Chapter 1643: Good with Words and Strong Capability

The morning sun rose to pierce the final darkness before dawn, and golden light enveloped the land.

It was another fine early May day in D.C..

No matter the shootout on the streets yesterday or the conspiracies happening at night, worker drones still had to go to work today.

The employees of SHIELD entered the Triskelion one after another.

Under the glass ceiling of the main hall, people flowed through the security checkpoint and into the building.

Unlike regular office workers, many of them weren’t in good spirits.

Some had dark expressions, some had dark circles under their eyes, some were absentminded, and some looked around.

Nick Fury was dead, Captain America was a wanted man, and the bodies of Rumlow’s team had been sent back to SHIELD’s morgue last night.

They didn’t know everything, but roughly knew part of it, and there had been a lot more private discussions last night.

Nobody knew what would happen next, including the person behind everything.

Pierce was standing next to a special hallway in the main hall, which was hidden from view by a screen. Few people came in and out here.

Every now and then, one or two people would greet him politely.

Pierce would just nod in return.

As for the complicated expressions in their eyes, he couldn’t be bothered.

Whether or not Project Insight succeeded had nothing to do with these small fry.

The other four members of the World Security Council were the key.

If they sensed anything wrong, it might have an unknown impact on the project.

Pierce had no choice but to show up in person to restrain them.

That way, even if the members held an impromptu vote to urgently take over everything in SHIELD, it would be useless.

If Pierce was the only one left to give orders, he would be able to control everything in SHIELD within a short period of time.

In any case, apart from these four members, anyone else who wanted to meddle in SHIELD’s operations would have to go through a complicated process.

It would take them several hours at least, perhaps tens of hours.

As he pondered, he finally saw a group of people enter the hallway, and he greeted them with a smile.

There were three men and one woman. They were the other four members of the World Security Council.

The two parties exchanged greetings.

Pierce had a security guard bring him four silver pins. “This place uses biometric recognition. This will let you go wherever you want.”

The four council members didn’t think much of it. They each took one to pin to their chests.

These four pins provided temporary access at the highest level and gave access anywhere in HQ.

More than 10,000 people came in and out of HQ every day. It was impossible to test every single person. They could only use biometric surveillance to monitor all areas 24/7.

It was too troublesome to register biometric recognition for visitors, so they were all kinds of temporary access passes.

If a person without clearance or a temporary pass was discovered by a surveillance camera, an alarm would be triggered.

That was also why Luke hadn’t wanted to come here before.

If he wasn’t careful, this biometric surveillance system at SHIELD HQ might record his genetic traits.

Without a super disguise, whether it was him or his clones, his genes weren’t something he could throw away.

What followed was a confidential meeting, and the four council members’ retinues stayed in the lounge area of the main hall.

The five council members took the elevator to the floor reserved for the World Security Council, which was Pierce’s office.

Pierce’s office was a spacious room with a desk facing four virtually projected seats.

Usually, the four members communicated with Pierce via virtual projection.

Coming in person today was rare.

Yesterday, they had agreed to activate Project Insight, and had specially come for the final inspection.

While Pierce was talking to the four council members, Steve watched as Maria Hill opened a hidden door with a pair of mechanical gloves.

They took turns verifying their identities before the secret door opened.

Steve asked in a low voice, “Why have I never heard about this door?”

Hill said, “I didn’t know either. The boss just told me last night.”

Steve immediately got it – this was standard procedure for Black Egg, and wasn’t worth mentioning.

He had just been worried earlier about Hill using this sort of secret door often, which wasn’t necessarily safe.

In the end, it turned out to be a way out left behind by that paranoid Black Egg. That was fine, then.

After all, as a man who had already “died” several times, whatever way out Nick Fury left behind wouldn’t be so easily discovered.

What was even more impressive was that Pierce had long classified them as key suspects, and their SHIELD clearance had been canceled yesterday, yet after their identities were verified at this secret door, biometric recognition was reinstated for them.

Also, just like this secret door, nobody knew about this biometric clearance, which was at the highest level and allowed them to enter any area without triggering the alarm.

Wearing the unremarkable faces attached to the nanosuits, Steve and Hill swaggered into HQ’s communications center.

At that moment, Pierce was celebrating with the four council members.

In a bit, the five of them would go to the basement and personally oversee the test run for the Helicarrier.

According to Pierce, they would be just starting up the main Helicarrier largely to check that the numbers were normal, and it wouldn’t take off directly.

At that moment, an enigmatic male voice rang out over SHIELD HQ’s emergency channel. “Attention, SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers.”

Pierce’s smile froze when he heard the familiar male voice.

The emergency channel was specially used to broadcast information, and basically covered more than 90% of HQ.

Unless a person just happened to be in a special location, everybody at HQ could hear it.

Steve didn’t waste any time, and simply explained what happened in the last two days.

The main point was that Pierce was Hydra. He had killed Nick Fury and framed Steve. Hydra had already infiltrated SHIELD, and Steve told everyone to be careful of suspicious people around them.

Listening to Steve, Luke shook his head and sighed. This guy was really good with his words.

More importantly, his position in SHIELD and his achievements made his words very convincing.

Luke probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

A certain person knew his place. He was best at ridiculing and sneering. He specialized in using words to deal a blow – it was impossible for him to turn things around just by talking.

So, he had to play to his own strengths – that was the “right” way of doing things.

While everyone listened in a stupor as Steve dropped the bombshell, Luke, who was wearing a black combat uniform, entered the command center at HQ.

In the biometric recognition system, he was now a genuine member of the Strike force and a Hydra member.

Of course, this team member’s body had been thrown into Space 1 last night, so this absolutely wouldn’t blow up in his face.

Luke had even activated Boogeyman John’s Elementary Concealment along the way, which made everyone subconsciously ignore him as the only person who was moving.

He then chose an unremarkable corner. Gaze sweeping over the command center, he compared it with Elena’s painting.