Ten elite operators equipped with the new shipment from Spencer Industries. They are standing by at the secure hangar."
"Good," Edgar said.
Graves hesitated. "There is... one more thing, sir. Regarding the Red Unit."
Edgar's eyes narrowed. "General Raddock's men."
"Yes, sir. We received a flag from the upstate monitoring grid. Two more of our assets have gone dark. High potential assets."
"Who?"
"The Moreau sisters," Graves said. "Marie and Annabeth. Marie was the only viable subject from the fetal injection program at Odessa. She was slated for Godolkin University next semester. She had... immense potential."
"Had?"
"They're gone, sir. Disappeared from a safe house in Albany. No bodies were found, but the forensic team found trace amounts of... slush. Bloody ice residue that matched Marie's DNA. And the thermal scans from the Argus grid picked up a momentary temperature drop in the area."
Edgar slammed his hand onto the desk, a rare display of emotion.
"Raddock's lieutenant," Edgar hissed.
"It fits the profile, sir," Graves said. "Surgical removal of assets. No witnesses. They are cleaning up the loose ends from Odessa."
"Fuck them," Edgar whispered. "Fuck General Raddock and his arrogance."
"What are your orders, sir?"
"Send our counter intelligence teams to Fort Benning," Edgar said, straightening his tie. "Buy the officers in Raddock's command. I don't care what it costs. Find out where those soldiers sleep... and burn it to the ground."
[Clone Perspective]
The drive to the sprawling estate in the Westchester countryside was quiet. I sat in the back of the stolen sedan, my fingers drumming rhythmically on the Shield.
I parked the car at the edge of the wrought iron gate.
I stepped out. The night air was cool.
I walked to the gate. I grabbed the bars.
SCREECH.
The metal tore like wet paper. I tossed the twisted gate aside and walked up the long driveway. The house was dark, a gothic mansion looming against the stars.
I kicked the front door in. The wood shattered, splinters flying into the grand foyer.
"Honey, I'm home!" I shouted, my voice mocking.
Silence answered me.
I moved through the house, my boots heavy on the hardwood.
I found the library. I ripped the bookcase away from the wall, revealing the steel door of the elevator shaft. I pried the doors open with my bare hands and looked down into the darkness. I jumped.
I landed in the sub basement with a heavy thud, cracking the concrete floor.
The air down here was stale, smelling of antiseptic and rotting meat. I walked down the corridor, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead.
I reached the main lab.
And there he was.
Thomas Godolkin.
He was a withered body suspended in a tank of viscous fluid. Tubes ran into his spine, his neck, his eyes. His skin was gray, sloughing off in patches. He looked like a burn victim who had been kept alive solely by machinery and spite.
He was floating there, eyes closed, a silent orchestrator of misery.
I walked up to the tank. I tapped on the glass with the edge of my shield.
Tink. Tink.
"Wakey wakey," I said.
The eyes in the tank snapped open. They were milky white, blind, yet seeing everything.
Suddenly, a pressure slammed into my mind. It was a psychic scream.
LEAVE.
It was a telepathic push designed to override the motor functions of the brain.
The command echoed in my skull. TURN AROUND. WALK AWAY.
PS: I'm really sorry, guys, for not uploading chapters over the last four days. One of my colleagues was on leave, so we were short on doctors for night duty, and I had to cover his shifts since he covered mine last time, haha.