After the assassin fell to the floor, I holstered the weapon and limped over to him, looking for anything I could use. In the folds of his jacket, he had plenty of other weapons stashed away, some of which looked really nice. I wasn't surprised he hadn't used them on me though, he hadn't been the first one to underestimate me. Not that I minded, it just made my job easier.
He had a cell phone on him, one that used a fingerprint to unlock. I used his hand, trying to figure out which finger he had coded the phone with. After finding one, I started looking for anything about CROS. There were no apps or links that I could find, but I did see a group chat in his text messages named 'Kings'. That seemed out of the ordinary, so I took a peek.
There were three other people in the chat, under unknown numbers. I had no way to know who the people were, but I could see what they had said. I scrolled up to their conversation starting from last night, when I had received the assignment from Watson to start tracking the hostages from Maine.
'Watson just outlined the mission for DC, Durand just got assigned with the rest of the spies' That was probably the mole from this morning, and Durand was the spy from the group of hostages.
'Are the others ready?'
'I have them on tomorrow's schedule, we just have to hope Romanoff doesn't catch on before they get deployed'
'Romanoff isn't going to do anything about something she doesn't know about. Just don't be dumb and the others will slip on by'
'Easy for you to say, you're sipping a martini on Capital Hill. Not all of us are senators'
Oh, so these guys had someone in the Senate? Not for much longer. I took a screenshot of the chat and AirDropped it to myself. After SHIELD got a hold of this phone, whoever was hiding out in the government was going to have an investigation to deal with.
So there was the mole at SHIELD, this assassin, and a senator. Who was the fourth leader of CROS?
'Romanoff is out of headquarters. As long as Durand doesn't f it up, he should be fine'
'What about the other five?'
'I'll call them up to my office for a quick meeting to make sure they're still in the clear'
'Fury and Hill?'
'Clueless, as always'
'Don't assume that, they've always got more up their sleeves than they show in their hand'
'You would know wouldn't you?'
'Shut the hell up Damian' I couldn't tell who Damian was, but I was really hoping he was the fourth member of the chat.
That was the end of the texts from yesterday. The next set came early this morning.
'Someone f-ed up someone f-ed it all up'
'WAKE UP WE NEED TO FIX THIS!!!!'
'WAKE UP ALREADY!'
'I told you Romanoff was going to catch you'
'It's not Romanoff!!'
'Fury? Hill?'
'No, it's some random girl, but they've logged on to all of the other's profiles, and they went through security footage.'
'Who is it?'
'Raven'
'Raven what?'
'Just Raven, there's no last name. I'm sending her profile'
'She didn't see what they were doing did she?'
'Dont think so' It was kind of fun to see them freaking out about me.
'💩 She accessed their login history. We're f-ed, we're so f-ed'
'This kid is 16, why the hell does she have access to login history?'
'That's Romanoff's kid'
'Romanoff had a kid?'
'the f?'
'Romanoff is her superior officer, smart one'
'Who snitched to the kid?'
'The hell am I supposed to know? I'm calling the others, we need to make sure she stays out of this'
'If thats Romanoff's kid, she aint staying out of it'
'She doesn't know about you, does she?'
'No, she can't access my file, I'm too high up the chain'
'That's not going to stop a Romanoff'
'For the last time, Romanoff did not actually have a kid'
'You've got to shut that kid down before she comes after the mission. Kill her if you have to'
'That's what I'm telling the team, chill out'
'Tell them faster, we need to do this mission or its all over'
'Working on it!'
Some time passed after that, and the next set of texts didn't come for another hour.
'Did you take care of the kid?'
'Hello?'
'Pick up your phone, dammit'
'The hell is taking her so long?'
'This was supposed to be a quick meeting, right?'
'Fury found her out, didn't he?'
'F-ing Fury"
'Durand just called me, he's been made. Watson and Romanoff just outed him, he's on his way back to home base'
'💩'
'So what, the mission is cancelled?'
'Hell no. We've been waiting to do this for years, we are not giving up when we finally have a shot at this'
'If SHIELD found us, we need to hide. They're going to be on our tails in a hot second'
'They're already onto us. Might as well do some damage if we're going down'
'F that, I don't want to die'
'That kid isn't done yet. I'm waiting for her here'
'I'm moving a section of the backup team out of DC I don't want SHIELD finding them'
Great. We had a leak escape out somewhere, and no matter what was going to happen with the President, there were going to be rogue CROS agents out there.
'Does anyone know what happened to our mole?'
'Romanoff's girl took her out'
'How do you know?'
'The kid is Field and Espionage, it's right up her alley. Looks like she's being groomed to be Fury's new puppet' Gee, thanks.
'So now we have 2 Widows? F this, I'm out'
'Ditch and I'll come after you after I take care of the girl'
'I'm going dark. If things go south, I want at least one of us to make it out of this'
'Coward'
'Doesn't matter what you call him, he's not going to get the message'
'And?'
'The teams are headed out to their positions. I want this place mostly empty for the girl'
'Why?'
'If she took out all of our spies at SHIELD, then she's going to come finish the job. Just keep your head low and grow a set, Senator'
'F U'
'Likewise'
Hmm, lovely last sentiments. At least I had what I needed to get Fury started on the right track. I stuffed the phone in a pocket and kept moving. Maybe the assassin had deployed most of CROS to attack the President, but half of CROS' leadership was dead or captured. Without their strongest assets, they were going to fall.
After a moment of thinking, I stood up, trying to ignore the blood coming out of my shin. There had to a communication console somewhere in here, or some kind of live strategy tracker. I went back out into the hall, pulling out a pistol in case I had more company to deal with. It had to be on this floor, because it hadn't been on the first two.
In the back of the building, I found the treasure I was seeking. Four technicians were also in the room with it, but they weren't expecting an enemy to walk in, so it wasn't difficult to take them down. Good thing too, because I needed to wrap up this leg soon. Before I took care of that, though, I pulled out my own phone and pulled up a download link from the SHIELD database. I plugged into the console and copied the link from the phone to the program's code, and as soon as it finished, I hit the debugger and let it compile. While it did, I unplugged my phone and called Agent Watson.
"Yes?"
"Agent Watson, I found intel on CROS' attack. I'm working on sending it to Operations Control, they should have it in the next five minutes."
"Well done, Raven," she praised me, unexpectedly. "Did you have any trouble?"
I looked down at my leg, deciding she didn't need to hear about that part. "Nothing I couldn't deal with. My part here is done, I'm calling in Retrieval and Forensics to clean up this joint."
That answer seemed to satisfy her. "We'll debrief once I get back to headquarters."
"Yes, ma'am," I replied, and the call ended. Once the program finished compiling, and it started streaming information to headquarters, I didn't have any reason to stay. I grabbed an ACE bandage from what was probably CROS' medical unit, and headed back out the door to my car.